With Cristiano Ronaldo 33 on Monday and Lionel Messi the wrong side of 30, who are Europe’s bright prospects shaping up to be inheritors of the Ballon d’Or duopoly’s crown?“A very good question,” mused Cristiano Ronaldo as he basked in the glory of his second successive Ballon d’Or and fifth overall back in December. “I see some with great potential: Asensio, Mbappé, Neymar, Dembélé, Hazard, Rashford … and some others. In the next generation there are at least 10 players with very, very great potential.”It’s more than a decade since Milan’s Kaká became the last player outside of the Ronaldo-Lionel Messi duopoly to walk away with football’s highest individual honour. But with the Real Madrid forward celebrating his 33rd birthday...
Max and co cover the weekend FA Cup action, bad tackles, Neil Warnock’s geography lessons, the latest transfer activity and moreRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts,Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Paul MacInnes and Lars Sivertsen to look back on another weekend of high-octane football action, starting with Tottenham’s shock 1-1 draw at Newport’s Rodney Parade. One player in particular comes in for some pointed criticism. Continue reading...
They train on a pitch surrounded by rubble but a Copa del Rey win over Real Madrid is the latest step on Leganés’s ride“It’s very noisy in there,” Asier Garitano said. It was Wednesday night and they were going wild in the Santiago Bernabéu dressing room, wild on the pitch and then wild on the bus as it travelled down the Castellana, 17km south to Butarque, where they arrived long after midnight and with no intention of going home. “It’ll be a late one,” grinned captain Martín Mantovani. Leganés had just made history. “Look around you, it happened,” Nereo Champagne had told Nordin Amrabat as he stood staring wide-eyed at an 80,000-capacity arena long-since empty but for a few hundred...
Eintracht went second in the Bundesliga for 19 hours after the league’s hardest-working team triumphed againIt was short, but oh so sweet. For 19 hours following their 2-0 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach on Friday, Eintracht Frankfurt were second in the Bundesliga, with just Bayern Munich ahead of them. It wouldn’t last, of course, with Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke and the other riders in a sub-champion field still to play, but Die Adler were determined to make the most of their “one-night stand”, as sporting director Fredi Bobic put it after.“I said before the game,” Bobic continued, “that if we win, we have to take a picture and frame it.” Maybe, in a season where no credible challenger to Bayern has emerged...
Milan’s manager has plenty to learn tactically but the 2-1 win over Lazio suggests his man-management is paying dividendsGennaro Gattuso accepted his punishment. Walking out on to the pitch after Milan’s game against Lazio, he bowed his head and entered a circle formed by his players. All at once, they started to hit him – clambering over one another to deliver open-palmed cuffs to the side of his head.In one sense, it was predictable. Lazio had arrived in sensational form, scoring 13 goals in three games as they moved to third in Serie A. Fifteen points separated them from Milan before kick-off. Who hadn’t expected them to turn over the lacklustre Rossoneri, mired in mid-table and missing injured first-choice centre-forward...