Academy player has transformed club into top-flight regulars: his departure to Galatasaray will leave an enormous voidIt was the farewell letter Crystal Palace supporters hoped they would never have to read. Wilfried Zaha’s emotional message posted on Instagram just after 10pm on Sunday finally signalled the end of a journey that began when he joined Palace’s youth team more than 20 years ago.“I’ve been wearing the Palace shirt since I was eight years old, it’s literally been my second skin and I always gave everything when I wore it,” Zaha wrote. “I grew up two roads away from the bright lights and loud crowds of Selhurst Park, having no idea that I would be at the centre of it all...
Squabbling about which superclub gets to further enrich the Paris superstar is wearisome but he could do so much betterEurope, several years from now. A thin light strains through the cracked and grimy window. The air is gritty with smoke. The man wakes. He is stiff, cold, tired, afraid. Outside is devastation, the city in ruins. Everyone has fled. Even the sirens sound more distant now. With a trembling hand, the man withdraws his phone from his pocket. He must be sparing with the battery, he knows, but awkwardly he turns it on.Perhaps this morning there will be signal. Perhaps this morning he will find out how far the crisis extends. The screen flickers. He hears the low ping before...
Napoli’s manager and players were tremendous, Italian sides impressed on the European stage, but chaos engulfed JuventusThree European finalists, but not a single champion. A brilliant season for Italian club football ended in the most agonising way possible, with Roma, Fiorentina and Internazionale each carving out opportunities to win their respective competitions but none able to land a killer blow. Feelings of pride in performance crashed up against the overwhelming emptiness of knowing that, for many players and coaches, such opportunities come but once in a career.Does their collective failure paint a bleak picture for Serie A? Don’t be ridiculous. From 2014 to 2016 there were three consecutive years when Italy qualified only two teams to the Champions League group...
Nobody wants to talk about repressive regime behind the club but Abu Dhabi pushes sport as source of soft structural powerWell, that’s that done. So. What now? Perhaps the funniest moment of the Champions League final at a distant, smoke-tainted Ataturk Stadium was the sight of the tuxedo-clad Hungarian classical musician Adam Gyorgy thundering his way through the tournament tune on a gleaming pitchside grand piano pre-kick-off, trying really hard to give this hammy faux-anthem some verve and twinkle.All the while, a hundred metres off to his left, 10,000 blue-shirted Manchester City fans doggedly booed every flourish, every attempt to inject a little feeling into the occasion. No, Adam. Please. It’s really not you. It’s just, well, it’s kind of...
Through its actions the ECA is intensifying the influence of Europe’s biggest clubs while disregarding the aspirational onesThe Guardian recently published an article by Charlie Marshall, the CEO of the European Club Association (ECA), headlined: “European Club Association is being cast as an evil elite killing football. What nonsense.” While I appreciate the opportunity to engage in a discussion about the future of European football, I must express my strong disagreement with Marshall’s assertions. It is imperative to set the record straight and shed light on the true nature of ECA’s actions and the distortions it has caused within the football landscape.Marshall accuses me of promoting a false narrative regarding the ECA’s influence on Uefa. However, the truth is that...