Sporting director Frank Arnesen has announced that he will leave Chelsea at the end of the season.
The 54-year-old former Denmark international has spent the last six years at Stamford Bridge, but has decided to resign with effect from the end of the current campaign.
Arnesen told the club's official website:"It has been a privilege and an honour for me to work for such a big club with so many great people.
"After six wonderful years I have decided to seek a new challenge when my contract expires at the end of this season.'
"It has been a tremendous journey and I would like to thank everyone at Chelsea, especially Roman Abramovich, for giving me the incredible opportunity to help build on the club's Academy and youth system along with our greatly talented academy and scouting staff.
"We are now seeing the fruits of that labour, as our stated aim was to get one player from the Academy into the first team each year from 2010.
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"We have a great crop of young players now coming through and I feel it's the right time for me to start looking towards a new challenge.
"It is always difficult to take big decisions like this, but it is entirely my decision. I'm looking forward to continuing my work here until such time as the club decides which way they want to move forward."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
It may have been a long wait for him, but this season 22 year-old flying winger Sidney Sam, a German of Nigerian descent, has finally made his breakthrough in the German top flight after his transfer to the Bay Arena from Hamburg in the summer. After being farmed out on loan to Kaiserslautern for the latter two of his three seasons at Hamburg, the Werkself saw fit to part with 2 million Euros for his services, and he has not let them down, scoring 9 goals and laying on 5 assists in 22 appearances in all competitions this season, which has led his new side to 2nd in the Bundesliga and the knockout stage of the Europa League.
Measuring in at 1.74m (5ft 9ins), 70kg (11st), Sam has been likened by some observers in Germany to the Dutch winger Arjen Robben of Bayern Munich, due to his explosive pace and dribbling style and possibly due to his frequent deployment on the right-wing, cutting inside on his favoured left foot to unleash his fierce shots, which have lead to some spectacular long-range goals. He will probably be likened to a young Ryan Giggs and Gareth Bale too, due to his ability to dribble with the ball at top speed, but due to his shorter height, he is less of a threat in the air than the Welsh duo. Sam himself considers his current footballing idol to be Cristiano Ronaldo, and you can see the influence in the way Sam shoots and gets into goal-scoring situations coming in from both flanks or even being deployed as a striker.
Time will tell whether Sam can continue his fine form in the long-run, but by scoring some eye-catching goals and fitting in well in an expansive attacking style line-up, he has managed to hold down a regular place in Jupp Heynckes’ starting eleven, and he may well make the step-up from the Germany Under 21 side into Jogi Loew’s full national team before long, despite Nigerian counterpart Samson Siasia still harbouring fading hopes of convincing him to pledge his international future to the Super Eagles. The Germans have tended to win these tug-of-war battles lately, and with their trophy-laden history, it isn’t hard to see why.
If one game announced the arrival of Sidney Sam, it was his brace in the 3-1 home win against former loan club Kaiserslautern this season on 8 November 2010. His first was a low drive into the corner from the edge of the box. His second was reminiscent of a famous goal against Leverkusen. With the ball dropping steeply out of the air, Sam unleashed a 30 yard left-footed volley into the top right corner, much like Zinedine Zidane’s famous effort from the Champions League final of 2002 in Glasgow for Real Madrid. Obviously, Zidane’s strike wins as it was his weaker foot and a much bigger occasion but Sam still probably caused many a fan to drop their bratwurst in amazement. On December 11, he proved a point by scoring in a 4-2 away win at former club Hamburg.
Born 31 January 1988 in the northern German town of Kiel, and his first major club was Holstein Kiel from 2002-2004 after starting out at TuS Mettenhof and then Holstein’s rivals Kilia Kiel. In July 2004, he signed for Hamburg, who would be his parent club for six years, but his match time was limited mainly to their second team in the 2006-2008 period. His top flight debut for Hamburg came as a substitute on 20 December 2007, but he only made three more appearances at the club, scoring no goals before his long loan spell at Kaiserslautern and the permanent transfer to Leverkusen. He has represented Germany at Under 19, Under 20 and Under 21 level.
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Sam is currently rated at around 5 million Euros, but with a contract until 2015, it would probably take a fee much higher than that to tempt Leverkusen to sell their prodigious young talent. He looks like he could probably play in any of the top leagues in Europe outside of Germany, but at this moment in time he is better off staying at the Bay Arena and playing week in week out to further aid his development, rather than sit on the bench elsewhere with 2 or more players above him in the pecking order for his position. As long as he continues to deliver consistently good performances, then you can be sure that scouts will be flocking to see him in action in both greater number and frequency, and we could have yet another reason to keep an eye on the Bundesliga, which continues to produce some quality footballers.
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It’s a debate that seems to have been rumbling on for sometime, but thankfully the end is now in sight. By the end of the month we should finally be told who will be allowed to take over the running over of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford after the games in 2012. The shortlist of candidates is, well, very short and consists only of bitter rivals Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham.
Both sides have now officially submitted their plans and it is Tottenham’s that has stirred the most controversy. Their idea to move 4.9 miles (as the crow flies), and crucially remove the athletics track, has sparked outrage from all sides, from your average Joe down the pub to the highest echelons of government. The MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, has urged David Cameron to lead a parliamentary debate on the Olympic legacy and back the group ‘We are N17’, a group set up by Spurs fans in protest of the proposed move away from White Hart Lane. Cameron respectively declined.
As with any change of premises, be it moving family home or football stadium, there are a lot of scary looking figures involved. The one that stood out for me as I trawled the internet for stories about this very subject was that Spurs estimate that moving to the Olympic Stadium, as opposed to redeveloping White Hart Lane, will save them roughly £200 million. The word ‘million’ is thrown about a lot in football nowadays. You rarely see a number without the word ‘million’ suffixed, and as such fans have become somewhat immune to the vastness of it, but £200,000,000 is an astounding sum of money and an amount that I can’t even comprehend. Spurs’ redevelopment of the Lane has been given the green light by the powers that be, but the costs involved in the ‘Northumberland Development Project’ have spiralled and problems still persist with the local council and the inadequate transport links. In a nutshell, Tottenham’s plans to tear down much of the Olympic Stadium, remove the track, redevelop Crystal Palace athletics stadium and establish an athletics legacy fund will cost around £250 million, while the White Hart Lane project will cost around £450 million.
In football money doesn’t talk, it runs around shouting and screaming until its throat is sore and bloody. Money is the backbone of everything in the modern game and very little happens without a substantial amount of it changing hands – why else would ITV or Channel 5 be allowed to broadcast live matches? As a result, a pretty convincing argument can be made for Spurs fans to back their Olympic bid on the basis of these monetary findings.
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Tottenham are in the midst of their most important era in modern memory. After years (and years!) of waiting, the lilywhites have finally broken away from the shackles of mid-table obscurity and that feeling of perpetual disappointment, to breaking in to football’s elite. The footballing world shouldn’t underplay what a great achievement it is for Spurs to progress as group winners into the knockout-stages of the Champions League, let’s not forget that just over two years ago they were bottom of the Premier League with two points from…how many games Harry? So when the team needs the maximum amount of investment possible in order to keep challenging at the top end of the league, saving £200 million could prove to be vital. A quick look at ‘them lot down the road’ will show what the wider costs that building a new stadium can entail. With all things considered, The Emirates Stadium is thought to have cost the Gunners around £470 million and it is generally accepted that this massive investment has significantly limited the transfer funds available to Arsene Wenger since 2004. It is undeniable that Arsenal needed a new stadium in order to become more financial competitive on a global scale and that Arsene Wenger has done fantastically well on the budget that he has had to work with, but imagine the talent that they could have attracted if Wenger had had more funds at his disposal. Arsenal didn’t have much of a choice, but Tottenham do. I’d hate to see Tottenham fall back behind the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea et al. because they don’t have the financial clout to compete for the best players.
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Leaving White Hart Lane will be a shame, but changing stadiums doesn’t have to be the time of mourning that many seem to be preparing themselves for. Ask Southampton, Leicester and Manchester City fans if they’d fancy a return to the days of The Dell, Filbert Street or Maine Road and they’d tell you that they’ve settled into their new stadiums quite nicely thank you. The long and distinguished history of White Hart Lane is one to be immensely proud of, but football moves on and unless Tottenham move with it they are in danger of moving backwards as quickly as they bounded forward.
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With the news that World Cup final referee Howard Webb has reportedly told Blackpool players to go to ground more easily in an attempt to help them win more free kicks and make life easier for referees, it had me wondering; is it right for referees to advocate what is tantamount to ‘simulation’?
Prior to the postponed match against Liverpool at Bloomfield Road Webb spoke to the Blackpool players, including defender Ian Evatt who commented on Webb’s talk;
‘He spoke to me about why I didn’t get a foul against Manchester City when Carlos Tevez caught me in the build-up to one of their goals. He said I was too honest and stayed on my feet. He said if I had gone down it would make the decision easier to give.
Evatt then went on to add;
‘I think that is where we are too naive. Most of us have come through the Championship – a more honest game, so to speak. In the Premier League, if you fall over you tend to get decisions. We are not talking about cheating, but sometimes we have to be less naive and go down under a challenge. We’re not going to make a meal of it, just show there’s a foul. It makes the ref’s decision easier.’
Going to ground easily is a part of the modern game, but I am not sure a referee should be advocating it to players. It is an unwritten law, and is, in my opinion, ok for players to admit they do it. However, it is not alright for those who adjudicate the game to champion it.
What’s more, the notion that players’ ‘go to ground’ easily because they are, in fact, trying to preserve the status quo and make life easier for referees is laughable. This is either self-delusion or utter rubbish, I am under no illusion that when a player ‘goes to ground easily’ or ‘dives’ they are not doing it for the benefit of officials, they are doing it to gain an advantage for their team, whether fairly or unfairly. Although this reportedly came from a referee, I am of the opinion that ‘going to ground easily’ makes life more difficult for officials rather than less. This is because this means the referees then have to make two decisions instead of one; first they must determine whether it is a foul, and second they must attempt to decipher whether the player is trying to deceive them.
I am all for making life easier for referees, I think they have a difficult job. But this should not be attained through a manipulation of existing rules.
If you liked this and would like to read more, then why not check out my blogs, or follow me on Twitter.
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Fat Barry has been given the dreaded vote of confidence at Football FanCast and like Avram Grant at West Ham, is unsure of his future and may be in the dole queue with Andy Gray and Richard Keys in the coming weeks. A combination of poor results and an illicit affair with one of our secretaries has meant he is holding on to his job by the shortest of threads and needs some of his football betting tips to come good if he is to stay out of the firing line.
It’s FA Cup time this weekend as we move swiftly into the fourth round and the bookies will be hoping that there can a be a few more cupsets in the vein of Stevenage, Crawley and Notts County from the third round.
If you’re looking for an upset then you’re not going to find many better odds this weekend than those you can get on Southampton beating Manchester United. No Premier League team has been able to beat United in the Premiership this season, not even Blackpool, so wouldn’t it be ironic if the Saints joined West Ham in defeating Sir Alex Ferguson’s men. Southampton are definitely worth a cheeky bet at 7/1.
FA Cup upset prediction number two comes in the form of Everton v Chelsea. My money’s on Everton for the cup this year (keep that between you and me) and with Chelsea having demolished Bolton earlier in the week, the Blues are heavily fancied. So the real value is with the Toffees, and at 13/5 it may be worth sticking a few quid on David Moyes’ men.
Having made the final of the Carling Cup already, Arsenal will be looking to haul in plenty of silverware this season after a five year draught. League One outfit Huddersfield are unlikely to stand in their way and although there’s little value in backing Arsene Wenger’s men for the win, you might be tempted to go for the correct score market, with Arsenal 9/1 to win 3-1.
The last thing you’re getting from me this week is a prediction for the Fulham v Tottenham match on Sunday. I’m going to sit on the fence and go for a draw, with a replay the last thing Harry Redknapp wants as Spurs’ fixture schedule gets more congested with the Champions League knockout stages starting last month. You can get the draw at 9/4.
Fat Barry’s Weekend Picks:
Southampton at 7/1
Everton at 13/5
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Arsenal to win 3-1 at 9/1
Fulham v Tottenham to be a draw at 9/4
That’s your lot (actually put a fiver on non-league Crawley to beat Torquay at 5/2, too!)
The news that Fernando Torres no longer loves the club he claimed to love only months ago and has moved to Chelsea, has been met with a mixture of amusement and indifference by many United fans.
Chelsea’s signing of Torres isn’t the coup some sections of the media are already claiming it is. Liverpool are going nowhere-regardless of the epic victories against Wolves and Fulham that Dalglish has masterminded, while Chelsea are still in the Champions League and the current Premier League champions.
Torres may have finally realised that a footballer’s career is only short and there’s no time to waste playing postmen from Estonia on Channel Five on a Thursday night.
Torres signing for Chelsea would be nothing more than long overdue really, when it comes to pulling of real surprise striker signings, no one can touch Sir Alex Ferguson in that department.
As he did last season with Michael Owen, every so often Sir Alex Ferguson will shock many in the footballing world by signing a striker, no one ever expected. Whether it’s a rivals leading scorer, a costly teenager, an experienced loan signing, or an unheard of Norwegian, Fergie can be full of surprises. Here’s a top five of the united manager’s surprise striker signings.
5. Henrik Larsson
Signing a 35 year-old, striker, with no Premier League experience, on loan from Swedish Club Helsingborgs, must have sounded like one of the worst ideas Fergie had come up with since the Massimo Taibi fiasco. However when said striker is Henrik Larsson, it’s not as daft as it sounds. Larsson’s time at Old Trafford may have been brief but his impact was enormous. Any doubts that he was fit enough for the English game were quickly dispelled on his debut an FA cup tie against Villa. Larsson ran around like a 17 year-old, creating chances and bagging a goal. Fergie was so impressed with the diminutive stars efforts that he asked the Premier League for special dispensation so Larsson could receive a winners medal- he’d only played 7 games. The Premier league said yes, obviously recognising his contribution as United stopped Chelsea winning a third successive title.
4. Wayne Rooney
Right now, Wayne Rooney looks like something of a bargain at £27 million, having already won every trophy there is and last season spearheading United’s campaign. However back in 2004 Fergie forking out a huge sum for an 18 year-old whose goal-scoring record was one in four was something of a surprise. Rooney though, has already paid back his fee and then some. He’s well on his way to becoming a United legend, after being in the shadow of Van Nistelrooy and then Ronaldo, the ‘white Pele’ seems to have raised his game a level to become much more than just a striker. Despite his injury problems of late and the debacle of his contract saga, there’s no denying he’s arguably the most naturally talented player at the club.
3. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
Practically no-one outside of Norway had heard of the baby-faced assassin prior to his move to Old Trafford. It didn’t take long for him to make his mark though, coming off the bench to score on his debut against Blackburn back in 1996. Coming off the bench to score would become something of a Solskjaer trait as he was often used as a sub while making over 200 appearances for United. Three games seem to sum up his career more than any during the 1999 treble winning season. In the FA cup at Old Trafford he scored a last minute winner to knock out Liverpool and send Old Trafford into delirium.
Later that season coming off the bench away at Nottingham Forest he grabbed four goals in just 11 minutes as United romped to an 8-1 win. A few months later he scored one of the most important goals in United’s history -an injury time winner against Bayern Munich in the Champions league final- after coming off the bench-again. You’d have to go a long way to find a more popular man amongst the Old Trafford faithful.
2. Andy Cole
Just as Fergie had relieved one of his main rivals of their prized asset in 1992, he did the same again in 1994, when he managed to convince Kevin Keegan to sell goal king Andy Cole. Amazingly United bit-part player Keith Gillespie-along with 6 million quid- was the carrot that convinced the emotional manager to part with his record-breaking striker.
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The transfer shocked everyone in the football world not least of all the Newcastle faithful, some of whom went to see Keegan at his office to ask how he could do such a thing. King Kev said he had a long-term plan, unfortunately for him so did Fergie, who’s United side would go on to win the double the following year. Both United’s and Cole’s greatest triumph came in 1999 when they won the treble in the Nou Camp. Although it was Sheringham and Solksjaer who scored the goals few could forget Cole’s influence. His goal in the semi-final against Juventus was one of his finest moments. “Yorke’s been brought down…penalty surely…..Cole!! Full speed ahead Barcelona!”
1. Eric Cantona
The story of how the impossible became possible and King Eric made the trip across the Pennines is now part of United folklore. Howard Wilkinson called Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards to enquire about Denis Irwin. Fergie sat on Edwards’ desk said: “No chance” and then almost as an afterthought “Ask him about Eric Cantona.” Amazingly, of course Sergeant Wilko had fallen out with his mercurial striker and was willing to let him leave.
There can be little doubt that, this one conversation changed the course of Premier League history and a Cantona-led United brought the title to Old Trafford for the first time in 26 years kicking off United’s dominance of the nineties and noughties in the process. The £1.2 million price only seemed to add insult to injury. Many a Yorkshire man must still shake his head at just how foolish Wilkinson could have been.
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It was a strange sensation watching Tottenham’s Champions League victory at AC Milan the other night – a genuine throwback. Not because I was watching two of my former clubs but because the match really did, despite the many nationalities on show, have a genuine sense of a typical English team facing a typical Italian one. These days familiarity breeds contempt, even at World Cups, where nothing is a surprise and opponents often know each other through club matches.
Back in the day, though, there used to be a lot of mystique about playing foreign sides and great contrasts in the way they played. The way Brazilians would kill the ball in the air rather than trap it, having been brought up playing on beaches or pot-holed roads, was a wonder to me. And then there were the infamous dark arts of Italian football – as recalled in such graphic detail by AC Milan on Tuesday.
Just after I was transferred from Chelsea to Milan in 1961, but before I had joined my new club, England played Italy in Rome (the sort of fixture we call a ‘friendly’, but was nothing of the sort back then). We won 3-2, having been 2-1 down with five minutes remaining. Gerry Hitchens, another Englishman who played in Italy, scored twice, then I got the winner.
This was considered a very famous victory at the time and so our captain, Johnny Haynes, decided to lead us on a lap of honour. Not a sensible policy, given the locals had just started lighting bonfires on the terraces of the Olympic Stadium and were busily ripping out seats to hurl at us! I suddenly thought ‘what the hell have I done agreeing to play here?’
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Playing away in Italy has never been anything other than hostile. It is the most beautiful nation on Earth, full of the loveliest people, but when it comes to football, they are cynical and ugly. And the longer the Italians are losing a game, the nastier they get. They ruled the world once or twice in their history, of course, and I think they saw football as a reprise of the Christians v Lions … with us strikers very much on the side of Jesus.
I can particularly remember Omar Sivori, an Argentinian-born striker who was a naturalised Italian and a big mate of John Charles at Juventus. He had a party trick which consisted of sticking two fingers into your eyes to temporarily blind you. When I played for Milan, the dark arts were known by every defender – the kick on the ankles, the knee in the back, the over-the-top tackle. You never received the ball without first getting some physical contact from your marker.
Even though I only played in Serie A for a few months, I always felt I went to Milan a boy and came back a man thanks to all the physical treatment I withstood from their defenders. And I think Spurs really came of age as a Champions League team the other night, too. I liked the way Peter Crouch kept literally grinning and bearing it, every time he was fouled or roughed up by Gennaro Gattuso or one of his pals. Tottenham still have 90 minutes of cynical football to overcome and even with that one-goal lead going into the home leg, they’ll need that same calm, level-headed attitude if they are to make the quarter-finals.
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I was asked a few times last week whether Wayne Rooney’s Manchester derby goal was the best I’ve ever seen. Well, as a man who used to make his living scoring goals, my response has been: ‘I couldn’t care less. What is this, Dancing On Ice? Have they started giving marks for artistic impression?’. I was accused of many things during my career but nobody ever told me I’d scored a bad goal.
Your best goal is always your next goal. I can remember an FA Cup tie at Walsall when Spurs got battered and I scored a late winner, which was such a scruffy old shot on a mudheap of a pitch that it only just went over the line and didn’t come close to hitting the back of the net. It was almost embarrassing. But you know what? We got one for that goal and Rooney got one for his! He was having a miserable day until then but went and scored an absolute stunner.
Which makes you wonder why Carlo Ancelotti subbed Fernando Torres after about an hour of his first two Chelsea matches. I had plenty of terrible 89-minute performances, only to score a winner – a manager simply has to keep his best goalscorer on at all times. What sort of message does it send to the player himself, to his team-mates and to the bloke who just forked out £50million?
Everton manager David Moyes has reacted angrily to reports he played an unfit Marouane Fellaini in last weekend’s 2-0 win over Sunderland.
The midfielder and joint leading scorer Tim Cahill are both missing for Saturday’s trip to Newcastle United.
“Who would do that? No-one would do it,” Moyes said on Friday.
“We certainly wouldn’t risk Marouane Fellaini, who has been arguably our best player this season. We would never do that, it’s a load of rubbish. We had to hold the boy back from training on the Tuesday and the Thursday but he trained on the Friday.”
Fellaini’s father Abdellatif this week lashed out at the club after the player was ruled out for the rest of the season with an ankle injury he picked up against Chelsea two weeks ago.
“Marouane is really in a desperate state,” Abdellatif Fellaini told Gazet van Antwerpen.
“He should never have played that last game against Sunderland. He should never have been allowed to play because he was already injured.”
Everton have been unable to find steady form this season and Moyes has not been able to identify their problem.
“I’ve been asked if I can put my finger on why we have lacked consistency and I have said no. We want to be more consistent,” he said.
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“The game is a chance to get three points. We have 10 or 11 games left of the season and we need to win as many of those as we can. It will be a big test and Newcastle have done well- as have all the teams who were promoted from the Championship at the end of last season.”
“I don’t think anybody has been surprised by Newcastle because they are a big football club and they have done well this season. Alan Pardew has kept things going for them. I have got a lot of respect for Chris Hughton [former Newcastle manager] and the work he did for them.”
“I’m sure Alan also respects him but Alan has taken over now and will be trying to put his own mark on the team.”
Shakhtar Donetsk have ended Roma’s Champions League campaign with a 3-0 win in their last-16 second leg in Ukraine on Tuesday.Shakhtar, who have not lost at home in any competition since October 2008, advance to the quarter-finals 6-2 on aggregate at the expense of the Italian club, who conceded a fluky goal, missed a penalty and went down to 10 men in a torrid 23 minutes in the first half.The visitors had the better of the early exchanges, and could have scored had Mirko Vucinic done better with his attempt to reach a terrific floated cross to the six-yard box.But the Ukrainian champions scored against the run of play in the 18th minute through Tomas Hubschman, the Czech defender deflecting Willian’s cross inside the far post with a clever heel touch.Armenian striker Henrikh Mkhitaryan burst down the right and ignored better options in the area to whip his attempt wide of the near post, then further infuriated his Shakhtar team-mates by dragging down Marco Borriello in the area and conceding a penalty to Roma.But Borriello did poorly with the 28th-minute spot kick, sliding a tame shot that was easily collected by Andriy Pyatov low to his right.Roma had evidently singled out Luiz Adriano as a danger man given the Brazilian had scored in his past three games, but their over-exuberance to the contest inevitably led to Philippe Mexes’ expulsion.Mexes, who first earned a yellow card for tripping Adriano behind play, was shown a second caution for pushing the striker to the ground as the pair scrambled for a loose ball in the 41st minute.At the break, the Italian club needed three goals with 10 men in below-freezing conditions, and Shakhtar came out of the dressing room hungry for more goals.Mkhitaryan smashed at the net from range, forcing Roma goalkeeper Doni into a terrific diving save to his right, but Willian did better from the left, collecting on the edge of the area and looping a nice finish into the far corner for a 2-0 lead.Former Arsenal striker Eduardo Da Silva was introduced for Douglas Costa in the 80th minute and made it 3-0 on a terrible error by Roma defender John Riise seven minutes later.The Norwegian failed to account for Da Silva’s poor first touch on the left flank, then botched his attempt to push the ball back to Doni, allowing Da Silva to run in and squirt his shot between the custodian’s legs.
Qualifying for the international footvolley championship began on Thursday, with victories for Brazil, Portugal and Argentina.The tournament is being held at Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro, with squads from Spain, Italy, France and two from Brazil among those battling for the title.
The sport was created in Rio and combines football and beach volleyball.
Teams are comprised of four players, with competitors not allowed to use their hands and arms.
Brazil’s former international footballer-turned-congressman Romario is coaching one of his country’s teams.
“I am a fan and lover of footvolley – it’s my second sport,” Romario said.
“My dream is to see footvolley in the Olympic Games one day. I’m sure that events like this, even with four-player squads – because footvolley is normally played as doubles – could happen at the Olympics.”
“If it’s God’s will, we might see it in the upcoming Olympics here in Brazil.”
The other Brazilian squad is under the guidance of former Roma and Brazil forward and current Gremio coach Renato Portaluppi.
Both home teams were successful on the opening day of competition.
Romario’s team beat Paraguay while Portaluppi’s squad overcame both Italy and France.
Portugal beat France but lost to Italy, while Argentina saw off Spain.
Paraguay coach Julio Cesar Romero hopes the tournament would help to promote the sport on the world stage.
“A foot volley (tournament) with Romario, Renato, me and other players, like Aldair and Donato … puts the championship in the spotlight and helps to advertise footvolley across the world,” Romero said.
“This is very important and the sport will become even greater.”