Since it's the Silly Season, we're grinding the rumor mill over here at Starting Eleven:
- Rafa Benitez will not be fired at Liverpool. Instead, to solve the club's ever-inflating debt, LFC will be sold to Barcelona and Liverpool will officially become FC Barcelona-Liverpool. See, since Barcelona pulled out of its MLS-Miami deal, they have all this petty cash hanging around. And see, since Liverpool has Benitez and mostly all these Spanish player, see, it makes, like, y'know, total sense.
- Sporting Lisbon, keeping with its fine tradition of cultivating and selling off its best young players, will package Miguel Veloso, Joao Moutinho and a slew of future Figos and Ronaldos to Manchester United. See, Sporting needs new fields at its storied Academy and real estate is expensive in Portugal. And, see, United always pays top dollar. You get it...
- Landon Donovan will extend his deal with Everton to the end of the Premier League season. A la Becks, Donovan wants to stay in shape and maintain his spot on the U.S. National Team. Sources inside the Everton camp say, however, the real reason is that Donovan is so little and cute, the big burly Brits like to just pick him up and carry him around.
- Chelsea is expected to file an injunction against its African players Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, Flourent Malouda, Salomon Kalou and any others who may ditch the Blues for a month to play in the African Cup of Nations. See, the Russian oligarch who pays the bills wants to win the Premier League and the Champions League and I guess this is the first time he took a close look at his roster and realized that the bulk of his best players are GOING TO BE GONE for the toughest stretch of the league season. You don't mess with the Oligarch, man.
- And finally, Real Madrid, desperate to play in the Champions League final being held in its home stadium, has put out formal offers to every big club in Europe to sign its best players. It's just business man, just business.
If you have the inside poop on any rumors, post them here or shoot me an email. Rafa thanks you!
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Since it's the Silly Season, we're grinding the rumor mill over here at Starting Eleven:
3 comments:
Ah, those grounds in which the academy sit on, are very nice, I have very found memories of that area, believe it or not, I was born and raised in Alcochete. In my younger years, me and my friends used to ride our bikes in that area, and bird trap in that area. In regards to Sporting, my question is not where is this money coming from, but where was this money when Bento was around. There is no comparison between Bento and the current coach, and I think his exit dues to lack of support by Sporting's directive may very well go down as the biggest mistake of recent years, right along side letting Varela go.
It'll be interesting to see what chelsea will do.
So far the highlight of this silly season was Ronaldinho coming to Benfica.
Cheers my friend
Agreed, Bento got a raw deal. The guy won Cups with relatively little talent, got out of the first round of the Champions League--something no coach had ever done.
I hadn't heard about Ronaldinho to Benfica! That's funny. I did like the Pavlyuchenko and Gareth Bale to Sporting rumors.
I think Chelsea has a problem on its hands. We'll see.
Happy New Year Man.
If anyone wanted to, they couldn’t have picked the worst rivals for the Italian clubs. The way things are now, Serie A teams, like last season, probably won’t last long in the Champions League in spring.
Inter are in the worst situation. Mourinho will be back to Stamford Bridge, but the performance of his team against the strongest teams tells us that the spring will be only a formality.
Last year Inter were humiliated by Manchester United, this season by Barcelona. According to all criteria, Chelsea are among top three European teams and Inter are far away from the top, so the outcome of this match is more or less already seen.
Fiorentina made a real feat by making it to the knockout stage, but they got the most difficult rivals there is, Bayern.
Last year, Bavarians easily handled Viola and the way they ran over Juventus gives them the reason for optimism before this duel. However, Fiorentina are better and more experienced than last year, but still they will have trouble handling Bayern.
And finally, Milan. Perhaps it sounds strange, but Milan stand most chance of all the Italian clubs. They have the play for Europe and regardless of the fact that United are favourites they will be anything but an easy prey for Ferguson’s team.
Of course, such Manchester United would definitely struggle to resist Italians without defenders, but even a complete squad won’t be absolute favourites. They are definitely the favoured side but Milan are unpredictable and they will have Beckham,a lot of experience and the fact that they are experts on knockout stage on their side.
Anyway, this will be a great match and without a doubt the derby of Champions League knockout stage
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