Milan have announced the signing of promising attacker Charles De Ketelaere from Club Brugge.
The 21-year-old Belgium international has signed a five-year-deal with the Serie A champions and joins for a reported fee of €36million.
De Ketelaere – who scored 18 goals in all competitions last season and has won eight senior caps for Belgium since his 2020 debut – had also been strongly linked with Premier League side Leeds United.
At 19 years and 224 days old in October 2020, he became the second-youngest Belgian to score in the Champions League (behind Anthony Vanden Borre) when he netted for Brugge against Zenit St Petersburg.
De Ketelaere will wear the number 90 shirt, and joins fellow new arrivals at San Siro Divock Origi, Alessandro Flor…
The Mail Online understands that Michael Carrick is set to join the coaching staff at Manchester United after announcing that he will retire from playing at the end of the season.
The thirty-six year old has barely featured for the Red Devils this season, making just four appearances while he had a minor operation to treat an irregular heartbeat in October.
Carrick has played over seven hundred senior games at club level across spells with West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United with the majority of those outings coming for the latter. He also had loan stints with Swindon Town and Birmingham City early in his career.
During his time at Old Trafford he has won a whole host of major honours including five Premier League titles, the FA Cup, thr…
Antoine Griezmann cannot give Atletico Madrid any more, according to head coach Diego Simeone after a flat display from his star forward in the Europa League on Thursday.
Griezmann wasted two late chances in a 1-0 defeat at Sporting CP, Simeone s side progressing to the semi-finals 2-1 on aggregate despite their loss.
The France forward, sporting a newly shaven head, had scored 17 goals in his last 16 matches in all competitions but rarely looked like hitting the target in Lisbon.
But Simeone, who saw Diego Costa limp off early in the second half due to a hamstring problem and Lucas Hernandez suffer a facial injury, did not feel Griezmann was particularly below-par.
It is impossible for Griezmann to be more decisive than he already is for Atletico, Sime…
Former Chelsea star Didier Drogba feels Cristiano Ronaldo deserves to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or following his achievements with Real Madrid and Portugal.
The 31-year-old had to settle for second place behind long-time rival and Barcelona star Lionel Messi in the race for the prestigious individual award in 2015, but Drogba is adamant Ronaldo has done enough this time around to reclaim the prize.
The prolific forward won the Champions League with Madrid in May, before helping Portugal to their first major title at Euro 2016 when they beat hosts France 1-0 after extra time in the final.
I played against Cristiano in the 2008 Champions League final that Manchester United won, Drogba told the official Madrid website during their pre-season tour to Montreal.
As Liverpool and Manchester City hit the final straight of a pulsating Premier League title race, the big questions will start up again.
Is Pep Guardiola a bald fraud ? Is Jurgen Klopp cracking up as he prepares for Sunday s mouth-watering meeting with Tottenham? This, it seems, is the way it has to be.
In modern elite sport, the narrative of bottlers and chokers holds mass appeal. What other possible excuse could these pampered, exulted stars have for not winning apart from some sort of ill-defined flimsiness, either individually or collectively?
Additionally, it works perfectly when events are analysed through the binary prism of social media arguments and their bantering thirst for points-scoring. Something is either brilliant or rubbish: You think that s good…
Pep Guardiola claims agent Mino Raiola offered Manchester City Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in January, despite branding the Catalan coach a dog and a coward in a recent interview.
Raiola and Guardiola have a long-standing feud which is said to go back as far as 2010, when the Dutchman s client Zlatan Ibrahimovic was reportedly forced out of Barcelona due to disputes with the Catalan.
In an interview at the end of March, Raiola also claimed then-AC Milan chief Adriano Galliani stopped him from attacking Guardiola after he led Barca to glory in the 2011 Champions League final.
The City boss addressed Raiola s criticism at Friday s news conference ahead of the Manchester derby, pondering why the agent would offer Pogba and Mkhitaryan from rivals Manchester Un…
New York Red Bulls and New York City FC are both attempting to raise their first MLS Cup (Original Photo : robertpaulyoung Flickr)
The most intriguing prospect in this year’s MLS Cup playoffs is the potential Eastern Conference Finals matchup between the New York Red Bulls and New York City FC.
The two clubs have very different histories. The Red Bulls were originally named the New York-New Jersey Metro Stars in 1996 before being taken over by the soft drink company and rebranded in 2006. No matter what the club has been called it has not had much success during their 20 years.
They were the last of the original MLS clubs to win any silverware (they have now twice won the Supporters Shield, the title for the regular season) but have always failed in the playof…
Herve Renard is hoping for a backlash from his Morocco players to what he believes is their unfair exit from the World Cup.
Having lost to Iran in their opener, Morocco suffered another 1-0 defeat to Portugal in Moscow on Wednesday to see their elimination confirmed.
Renard was outspoken in his criticism of referee Mark Geiger afterwards, claiming Cristiano Ronaldo s goal should have been ruled out for a foul by Pepe, and he did not hold back when he spoke prior to their final Group B game against Spain.
He said: It [their exit] is unfair when you see everything we did against Portugal, it s highly unfair.
A goal was conceded that was a huge foul. It was not seen. Why?
It was similar to an incident in the match between France and Australia, for …
Following the decision over the 10-month suspension of Sandro Tonali for betting offences, Newcastle are reportedly keen to sign Ruben Neves on loan from Al-Hilal in January to fill the vacant spot in their squad for the second half of the season.
Both clubs are owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and there were concerns over such a move being devised to avoid any potential Financial Fair Play issues. Therefore, the 20 Premier League clubs held a vote to decide whether such transfers, loan deals between clubs with the same owners, should be forbidden. The vote ended 13-7 in favour of the ban, but with the minimum to pass a notion like that being set at 14, it wasn t enough, and Newcastle could make a move for the former Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder.
However…
Antonio Conte says he is enjoying every single moment at Tottenham as he nears a year in charge of the Premier League club.
Conte, appointed in November 2021, has not always portrayed his time in London in quite such a positive light, outlining the need for improvement and investment in order to seriously challenge.
Meanwhile, his Spurs contract is set to expire at the end of the season.
But ahead of Saturday s match with Bournemouth – Tottenham s final league game before November 2, the date on which Conte was appointed last year – the Italian spoke in glowing terms of his adventure .
I always say that I am enjoying my time in Tottenham, he said. In one year, we had a great path together, with the club, the players, the fans and you [media].