Nani demands scuppered Zenit move

12:06 AM Football No Comments

Zenit were not shy in splashing the cash this summer as they swooped to sign Hulk from Porto and Axel Witsel from Benfica.
The Russian champions admitted that Hulk and Witsel were their top priorities, but they were still keen on Nani.
The 25-year-old currently has two years remaining on his deal at Old Trafford, but talks are reported to have stalled over an extension.
Zenit director-general Maxim Mitrofanov has now admitted that if Nani had agreed terms, he could have made the move to Russia's Second City.
"If Hulk had demanded 8million to 10million euros a year, these conditions would have been unacceptable for Zenit," said Mitrofanov.
"The transfer of Nani failed mostly due to this reason, as he asked for an enormous salary and we would not pay him."
Mitrofanov admitted that Nani and Tottenham target Joao Moutinho were not their 'top' targets.
"We really have been negotiating Nani and Moutinho, but Hulk and Witzel were top priorities," he said,
"It must be understood that any transfer campaign is based on the list of players, ranked by priority."
The club were also looking into bringing Arsenal's Andrey Arshavin back to St Petersburg, but the player is reported to have decided to remain in London.

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Rooney regrets transfer request

4:14 AM Football No Comments

Rooney issued a statement in September 2010 in which he questioned the Red Devils' ability to attract top players and indicated he wanted to leave because the club could not match his ambitions.
Two days later, though, the England international performed a dramatic U-turn and signed a new five-year contract at Old Trafford.
He looks back on the whole affair now with a sense of regret.
In his latest autobiography, which is being serialised by the Daily Mirror, he recalls: "In September 2010 my ankle puts me on the sidelines.
"I get frustrated with myself, my game, my injury, and everything around me.
"I'm stuck in a cycle of bad form but I can't get out of it.
"And that's when I make the biggest mistake of my football career.
"In October, I release a statement which publicly questions my happiness at Old Trafford. Am I better off elsewhere?
"Everyone makes a fuss. There are discussions inside United to sort out the issue, people outside United chuck their opinions around, but the thing is, nobody really knows what's going on in my life.
"None of them understand where I am in my career. They don't know where my head's at.
"The only person who really knows what's going on in there is me, but even I'm not sure what I want."
He continues: "Then the manager has his say. 'Sometimes you look in a field and you see a cow and you think it's a better cow than the one you have in your own field. And it never really works that way'.
"He's saying the grass isn't always greener, and he's right.
"I like what's in my field. I'm wrong. United want the same as me: trophies, success, to be the best."

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Sir Alex Ferguson really thought Wayne Rooney was defecting to City

2:00 AM Football No Comments

Sir Alex Ferguson and his coaching staff were convinced Wayne Rooney's plan was to move to Manchester City when he submitted a transfer request, despite the player's denials about what would have been one of the more contentious transfers of modern history.
The revelation is made by René Meulensteen, United's first-team coach, writing a column in the quarterly magazine of the Dutch Mancunian supporters' group. Meulensteen is the first senior employee at Old Trafford to speak openly about the widely held suspicion behind the scenes that a deal was being put in place to take Rooney to Eastlands, reflecting on it being "a matter for the manager to protect the value of the player for the club and to ensure he would not join City".
Meulensteen refers to the night when a mob of 30 United fans turned up outside Rooney's house to warn him of dire consequences if he followed Carlos Tevez across Manchester. Meulensteen jokes that "all of us – staff, coaches, masseurs, groundsmen etc – put on our balaclavas and went over to Rooney's home to explain to him that going to City was not done."
It had been a "scary" experience for Rooney, he writes. "Shortly after that Wazza made a U-turn. Rooney stayed, extended his contract and got a nice salary increase. However, the real winner is the great Alex Ferguson."
Rooney's "visitors" had made their way to his house on the night after he released a statement confirming that he had submitted a transfer request because of his concerns about the club's spending plans. They were carrying a banner saying "If you join City you're dead" and Rooney, speaking publicly about the incident for the first time, admitted he had feared for his safety.
"I looked out and saw 30 blokes with their hoods up," the player said in an interview on MUTV. "I wasn't going to invite them in for tea. I understand some of the fans were disappointed and felt let down. It was just a bit intimidating to look out and see them all there."
Anxious to repair the damage to his relationship with the club's supporters, Rooney admitted he had been "wrong" to question United's ambitions during the dispute that ended with him signing a new five-year contract.
"I went to see the manager and [the chief executive] David Gill and explained [my reasons for wanting to leave] and basically asked them for answers. I now realise it had nothing to do with me. I got the answers in the end but, looking back, it was probably wrong of me to do that. I just wanted to make sure that signing was the right thing to do and I got the answers in the end."
Yet Rooney maintains that no deal had been arranged with City. "I didn't even think about where I was going to go. People say I was odds on to go to Manchester City but that was never the case. There was no way I would have gone to Manchester City and there was more chance of me going to City than Liverpool."
Rooney went on to say his long-term ambition was to be a manager. "You see the players who have played for Sir Alex and gone on to be good managers. I am hoping to do that one day. But I wouldn't like to follow the manager here, or start at an Everton or United. I want to learn something about the lower leagues and build a reputation that way rather than just jumping into a big club."
Of greater immediacy, he said he was not overly concerned by his poor scoring form. "I know I'll start scoring goals again, I've no worries about that." He has managed only two goals this season, both penalties, going into today's game at West Bromwich Albion.
"Wayne does need a goal," Ferguson said. "It's not an unusual situation where a striker goes a length of time without scoring and it becomes a confidence thing. I see it often. When they score they don't think they're going to miss and when they're not scoring they don't think they're ever going to score. A goal will come his way. He just needs to keep the belief that it will happen."

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Restoration work underway at the Maracana

9:14 PM Football No Comments

Anyone wandering into Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium in its current state could be forgiven for thinking that the iconic venue was a thing of the past. Fortunately that is not the case, with the arena that hosted the final match of the 1950 FIFA World Cup™ undergoing a comprehensive overhaul to ensure it is a significantly more modern and comfortable venue in time to welcome another FIFA World Cup, 64 years later.

Undoubtedly among the best-known stadiums in world football, the Maracana has held over 150,000 spectators on many occasions and was once the biggest stadium in the world. Little by little, however, its capacity has been reduced for the safety and comfort of visiting fans, and is now in the midst of its greatest transformation to date, ahead of Brazil 2014.

The process of knocking down the stadium’s lower tier has been virtually completed by the companies responsible for the renovation work, with work on the upper tier having already begun. The current state of proceedings is the reason why tonnes of concrete and twisted iron are strewn around every corner of the stadium.

In accordance to the schedule unveiled by the Rio de Janeiro government, the work on the Maracana should be completed by early 2013. And the project is progressing in a satisfactory manner, according to a periodic technical analysis carried out by the stadia department of the Organising Committee for the FIFA World Cup.

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Leonardo: There's no greater challenge

5:11 AM Football No Comments

Newly appointed Inter Milan coach Leonardo is looking forward to the challenge of reviving the European champions. The Brazilian, who guided arch-rivals AC Milan last season and spent much of his playing career with I Rossoneri, was unveiled by I Nerazzurri today, following the departure of Rafa Benitez.
"Inter is a powerful, fascinating and unexpected challenge," Leonardo told a press conference. "I arrive here at one of the biggest clubs in the world, in the most important year of its history, the year in which the team won everything (Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the FIFA Club World Cup, in addition to the UEFA Champions League).
"Inter is now a reality, the most important reality. I was looking for a dream, a big motivation, a great challenge. At the moment there is no challenge greater than Inter."
President Massimo Moratti is pleased with his choice. He said: "Leonardo forced me to be here today - to be honest it is the first time someone has asked me to be here. You can see that I'm very pleased with the choice.
"It is a choice that developed from the sense of respect I have always had for him, and the sense of respect everyone who has ever known him has for his ability to learn quickly, and to transmit affection and efficiency. I think he will be able to employ those abilities at our club, which, with the Club World Cup, has shown itself to still be ambitious.
"That doesn't mean we will rush the new coach or put pressure on him; it means we will follow our instincts and the affection we have towards our fans, and that should be useful in working towards some important targets."nter are currently seventh in Serie A, 13 points behind pacesetters Milan, and Moratti has promised new faces in a bid to revive their quest for trophies. He continued: "Now Benitez has gone we will buy five players.
"I am convinced ours is a very strong group, and they have showed that recently. Even if some think they failed to show it some days ago in Abu Dhabi, they comfortably showed it just a few months ago, not thousands of years ago.
"Whether a signing will be actioned or not remains to be seen, but we will certainly be careful, and with the help of [director] Marco Branca we will make sure that those transfers happen, be it players joining or leaving.

"Undoubtedly Leonardo has had valuable experience, of managing a coach and understanding the club system, the team system, and therefore he has had a idea of the economics at a club, and what is best, objectively, for the club.
"We will do very well from a footballing perspective, but we must try to do very well from the economic perspective as well. I do not want to take away any enthusiasm with this, because enthusiasm is what a club thrives on and what I thrive on too."

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