After replacing the ousted Mark Hughes, Roberto Mancini encountered trouble at his first training session at Manchester City. During the practice, the former Fiorentina, Lazio and Inter coach had a
face-off with Craig Bellamy over doubts regarding his fitness.
Apparently Mancini had planned an intense practice lasting 150 minutes,
not knowing that Bellamy had been prescribed a special program due
to his knee injury. According to The Sun, there was a temperamental
verbal exchange, before Mancini was convinced and agreed to let
the Welshman skip the second part of the practice along with Kolo
Toure.
Bellamy seems to be one of the most discontented players with the
board's decision to sack his fellow countryman. Allegedly, he headed a six-player delegation that voiced their protest to the club management
over Hughes's dismissal.
After being hired, Mancini said he had huge plans regarding signings,
adding he planned to make City champions in 2011. The Italian soccer
legend was sacked from Inter even more controversially, after landing
three consecutive Serie A titles and two Cups in the space of four years. If the rumours are true that the unsettled Inter forward
Mario Balotelli is one of his potential signings, then Mancini could
have an early revenge against his former employers.
No club had ever achieved what Barcelona have in 2009; win six
major trophies in one year. The last of the bunch came at the World Club Cup, collected last Saturday in Abu Dhabi against Estudiantes of La Plata.
The Argentinians had come tantalizingly close to winning their second
world title, the first being the Intercontinental Cup against Manchester United in 1968, but their 1-0 lead was cancelled out by Pedro Rodriguez
in the 89th minute. It was none other than Lionel Messi who gave
Barca the only trophy absent from their shelves with a bizarre goal
in the 110th minute, scored with his chest.
It is ironic that this dribbling virtuoso should have scored his
two most important goals with parts other than his feet; last May
in Rome he beat Edwin van der Sar, 11 inches taller than him, with
a looping header.
Messi's versatility played in his favour at the end of the year
when the time came for best player polls. The little 22-year old
Argentinian succeeded Cristiano Ronaldo both as the European Golden
Ball winner and as FIFA's Player of the Year, making him the most
decorated soccer player of all time, counting trophies and honours
achieved in the same year.
In order to emulate or indeed overtake his predecessor Diego Maradona, Messi would have to win the World Cup sooner or later, but at 22
he has still time: if he can avoid injury, he can expect to perform at three more World Cups, as in 2018 he will be barely 31!
Physics professor Ken Bray took a scientific look at the lethal
free kicks taken by Cristiano Ronaldo and found some similarities
between his technique and baseball.
In his book dedicated to the scientific analysis of certain soccer
moves, the University of Bath professor praised Ronaldo for his
peculiar mode of striking the ball.
"Cristiano Ronaldo takes free-kicks in a special manner. The
ball barely rotates after being struck. When Cristiano Ronaldo shoots,
the ball acts similarly to a baseball and because of this, its trajectory
is difficult to discern," said Bray to the Spanish As
newspaper.
"To our eyes, some beaten goalkeepers may appear dumb. In
truth, they are not at fault. If they are headed towards goal, the
Portuguese’s shots are very difficult to save. No one else
shoots like this, except perhaps Sunderland’s Kieran Richardson."
Since Ronaldo is yet to turn 25, his shooting skills are bound to
improve, as was the case with another supremo, Juninho Pernambuco,
who reached perfection at 30.
Other players singled out by Bray as supreme free-kick takers are
Chelsea's Didier Drogba and Arsenal's left footed Robin van Persie.
While Drogba's kicks are the most effective from the centre of the
field, the Dutchman is more dangerous when the kick is taken from the right.
Serbia's coach Radomir Antic has recommended that Real Madrid
should sign Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic as a replacement for the Brazilian-born Pepe, out until late May due to ruptured ligaments.
Fifty players have been offered to Real when it became apparent that Pepe is lost for the season, and Ivanovic seems to be the preferred
option for Madrid's human resources department.
"He has a privileged physique and never gets nervous,"
Antic told the Marca daily.
"He can play very well in various defensive positions and he has all the necessary qualities to succeed in Real. In my opinion he is better than Pepe," claimed the Serbian coach, deemed the most responsible for his country's triumphant campaign in the World Cup qualifiers.
However, there are two slight glitches in the plans laid out by
Madrid's director Jorge Valdano and coach Manuel Pellegrini. Firstly, Chelsea is refusing to weaken their squad in mid-season (they are
about to lose a couple of players to the African Nations Cup!),
and secondly, Madrid's boss Florentino Perez is reluctant to spend.
So far the president has resisted Valdano's pleas to reinforce the
squad in January, probably because he already broke all records in last summer's transfer window. So Pellegrini might have to make do with what he has available.
Former Arsenal keeper Jens Lehmann has recently been involved
in two strange incidents which attracted the undue attention of the German FA and the legal community.
A German lawyer filed a complaint against Lehmann with the district
attorney's office in Mainz over the Stuttgart's keeper's alleged assault on a fan in a parking lot.
After the game in which he was sent off for stepping on Mainz's Aristide Bance, Lehmann snatched the glasses from the face of a
supporter who had approached him and failed to return them before
being repeatedly asked to do so.
The scenes appeared in the press, which prompted the lawyer to take
legal action to teach the former international a lesson (the reports do not specify whether the lawyer was hired by the offended fan,
or he acted independently).
In any case, the German FA banned Lehmann for three games because of the red card. Just a couple of days earlier, the goalie came
under the spotlight for urinating behind the goal during a match
between Stuttgart and Unirea Urziceni in the Champions League.
