North Macedonia shock Italy: one of football’s biggest ever upsets?

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Written by northsouth

Category: Sport

Published: 25 March 2022

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PALERMO, ITALY - Italy’s shock 1-0 defeat at home to North Macedonia means the European champions will not appear at this year’s Fifa World Cup. A dramatic finale in the play-off semi-final saw Aleksandar Trajkovski score a last-gasp winner for North Macedonia, who will now play Portugal for a place in Qatar.

Beating England in the Euro 2020 final last summer is “now a bittersweet memory” for the Italian national team, said The Guardian. Like the play-offs in 2018, the Azzurri have failed to qualify for a second successive World Cup finals.

It is “truly a sporting disaster” for Italy, said the BBC. “Come the 2026 finals, assuming they make it, the Azzurri and their fans will have been without World Cup football for 12 years.”

Veteran defender Giorgio Chiellini said the Italian squad were “destroyed and crushed” after the defeat in Palermo on Thursday night. “There is a great disappointment. From September to today we have made mistakes and we have paid for them.”

“It was a nightmare,” Italy midfielder Marco Verratti told RAI Sport. “Looking around the locker room, we had the players to challenge for the tournament itself, yet here we are talking about a disaster. It’s so tough to go from hero to zero.”

Italian newspapers were “left in dismay” following the defeat, the Daily Mail reported. Tuttosport led with a simple headline of “Nooooooooo!” while Corriere dello Sport’s front page had a headline that read “To Hell”.

Italy’s top-selling sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport described the seismic result as “Out of this World”, Sky Sports reported. Head coach Roberto Mancini has been left “devastated” and is considering his future.

Portugal need to ‘respect’ North Macedonia

Trajkovski’s stoppage-time winner sparked “wild celebrations” among the North Macedonian players, staff and travelling supporters, said Sky News. For the country, which gained independence in 1991 with the breakup of Yugoslavia, this was undoubtedly its best-ever result.

North Macedonia are now just 90 minutes away from reaching consecutive tournaments, the BBC reported. Before qualifying for Euro 2020, they had never reached a Euros or World Cup. With Portugal up next, the journey is “not yet complete”. However, the result in Italy is “unquestionably the upset of the play-offs”.

Portugal head coach Fernando Santos had warned his players that North Macedonia could shock Italy – and he was proved right, Reuters reported. Portugal will now “need to show the same respect to North Macedonia that we would to Italy”, Santos told a news conference. “I told you before we could be playing them, those games are not a joke, it’s like a final and anything can happen. You have to face it with the focus and concentration that it deserves. A team that goes to Italy and beats the European champions doesn’t need introductions.”

‘Seemingly impossible results’

International football is “full of upsets”, and it’s “all the better for it”, said PlanetFootball. North Macedonia’s victory over Italy is the latest in international football’s “strong tradition of seemingly impossible results”. Just five years ago North Macedonia were ranked 166th in the world, but “now they have knocked out the European Champions to take one giant step towards the greatest tournament in the entire sporting world”.

How does the victory compare to some of the other biggest shocks, The Sun asked. “The Italians’ absence from Qatar this winter will go down as one of the biggest surprises in international football history.”

World’s top ten highest-paid football players in 2021

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Written by northsouth

Category: Sport

Published: 24 August 2021

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PARIS - Paris Saint-Germain forwards Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe - or “MNM” as they are now known - make up one of football’s finest front threes, said Goal. However, it’s not just on the pitch, with goals and assists, where they are expected to cash in.

The PSG trio also feature in the top ten highest-paid footballers in the world in 2021, according to Radio Times. Here we take a look at which players make up football’s rich list.

Lionel Messi: £960,000 per week

In May, when he was still with Barcelona, Messi was named second on Forbes’s list of the world’s highest-paid athletes in 2021 with annual earnings of $130m (£94.7m). His move to the French capital on a two-year contract has seen the Argentinian superstar land an “inevitably massive pay day”, Radio Times said. His deal is worth £25m per year as a base salary after tax - which works out at approximately £50m per year before tax.

Cristiano Ronaldo: £900,000 per week

Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo earns around £900,000 a week at Juventus, according to L’Equipe – that’s an impressive annual salary of £46.7m. The 36-year-old has been linked with a move away from Turin and his current deal runs out next summer – meaning Juve are at risk of losing him for nothing, Sky Sports reports.

Neymar: £606,000 per week

PSG star Neymar, who is once again Messi’s team-mate after their stint at Barcelona, ranks third on the list of football’s highest-paid players. In August 2017 PSG paid Barca a world-record transfer fee of £200m to bring the Brazilian to France and he earns more than £30m per year before bonuses.

Luis Suarez: £575,000 per week

Luis Suarez, another ex-Barcelona striker, made the move across Spain to join Atletico Madrid on a two-year contract in September 2020. With 21 goals in 32 La Liga games, the 34-year-old “has been worth every penny of his wage” as he fired his club to the title, Radio Times said.

Antoine Griezmann: £575,000 per week

Antoine Griezmann went the other way to Suarez – leaving Atletico for Barcelona in 2019. Costing Barca €120m, the French World Cup winner is the fifth most expensive transfer in history and No.5 on the highest-earning player list.

Gareth Bale: £500,000 per week

Welsh forward Gareth Bale spent last season on loan at Tottenham Hotspur but he has now returned to Real Madrid and is back in the first-team squad. Bale has one year left on his contract at the Bernabeu, where he earns a cool half-a-mill a week.

Kylian Mbappe: £410,000 per week

French striker Kylian Mbappe currently earns a £410,000 weekly wage at PSG and is No.7 on the rich list. However, the 22-year-old could soon be set for a huge pay day. Spanish newspaper Marca reports that Mbappe has refused to accept multiple offers to renew his PSG contract. He is linked with Real Madrid while an unnamed Premier League club has reportedly made a bid.

Kevin De Bruyne: £385,000 per week

In May Man City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne signed a new four-year contract that will keep him at the Premier League champions until 2025. The Times reports that the Belgian international negotiated the new deal himself – and this makes him the best-paid player in the English top-flight.

David De Gea: £375,000 per week

Manchester United No.1 David De Gea is the only goalkeeper in the top ten and was the highest-paid player in the Premier League. However, Kevin De Bruyne’s new contract at Man City “eclipses” the £375,000-a-week deal that De Gea signed at Old Trafford in 2019, The Times said.

Robert Lewandowski: £350,000 per week

Taking the final spot in the top ten is Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski. The Poland captain has a contract until 2023 which is worth £350,000 per week. According to Sky Sports News Lewandowski wants a “new challenge” away from the German club, who have valued him at more than £100m. The broadcaster has been told that Lewandowski, 33, is happy at Bayern but wants to secure a move to another top European club before the age of 35.

Emotional Messi says he wasn’t prepared to leave Barcelona

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Written by northsouth

Category: Sport

Published: 08 August 2021

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By TALES AZZONI

BARCELONA — Struggling to control his emotions, Lionel Messi said Sunday in his farewell to Barcelona that he wasn’t prepared to leave the club.

Messi began crying even before he started speaking at his farewell ceremony at the Camp Nou Stadium, and had to stop talking to compose himself few times.

“This is very hard for me after so many years, after being here my entire life,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared.”

Messi said that, unlike last year when he asked to leave, he had his mind set on staying with Barcelona and did everything possible to make it happen. He added that he was surprised to hear he wouldn’t be able to stay because of the club’s debt and the Spanish league’s financial fair play regulations.

“In these last few days I was thinking about what I would say today, but to be honest I couldn’t come up with anything. I was blocked, like I still am right now,” Messi said. “I was convinced that we would remain with the club, which is our home.”

Messi’s family and some of his teammates were at the Camp Nou for the emotional farewell. He was applauded several times by those in the audience.

Messi called his unexpected departure from the club “the most difficult” moment of his career.

“There were many tough moments, many losses, but in the end you always went back to training and to playing again,” he said. “This is different. There is no going back. This is the end and now a new story begins.”

Messi said he hopes to return to the club in some capacity one day and that he wished he could have said goodbye to fans in a match with a capacity crowd chanting his name.

Messi avoided speaking specifically about his future, saying he received offers from several clubs after the announcement that he would leave the Catalan club. When asked about Paris Saint-Germain, Messi admitted it was “a possibility.”

Barcelona announced Thursday it could not keep its greatest player because it wasn’t able to fit a new contract within the Spanish league’s financial fair-play regulations. The club’s salary cap has been significantly slashed because of its huge debt. President Joan Laporta blamed the club’s struggles on the coronavirus pandemic and particularly on the previous administration led by Josep Bartomeu.

Messi asked to leave at the end of the 2019-20 season but had his request denied by Bartomeu. The Argentina star had agreed to stay and had reached agreement with Barcelona on a new contract, but the club wasn’t able to make it work because of its dire financial situation.

Messi spent nearly two decades with the Catalan club after arriving from Argentina as a teenager to play in its youth squads. He made his first-team debut as a 17-year-old in 2004, then played 17 seasons with the main squad. He helped the club win the Champions League four times, the Spanish league 10 times, the Copa del Rey seven times and the Spanish Super Cup eight times.

Messi leaves as Barcelona’s all-time leading scorer with 672 goals. He played in 778 matches with the club, also a record. He is also the overall top scorer in the Spanish league with 474 goals from 520 matches.

He led the Spanish league in scoring in eight seasons, and was the top scorer in the Champions League six times. His 26 goals against Real Madrid are a record for the “clasico” matches against Barcelona’s fiercest rival.