Paper Talk: Special One edition

Paper Talk ... the best yarns and videos doing the rounds. Source: Javier Soriano / AFP

Right, there's so much to talk about this week so let's get straight into it.

Jose Mourinho. The Special One. Wants to be loved. Chelsea. Will you love me, again? 

It’s the yarn that managed to overshadow Borussia Dortmund’s magnificent win, in a way only Mourinho can. 

The loss wasn't about Madrid missing their 10th UCL crown. It was Mourinho missing his third, as the manager bemoaned the pervading hatred for him in the Spanish capital. 

While Iker Casillas's passion for the club shone through, Mourinho’s focus was elsewhere.

"For those that criticise him, and their numbers and intensity grows, this was another reflection of his ego," the Guardian’s Sid Lowe wrote of the press-conference.  

Gutted ... Iker Casillas. Source: AFP

Was he being cocky, or was he being desperate?

The Sun's Rob Beasley writes: "in the past (confrontation and conflict) it has always involved opponents and the media. At Madrid it has been a civil war within the club. The tight, unwavering team spirit he forged at Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan has never been repeated at Madrid."

Either way, it seems Jose just wants to go 'home', to Chelsea, the club he unceremoniously split with in 2007, costing Roman Abramovich £18m. 

It's a big about-face from the owner. What do the players actually think?

"Everyone who loves Chelsea hopes Mourinho will return," Branislav Ivanovic told Vecernje Novosti.

"As players we don't have any confirmed information that he would return. But we would all like it to happen because he is one of the best coaches in the world.

"He is immensely respected by all for what he has done for the club.

"With him we can be stronger as a club. It would add another dimension to Chelsea, and it would be sure to help us become one of the main contenders for the title."

The Daily Mail reports that it will cost the London club as much as £12million to secure him from the Bernabeu, where he is contracted until 2016, and may have to pay his wages for a season.

But according to the Daily Mirror, money is no object. 

"Jose Mourinho crashed out of the Champions League last night, but will be given an incredible £100m transfer kitty to rebuild Chelsea if he makes the move back to the Blues this summer."

"Luckily, though, he's going to get some toys from Roman Abramovich, who's planning to give Mourinho a £100m WARCHEST," The Guardian adds. "With it, he will sign Everton's Marouane Fellaini, Porto's João Moutinho, Real Madrid's Angel di María, Bayer Leverkusen's André Schürrle, Atlético Madrid's Radamel Falcao and Partizan Belgrade's Lazar Markovic. Plus he might give Frank Lampard a new contract …"

You can’t escape Jose-mania. It’s everywhere. 

 "Jose is a drug, a heady, divisive compound of thrills and danger," the Daily Mail's Rick Sharma writes. "Are we ready for that again? Is English football prepared for what will follow?"

Meanwhile, Rafa Benitez – remember him, Chelsea’s manager – is trying to steer Chelsea into the Europa League final on Friday ... 

MERRY-GO-ROUND

With Pep Guardiola going to Bayern Munich, could Jupp Heynckes be Bernabeu bound? The popular nominee so far is Carlo Ancelotti, and Paris Saint Germain had reportedly been testing Arsene Wenger’s resolve to try lure him to Paris as a replacement. 

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Txiki Begiristain, Manchester City's director of football, has met the agent of Malaga coach Manuel Pellegrini, about the prospects of the job at Etihad Stadium.

LESSONS LEARNED

A bit late? 

Is Fergie interested in any more Arsenal players after RVP's success? 

"I don’t know but he will not sign them from us," Arsene Wenger declared. 

Good decision. Now enjoy the video at the top of the page.

IN OTHER NEWS …

Mourinho's former star midfielder Deco, 35, has failed a drug test playing for Brazilian champions Fluminense, testing positive for banned diuretic furosemide. His lawyers blame "contaminated vitamins".

RODGERS WANTS ‘DEPTH AND QUALITY’ 

Seventh isn’t good enough for Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers will hope for another successful transfer plunge after luring Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge in January. 

Swansea City’s Ashley Williams, as a replacement for the retiring Jamie Carragher, Reading defender Alex Pearce, and Ajax forward Christian Eriksen have been linked with Anfield. 

WHAT? 

Huseyin Akoglu, in Turkey's second division, becomes the new Scorpion king. Invoking memories of Colombian goalkeeper Rene Higuita, he fired a stunner against Polatli Bugsasspor.

But the video below, not so good. 

We'll end with a good'n from the AFC Cup

LE PROBLEM? WHAT LE PROBLEM? 

No French mutiny in Newcastle, re-assure Papiss Cisse and Cheick Tiote.

"Every player is together. We are totally focussed on Saturday's game at West Ham and the two games after that. We have a strong bond and we want the best for our club, our manager and our wonderful fans," said Cisse.

"We are not happy about recent results. Nobody is happy when they lose, but this has only made us stronger as a group and we will come through this together. There is no divide in the team."

Tiote added: "We want to let the fans know that all of the players are committed and we are in this together.

"We will fight to get out of this problem and we know our fans will help us to do that. They are incredible."

The provocative article about dressing room unrest has prompted Newcastle to ban The Daily Telegraph until they apologise.  

CAN'T HANDLE IT

Borussia Dortmund hung on for dear life in the Champions League, but chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke couldn't hang on for the ride. 

Insert pun about ****ing yourself, here. 

"It seems like we only can do it with drama.

"For the first time in my life I had to give up due to heart problems.

"I went to the toilet for the last minutes, locked myself in, covered my ears and looked at my watch.

"I had all kinds of thoughts going through my head."

This Bayern fan, below, had no such problems. He managed to jag a celebration with his heroes before security intervened! 

TIRED TEVEZ 

Manchester City or Boca Juniors?

"If it was down to me then I would return tomorrow because I will love Boca until I die," he told Argentinian TV station Canal 9.

"Maybe I will return to Boca when I am 33. It’s very difficult for any Argentinian club to pay Manchester City my market value.

"If Milan have offered €20million (£17m) to Manchester City when I was in a worse moment of form then what would they pay now?"

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

The Daily Mail reports that Manchester City owner Sheik Mansour of Abu Dhabi is on the cusp of a $100million deal to start a new Major League Soccer team in New York.

They hope to have the deal complete for City's clash with Chelsea in New York at the end of May. 

AND WE THOUGHT NRL/AFL PLAYERS HAD TIME ON THEIR HANDS ...

Didn't expect this from classy Italian midfielder Andrea Pirlo. 

"After the wheel, the best invention is the PlayStation. 

"Me and Nesta was a classico of our time at Milanello. We’d get in early, have breakfast at 9 then close ourselves off in our room to challenge each other, train, have lunch and then it was back in our room again until 4 in the afternoon.

"Our battles were pure adrenaline. I chose Barcelona, Sandrino did too. Barca against Barca.

"The first player I’d take was Samuel Eto’o, the fastest out of everyone, though I often lost. I’d throw the joystick, demand a rematch and lose again, but I couldn’t use the excuse that the coach of his team was better than mine; Pep Guardiola for him, Pep Guardiola for me."

Pirlo also revealed this week how close he came to joining Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid at various stages in his career – until Silvio Berlusconi intervened!

View the original article here

Paper Talk: the Suarez edition

Paper Talk ... Patrice Evra enjoys the last laugh over Luis Suarez. Source: AFP / FOX SPORTS

We're going off early with this week's Paper Talk.

You could call it the grand final edition, some light-hearted fun after two Championships in three days, courtesy of Central Coast Mariners and Manchester United. 

But it’s more like the good, bad and ugly edition, courtesy of Luis Suarez. 

If this is a wrap of the papers, it has to be dominated by the Liverpool talisman, who has polarised opinion since munching on Branislav Ivanovic on Monday. 

The Cannibal of Ajax returned, taking the meaning of feeding off scraps in the box to a whole new level … 

Plenty want the 26-year-old banished from Anfield, with many proclaiming the higher moral standards and proud history of the club demands such action. 

Despite Liverpool’s swift public response – a vast improvement on last year’s PR debacle involving Patrice Evra and Kenny Dalglish’s reaction – and determination not to undermine the club’s storied values and ethics, Suarez will remain at the club.

He was always going to. 

Gary Neville gives a players’ perspective: "As I have had team-mates who have done wrong and as I have done wrong myself in the past, do I throw you overboard? I would think they have let their team-mates and their football club down and created pressure.

"But I would never for one minute think, 'throw the man overboard'. The idea Suarez can never play for Liverpool again or the idea he should be thrown out of the country, for me, is nonsense and an overreaction.

"He has made a big mistake. He knows that. He has got to try and win people back. He has got to get better. When you make mistakes, you have got to get better."

How can Brendan Rodgers afford to let go of a player capable of scoring 30 or more goals per season, at a price, arguably, lowered by his current ‘damaged goods’ status? 

They can’t. 

Former Liverpool and USA goalkeeper Brad Friedel summed it up: "(Liverpool’s owners are) businessmen and won't want to just get rid of a £22m investment. They will try to work with him."

So, as the Guardian's Andy Hunter writes, "the prized asset continues to come before reputation in football".

But as we've seen time and time in Australian sport, where players like Todd Carney, and even now, possibly Josh Dugan, re-emerge in the NRL after being cut by their club for misdemeanours, the player inevitably re-emerges in another shirt to haunt their former employer. 

So Liverpool keep their asset, he'll continue to score goals and remain the focal point of Brendan Rodgers' side. 

But ... 

"We’ll all meet again in our trenches again some time in the future, dissecting some bizarre incident, arguing whether the levels of denunciation are appropriate," writes The Telegraph's Chris Bascombe.

"What’s that you say? There may not be a next time?

"Suarez’s career history suggests there will always be a next time." 

EVRA’S LAST LAUGH

Check out the video at the top of the page; as Patrice Evra enjoys his lap of honour at Old Trafford, a spare arm was thrown for him to enjoy, right on cue. 

HE ONLY BIT HIM! 

Is biting as bad as it gets or are one of these choices the worst?

Say what? 

That’s been a bit of coffee-shop talk since Ivanovic’s arm proved too delectable to ignore. 

He didn’t lunge in dangerously like Wigan’s Callum McManaman recently, or even Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero on David Luiz recently. 

No one was hurt. 

But here’s the thing – it might not be a ‘football’ crime, per se. But it’s a life crime. 

Over to the best summary I’ve heard of the matter: "if a dog had done that, he'd be put down," Barry Glendenning mused on The Guardian’s podcast. 

When you put it that way ... 

LUIS, YOU SHOULD’VE TRIED THIS

Maybe the Uruguayan is just misunderstood? 

Look, maybe he was trying to imitate Nice defender Renato Civelli in the above video, who puckered up and tried to land a big sloppy one on Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Ligue 1 in France on the weekend. 

For the record, Paris Saint Germain won 3-0.

And big Zlatan looked about as best pleased as Ivanovic, who still hasn’t accepted Suarez’s apology. 

WORST ACTS? 

I think we’ve found one. 

Talk about seeing red … it shouldn’t be flowing from the referee’s scone! 

Check out this clip from Indonesia. 

All we'll say is Raya Persiwa's Pieter Rumaropen will be joining Suarez on detention for a very long time.

BENFICA

To some football from around the world and my word, this is some football. 

Benfica beat Sporting Lisbon 2-0 on the weekend – but this 75th minute strike from Rodrigo Lima is as good as you’ll see, rating on the brilliant individual and team-goal radar. 

IF YOU CAN UNDERSTAND HIM, HE'S DELIGHTED

Credit to Manchester United, and Sir Alex Ferguson. 

It's the red half of Manchester being the noisy ones today, with Fergie happily gloating about his Premier League triumph. 

"Remember what this feels like," he told them at the end of last term, according to The Guardian, "and make sure they never get the chance to laugh at Manchester United again." 

Fergie was doing the laughing today, responding to Roberto Mancini's jibe that there was nothing between the teams. 

"I read his quote and he is right in one respect. In the games between us there was nothing in it but in the other games it has been different.

"We are a far better team than Manchester City at beating other teams. He doesn’t recognise we have been better in the other games."

While Roberto Mancini was busy planning his wardrobe for 2012-2013, Fergie was furiously plotting revenge. 

And that, Ryan Giggs says, is the secret to his success.

"That's the key to the manager's success," said Giggs. "The way he evolves and the way he is always looking forward and shows with the amount of young players we have in the team.

"These are exciting players and players who are going to be here for a very long time. They'll hopefully carry on that tradition of competing for trophies."

So no sooner does Robin van Persie make all Arsenal fans sink in their seat, with all United fans and neutrals watching his, volley over and over again, reports linking Fergie with another high profile attacking weapon escalate. 

This time, it's Borussia Dortmund's Robert Lewandowski. 

The Daily Telegraph reports: "Dortmund informed Lewandowski of a United bid last summer and, although the Champions League semi-finalists rejected the offer, the 24-year-old made it clear to the club that he wanted the transfer to be sanctioned."

For a fleeting moment, we were wondering what was going on at FIFA HQ on Monday. Were we finally getting some answers, at the same as some interesting reports began surfacing about more mis-used FFA money. 

The @SeppBlatter and the @FifaWorldCup accounts proclaimed: 

"FIFA executives held a meeting regarding the decision to host the 2022 World Cup in £Qatar.

"It was decided that the president Sepp Blatter is to step down due to corruption charges."

"Blatter" replied: "So what if I took money from Qatari prince? I am the family's bread earner."

Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility. 

View the original article here