History is everywhere at United. As the striker who scored 237 goals in 409 United appearances walked through the club’s Carrington training centre last week, making a rare visit to present prizes for the Football Aid charity, his journey was slowed by the need to stop and admire photographs of old comrades such as Bobby Charlton and the late, great George Best. Law’s movement was also slightly inhibited by a recent knee operation, finally rectifying the damage that forced him to miss the 1968 European Cup final.
Absence from those Wembley festivities simply intensified his desire for glory the following season. He turns 70 next week but Law recalls the controversy of 1969 as if it were yesterday. Drawn against Milan in the semis, Busby’s team felt they were cheated out of Europe.
Arriving at Milan’s home on April 23, Law was familiar with the place from his time at Torino. “San Siro is a fantastic stadium,” he reminisced. “A lot of these big stadiums have a running track but in San Siro, the fans are right on top of you. If you are a Milan or Inter player, that’s a fantastic atmosphere to play in. For other teams, it can be intimidating. The Italians are absolutely passionate about their football.”
Milan were a good team, with Fabio Cudicini (Carlo’s dad) in goal, and boasting such outfield luminaries as Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, Giovanni Trapattoni and Gianni Rivera. Some Milan players cannily wound up the visitors, whose full-back, John Fitzpatrick, was sent off for retaliating. Read more…
David Beckham gives good face, as Madonna would say, and on the eve of a Champions League knockout tie with Manchester United he was in his element.
The action moves to the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, known to the world as the San Siro, tonight, where a more exacting reckoning awaits.
For Beckham, yesterday was a doddle, the easy part.
The ability to handle the media increases the nearer a man gets to 35; it is his ability to handle a decent full back that starts waning.
The cynical will argue that the day Manchester United pulled AC Milan out of the hat in the draw for the Champions League second round, the sound of champagne corks popping at Beckham Inc would have been louder than a 24-gun salute.
Happy days were here again. Their man would dominate the coverage around the first match, while his competitive return to Old Trafford in the second leg would be the perfect PR set-piece: an emotional, agenda-setting, headlinegrabbing affair. Read more…
The England manager has a much more important judgment call, one that could have a decisive impact on England’s chances of winning the World Cup, still to make in the coming months: whether Terry and Wayne Bridge can ever operate in the same dressing room again.
I always thought it was 50-50 whether Capello would relieve Terry of the captaincy. He gave it a week, saw that the controversy was not going to die down, and acted decisively. He will know, however,
that stripping Terry of the captaincy has not resolved the personal situation with Bridge. That relationship is compromised, whether Terry is captain or not.
It does not matter how mentally strong a player is, the thing about football is that players have to be able to rely on and trust each other. You want to tell me that the two of them in the same dressing room won’t cause problems?
It will. The situation is only made worse as they both play on the same side of the pitch, Terry as a left-sided centre back and Bridge at left-back. I can’t see Bridge having total trust in Terry. Read more…
David Beckham, as the one man here to have bridged both camps, is its leading advocate. Beckham gives support, in one sense, to the traditional if hackneyed criticism of Milan: that they are too old, too reliant on a small cabal of long-serving players, to be competitive at the highest level.
At 34, he is forced to listen to claims that he is past his best, and is almost certain to be on the bench on Tuesday to make way for such in-form fliers as Alexandre Pato and Amantino Mancini. But five games into his second spell of wearing Milan’s No 32 jersey, Beckham has the perspective to discern the change in this team, the shift from a deference to Paolo Maldini – the talismanic captain who retired last summer aged 40 – to an investment in youthful flair, as exemplified by exciting Dutch centre-forward Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. Read more…
The love rivals were handed a possible FA Cup quarter-final meeting in yesterday’s draw.
And that potential clash between Chelsea and Manchester City will be played a week after the clubs meet in the Premier League and days after England play Egypt on March 3.
A City source said: “Wayne has acted with dignity and kept his head down through all this but after all that has gone on, he doesn’t need anyone to tell him what this FA Cup game would mean.
“Everyone is motivated at City these days but if they needed any extra motivation to beat Stoke to get back to Stamford Bridge, this will be it.”
Terry and Bridge have not spoken since news broke of JT’s affair with Bridge’s ex-girlfriend Vanessa Perroncel.
If City beat Stoke in next week’s fifth-round replay they will travel to holders Chelsea in the first weekend of March.
SunSport can reveal Three Lions boss Fabio Capello WILL pick Bridge for the friendly against Egypt after his personal check on Saturday. Read more…
With exactly four months to go until England kick-off their campaign against the USA in Rustenburg, Cole faces a race against the clock to recover from a broken ankle and prove his fitness to Fabio Capello.
While it provides the Italian with a further untimely headache, England have been here all too many times before. At least they can take heart in the fact that Cole has not broken a metatarsal.
DAVID BECKHAM
The then-Manchester United midfielder broke the second metatarsal bone in his left foot during a Champions League clash with Deportivo La Coruna in April 2002. With just seven weeks until the tournament kicked off in Japan, Beckham was forced to miss the rest of the Premier League campaign but managed to recover in time to be partially fit for England’s opening match against Sweden. He went on to score the winning goal against Argentina which ensured England’s progress into the knockout phases. Read more…
Robin van Persie spurned the chance to leave Arsenal because of his fondness for the north London club.
Four teams - believed to be Chelsea, Manchester City, Juventus and Inter Milan - expressed interest in the Netherlands international, but he revealed: ‘It’s not as easy to leave Arsenal as you maybe think.’
The Gunners are without a trophy since winning the 2005 FA Cup - to date Van Persie’s only major trophy with the club and a statistic which contributed to the departures of players including Mathieu Flamini. But Van Persie, who signed from Feyenoord in 2004, said in the News of the World: ‘It is good that four teams were really interested in me but I had to turn them down. ‘Even if you want to leave, as a player, I don’t think it is easy because when you move to Arsenal you are led there by your heart.’ Van Persie has been out since November with an ankle injury incurred while playing for Holland and he believes his fitness record has hindered his development into a great of the game. Read more…
Ashley Cole’s broken ankle is a big setback for England because he is one of the genuine world-class players at Fabio Capello’s disposal.
Let’s not pretend someone can come in at left-back and be as effective as Cole — he is the best in the world.
But it’s no good crying about it. Capello has to pick another player to replace Cole for the Egypt game on March 3 and hope he shows himself a worthy contender for the World Cup should the worst happen and the Chelsea man misses out.
It’s my firm opinion that person should be Wayne Bridge, regardless of his problems at Manchester City this season and a well-documented falling-out with John Terry.
Let’s take the private matter first. The Terry-Bridge relationship should not affect Capello’s thinking — and I don’t think it will.
They are both adults and the manager will expect them to put any differences aside once they are on the football pitch. In my experience, most dressing rooms have a couple of individuals who don’t like each other or who have had a row. Read more…
DIDIER DROGBA’S incredible form continued as he helped Chelsea dump Cardiff out of the FA Cup.
The striker netted his 11th goal in his last 12 games and chipped in with two assists for the Blues.
Drogba’s 23rd goal of the season put the home side ahead before Michael Chopra levelled.
The defence of the FA Cup continues but Chelsea were made to work hard by a Cardiff side that gave as good as they got in the first half.
Didier Drogba once again presented Chelsea with a great platform, scoring within seconds of the start for the second home game running.
But unlike the Arsenal match it was the visitors who scored next, Michael Chopra finding the net with a chance that was not their first of the match by any means.
There was plenty to talk about in the Chelsea dressing room at half-time and whatever was said had an effect. Cardiff were not without opportunities second-half, especially in a period before the home side’s fourth goal, but Chelsea began to assert our authority when Michael Ballack scored the second soon after the restart.
Daniel Sturridge continued his record of finding the net in every round so far with the well-finished third and substitute Salomon Kalou headed in the best goal of the game close to the end.
There had been no surprises in Carlo Ancelotti’s line-up. It was the one named yesterday. Read more…
