Inter Milan Target Plays Down Transfer Rumours: ‘Just Speculation, No Offers Yet'
The 25-year-old spoke to ESPN, via FCInterNews. He addressed his future and stated that there are 'no offers' for him at the moment.
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Links have emerged between Inter Milan and Palmeiras midfielder Richard Rios over the last couple days.
Reportedly, the Colombian international has come onto the Nerazzurri's radar as a possible replacement for Hakan Calhanoglu in the event they lose him to Galatasaray or another club.
Rios has a release clause in his contract worth €100 million. However, it would not take that fee to sign the 25-year-old from Palmeiras.
Meanwhile, Premier League side West Ham United have reportedly also made an offer for Rios.
Inter Target Richard Rios Called Transfer Rumours 'Just Speculation'
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – JUNE 28: Richard Rios #8 of Palmeiras walks onto the pitch prior to the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 round of 16 match between SE Palmeiras and Botafogo FR at Lincoln Financial Field on June 28, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by)
Reported Inter Milan target Richard Rios said of his future that 'what I know is the same thing you know.'
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'It's all just speculation,' said the Colombian.
'No offers have come into the club yet.'
'So there's no way to answer that question,' Rios said about his future. 'Because nothing concrete has come to me yet.'
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New York Times
29 minutes ago
- New York Times
Chelsea, Estevao and the race for Brazil's best: ‘Stockpiling', smart or both?
The scene, as Chelsea's players flocked to Estevao at the final whistle at Lincoln Financial Field, was telling. There was a language barrier between them, but Cole Palmer and Liam Delap asked their Portuguese team-mate Dario Essugo to tell the Brazilian teenager just what they thought of him. That Club World Cup quarter-final was Estevao's last game for Palmeiras before he joins Chelsea in a transfer worth an initial £29.3million ($40m) and potentially £49m depending on how well he performs at Stamford Bridge. The stunning goal he scored, thrashing the ball past Robert Sanchez from a tight angle, was a parting gift to the Palmeiras fans as well as the perfect getting-to-know-you to his new team-mates and supporters — well, perfect once Chelsea emerged victorious on the night, anyway. Advertisement 'Congratulations, Chelsea,' Palmeiras coach Abel Ferreira told reporters after Friday's game. 'You have an amazing player.' There was a slight note of caution. 'He is a kid that is 18 years old, so Chelsea need to take care of him,' Ferreira said. 'They need to embrace him because in the beginning, for sure, he will make mistakes. I am sure Chelsea have all the conditions to support him. He's a fantastic player, but he needs the help, for sure.' From everything we hear out of Chelsea, they are acutely aware of what a special talent they are signing: a precociously gifted forward who made his league debut at 16 and already, just two months past his 18th birthday, has 83 appearances for Palmeiras (and 27 goals) to his name, plus five full caps for Brazil. Chelsea made their move last summer — and everything they have seen over the past 12 months has heightened their belief they have struck gold. GO DEEPER Estevao: The Palmeiras prodigy bound for Chelsea who sees the football pitch as his 'amusement park' Brazilian clubs and their fans have grown accustomed to waving their most exciting prospects off at a tender age. It is a reality of 21st-century football's economic landscape, in which players and clubs in South America accept the benefits of a food chain that sucks most of the brightest young talents to Europe. It is one of the reasons why the Brazilian clubs' relative success at the Club World Cup — Palmeiras reaching the quarter-finals, Fluminense facing Chelsea in Tuesday's semi-final — has been one of the tournament's most uplifting aspects. Chelsea have begun to rival Real Madrid, Benfica and Porto among the most active movers in the Brazilian youth market. In January 2023, they signed midfielder Andrey Santos, then 18, from Vasco da Gama in a projected £18m deal. Six months later they signed forwards Angelo Gabriel and Deivid Washington, both 18 at the time, from Santos in separate deals which, combined, were worth well in excess of £25m to the Brazilian club. Last summer, a deal was struck for Estevao. Corinthians left-back Denner was still 16 in January, yet to make a first-team appearance, when he and his club accepted a deal that will see him move to London after he turns 18. Advertisement 'It's not what I wanted,' Corinthians president Augusto Melo told Brazilian website Meu Timao, saying the deal would earn his club a minimum €8m (£6.9m, $9.4m) and potentially up to €15m (£12.9m, $17.6m). 'But in the context, it's an excellent sale.' Chelsea clearly believe it is excellent business for them too: another addition to the vast number of young players they have signed over the past few seasons. The merits or otherwise of that transfer strategy have been debated at length in these pages; what some of us might see as a stockpiling of young talent, Chelsea and their owners regard as the smartest recruitment model around. GO DEEPER Chelsea's aggressive youth recruitment means days of signing players at peak are over Estevao looks likely to become the poster boy for that model, a brilliant talent who is already, at 18, one of Brazilian football's biggest stars. Like Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo and Endrick when they joined Real Madrid from Flamengo, Santos and Palmeiras respectively, all at the age of 18, Estevao is regarded as a player ready to take Europe by storm — even if, as his coach Perreira and his future team-mate Palmer pointed out, there will be times when patience is required. The difficulty with this model is not the extreme talents, of which Estevao appears to be one. For every Vinicius Jr or Rodrygo, there are so many more young imports from South America who are signed by big European clubs in a far more speculative manner — and who move to Europe far too early, finding their development stagnates as they go from playing fiercely competitive first-team football in Brazil to coming to terms with being a peripheral member of a bloated squad at a big club in an unfamiliar country, an ocean away from home. 'It works well for the Brazilian clubs, who in some cases are now building their entire business model around selling 'promises' to Europe,' says journalist and broadcaster Tim Vickery, who has reported on Brazilian football since moving to the country in 1994. 'It has worked extremely well for someone like Vinicius Jr. But there are so many examples of players who jumped way too soon. I feel sorry for some of these players who are surrounded by influences — it can be their club, their agents, members of their family — who only think of the financial benefits to them and don't think about the player's career.' Advertisement As Vickery puts it, European clubs 'all want the next Vini Jr'. He feels Estevao is talented enough to put himself into that category. 'But a lot of the young players European clubs sign from Brazil are just punts,' he says. 'A lot of them won't come off. A lot of them are playing first-team football in Brazil at a very young age. Then they're sold to Europe after a handful of appearances and, in a lot of cases, they struggle.' One example, Vickery says, is Luis Guilherme, who was signed by West Ham United in June last year in a deal worth £25.5m, having scored one goal in 30 appearances (eight starts, 22 from the bench) for Palmeiras. In his first season at West Ham, the forward sampled just 150 minutes of Premier League football. In his solitary start, away to Wolverhampton Wanderers, he was substituted at half-time. He is still only 19 and was bought with long-term development in mind. But it cannot be easy to develop when, rather than playing first-team football for Palmeiras, you are kicking heels on the bench for a Premier League team, restricted to the odd fleeting cameo. In April 2021, Manchester City announced the acquisition of Kayky, then 17, who had made his first-team debut for Fluminense just six weeks earlier. He was initially a source of great excitement when he arrived in Manchester, making a couple of brief appearances from the bench, but a couple of loan spells — at Pacos de Ferreira in Portugal and Bahia in Brazil — brought only glimpses of his potential before his career was derailed further by an anterior cruciate ligament injury. He was sold earlier this year to Bahia, who are part of the City Football Group, and is yet to establish himself in their starting line-up. Another of those Vickery puts in the 'punt' category is Washington, who was snapped up by Chelsea after breaking into the first team at Santos in the spring of 2023, scoring against Bahia and Vasco in his first two starts in Brazil's Serie A. In his first season at Chelsea, he made three first-team appearances from the bench, but most of his action came for the club's under-21 team, either in the Premier League's Professional Development League or against third-tier opposition in the Vertu Trophy. Upon rejoining Santos on loan earlier this year, he told Brazilian reporters he was 'coming back at much higher level than in 2023', but so far nine of his 11 appearances have come from the subs' bench, which suggests a lack of exposure to first-team football in England has left him battling to get back to his previous level. Angelo was a 'huge hope', Vickery says, making his Santos debut at 15 and making 129 appearances by the time Chelsea signed him at 18. He impressed in a couple of pre-season matches before being loaned to Strasbourg, also owned by Chelsea's owner BlueCo, and was then sold at a profit to Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr — nice business for Chelsea and another nice earner for the player, still only 20, but somewhere along the way he lost his place in Brazil's development teams. Vickery is effusive about the potential of Santos, who made a big impression on loan at Strasbourg last season, recently won his second Brazil cap and has been part of Chelsea's Club World Cup squad, acquitting himself well in the quarter-final victory over Palmeiras on Friday. At the same time, he wonders whether the midfielder, now 21, joined the right club in January 2023 given that by the end of the following transfer window they had also committed around £280m to the signings of Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, Lesley Ugochukwu, of whom Fernandez was the oldest at 22 (now 24). Even if the nature of Chelsea's recruitment strategy is very clear, the pathway for many of the young players arriving at Stamford Bridge is not. Advertisement Chelsea have been through something like this before. If their strategy over the past couple of years is characterised in some quarters as being something new, daring or groundbreaking, it is in part because their previous wave of investments in young Brazilian talent, under Roman Abramovich's ownership, made so little impact. There was a strong connection between Chelsea and Brazil during the Abramovich years, in part owing to the relationships between the ownership and some agents who were highly influential in the South American market. Some of the players they signed were already established in Europe, some (such as David Luiz, Ramires, Willian, Diego Costa and Thiago Silva), others (such as Alex and Oscar) were bought straight from Brazil. GO DEEPER The end of Chelsea's Brazilian experiment But there was also, like now, a concerted investment in teenage Brazilian talent. And it was hugely unsuccessful for club and players alike. Lucas Piazon, Wallace Oliveira, Nathan and Kenedy were all among the brightest prospects when they arrived at Chelsea between 2011 and 2015 from Sao Paulo, Fluminense, Atletico Paranaense and Fluminense respectively. Kenedy fared best by far, but even he only managed as many Premier League starts (six) as loan spells in his seven years on Chelsea's books. The combined Chelsea experience of that quartet amounts to 26 years, 22 loan spells and only 43 appearances (40 of which were by Kenedy). Wallace and Nathan never played a first-team game. Absurdly, by the time he left the club in 2021, Lucas Piazon was their longest-serving player but had not made a first-team appearance for almost nine years. By 2019, on his eighth loan spell, he told Portuguese newspaper A Bola he was 'tired' of the whole experience and that 'there comes a time in your career when that makes no sense anymore'. Rather than blame Chelsea, he blamed himself for believing there was a pathway for him when, in hindsight, he could see there was not. So, no, there is nothing new about accumulating vast numbers of young players from Brazil and elsewhere, securing them on long-term contracts and loaning them out again and again in the hope that one or two of them will develop into first-team players — all at the same time as continuing to make expensive additions to the first-team squad, which leads to a situation where the pathway becomes more and more congested every year. Piazon eventually moved on to Braga and, at 31, is still in Portugal with AVS. Nathan, 29, is now back in Brazil and on the fringes of the squad at Gremio. Kenedy, also 29, was recently loaned from Spain's Real Valladolid to Mexican club Pachuca, for whom he appeared in the Club World Cup group stage. There is little trace of Wallace, 31, since a brief spell at Brazilian club Sampaio Correa-RJ. Of the 90 appearances listed on his career profile on Transfermarkt, 30 were for Fluminense before he left for Chelsea at 18. Vickery is asked whether players like Piazon, Kenedy, Wallace and Nathan are cited as cautionary tales in Brazil. 'Not really,' he says. 'They hadn't really done anything here in Brazil. Talented players, but they were 'promises' rather than 'realities'. Even if it's the right player going to the right club, nothing is certain. But if it's the right player going to the wrong club at the wrong time… .' Advertisement Estevao is a different matter entirely, he says. Endrick likewise. These are extreme talents who, all things being equal, already look equipped to thrive in European football. But still, something nags. Is Chelsea the right club for Estevao? Is Real Madrid the right club for Endrick? It could be, in both cases, but both have joined clubs where there is such an array of attacking talent and such intense competition for a starting place. There was something striking that Estevao's agent Andre Cury said in March about the reason his client chose Chelsea, telling Ge Globo they were 'the only club that saw (Estevao) as a No 10', i.e. playing in a central role rather than on the wing. Cury added he 'might be wrong' about that, but that only heightens the sense of confusion about just how Chelsea plan to accommodate all these young attacking players, given that Enzo Fernandez, Palmer and new signing Joao Pedro might have designs on that No 10 role, as well as different interpretations as to how to play it. For the immediate future, Estevao looks a better bet for the right wing. But then so does Portugal international Pedro Neto, a £54m acquisition from last summer. And so does Ecuador international Kendry Paez, 18, who has just arrived from Independiente del Valle and is expected to join Strasbourg on loan. And so does Portugal Under-21 international Geovany Quenda, also 18, who will arrive from Sporting next summer. And when clubs object to the use of the word 'stockpiling', it comes back to the question of how many of the world's best teenagers any one club needs in one position — and whether such recruitment strategies, not unique to Chelsea, are healthy for the game or for the players in question. In many ways, Joao Pedro is the most fascinating counterpoint to all of this. He was not regarded in Brazil as an elite talent when he left Fluminense for Watford as an 18-year-old in January 2020. It was the type of deal that easily could have gone wrong given the managerial turnover at Vicarage Road, but he made a success of the move and then did likewise at Brighton & Hove Albion. He has joined Chelsea at 23 with more than 200 career appearances to his name — a markedly different career trajectory to some of those who have gone straight to the biggest clubs and missed an important stage of their development. Another counterpoint is Fluminense forward Jhon Arias, who has been one of the outstanding performers at this Club World Cup but, at 27, is a relatively late bloomer in his native Colombia and might find it is too late to secure a move to a big European club even if he wishes to. 'The big European clubs don't want to sign the best players in South America anymore,' Vickery says. 'They're not looking at the likes of Jhon Arias. They want the best prospects, not the best players. They want to get them in their club or in their structure now, when they're young — rather than letting Benfica, Porto, Brighton or whoever sign them and then ending up paying £60m for them in a couple of years' time.' Advertisement There is a certain business logic to that; from a cynical perspective, if a £10m investment fails to live up to expectations, the financial downside for the buying club is relatively small — and in many cases, he will be sold to a club lower down the food chain. That risk is reduced further if, for example, a club is able to sell to another club in the same ownership group, as with Manchester City selling Kayky to Bahia or Chelsea selling to Strasbourg after the Portugal Under-21 international Diego Moreira had made a solitary Carabao Cup appearance for the club. But inevitably, there can be collateral damage to some of these players' careers. Some of them might be inclined to look at what Flamengo, Palmeiras and Fluminense have done at this Club World Cup and wonder whether their careers would have been better served by staying in Brazil a little longer — even if their bank balances might not. The reality is that not every player is a Vinicius Jr. These players are exceptions rather than the rule. Chelsea have every reason to believe they have found another such exception in Estevao. But that is unlikely to deter them whenever the next hot prospect in Brazilian football emerges, which is usually any minute now.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Report – ‘Progress Made' In Inter & AC Milan Meeting With City On San Siro But Nothing Decisive Yet
Report – 'Progress Made' In Inter & AC Milan Meeting With City On San Siro But Nothing Decisive Yet Inter Milan and AC Milan have reportedly made 'progress' in recent talks with the city of Milan about the new San Siro project. This according to today's print edition of Rome-based newspaper La Repubblica, via FCInterNews. Advertisement Inter Milan and AC Milan continue to work on their efforts to build a new stadium in the San Siro area. The two clubs will not be able to tear down the existing stadium and build in its place. However, they are planning to build a new stadium in the San Siro, adjacent to the current one. Inter & AC Milan 'Make Progress' In Talks With City On San Siro MILAN, ITALY – APRIL 23: General view outside the stadium prior to the coppa Italia Semi Final match between FC Internazionale and AC Milan at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on April 23, 2025 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by) According to La Repubblica, there was a meeting between Inter, AC Milan, and the city of Milan yesterday. Representing the Rossoneri were club President Paolo Scaroni and senior figures from owners RedBird Capital. Meanwhile, senior figures from owners of Inter Oaktree Capital were also at the meeting. Advertisement According to La Repubblica, this meeting was not the decisive one. However, the clubs and the city made progress. They discussed issues of land reclamation and demolition in the project. Meanwhile, La Repubblica report, the clubs and the city are both determined to finalize the sale of the land within the established timeframe. Moreover, it shouldn't be too tough to agree a sale price of the land.
New York Times
31 minutes ago
- New York Times
‘I turned around and Angus burst into tears'. The stories that explain how much the Club World Cup can mean
When Botafogo striker Igor Jesus deflected a shot past Gianluigi Donnarumma in the Paris Saint-Germain goal, there was an eruption of noise inside the Rose Bowl — and more than 2,000 miles east in Philadelphia. Not from Botafogo fans. These were fans of their Brazilian rivals Flamengo, whose red and black hoops had taken over the city in anticipation of their match against Chelsea the following day. Advertisement Rather than groans of discontent at their Rio de Janeiro neighbours causing the biggest upset of the tournament so far, however, there was singing. 'We are big rivals from the same state and city so I wasn't signing for Botafogo — I was singing for my team,' says Isabela, who was watching with her husband Bruno and dozens of Flamengo fans in the Lion Sports Bar's watch-along party. 'We were very surprised how a Brazilian team won over a European winner. It gave us the belief that if they can do it, we can also do it.' Less than 24 hours later, Flamengo had put Chelsea to the sword with three goals in the space of 21 minutes to seal a memorable comeback, powered partly by the majority support they had inside Lincoln Financial Field. It was the 24 hours that the tournament needed if it was to have any hope of overcoming the skepticism around its very existence. This Club World Cup has meant many things to many people, but all four Brazilian clubs making it to the knockout stage of the tournament — two of them featuring in the last eight — has represented something more fundamental. It has been about reclaiming respect, as the nation of five World Cup wins who pride themselves as the spiritual home of football. 'I'm sure that teams look at Flamengo and Botafogo in a very different way now,' says Isabela. 'I have a friend who messaged to say she feels like a world champion because they won the Copa Libertadores and now beat the European champions. 'It means more to us as we don't have the chance to be rich and famous. We have a chance to show our football and get respect for Brazil. Europeans don't really care but the idea of a world champion is very important for South Americans.' Many European managers and players have complained about the calendar placing too much strain on their players and saw this tournament, held at the end of a long season, as an inconvenience. The $1billion (£732million) prize money pot has helped win the attention of the European clubs, but the tournament has still to prove itself as the pinnacle of the sport. The extreme temperatures and the pitches have the regular focus of the European lens, but for many clubs from other continents, even though their time may have been limited to the three group games, there have been moments that have captured what being on the world stage means to them. A barber crosses for a trainee PE teacher who heads into the bottom corner. He is jumped on by a community football coach, before being swamped by a stockbroker, a real estate agent, a Coca-Cola salesman and a middle-school teacher. It was a goal scored by a merry-band of part-timers that etched their name in history having earned a 1-1 draw against Boca Juniors, Argentina's second-most successful club and one of Diego Maradona's former sides. Advertisement It was the coalescence of 21 years of existence, 200 games of qualifying over the past four years and personal sacrifice, leading to a 'controlled explosion' inside a private bar in Nashville later that night as the 100-plus group of friends and family joined to celebrate late into the night. Auckland City's presence at this tournament had been used as a stick to beat the tournament with after they lost 10-0 to Bayern Munich in the second game, but they held Benfica until the eighth minute into added time of the first half before the floodgates eventually opened and then won that point against Boca Juniors that no one gave them any hope of salvaging. The scorer of the equaliser in the 52nd minute was Christian Gray, a PE teacher. In most cases you would presume there will be children running around with Gray's name on the back of their shirt for years to come, but that is not the reality in Auckland, New Zealand. The league is not professionalised and, with other sports more dominant, attendances tend to amount to little more than friends and family. Most clubs do not even manufacture replica shirts. It is more likely that his celebrity will grow more in Buenos Aires, where supporters of River Plate are using him to poke fun at Boca's inability to beat a bunch of amateurs. There was no moment in the tournament that better captured the spirit of football and its role as an emotional release valve than when every member of the squad hounded Gray. While it was a myth that some players missed this tournament due to not being able to get time off work, 12 of them had to miss OFC Champions League games as they had to prioritise their leave for this tournament. Each of them has a unique story of how they came to be there on the world stage. Gray is from a lineage of New Zealand sporting royalty. His father, Rodger, the team's security attache at this tournament, was the former national team captain with 39 caps. His mother, Sandra, is a netball legend who is now a prominent coach, his aunt Margaret was a New Zealand hockey international and his uncle Thomas won New Zealand's equivalent of the FA Cup twice. Advertisement It did not look like he was going to follow in their footsteps. Having moved to Wellington at 13, the high school coach advised him to move back from striker and play at centre-back like his old man had. Gray had spent most of his first season at Auckland out injured and it looked like he might be released. He remained, but has suffered from vertigo, believed to be related to an issue with the proteins in his inner ear, and even missed the two warm-up games in the U.S. due to a groin injury. For him to be the man who scored the decisive goal gave the story another underdog layer, but for Auckland's general manager Gordon Watson — who has been involved since 2011, not long after the club's inception in 2004 — the celebrations at full time brought home the sacrifices so many made to achieve this one result. Auckland has strong Croatian roots and so for Mario Ilich, whose journey began with sister club Central United aged five, it was a proud moment for the team. Then there is Angus Kilkolly, the striker who has played over 150 games and scored over 70 goals, but has had to play through double tragedy in his personal life. His brother died suddenly two years ago and his dad passed away from pancreatic cancer last year, but he was so determined to help this generation of players get a result that would mean they would be regarded in the same way as Auckland's 2009 and 2014 teams — who won five games against professional teams. 'At the final whistle I went to celebrate and I turned around to see Angus standing there and he just burst into tears,' says Watson. 'He is normally not too emotional but he was crying his heart out. I hugged him and said his dad and brother were watching, that we're all his family and this was his and this team's moment. When I think of sacrifice and endurance and character I think of Angus.' How the $4.5m earned for their participation is split is yet to be decided. As Oceania's sole representative, their future is also up in the air as the confederation are planning a new professional league, backed by FIFA with funds of up to $10m. It would help ensure they can put forward the strongest candidate in future Club World Cups, but Auckland will struggle to find the funding to sustain a professional team so have not put forward an application at the moment. Advertisement Regardless of where they will be playing domestically in the coming year, The Flying Kiwis — the official New Zealand national team supporters group — are organising a banner to be unveiled at their international game against Australia in September to acknowledge the team they regard as 'everyday heroes'. Had you been in Orlando for Mamelodi Sundowns' first game or in Miami for their final game, you would barely have been able to notice a difference in mood. After the 1-0 win over Ulsan, one of just two victories for any of the four African clubs registered at the tournament, the scenes were jubilant. And after the frustrating 0-0 draw against Fluminense, which denied them progression into the knockout stage, the scenes were still joyful. You would not have known whether Sundowns had succeeded or not, such was the noise and colour in the stands as the players walked over to engage with the South African fans who had travelled to support them. With their hands placed on the shoulders of the man in front of them, the players put one foot out in front and tapped in unison as they formed a train to dance and sing a routine that has become a staple. Then the counting began, from one to 10, before they chanted the words 'Haka Matorokisi', which means 'hook the carriages together'. For Sundowns it is an expression of their love and togetherness, in keeping with their club motto 'Ubuntu-Botho' which means 'a person is a person through other people'. Even though they had narrowly fallen short of achieving what they set out to do, to be depressed was to hide from the world who they are and the pride they feel. Sundowns were arguably the best team not to advance to the knockouts as their 'shoeshine and piano' style drew praise from Thierry Henry. Sundowns' yellow jersey and rich tradition of flamboyant play has earned them the nickname of 'The Brazilians' in South Africa. For many the captain, 35-year-old Themba Zwane, embodies what Sundowns' polished, imaginative football stands for. From a township in which four-vs-four street games were played for money that allowed him to eat — these were areas reserved for non-whites who lived near or worked in areas that were designated 'white only' — Zwane has gone on to be Sundowns' most decorated player in a dominant era since being taken over by billionaire Patrice Motsepe. Advertisement As a Brazilian, Sundowns' forward Arthur Sales is familiar with the samba culture of his homeland, but his year in Pretoria has opened his eyes to a new culture. 'It was different for me as we dance before and after the game, but it is beautiful,' he says. 'We sing about confidence and our family. Before and after it is about celebrating, but when we lose it is about respect. The fans stay with us and we stay with them. 'When you have the possibility to win and you don't, of course you feel sad. But when you play well you understand that you have given your 100 per cent.' Al Hilal vs Manchester City, a proxy for Saudi Arabia vs Abu Dhabi in the soft power stakes, is not the most romantic fixture, but there is a distinction to be made between Gulf States using sport to improve their image abroad and genuine fans for whom this experience has been a long time coming. It is temping for Europeans to look at the heavy investment in the Saudi Pro League by the state's sovereign wealth fund, PIF, and conclude that they are trying to manufacture a football culture from scratch, but the celebrations in Orlando when Al Hilal beat the English Premier League side 4-3 in extra time proved that theory wrong. A sea of blue came streaming through the concourses and down the escalators as their fans chanted 'ole, ole, ole'. Some waved flags, some rode on shoulders and, over the noise, dozens tried in vain to call back home where the sun was just rising. Saudi Arabia's ambitions to rapidly become a force on the global football stage can be dressed as a classic case of sportswashing, but for the travelling fans, estimated to be around 15,000, this was a seismic moment as their club achieved the biggest victory Asian football has ever registered over a European club. For Yousef Alanezi, it was a week he could not have dreamed of when he moved from Riyadh to Tampa Bay, Florida, five years ago. His team, Al Hilal, albeit the most successful Asian team in continental history, had drawn with Real Madrid in their opening game and were now facing Manchester City in the last 16. Standing outside Camping World Stadium before the game with his friend and their three sons all kitted out in the club's blue and black stripes, the excitement was palpable. 'It's been an amazing experience. I used to go to all the games in Riyadh and we would have 60,000 for the big matches,' he says. Advertisement 'I understand that people aren't used to Saudi spending money on football, but we have a passionate fanbase. Football is our biggest sport. 'We just never thought for a moment that we would be playing against Madrid and City in the same week, so this tournament has been great to show that we are better than people think.' Asked who their favourite Al Hilal player is and the kids struggle. Not so much when it comes to Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe, but a result like that could change it. 'Because they have grown up here they know all the English teams' players, but we've started them young with Al Hilal so hopefully that changes as more players move and more games become available to watch. 'Hopefully in four years' time we can have three teams here.'
