Latest news with #Internazionale
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Report Mendes creates conditions for possible Dumfries transfer to Barcelona
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Denzel Dumfries has changed agents, and his new representative, Jorge Mendes, has created the conditions for a possible move to Barcelona. Inter defender Dumfries could join Barcelona this summer as he has a release clause in the region of €25m. Advertisement Dumfries' clause attracts Barcelona interest SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – JUNE 25: Denzel Dumfries #2 of FC Internazionale Milano scuffles with Marcos Acuña #21 of CA River Plate during the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 group E match between FC Internazionale Milano and CA River Plate at Lumen Field on June 25, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by) According to Sportitalia, the defender's clause will increase from €20m to €30m in the first two weeks of July, which means it is currently active for clubs interested in the defender. Barcelona seem to be among the possible suitors as Gazzetta claims that Dumfries' new agent, Jorge Mendes, has created the conditions for a potential move to Catalunya this summer. Jorge Mendes in talks with Barcelona over Dumfries deal BARCELONA, SPAIN – APRIL 30: Denzel Dumfries of FC Internazionale celebrates scoring his team's third goal with teammates during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 Semi Final First Leg match between FC Barcelona and FC Internazionale Milano at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys on April 30, 2025 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by) Mendes has recently held talks with the Catalans who want to get a reinforcement for the right-back position this summer. However, the defending La Liga champions are aware that they must move quickly if they want to sign Dumfries as the defender's release clause expires on July 15. Inter have already signed a new right winger, Luis Henrique, in a €25m deal from Marseille this summer, and according to Gazzetta, the Nerazzurri will look to Bologna's Dan Ndoye if Dumfries leaves.
The Independent
26-06-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
Borussia Dortmund exploring deal for Chelsea starlet Josh Acheampong
Borussia Dortmund are exploring a deal for Chelsea's Joshua Acheampong, among a number of clubs monitoring his situation. The 19-year-old has been seen by the Stamford Bridge hierarchy as a prospect for the future, but the defender is known to want more first-team opportunities in order to progress. There is now a belief among suitor clubs that Chelsea may be willing to do business for £35m, having previously rejected approaches - including loans. Borussia Dortmund have escalated their own interest, and are willing to act this summer. If they do, there is an expectation that Internazionale could come in amid a club refresh. Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United are also among those interested from the Premier League, having watched Acheampong for some time. While it has been thought a loan could best suit all parties, Chelsea have rejected some such offers. Amid another summer of PSR churn, though, there is now a feeling that Chelsea could particularly be open to a deal if it involves a club who have a player they want. That could open the way for Dortmund, given Chelsea's long-standing interest in English winger Jamie Gittens. Acheampong played the full 90 minutes in the club's final group game at the Club World Cup, a 3-0 win over ES Tunis.
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Club World Cup is key for Guardiola as he plots Manchester City revival
Pep Guardiola and Manchester City will play seven matches at the Club World Cup, should they make the final on 13 July. Pep Guardiola and Manchester City will play seven matches at the Club World Cup, should they make the final on 13 July. Photograph: Marco Bello/Reuters Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, 18 June, 5pm local time: when Manchester City wander out for their opening Fifa Club World Cup Group G game against Wydad AC, the 2025-26 campaign begins for Pep Guardiola. The Premier League's opening day may be 16 August but if the Club World Cup exists in a quasi-no-man's land of post-season, close-season or pre-pre-season, for the Catalan the inaugural 32-team tournament fires the starting pistol on next season, an attempt to fix the wrongs of 2024-25, and a push to reestablish City as a relentless force. As he says: 'I'm pretty sure next season we'll be better.' Advertisement Related: Uncontested: Dazn's $1bn story reveals why the Club World Cup is really here What intrigues is the XI the 54-year-old will send out against the 22-times Moroccan champions. Unlike the phoney war of summer tour matches, the Club World Cup is a competition Guardiola and City fiercely want to win, and offers the chance to arrive on Premier League opening weekend with the scars of finishing potless for the first time in eight years healed. They may also have a fresh blueprint already proved (hopefully) via a competition that also features Real Madrid, Internazionale, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Flamengo and Palmeiras, and which may have Guardiola's men battle-hardened by seven matches should they reach the final on 13 July. Imagine, too, how buoyant City will be should they end as victors – suddenly 2025 will be a successful year. A glance at Group G points to victory in the final match against Juventus at Orlando's Camping World Stadium meaning swerving Madrid in the last 16 (if the Spanish giants claim Group H). Beat the Italians and one of Al Hilal, CF Pachuca or FC Salzburg will offer a less formidable barrier to the quarter-finals. Advertisement City and Juve can expect to arrive at their showdown with a maximum six points. While Wydad are three-time Caf Champions League victors, they have not won that competition or the league since 2022, with Mohamed Amine Benhachem's side finishing third in the latter this term. Al Ain are the behemoths of the Emirati game, boasting a record 14 Pro League titles (but none for three years) and three AFC Champions League trophies (the last in 2016). Vladimir Ivic's side finished fifth this term, 19 points behind the champions, Shabab Al Ahli Club. After Wydad, City jet into Atlanta from their Boca Raton training base to face Al Ain on 23 June for a 9pm kick-off at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, before the clash with Juve three days later. City have travelled not only without Kevin De Bruyne, who has departed for Napoli, but also without Kyle Walker and Jack Grealish, who are for sale. Factor too, Edersonbeing perhaps tempted by a move to Saudi Arabia, John Stones again battling against injury and question marks over Guardiola's best options at full-back and the team to face Wydad may read: Stefan Ortega, Rico Lewis, Rúben Dias, Josko Gvardiol, Nico O'Reilly, Rodri, Ilkay Gündogan, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, Omar Marmoush, Erling Haaland. The new signings Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Aït-Nouri and Rayan Cherki will hope to feature too. A prime issue Guardiola has to address was what to do if Rodri, again, sustains a long-term injury, and Reijnders appears to be part of that plan. Another is whether the De Bruyne-sized vacuum can be adequately filled by a Foden who was a non-event in 2024-25, though Cherki has been acquired to add fantasy too. Avoiding a repeat of last season's slew of injuries will be important. Advertisement Related: Jack Grealish looks out of time at Manchester City now Guardiola has moved the goalposts | Jonathan Liew On the right of the defence, Lewis and Matheus Nunes have been auxiliary solutions. On the other flank, Guardiola has made Aït-Nouri his first left-back signing since Benjamin Mendy in July 2017 (Mendy left in 2023). Last term, Gvardiol, a central defender by trade, and O'Reilly, a midfielder, were the main stand-ins on the left. A Guardiola tenet is to ensure his side is 'always there' in contention for the big prizes of the Premier League and Champions League when the spring days arrive. Last year, City patently were not. The 6-3 aggregate Champions League playoff-stage elimination administered by Real Madrid on 19 February was scant surprise to Guardiola because for months they were imposters of his record four-times consecutive title-winners, and 2022-23 treble-claiming immortals. The sequence of nine losses, one win and three draws in 13 games from 30 October to 26 December was a dismal eight weeks that sent Guardiola a message he could not ignore: that he had been wrong to refuse the executive's offer of a sizeable squad refresh last summer. Advertisement Instead, too late, this came in January, as Marmoush, Vitor Reis, Abdukodir Khusanov and Nico González were bought in a £172m unprecedented-for-City winter window splurge. Of the quartet only Marmoush has thus far proved his worth. Guardiola branded González as a 'mini-Rodri' after his display in February's 4-0 hammering of Newcastle, then instantly qualified it with a reminder that no one, of course, is the Spaniard. So, another way has to be found. As does a route that circumvents the myriad injuries that hit Stones, Dias, Nathan Aké, Manuel Akanji, Oscar Bobb, Grealish, Ederson, Jérémy Doku, Mateo Kovacic, Haaland and others and which hobbled last year's cause. Next season will be a massive test of Guardiola's powers. It begins at the Club World Cup.
Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
PSG's historic moment should provoke serious questions over football's future
Qatar finally win the Champions League. It should be an absurd sentence, but then this was a farce of a sporting contest. It was barely a football match, but an exhibition of superior power – in multiple senses. Paris Saint-Germain destroyed Internazionale 5-0, in what was factually and tonally the most one-sided final in history. No one, not even the great Real Madrid of 1960, had previously won by five goals before. Advertisement PSG consequently become the second club owned by a foreign state to have won the Champions League, with Inter having endured the misfortune of being beaten in both finals. If the squad felt pain after losing to Manchester City 1-0 in 2023, given they felt they should have won, there was only embarrassment here. Inter are embarrassed in the Champions League final (Getty) This isn't to overly rebuke Inter, even if Simone Inzaghi got a lot wrong. The differences in the teams meant Inter again had to be pretty much perfect to have any kind of chance. They were very far from that, as PSG instead looked one of the most complete European champions ever. Luis Enrique has done a supreme job in fashioning this team, to win both his second Champions League and a second treble. It is certainly difficult not to feel happy for him, an intense but good man. The tragic story of his daughter, who died in 2019 at the age of nine, adds such an emotional element to this victory. Enrique specifically planned to plant a PSG flag in the moment of victory, to echo the moment he shared with Xana in 2015. He was instead moved as PSG fans showcased a tifo recreating the scene, but in their colours. It was a touching moment. Luis Enrique wins the Champions League for the second time as a manager after success with Barcelona (Reuters) There is a fitting youth to his new team now, too, as illustrated with how 19-year-olds were responsible for three of the goals. The supreme Desire Doue got two after setting up the first. Senny Mayulu came off the bench to clinch that record. Through that, there were still enjoyable stories within the squad. It is good for football that a unique Georgian playmaker like Khvicha Kvaratskhelia now has a claim to be the best player in the world, the 24-year-old using this stage for a grand statement as he powered in the fourth. That was of course from yet another breakaway into tranches of space, an image that was to characterise the game. Advertisement And yet you can't get away from the fact that all of this is used for entirely non-football reasons, as Qatar revelled in the glory in the same way they did for the 2022 World Cup. Senny Mayulu scores two minutes after coming on to write PSG's name in the history books (Getty) Is this really what football is for? Should this not provoke the most searching questions about the sport's long direction of travel? For the answer, you only have to consider the fact that Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the PSG president whose ultimate responsibility is to the Emir, is there beside Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin as one of the most influential people in football. The Qatari official has risen to become the chair of the European Club Association, who have have been so important in reshaping this entire competition. And yet here, the great showpiece of club football became the showcase of so much that is wrong with the game, with the record scoreline aptly symbolising the scale of the issues. The fact that PSG were so enthralling to watch is part of that. That is the 'sportswashing', to use a term that has long felt like it doesn't sufficiently convey what is happening. Nasser Al-Khelaifi holds the Champions League trophy (Reuters) Much of this is political capture of sport, and Qatar's trophy club now have their hands around the European Cup itself. Advertisement You only have to consider how Inter are true football royalty, having previously won this competition three times, and are still the 14th richest club in the world. And yet, typically owned by an asset management fund themselves, there is still an immense gap between them and PSG. Inter's entire revenue of £327m is just over half of PSG's last reported wage bill – not revenue – and it showed. Achraf Hakimi scores against his former team to put PSG ahead on 12 minutes (Getty) Enrique's team may be young but they are also expensive, with almost £100m having been paid for Doue and Bradley Barcola alone. They also benefited from the way the same gaps have reduced the French league to a joke, in contrast to the gruelling title race that Inter have gone through. Advertisement PSG's youthful intensity also showed. There was a chasm between the teams in terms of their vigour. Where Pep Guardiola once said that it was very difficult to know where to press this Inter, PSG seemed to find it so easy. It was boys against old men. You could suddenly see exactly why Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Matteo Darmian and other players that Inzaghi has revitalised are not at the best-paying clubs. Lautaro Martinez did not have his big club moment. Desire Doue becomes just the third teenager to score in a Champions League final (Getty) Doue's shot takes a touch off Federico di Marco as it beats Yann Sommer, doubling PSG's lead (Getty) Instead, a series of players that were barely known two years ago are now the European champions, looking like the future of the game. Enrique himself also has a claim to be the best coach in the world. His idea of football has been at a level of sophistication way above anyone else, and felt like something new. Opposition sides didn't know how to handle them. Enrique's ideas constantly surprised them. Advertisement Here, the chasm between the teams was such that PSG found it almost embarrassingly easy to score the first goal after just 12 minutes. Doue showed supreme and unselfish presence of mind to square but Achraf Hakimi faced so little by way of a challenge that it was hard not to wonder whether there was an offside. There wasn't. Inter couldn't get close. Francesco Acerbi of Inter looks dejected after the final whistle (Getty) The game ceased to be a contest from then, that early. That was made clear by Doue's 20th-minute strike. Even seconds into the second half, after Inter needed the mother of all half-times, the first action was Kvaratskhelia again scorching through for yet another chance. It was why it felt so strange as a game. It didn't feel like a football match any more, but a long wait for the inevitable, with PSG making Inter suffer more and more. It was great football to watch, and yet so unsettling to consider. These are the two sides of the sport in 2025, never made clearer than by its grand showpiece.
Indian Express
09-06-2025
- Sport
- Indian Express
Why did Robert Lewandowski ‘lose trust' in Poland coach Michal Probierz and resign from international football?
Poland and Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski has announced that he will not play for the national team again for as long as coach Michał Probierz remains in charge of the side, shortly after he was stripped of the national team's captaincy. At the end of the long season with Barcelona, the 36-year-old Lewandowski mentioned physical and mental fatigue, making himself unavailable for his country for the ongoing international window. Consequently, coach Probierz decided to remove the star striker from captaincy, replacing him with with Internazionale's Piotr Zieliński. 'Taking into account the circumstances and a loss of trust in the coach, I have decided to resign from playing for the Poland national team for as long as he remains in charge,' the veteran forward posted on social media. Lewandowski, however, said he hoped that he could wear the national shirt soon, provided that a new manager was at the helm of the squad, replacing Probierz, who had taken over in 2023. 'I hope I will still have the chance to play again for the best fans in the world.' A hamstring injury had marred Lewandowski's finish to the season as he missed out on key fixtures for Barcelona, including the Champions League semifinal against Inter Milan and the Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid. Making a return in the last three games of the LaLiga season, Lewandowski netted two goals as Barça clinched the league. He, however, soon opted out of Poland's friendly against Moldova and a World Cup qualifier against Finland this month. 'Returning from injury, I told Coach Probierz that I did not feel good physically, but especially mentally,' Lewandowski told Polish media earlier this week. The former Bayern Munich forward remains Poland's most capped (158) and highest goal-scorer (85) in international football. Coach Probierz had led Poland to the Euro 2024 last year, where they ended winless and suffered a group-stage exit.
