There are very few moments in soccer when a team faces its own former star player who is still amongst the best for his former team. The fact becomes even more significant when a manager known not to easily praise his opponents does so, yes, we are talking about one of the finest soccer brains in contemporary football, Chelsea’s second term serving Portuguese football manager José Mourinho who has been as attacking these days as a leaguer topper should be. He unexpectedly praised his former teammate Didier Drogba, who now plays for Galatasaray, and calls him as the finest forward in modern era. Yes, he said this considering the age of ace forward and also added that he may not be as fit as he had been at 26, yet, it doesn’t diminish his caliber. Notably, Turkish professional football club will face Blues in the second leg of last 16 at Stamford Bridge tomorrow hence an admiration from opponent means a lot at this time. Generally, ‘intelligent’ managers do so intentionally just to make … [Read more...]

Despite being in the news off late for not so wanted reasons, ace Barca striker Lionel Messi yet again breaks another record and becomes the highest goals scorer for his club. This feat is incredible considering more than a century old history of Spanish giant. The achievement has until been hold by Filipino–Spanish footballer Paulino Alcántara who played for some fifteen years for the Blaugrana and scored 369 goals from 1912 to 1927. In fact, his dream record stood unbeaten for as many as 87 years and now a 26-year-old has broken it with flying colors. Looking at the career graph of Messi, he can still play for another eight to ten years, which means, he would be in the best position to set another record which would remain unbeaten for another 100 years! However, if we look at the strike rate of these legendries, Argentine took 95 more games than his predecessor but this is because of today’s culture of playing more games than fifty years ago and not to forget it takes more fitness … [Read more...]

If we look at the current league table, two teams look to be fighting with each other in and outside the field and that is Manchester City and Chelsea. One of these two would probably be the champion this year and guess what City is not missing any opportunity to pressurize José Mourinho side either. Though, The Blues are on top while City is on the fourth place, but they have three matches in hand and just six points adrift of North London club, which means, they can lead the table anytime if they could win at least two of the next four. Again, all the four placeholders are there on the top for quite some time, and there are not too many matches left this season; hence no other team is likely to replace any of them. City manager Manuel Pellegrini appreciated his team’s fighting spirit and keeping Chelsea top position as misleading as former Everton manager has been describing off late. They just defeated Hull by 2-0 and alive their hopes to replace their Stamford Bridge opponent. … [Read more...]

This is a well-known fact that Manchester United, especially after new manger took over the charge, is finding it very difficult to attract high profile players and why this is happening to a club like United is not understandable to anyone. Many are calling it a correction period for the league defender where they are trying to reform their squad after Alex reign and it would take some time, therefore they are supposed to lose some short term battles for gaining a long run sustainability. Now, Liverpool manager has copied the long time media running stories and said that United would have to qualify for the Championship league if they want to remain in the aspiring list of good players. This statement from a rival club means a lot for newly appointed manager who is already struggling to secure a respectable leaderboard position. This could also be an intelligent statement issued just before their showdown in English Premier League as Brendan Rodgers still believes United can bounce … [Read more...]

How a higher leaderboard position can psychologically benefit your side is well known to everyone, but how can it shake your moral is obviously not known to many. Chelsea is on the top of league table and they are here for some time now, had there been any other team on the top for so long time, it would have explored this opportunity by issuing exaggerated media statements just to demoralize their upcoming high profile opponents, but this is not with the former Everton manager who is serving his second team with the Blues. Significantly, he has been denying any advantage of being on the top and repeatedly saying that their rank is just misleading as there are others equally competitive teams who are still as likely to win the title as they are. Though, he never said they cannot win the title, in fact, he always said, they are in the better position to take away the silverware despite of their misleading leaderboard position. Who is the next favorite to win the crown? He believes City … [Read more...]