Vesper

Maresca targets European history for Chelsea in Conference League final Wroclaw (Poland) (AFP) – Enzo Maresca is a man with a point to prove as he targets football history for Chelsea in Wednesday's UEFA Conference League final against Real Betis. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250527-maresca-targets-european-history-for-Chelsea-in-conference-league-final Victory in the final round of Premier League matches at Nottingham Forest on Sunday secured qualification for next season's Champions League. Now Maresca's thoughts turn to Wroclaw and the chance for Chelsea to become the first team to win all five of UEFA's major men's club competitions. The Blues have twice won the Champions League, Europa League, Super Cup and the defunct Cup Winners' Cup and can now complete the set if they overcome Betis in the final of Europe's newest competition in Poland. Maresca has had a rollercoaster first season in charge at Stamford Bridge after replacing Mauricio Pochettino. His team were within touching distance of eventual Premier League champions Liverpool in mid-December before stumbling badly, but results picked up again towards the end of the campaign. Maresca, clearly frustrated, rounded on his critics after his youthful side secured fourth spot in the Premier League on Sunday with a 1-0 win at the City Ground. "All the ones that (think) they are the answer, or all the ones that they are the truth, they were saying that we are too young, we are not good enough," he said. "Unfortunately for them, they'll be all wrong, the ones that (think) they are the truth and they have the answer for everything." Chelsea have qualified for next season's Champions League © Glyn KIRK / AFP/File Maresca, who has also been criticised by fans over perceived cautious tactics, told UEFA.com that winning the Conference League would turn a good season into a "great one" for Chelsea. "It would be a way of saying that we are back and that we are a winning club in Europe, and we hope to achieve just that." The west London club are still waiting to win their first silverware since Todd Boehly's consortium took over from former owner Roman Abramovich in 2022. The 2021 European champions were clear favourites to win the Conference League from the start of the competition and have won 11 of their 12 games. Former Leicester boss Maresca, 45, has rotated his squad during the competition, giving opportunities to youth and fringe players and has again stressed the need to make changes for Wednesday's match. Pellegrini 'father figure' Maresca will pit his wits against 71-year-old Manuel Pellegrini, a man whom he describes as a football "father figure" after playing under him at Malaga and serving as assistant coach at West Ham. "I am where I am today thanks to him," he said. "I worked with Manuel for four years -- two years as a player and two years as part of his staff. So, I owe so much to him in terms of what I’ve achieved. Real Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini © CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP/File "I am grateful for the relationship we have and the advice he gives me. He told me never to change." Immensely experienced ex-Real Madrid and Manchester City boss Pellegrini said his former protege was destined for a long career in football. "You can often tell which players might go on to be good coaches —- from the impression they have on others, how they absorb concepts in training," he said. "With both Enzo and Willy (Caballero, Chelsea assistant coach), I was sure they'd go on to become influential coaches on a global level." The Chilean, whose side finished sixth in La Liga, can call upon the talents of the rejuvenated Antony, on loan from Manchester United, and Isco, who won five Champions League trophies at Real Madrid. And the Seville-based club, playing in their first European final, can take heart from a remarkable statistic. Since the start of the 2001/02 season, all 23 Champions League, Europa League or Conference League finals that have featured Spanish hopefuls have been won by a Spanish team. Pellegrini wants to put on a "show" in Wroclaw. "We all know that winning is always very important, but I think that how you win makes it even more important," he said. © 2025 AFP

agree

the original source for the VAST majority of rumours for so many targets that has been linked to us is, when you dig deep enough, Fichajes so most are 100 per cent bullshit

pick one of these 5 and buy him Alexander Isak Lautaro Martinez Julian Alvarez Viktor Gyökeres Victor Osimhen I do not want to hear about any other CFs and I do not care about BlueCo's money I would go for either Viktor Gyökeres or Victor Osimhen as they are by far the 2 easiest to get done and dusted out of those 5

a total of 10 league goals and 14 assists from €276m worth of transfers we brought in this year 😮

Under-23 stat leaders from Europe's Big Five Leagues in 2024/25 Discover the records broken by Michael Olise, Lamine Yamal, Pedri and more. https://scoutedftbl.com/under-23-stats-24-25-olise-yamal-pedri/?ref=notebook-newsletter Goals + Assists Michael Olise finished 2024/25 with more league goals + assists across Europe’s Big Five Leagues than any other player that started the season under the age of 23, scoring 12 goals and provided 15 assists. Half of the top 10 are French. This did not crack the top 20 for the modern era. The top spot is occupied by Andrew Cole, who started the 1993/94 season as a 21-year-old and finished it with 34 goals and 13 assists (14 according to FBRef). And there was not a single penalty in sight.

Fran Vieites Goalkeeper Adrian Goalkeeper Nathan Center-Back Diego Llorente Center-Back Marc Bartra Center-Back Ricardo Rodriguez Left-Back Romain Perraud Left-Back Héctor Bellerin Right-Back Aitor Ruibal Right-Back Johnny Cardoso Defensive Midfield Marc Roca Defensive Midfield William Carvalho Defensive Midfield Giovanni Lo Celso Central Midfield Sergi Altimira Central Midfield Isco Attacking Midfield Pablo Fornals Attacking Midfield Abde Ezzalzouli Left Winger Jesus Rodriguez Left Winger Antony Right Winger Cucho Hernández Centre-Forward Cédric Bakambu Centre-Forward

Scouting: Noah Atubolu A record-breaker goalkeeper for SC Freiburg, does the 22 year-old got what it takes to be an elite player? https://pitchsideanalysis.substack.com/p/scouting-noah-atubolu (videos at this link) The 24/25 season came with a massive challenge for SC Freiburg: after more than a decade under legendary manager Christian Streich (now retired), a new era began. Julian Schuster was the man picked to lead the club, in his first role as a professional coach, and he’s been doing a super solid job so far. Without drawing much attention, Freiburg came close to qualifying for the most prestigious tournament in Europe for the first time ever. Unfortunately, they ended up missing a Top 4 spot in the Bundesliga after losing their last game to Eintracht Frankfurt. A shining light in the club’s campaign was Noah Atubolu, a 22 yo goalkeeper. From the 1-0 win vs Bochum (January 1st) up until the 2-2 draw vs Mainz (March 15th), he went on a six game unbeaten streak, keeping a clean sheet in every single one of them and beating the club record by a long margin (610 minutes without conceding; the old record were 509 by Richard Golz; 2000/01). How good is he, actually? Can he start for an elite club in Europe? Let’s find out now. History Atubolu has always been seen as a promising goalkeeper at SC Freiburg and played for several German youth teams. Streich showed confidence in the young goalkeeper and promoted him to the starting position last season. His first full experience in professional football, however, was far from smooth and Atubolu made a series of mistakes in several matches. When asked about one of those mistakes, former coach Christian Streich quickly defended him, stating that Atubolu would keep his spot and that every player in his position makes mistakes. It’s part of a learning process, he told. The new season came and new manager Julian Schuster also trusted Atubolu. He finished the season as one of the youngest starting goalkeepers in Europe’s top five leagues: Guillaume Restes (Toulouse), Zion Suzuki (Parma) and Bart Verbruggen (Brighton) being the only ones younger than Atubolu. Step by step, the level of his performances gradually increased, with SC Freiburg reaping the rewards for showing a little bit of patience. Beyond a succession of clean sheets, Atubolu also stood out for saving four consecutive penalties, including one from star player Florian Wirtz. He still hasn’t managed to earn a Germany first-team call-up (more on the reasons for that later), but he’s definitely on the radar now. Distribution Short passing Atubolu isn’t exactly a ball-playing specialist, but he’s more than capable of taking part in the build-up with short passes. He’s constantly touching the ball (higher average than Manuel Neuer!) and, beyond connecting teammates, he can move pretty nicely to offer support to them. His passes are mostly simple ones, but quite efficient — he can draw pressure before playing a pass and hits it almost exclusively with his dominant right foot. He’s good at chipped passes, but doesn’t attempt them that much. Long balls When opting to go long, he’s mainly hitting passes to a striker playing back to goal, not one running in behind. Atubolu can generally direct those passes well, but there’s still work to do in order for him to be more consistent with it. His completion percentage sits currently at 38.4%, a value above average, but still lower than some other names like Moritz Nicolas, Manuel Neuer and Lukas Hradecky. Goalkeeping Style Cross-claiming Atubolu can be described as a somewhat passive goalkeeper when it comes to collecting crosses. His first instinct in those scenarios is always to take a few steps back and wait to react to a possible shot. This behavior ends up giving opponents extra opportunities and led to some goals conceded by him. That’s something that we can also see at corner kicks. Shot-stopping A 1.90m tall goalkeeper, the German is not a remarkably agile player, but he justifies this passive behavior with his sharp reaction time to make close range saves, as long as he doesn't have to move too far. This is, without a doubt, the strongest point of his game. Reacting quickly is another reason why he’s shown himself to be a reliable goalkeeper when facing medium and long range shots, be it parring it sideways or making a two-time save. Actions coming off the line The German goalkeeper struggles to control depth at times, due to his hesitation to leave the goal quickly and also a general lack of agility and explosiveness. Atubolu makes few interventions outside the area and often ends up halfway when he does decide to do so, undecided about whether to fully advance or hold his position. That’s worrisome for any club playing a high line. When closing down an attacker, the German usually sits at the edge of the six-yards box and almost always expands his contact area by extending his arms and legs to form an "X": some of his best saves this season have come from this specific movement. Then, he tends to move his body further to the left, something that makes him susceptible to conceding goals from shots aimed at the far corner. His priority when facing an approach from either wing is to defend the near post. Atubolu is a goalkeeper who will hardly be beaten in shots that target that area... but he has shown vulnerability when dealing with low crosses towards the far post: Atubolu lacks the mobility to anticipate and react to this type of play. Despite being a goalkeeper with good reaction time, moving around to make a quick save in this scenario is not one of the German's strong points. Penalties Finally, his shot-stopping skills made themselves known also in penalty kicks. Atubolu went on a FOUR consecutive penalties saved streak this season. Truly impressive stuff. Final thoughts Atubolu is, without a doubt, a goalkeeper capable of doing a good job between the posts — some of his saves this season proved that. However, some of his characteristics does not quite fit in with what the European elite are increasingly looking for in modern goalkeepers: a proactive stance to prevent shots has been valued more than the pure ability to stop shots. This is a factor that could limit Atubolu's career developments and possibly one of the reasons why Julian Nagelsmann has not yet called him up. In a recent interview, the current Germany coach spoke on a mistake made by Jonas Urbig (FC Bayern, another promising young German goalkeeper) against FC Union Berlin, stating that he would rather have a goalkeeper trying a risky move to intercept the ball than one who never leaves the goal to avoid making mistakes. Still very young, there is more than enough time for the SC Freiburg goalkeeper to improve on what are currently his weaker points. Assuming this doesn't happen, he still has the necessary qualities to establish himself as a starting goalkeeper in several teams below the elite or one that adapts themselves to his style of play.

he is 27yo (in one week) not 25

Liverpool parade car crash live updates: Latest from the scene https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/city-centre-live-updates-emergency-31727936

and our TIME!! ⏲️

Eden Hazard........... From Football King To Burger King Philippe, King of Belgium, tells Eden Hazard not to eat too many hamburgers during the World Cup

we made Pot 1 for the CL POT 1 Real Madrid Manchester City Bayern Munich Liverpool Paris Saint-Germain Internazionale Chelsea Borussia Dortmund Barcelona

“The average age of Chelsea’s starting XI in the Premier League this season is 24 years and 36 days – the youngest ever by a team in a single campaign in the competition.”

the same cunts say we are going to drop 70m quid on João Pedro, lolol

I am going to go bonkers if we drop 70m quid on Guehi 🤬 Chelsea to ‘accelerate’ £70m deal to re-sign Prem star after Champions League qualification https://www.teamtalk.com/Chelsea/transfer-news-accelerate-70m-deal-re-sign-prem-star-champions-league-qualification

Enzo Maresca’s post-match presser How does it feel to beat your target for this season? Very happy. I'm very happy for many reasons. First of all, because I think the players deserve it. Since day one they have been working very, very hard. With the club, with the owners, with the sporting directors, the players, we all go in the same direction. And I said many times during the season that the noise was more from outside than from inside. A very tough game today. How do you manage all the emotions? Yeah, no, very tough. City lost here, Arsenal drew here, Liverpool drew here and Chelsea won. So it's not easy. It's not easy. The players, they show how good they are, the effort they have been. And unfortunately we are in a business where the people judge us because of the results. And today, in case we were not able to win the game, probably all of you judge this season a disaster. But it was not a disaster. I said many times that this season was already good. Twelfth two years ago, sixth last year and fourth this season. With probably the youngest squad in the history of the Premier League. So, very happy. Playing purely for the result today? The results always count for us in every game since day one until today, every time. But we have our way. We want to reach results in the way we want to play. And I think today the players, they were tough because they also adjust. We also adjust a little bit how to work off the ball. This environment is not easy. But they deal with that very, very good. Different mentality to Newcastle defeat? Yeah. But I think that from January on, we played many good games. Probably from some of you, they said that from January, we didn't play so many games. But I think from January, we played many good games. And today we achieved an important target for this club. And we are happy. Proud of your young squad? I didn't have any doubt about the players. The doubt was from outside. All the ones that have the answers or the ones that have the truth, they were saying that we are too young, we are not good enough, they were waiting for Aston Villa to drop points for us to achieve the Champions League. They were saying that we were not able to win on this pitch because we are too young, because we are not experienced. Unfortunately for them, they have all been wrong. All the ones that have the truth and have the answer to everything. So in English, how you say? F off to all of them, because the players deserve that. The effort they have been doing is fantastic. Champions League gives you more options in the market? Now, I'm not thinking about next summer, to be honest. Today is a day that we have to be happy because we brought this club where this club has to be in the most important European competition. And we did today and this is the most important day for them. Now from tomorrow we start to prepare for Wednesday final and then we have days to see for next season. How much did you know about other scores during the second-half? No, they told me just once and that's been when Man United scored the second goal. My assistant manager Willy Caballero said Man United scored the second one, it's 2-0. That was the only information I get through the game because I said before, everyone was waiting for us to draw points and see if Man United win. But I said to the players all week, we don't need to watch Aston Villa, we need to do our job. We need to win the game. If we win, everything is okay. So the moment that we were winning, the negative part of today and how we need to improve and grow is that after we scored the goal, probably we were a little bit afraid to win the game. So we sit a little bit back, but it's also part of the development from the players. Happy for an academy graduate in Colwill scoring the winner after all the money that has been spent? Yeah, but I said that in the past I was not here. I don't think since I joined the club, we spent more money than the rest. I think since I joined the club, we spend money, but in the same way other clubs have done. Now in the past, I was not here, I don't know, but for sure we have players that they deserve to play in the best European competition, that is the Champions League. How proud are you to achieve Champions League qualification? Very proud because, first of all, because of the players. I feel part of their improvement, the way they grew through the season, and I feel especially proud for that because they are a fantastic group, a fantastic squad. They are good boys, they work hard, they try to help each other. And I said, probably most of the time, I was from outside, that we were not good enough, we were too young, we don't have a leader, blah, blah, blah, these kind of things. But at the end, it all comes from results. How important is Wednesday night? We were in four competitions at the beginning of the season. Today we finished in the Champions League, if we are able to win on Wednesday, we are out of FA Cup and Carabao, but I think overall we can say that it has been a very good season. I already said that for me it was a good season, but it can become very good if we are able to get to the Champions League and hopefully we can win on Wednesday.

Everyone is about to fight over Joan García https://scoutedftbl.com/everyone-is-about-to-fight-over-joan-garcia/ Get used to reading, hearing and seeing much more of Joan García. The 24-year-old will be one of the hottest properties in the upcoming transfer window. Why? Because he’s really good, basically. Like, obviously really good. He’s the first goalkeeper to get Shortlisted, and he was the first goalkeeper to make it onto the SCOUTED Database. We don’t usually venture into goalkeepers, so that says something. The first thing he did when I watched him for the first time last week was stab a first-time, 50-yard pass square onto the chest of his centre-forward while backpedalling. As first impressions go, that was a brilliant one, and everything he did after that only enhanced that impression. The way I gauge goalkeepers is by how simple they make things look. Alisson is a prime example: his simple catch is another ‘keepers camera save. In that regard, García is similar to Alisson. He made the difficult things look easy - coming to claim high balls into the box was a doddle, super clean footwork was the order of the day, there were a couple of full-stretch saves that looked effortless, and his distribution was pretty easy. García has been billed as the Next Big Thing™ in the goalkeeping world and it’s easy to see why. The €25 million release clause in his Espanyol contract represents tremendous value. Clubs shouldn’t miss out on a rare opportunity.

Official, confirmed. Raphinha signs new long term deal at Barcelona until June 2028.

as predicted the Fichajes bullshit story about us swapping Enzo for Barrios plus £25.5m was rubbish, a complete lie I wish those cunts could be shut down biggest football frauds and liars on the planet atm Atletico Madrid https://thedailybriefing.io/i/164199291/atletico-madrid Official, confirmed: Pablo Barrios signs new deal at Atlético Madrid until June 2030.

me too