Ronaldo says teammate’s death ‘doesn’t make any sense’ Wolves say ‘memories he created will never be forgotten’ Tributes paid after accident in Spain – latest updates Jürgen Klopp and Cristiano Ronaldo led the tributes from across the football world to Diogo Jota after the Liverpool and Portugal forward was killed in a car accident in Spain. Jota’s brother, André, also died in the crash in the province of Zamora. Jota was 28, a father of three young children and had married his long-term partner, Rute Cardoso, less than a fortnight ago. Klopp, who signed Jota for Liverpool in 2020 and managed him for four seasons, posted on Instagram: “This is a moment where I struggle! There must be a bigger purpose! But I can’t see it! Continue reading...

In the social media age, football is a fraction of the Portuguese Übermensch’s appeal and he is untroubled by his paymasters’ morals The winners of next season’s AFC Champions League Two, Asia’s second-tier club competition, will receive about £1.8m. The winners of the Saudi King’s Cup will receive just over £1m. Prize money for the Saudi Pro League is not disclosed, but by the most recent available figures (for 2022-23) is in roughly the same area. Weekly attendances at the King Saud University Stadium, where top-tier ticket prices start at about £12, range between 10,000 and 25,000, although of course you also have to factor in pie and programme sales above that. And so you really have to applaud Al-Nassr’s ambition in handing an estimated £492m to Cristiano Ronaldo over the next two years. Even if they sweep the board at domestic level, if they fight their way past Istiklol of Tajikistan’s 1xBet Higher League and Al-Wehdat of the Jordanian Pro League, if they extract maximum value from merch and sponsorships, you still struggle to see how they can cover a basic salary that comes to £488,000 a day, even before the bonuses and blandishments that will push the total package well beyond that. Continue reading...

Portuguese star will be 42 when deal ends in June 2027 News brings recent transfer speculation to a close Cristiano Ronaldo has signed a new two-year deal at Al Nassr, extending his stay with the Saudi Pro League team to June 2027, when the forward will be 42. “Al Nassr Club Company officially signed a contract extension with Cristiano Ronaldo,” the Riyadh-based club posted on X. “[The] Al Nassr captain’s contract will be valid until 2027.” Continue reading...

What was once simply a garment that declared your affiliation to a club is now a global business earning millions from collectors of vintage kits On the second floor of an unprepossessing building on the outskirts of Amsterdam, there is a metal cabinet that destroys footballers’ DNA. The contraption belongs to MatchWornShirt and was part of a deal to sell the kits of Real Madrid players to the public. To allay concerns that the genetic material of Cristiano Ronaldo might escape into the wild, the steel wardrobe was built so that every shirt could be blasted by a germicidal lamp. For new, read old, because MatchWornShirt sells precisely what the company’s name suggests: kits that have been stuck to the bodies of professional athletes. Want the jersey Son Heung-min pulled on against Manchester United in the Europa League final? You can have it, if you beat the current auction price of £22,000. The very shirt Cole Palmer had on when he scored four first-half goals against Brighton last season? That went for £34,000. Continue reading...

Cristiano Ronaldo got the winner after Francisco Conceição’s wonder strike had cancelled out Florian Wirtz’s header in Munich “Will Cristiano Ronaldo leave Al-Nassr at the end of the month and sign with Inter Miami?” asks Kurt Perleberg. As wild as that may sound, none other than Gianni Infantino himself has suggested Ronaldo wants to play in next month’s Club World Cup, which Al-Nassr failed to qualify for. Whether he ends up playing alongside Lionel Messi in the 305, we’ll have to wait and see. 6 mins: Neto gets more joy up against Germany’s back three, galloping into space and crossing for Ronaldo, whose first touch sets up a shot at goal … which is just too close to Ter Stegen. A decent opening for each side in the opening minutes. Continue reading...

The Portuguese’s Al-Nassr chapter could end without silverware but whispers of a Club World Cup cameo means his Saudi Pro League story is far from over For a social media post described around the world as “cryptic”, it doesn’t seem all that hard to decipher. Minutes after Al-Nassr’s last game of a disappointing season ended in defeat on Monday, Cristiano Ronaldo – who had previously said that he was happy to finish his career in Saudi Arabia – posted on social media. “This chapter is over. The story? Still being written. Grateful to all.” The biggest star in the Saudi Pro League (SPL) looks to be on his way out of Riyadh after two and a half years of personal milestones but no major trophy with Al-Nassr. With the Yellows no closer to a first title since 2019 than when he joined in December 2022 and no place in Asia’s Champions League next season, the 40-year-old may not, as the club had long expected, extend his contract – which ends on 30 June – for another year. Continue reading...

New Seleção springs surprise with Casemiro recall and sets sights on reviving Vinícius Júnior’s international career One of the best coaches in history working with the best national team in the world. This is how Carlo Ancelotti was introduced as new head coach of the Brazil national team. Despite having worked for the biggest clubs in the world, the Italian did not hide his joy at the new challenge of leading the Seleção in their hunt for a sixth World Cup title. “It is an honour to lead the best national team in the world. I have a great mission, so that Brazil can be champions again. I have always had a very special connection with Brazil. The reception yesterday was incredible,” Ancelotti said. Continue reading...

The two best players of their generation suffered same-day disappointments that show the game is starting to move on Not long ago, the results might have been seismic. Or at the very least, worthy of an eyebrows-raised remark. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two leading lights of their generation, the dominant on-field forces for most of this century, both going out of continental competition in the semi-finals? Both in upsets? On the same day? On Wednesday, it actually happened. Messi’s Inter Miami fell to Vancouver 5-1 on aggregate in the Concacaf Champions Cup, and Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr lost 3-2 to Kawasaki Frontale in the AFC Champions League Elite at a nominally neutral site in Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

The finishes are still flowing for Al-Nassr but, at 40, his future for club and country is under increasing scrutiny On Saturday, Cristiano Ronaldo can take a big step towards a first major trophy since moving to Saudi Arabia but the quarter-final of the Asian Champions League against Yokohama F Marinos also offers a chance to take a smaller stride towards an unprecedented personal milestone: 1,000 first-class goals. Pelé scored plenty but claims of 1,279, recognised by the Guinness World Records, included unofficial and exhibition games and perhaps, wondered Diego Maradona, backyard games against his nephews. The stats site RSSSF credits the Brazilian with a total of 778. Continue reading...

Challengers for Champions League come from Saudi Arabia as AFC officials privately admit rules need examining Cristiano Ronaldo has yet to win a major trophy – the Arab Club Champions Cup does not count – since signing for Al-Nassr in December 2022 and the 40-year-old’s best chance this season is the AFC Champions League Elite. The Riyadh club are nine points off the top of the Saudi Pro League but should get past Esteghlal of Iran in the last-16 of the continental competition next week. With the games from the quarter-final stage onwards taking place in Saudi Arabia, this could be the year. Head coach Stefano Pioli has not quite brought the fluency required to a team that still rely too much on individual talent in individual moments but in a cup competition perhaps that will be enough, especially when you add Jhon Durán. The Colombian has already shown his goalscoring prowess and could make the difference for the club and Ronaldo, who scored six goals in the group stage. Continue reading...

Slot: ‘No reason to think Salah’s level is dropping’Liverpool manager brushes off social media post Arne Slot has said Mohamed Salah can sustain a world-class level like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, and it is more important how the Liverpool striker plays than what he writes on social media. Salah moved into outright eighth on the all-time Premier League goalscorers’ list with a stunning, trademark finish against Brighton on Saturday. It was the 164th goal of Salah’s Premier League career and ninth of the season so far in all competitions. On Sunday the striker, who is out of contract with Liverpool at the end of this season, posted a message on X that said: “No matter what happens, I will never forget what scoring at Anfield feels like.” Continue reading...

The two multiple winners are not on this year’s shortlist, and a new name on the old trophy can only help to restore respect for this historic award The Ballon d’Or, football’s most famous individual prize, was not always the gold-plated standard for tedium it has become during the past 16 years. From 1990, 17 different players won the award over the next 18 years, with victors hailing from not only Brazil, Germany, France and Italy but also Ukraine, Liberia, Bulgaria and even England. But if the names from the 1990s hit like a wave of nostalgia – Van Basten! Baggio! Stoichkov! Weah! Ronaldo! Rivaldo! – the list from 2008 onwards is crushingly repetitive. Cristiano Ronaldo won his first gong that year, Lionel Messi succeeded him, and what was once a fun way to spotlight a great player – or at least an outstanding 12 months – turned into a proxy war for social media’s most overplayed debate. Messi and Ronaldo hoovered up 13 of 15 awards from 2008-2023, a duopoly driven by the players’ relentless brilliance but also powered by the marketing machines of Adidas and Nike, as well as political in-voting. Continue reading...

In an extract from the book How to Win the Premier League, Ian Graham reveals the process behind Liverpool’s capture of the Brazilian in 2015 In the weeks leading up to my first day as director of research at Liverpool [in 2012], I could barely sleep. It was the club I’d supported since I was a child. The new owners had proven in baseball they’d adopt a data-driven approach. I would be working with Eddy [Michael Edwards] again. The combination of his expert opinion on players, honed during his years as a video analyst, and my data analysis would make us unstoppable in the transfer market. Eddy had also recruited Barry Hunter and Dave Fallows, who would soon arrive from Manchester City. They would overhaul Liverpool’s scouting department. But everything immediately went wrong. Before I, and the other new hires, started, Liverpool had to replace their manager, Kenny Dalglish. The choice was between Brendan Rodgers or Roberto Martínez. Brendan was the stronger candidate and was chosen. FSG were concurrently searching for a director of football to replace Damien [Comolli]. The search was unexpectedly cut short when Brendan used a media interview on his first day in the job to say: “I am better when I have control … I wouldn’t directly work with a director of football … If you want to have a sporting director, get him in and then you can pick your manager from there but if you do I won’t be the manager.” Continue reading...

World Cup holders beat Bolivia 6-0 in Buenos AiresMessi now has 112 international goals, second all-time Lionel Messi scored his 10th hat-trick for Argentina to raise his career total for his country to 112 goals in a 6-0 World Cup qualifying win over Bolivia on Tuesday. Messi played the entire match before raucous fans at Estadio Monumental who chanted his name after he opened the scoring in the 19th minute. Messi added goals in the 84th and 86th minutes. Only Cristiano Ronaldo, with 133, has scored more international goals in men’s football than Messi. Continue reading...