List of All Articles with Tag 'ball'

Mauricio Pochettino has continued his Chelsea clear-out with striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang completing his move to French Ligue 1 side Marseille. Marseille confirmed the signing of the 34-year-old Gabon international on Friday, which brings an end to his miserable time in west London. Aubameyang scored one goal in 15 Premier League appearances for the Blues and was left out of the squad for the Champions League knock-out stages by then boss Graham Potter in February. Aubameyang has previous experience in Ligue 1 having played for St Etienne for two years from 2011 and 2013 as well as loan spells with Dijon, Lille and Monaco. The former Arsenal striker joined Chelsea on a two-year contract from Barcelona last September in a deal that saw Marcos Alonso move in the other direction. But he struggled to settle following the departure of boss Thomas Tuchel and it became increasingly evident that his stay at Stamford Bridge would not be a long one. Aubameyang follows the likes of Kai Havertz and Mason Mount out of the club this summer while Romelu Lukaku – who preceded Aubameyang in the club’s supposedly “cursed” number nine shirt – Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi are all absent from the club’s current pre-season tour of the United States. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

The curse of Chelsea’s number nine shirt claimed its latest victim after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s unhappy 21-game spell was ended by a move to Marseille. The last dozen players to wear the shirt have struggled to make a prolonged impact – including three club-record signings up front, but also a holding midfielder and a certain Dutch defender. Here, the PA news agency looks at the “Curse of Khalid Boulahrouz”. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, 2022-23 “It’s cursed, it’s cursed, people tell me it’s cursed!” said then-manager Thomas Tuchel last summer, adding: “There was not a big demand for number nine, nobody wants to touch it.” Aubameyang was not deterred but, after arriving with a broken jaw sustained in a robbery at his Barcelona home and seeing his former Borussia Dortmund boss Tuchel sacked the day after his debut, he failed to establish himself under Graham Potter – he was not even included in the squad for the Champions League knock-out stages, despite scoring two of his three Chelsea goals in the group stage. Romelu Lukaku, 2021-22 The Belgium striker returned from Inter Milan for a second spell at the club for £97.5million but within months his frustrations became clear in an interview with Sky Sport Italia. Despite 15 goals in all competitions, it was no surprise when he returned to Inter on loan. He scored 14 goals in the season while wearing number 90 at San Siro and has been left out of Chelsea’s pre-season tour of America. Tammy Abraham, 2019-21 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was the last inarguably Chelsea number nine but amid almost £250m spent to fill the troublesome shirt in the 18 years since his departure, academy product Abraham produced arguably the most successful spell with 15 league goals and 18 in total in 2019-20. Twelve more the following year earned a move to Roma under former Blues boss Jose Mourinho. Gonzalo Higuain, 2018-19 The Argentinian’s loan from Juventus yielded five goals in 18 appearances. He was shunted to number 21 on his return to Juve and terminated his contract early the following season to move to Inter Miami. Alvaro Morata, 2017-18 A then club-record buy for £60m, the Spaniard scored 15 goals in his debut season but fell out of favour, switching to number 29 and adding another nine goals before joining Atletico Madrid. Radamel Falcao, 2015-16 The Colombian scored once in 12 games in an injury-hit season. Fernando Torres, 2011-14 The then British-record £50m signing from Liverpool got the longest run at making the Blues’ number nine shirt work for him, wearing it 172 times across three and a half seasons. He scored 45 goals, including a memorable Champions League semi-final clincher against Barcelona, and set up another 26 but several prolonged scoring droughts saw him move on to AC Milan on loan and then his boyhood club Atletico Madrid. Franco Di Santo, 2008-09 Fourteen scoreless substitute appearances were all Di Santo had to show for his time in west London. Steve Sidwell, 2007-08 The former Reading midfielder managed only 24 appearances, scoring once. A largely defensive player, he would have been a glaringly unlikely wearer of the number nine shirt had it not been for his immediate predecessor… Khalid Boulahrouz, 2006-07 The versatile Netherlands defender was assigned one of the few available numbers after his £8.5m arrival from Hamburg. He lasted one season and 23 appearances in all competitions before a loan to Sevilla and a permanent exit to Stuttgart. Hernan Crespo, 2005-06 The Argentina striker had already spent a season at Stamford Bridge wearing number 21, scoring 12 goals, and a year on loan at Milan before Mourinho recalled him and gave him number nine as a show of faith. He added another 13 goals and a league title but soon returned to his earlier employers Inter. Mateja Kezman, 2004-05 Inheriting the shirt from Hasselbaink, Kezman failed to make a similar impact with just seven goals in his sole season. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Marcus Smith teased by England team-mates over Racing 92 speculation England’s Lotte Wubben-Moy begins Doodle Diary again – Friday’s sporting social Rory McIlroy feels he still has chance of winning 151st Open despite Friday’s 70

With the SEC expanding to 16 teams in 2024, South Carolina star Tonka Hemingway is really going to miss the Gamecocks' annual rivalry with the Georgia Bulldogs going forward.During SEC Media Days in Nashville, South Carolina standout Tonka Hemingway said what we are all thinking about confe...

French police are investigating a violent armed robbery that targeted Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma at his home. The Paris prosecutor's office said the player was targeted overnight Thursday to Friday. The prosecutor's office and the French capital's police force refused to release details about the attack that French media said took place in the early hours of the morning in his Paris home. A police investigation has been opened on possible armed robbery, kidnapping and aggravated violence charges, the prosecutor's office said. Le Parisien newspaper, quoting an unnamed police source, reported that four people broke into his apartment in Paris' upmarket 8th district at about 3 a.m. It said Donnarumma and his partner were tied up and that he was slightly injured. Both were treated in hospital for shock, it said. The attackers made off with valuables estimated to be worth about half a million euros (dollars), including watches, jewelry and other luxury accessories, the newspaper said. French champion PSG leaves Saturday for a pre-season tour of Japan. The 24-year-old Donnarumma joined PSG from AC Milan after helping Italy win the European Championship in 2021, where he was named the tournament's best player. He has won the French league title in his two seasons with PSG and was voted the league's best goalkeeper last season. Several PSG players have been robbed in previous years. Among them were Brazil defender Marquinhos and Argentina's World Cup-winning winger Angel Di Maria, who both had their homes robbed in 2021. Read More Women’s World Cup LIVE: Today’s results and latest news Ellie Roebuck: England and Man City goalkeeper in profile England goalkeeper Mary Earps hits out at Nike for refusing to sell her shirt

England goalkeeper Mary Earps says Nike’s decision to not sell her kit during the Women’s World Cup is “hurtful” and “hugely disappointing”. England’s home and away kits are available for fans to buy, but the Lionesses goalkeeper kits have not been put up for sale by the team’s kit supplier. Earps was England’s goalkeeper when they won the Euros last summer and the Manchester United star was named Fifa’s Best Women’s Goalkeeper for 2022. Earps said England captain Millie Bright had told her she wanted to buy her kit for her niece, only to find it wasn’t available for purchase. "I can’t really sugar-coat this in any way, so I am not going to try," Earps told reporters ahead of England’s opening game against Haiti on Saturday. "It is hugely disappointing and very hurtful. "My shirt on the Manchester United website was sold out last season. It was the third-best-selling shirt, so who says it is not selling?" "It is the young kids I am most concerned about. They are going to say, Mum, Dad, can I have a Mary Earps shirt?’ and they say, ‘I can’t, but I can get you an Alessia Russo 23 or a Rachel Daly 9.’ “What you are saying is that goalkeeping isn’t important, but you can be a striker if you want." Meanwhile, the FA has confirmed England captain Millie Bright will wear armbands advocating for inclusion, Indigenous People and gender equality in the Lionesses’ respective first three World Cup matches. Players have the choice of wearing one or more of eight FIFA-sanctioned armbands at this tournament, but not the rainbow OneLove design that sparked the threat of sanctions being issued to countries – including England and Wales – during the 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar. Should the Lionesses progress past the group stage, which begins with Saturday’s opener against Haiti, the player-led decision is for their skipper to switch out her armband to a new cause for each match. Bright said: “As a group, we felt really strongly about all the causes, and we couldn’t separate one from the other. We feel that they are all important and deserve recognition and our support. “We have only just come to a decision recently as we wanted to take time to process it all and to make sure we spoke collectively. “Supporting Indigenous People is massively important to us as a team, both staff and players. We wanted to come to this country and respect the past, the present and the future. We are aware of the past, but we want to move forward collectively and make the world a better place. It is something that we always pride ourselves on.” Read More Women’s World Cup 2023 LIVE: Spain open against Costa Rica after Canada held to Nigeria draw How to watch England vs Haiti: TV channel and start time for Women’s World Cup opener England make decision on armbands for Women’s World Cup matches Netherlands made to train on cricket pitch at Women’s World Cup: ‘It’s amateurism’ England Women’s squad for World Cup 2023 England women World Cup fixtures and route to the final

England and Chelsea right-back Niamh Charles, now 24, began her career at an early age on the Wirral in Merseyside. Charles spent her youth at the West Kirby Wasps and excelled as the only female on the pitch, playing against boys up to the age of 14. “Playing in boys’ teams growing up was all I knew so I can’t really compare it to anything else but I loved it,” she has said. “Some of the things that I had to learn as the boys got older and stronger and some of the things I had to adapt and grow about my game have helped me now in terms of the physical side of football. I wouldn’t change playing for boys’ teams because I really liked it.” After that success at junior level, Charles became a member of Liverpool’s FC Academy youth setup and found herself climbing the ranks. She made her Women’s Super League debut at just 16 and appeared 59 times for Liverpool, scoring 11 goals, but left the club following their relegation and signing for Chelsea in 2020, where manager Emma Hayes has hailed her as “tenacious” and a “willing competitor”. She has since won back-to-back doubles with the Blues and started in the Champions League Final against Barcelona in 2021, aged just 21. She has also represented England at under-17, under-19 and under-20 levels. In 2018 at the Under-20s World Cup, Charles made an impression as she helped the young Lionesses win bronze. That same year, she was voted “Rising Star” at the North-West Football Awards. Her debut for the senior side came in a friendly against France in 2021 and she has since added six more caps, a total she will be seeking to increase further in Australia and New Zealand this summer. Read More England Women’s squad for World Cup 2023 England women World Cup fixtures and route to the final England’s World Cup hinges on a defining question

England goalkeeper Hannah Hampton, who has just signed for Chelsea, may only be 22 but she has already packed plenty of unusual experiences into her young life. As a small child in Birmingham, Hampton was diagnosed with a strabismus, an eye condition that affects depth perception and which she underwent three surgeries to correct by the time she turned three. Then, at five, her teacher parents relocated to Spain, where she joined the Villareal youth academy, quickly learning Spanish and playing as a striker over a five-year spell. When the family returned to Britain, she transferred to Stoke City’s junior ranks and began to play in goal. After six years at Stoke, she joined Birmingham City in 2016 where she broke into the first team by proving herself a natural replacement for the German veteran Ann-Katrin Berger, becoming a first-team regular upon the latter’s retirement. Two years followed with another Midlands club, Aston Villa, before her transfer earlier this month to the West London side. She made her England debut last year in the 2022 Arnold Clark Cup draw against Spain, in which she kept a clean sheet, as she would again in her second international appearance: a 10-0 mauling of North Macedonia in April 2022. A hugely promising keeper, Hampton will nevertheless have a major task on her hands if she hopes to usurp the mighty Mary Earps between the sticks at this World Cup. Read More How to watch England vs Haiti: TV channel and start time for Women’s World Cup opener Women’s football world rankings: Who could take No 1 at the World Cup? FIFA Women’s World Cup fixtures and full schedule

Before being called up by Sarina Wiegman for the Lionesses squad to take part in the Arnold Clark Cup earlier this year, defensive midfielder Laura Coombs had not played for her country since October 2015. The manager was clearly persuaded to bring Coombs in from the international wilderness by her exceptional performances for Manchester City this season, watching her anchor a midfield that had seemingly been significantly weakened by the sales of Keira Walsh, Georgia Stanway and Caroline Weir the previous summer. The oldest member of the 23-strong England World Cup squad at a stately 32, Coombs has a reputation among her teammates as a grafter who will bring plenty of experience to a youthful side, even though her time on the world stage has been somewhat limited thus far. Originally from Gravesend in Kent, Coombs came through first the Charlton Athletic and then the Arsenal youth academies, breaking into the Gunners’ first team in 2007 aged 16 before being loaned out to Nottingham Forest and Los Angeles Strikers before finally being sold to Chelsea in 2011. There she played 52 times over six years and won the Women’s Super League and FA Cup in 2015 but was again loaned out to Barnet, the Strikers and eventually Liverpool, who made that deal permanent in 2017. A regular for the Reds for two seasons, she moved to City in 2019 and won the FA Cup in 2020 and league cup in 2021 before truly excelling as a starter this season. Like goalkeeper Mary Earps, Coombs has a business degree and harbours entrepreneurial ambitions once she hangs up her boots. Read More How to watch England vs Haiti: TV channel and start time for Women’s World Cup opener Women’s football world rankings: Who could take No 1 at the World Cup? FIFA Women’s World Cup fixtures and full schedule

One of the Lionesses’s brightest prospects in Australia and New Zealand is Katie Robinson, a pacy winger who only made her debut for Sarina Wiegman’s side last November when she came on as a substitute in a friendly against Norway. The 20-year-old hails from Newquay in Cornwall where she had to play for Newquary Boys and Goldphin Boys until she turned 16 due the lack of girls’ football facilities in the south west. After honing her skills at the Cornwall Girls Advanced Coaching Centre and playing for the Plymouth Argyle Boys' Centre of Excellence, she lived with a host family in Bristol in order to be part of Bristol City’s youth system. She broke into the first team there in 2018 – a period in which she also starred for England at under-17 level, scoring eight in 11 – before joining her current club Brighton and Hove Albion in 2020. Her progress on the south coast was badly hampered by an anterior cruciate ligament injury in September 2020, however, which caused her to miss the rest of that season and subsequently sent out on loan to Charlton Athletic to continue her recovery. Wiegman clearly believes in Robinson’s potential though, having picked her for the World Cup squad ahead of much more established names like Manchester United’s Nikita Parris. How inclined the manager is to gamble on such an inexperienced prospect remains to be seen. Read More How to watch England vs Haiti: TV channel and start time for Women’s World Cup opener Women’s football world rankings: Who could take No 1 at the World Cup? FIFA Women’s World Cup fixtures and full schedule

Already one of the true legends of the women’s game, Lucy Bronze has been a regular for England since making her debut in 2013 and has played all across the park, although she is best known as a marauding right-back, overlapping Beth Mead in the Euros to often devastating effect. Born into a bilingual Portuguese-English family in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bronze, now 31, played for Alnwick Town until she turned 12, when FA regulations prevented her from continuing to play for the boys’ team, a matter about which her coach felt so strongly he launched an unsuccessful discrimination case to challenge the rules, reluctant to lose his best player to an outmoded technicality. A multi-talented athlete in secondary school, she played at youth level for Blyth Town and Sunderland, graduating to the latter’s senior squad and winning the FA Women’s Premier League Northern Division in 2008/09 before relocating to the US to enrol at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to play for the Tar Heels, a path future LionessesAlessia Russo and Lotte Wubben-Moy would later follow. Returning to England to complete her sports science degree at Leeds Metropolitan University, playing for the institution’s women’s team while supporting herself by working at Domino’s Pizza, Bronze then commenced her senior career in earnest with Everton in 2010. After two years, she transferred to city rivals Liverpool where she won back-to-back Women’s Super Leagues, before moving to Manchester City in 2014, where she again won the title and the FA Cup in 2016. She then moved on to France to play for all-conquering Lyon in 2017, winning the Champions League, three successive league titles, two domestic cups and finishing second in the running for the 2019 Ballon d’Or before returning to City for further cup success. A final switch to Barcelona alongside long-time teammate Keira Walsh followed last summer and the Catalans duly won the title and Champions League in Bronze’s debut season. A hugely popular and respected member of the England set up with 105 caps to her name and counting, and an Instagram account for her West Highland Terrier Narla, it could all have been so different for Lucy Bronze. As the daughter of a maths teacher, she had reportedly planned to become an accountant had football not worked out. Read More How to watch England vs Haiti: TV channel and start time for Women’s World Cup opener Women’s football world rankings: Who could take No 1 at the World Cup? FIFA Women’s World Cup fixtures and full schedule

Georgia Stanway was one of England’s brightest stars at Euro 2022, her finest moment coming in the quarter-final against Spain when she blasted a long-range drive into the top corner early in extra-time to win the game and send the Lionesses roaring into the semis. Like international teammates Keira Walsh and Ella Toone, the girl from Barrow-in-Furness, now 24, progressed through the Blackburn Rovers youth set up before ending up at Manchester City, for whom she played 109 times between 2015 and 2022, scoring 39 goals and winning the PFA Women’s Young Player of the Year award for the 2018/19 season. Like Walsh and Lucy Bronze, she has since left the Barclay’s Women’s Super League to test herself at one of the European superclubs – in their case Barcelona, in her’s Bayern Munich. Winning the Frauen-Bundesliga in her debut season, the already reliably-cheery Stanway has since told The Guardian that the move has made her “so much more open”. “I went to a country where no one knew me and I could be whoever I wanted to be,” she said. “No one was going to judge me. I’ve developed so much. I was never the most sociable person but in a new environment I’ve wanted to go out for tea every night. In Germany, I’ve wanted to see people.” Stanway says the move to Bavaria has forced her to be more independent, seek help when necessary and emboldened her to become more of a leader on the pitch, although she admits that, like Walsh in Catalonia, she has struggled to learn the language. Read More How to watch England vs Haiti: TV channel and start time for Women’s World Cup opener Women’s football world rankings: Who could take No 1 at the World Cup? FIFA Women’s World Cup fixtures and full schedule

Jordan Nobbs, an energetic box-to-box midfielder and former Arsenal captain, has had more than her fair share of bad luck in recent years and was forced to miss out on the 2019 World Cup, the 2020 Olympic Games and Euro 2022 because of knee and ankle injuries. Even in spite of those heart-breaking setbacks, she has still notched up 71 appearances for her country and scored eight times, including a memorable long-range drive against Italy on her debut in the Cyprus Cup in March 2013, in addition to captaining the national side at under-17 level. Now 30, Nobbs will be relishing her chance to get out on the field at a major tournament once again, rather than languishing in a TV studio on punditry duties, and has the calm and experience to martial the Lionesses from the middle of the park, as Jill Scott was often called upon to do during difficult moments last summer. Nobbs was born in Stockton-on-Tees in County Durham and is a product of Sunderland’s youth system, making her first team debut for the Black Cats at 16 and scoring nine times in 29 outings between 2008 and 2011, during which time the side were beaten FA Cup finalists in 2009 and she was named FA Young Player of the Year in 2010. Nobbs subsequently signed for the Gunners in 2010 and became an integral part of the North London club’s success for more than a decade, winning three Barclay’s Women’s Super League titles (captaining the side that lifted the trophy in 2019), as well as four FA Cups and five League Cups. She scored 52 goals in 157 matches between 2010 and 2023 before that sequence of niggling injuries began to hamper her progress and eat into her playing opportunities. Earlier this year she gave herself a new lease of life when she signed for Aston Villa, joining up with current England teammate and Rachel Daly, and scored a hat-trick in a 6-2 trouncing of Brighton, firmly re-establishing her credentials at the highest level. Read More How to watch England vs Haiti: TV channel and start time for Women’s World Cup opener Women’s football world rankings: Who could take No 1 at the World Cup? FIFA Women’s World Cup fixtures and full schedule