CELEBRITY
MESSI RAGES AS FAILING BARCA LOSE LA LIGA AND RISK GETTING EVEN WORSE
Barcelona made it all about the Champions League and after surrendering La Liga to Real Madrid, now it is all they have left.
Winning the title last season for an eighth time in 11 years was never going to be enough. Winning the double had not been either the year before.
La Liga and the Copa del Rey had become Barca’s default, their domestic dominance taken for granted and then diminished by disappointment in Europe.
A mess of a season could still be saved by the Champions League but even the most optimistic of fans expect the worst against Bayern Munich, Barcelona’s probable opponents in the quarter-finals.
Many, including Lionel Messi, are worried even about getting past Napoli, with the pandemic-delayed last 16 match-up poised at 1-1.
“I said long ago that if we continued in this way, it would be very difficult to win the Champions League and that has been shown to be the case in La Liga too,” said a frustrated Messi after the 2-1 loss to Osasuna on Thursday (July 16).
“If we want to fight for the Champions League we will have to change a lot because otherwise the match against Napoli, we will lose that as well.”
Just over a year on from almost winning the treble, Barcelona look set to finish without a trophy of any kind for the first time in 12 years.
And yet the concern is not so much the many failures of this season but the possibility they could be just the start.
Messi is 33 and his anger is directed primarily at the board, whose leadership has left Barcelona with a team seemingly neither for the present nor the future.
There has been no succession plan for Messi since Neymar joined Paris Saint-Germain in 2018 and that world record fee has been squandered on players that have failed to settle or been sold to balance the books.
Antoine Griezmann, bought for €120 million (S$190.6 million), left Atletico Madrid for the Nou Camp and what he thought would be the pinnacle of his club career. Yet earlier this month, he was reduced to coming off the bench, against Atletico, in injury-time.
And it is not just Messi nearing the end. Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez and Jordi Alba are all 31 or older.
Off the pitch, political blunders have angered the dressing room, with Messi issuing a public rebuke to sporting director Eric Abidal in February over the sacking of Ernesto Valverde.
Removing Valverde might have been understandable last summer after two successful years appeared to have run their course.
But a change mid-season, with Barca top of the table, and to a coach like Quique Setien, whose ideas need time to be absorbed, now looks reckless.
Setien has admitted managing a squad like Barcelona’s has been a challenge for him. He has intimated that some players need to think more about the team.
He has made mistakes too and it remains to be seen if he pays with his job.
Bartomeu has said Setien will stay for the Champions League but the home defeat by Osasuna intensified the doubts.
“I hope so,” said Setien, when asked on Thursday if he would be in charge next month.
But with presidential elections at the club to come next year, the position is not an attractive one for an elite coach.
-AFP
Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first footballer to reach billionaire status, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which has valued the Portugal great’s net worth at an estimated $1.4 billion.
The 40-year-old striker’s financial ascent comes after he signed a new contract with Saudi side Al-Nassr in June reportedly worth more than $400 million.
Bloomberg said that Ronaldo earned more than $550 million in salary between 2002 and 2023, supplemented by a decade-long Nike deal worth nearly $18 million annually, and lucrative endorsements with Armani, Castrol and others that added more than $175 million to his fortune.
Ronaldo’s move to Al-Nassr from Manchester United in 2023 had already made him the highest-paid player in football history, with an annual salary of 177 million pounds ($237.52 million), plus bonuses and a reported 15% share in his Saudi Arabia club.
Argentina and Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi has earned more than $600 million in pre-tax salary during his career.
Ronaldo’s billionaire status places him among a rare group of athletes that includes basketball greats Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James, golfer Tiger Woods and tennis player Roger Federer.
Ronaldo suggested he is not considering retirement any time soon.
“I still have a passion for this,” he said at the Portugal Football Globes gala on Tuesday. “My family says it’s time to quit and they ask me why I want to score 1000 goals if I’ve already scored 900-something. But I don’t think that way inside.
“I’m still producing good things, I’m helping my club and the national team. Why not continue? I am sure that when I finish I will leave full because I gave everything of myself. I know I don’t have many years left to play, but the few I have left, I have to enjoy them to the fullest.”
-Reuters
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Former England soccer captain David Beckham and actor Gary Oldman were knighted in King Charles’ annual birthday honours list on Saturday, while sculptor Antony Gormley was made a Companion of Honour.
Beckham, 50, joined Manchester United as a trainee in 1993, going on to make almost 400 appearances for the club where he won a string of titles and cups.
He subsequently played for Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, and Inter Milan, as well as captaining his country 58 times and making 115 appearances.
His marriage to fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham in 1999 cemented a celebrity status which went far beyond his sporting exploits.
Oldman, 67, started his career on the stage, where he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, before rising to prominence in film. He won the best actor Oscar for playing Winston Churchill in the 2017 drama “Darkest Hour”.
He also had roles in the “Dark Knight Trilogy” and the “Harry Potter” movie series and more recently starred in the TV spy drama “Slow Horses”.
Other famous names receiving honours included damehoods for musical theatre star Elaine Paige, novelist Pat Barker and ceramics maker Emma Bridgewater.
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of rock band the Who and a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, received a knighthood for services to charity.
More than 1,200 people received honours for their achievements, with a particular focus on those who had given their time to public service, the government said.
King Charles’ official birthday will be celebrated with the annual “Trooping the Colour” military parade in London on Saturday. His actual birthday is on November 14
-Reuters
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One of three judges in Diego Maradona’s closely scrutinized homicide trial in Argentina resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal triggered by the alleged filming of an unauthorised documentary, bringing uncertainty to the future of legal proceedings.
The high-profile trial over the death of soccer star Maradona began on March 11 in the South American country where the World Cup winner is still revered.
-Reuters
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