Scott Frost helped Central Florida to an undefeated record last season, capping the season with a bowl win over Auburn.
File Photo: Juventus’ Gianluigi Buffon during Serie A match between Juventus and Inter Milan, at the San Siro, Milan, Italy, on April 28, 2018. Photo: Reuters
TURIN: Juventus captain Gianluigi Buffon is leaving the Italian champion and considering playing elsewhere.
Buffon, who is widely regarded as one of the best goalkeepers of all time, was expected to announce his retirement at a news conference with Juventus president Andrea Agnelli at Allianz Stadium on Thursday.
Instead, while the 40-year-old Buffon says the Serie A match against Hellas Verona on Saturday will be his last for Juventus, he has received offers to play elsewhere which have changed his mind about retiring.
“(On) Saturday I will play a match and that is the only thing that’s certain,” Buffon said.
“Until about two weeks ago, I was certain I would stop playing. Now offers have arrived that are exciting on and off the pitch and the most important for staying on the pitch was proposed to me by Agnelli.
“I’ll let these three days pass and then I will make a definitive decision, completely calmly.”
Buffon, who made his debut with Parma in 1995, has been at Juventus since 2001 and he has ruled out moving to another Italian club or dropping down the divisions.
“I am not someone who thinks it is right to end my career in who knows what third or fourth level division,” Buffon added. “I am a competitive animal and I wouldn’t be able to live in that situation. I wouldn’t feel at ease.”
Buffon retired from the national team in November when Italy lost a World Cup playoff to Sweden but recently returned for friendlies. He was an integral member of the Italy squad that won the 2006 World Cup.
Buffon could bid the national team goodbye for good in a friendly on June 4 against the Netherlands at Allianz Stadium.
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Atletico’s Diego Godin and Antoine Griezmann lift up the cup after the Europa League Final match between Marseille and Atletico Madrid at the Stade de Lyon, Lyon, France, on Wednesday, May 16, 2018. Photo: Associated Press
LYON: Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone spoke with an air of resignation when asked if the club can stop Antoine Griezmann from leaving.
The France striker’s stock rose higher when he scored two expert goals on Wednesday night to help the Spanish club win the Europa League with a 3-0 win against Marseille.
“If he stays with us, we’ll continue to grow and develop. He’s a lad who has given so much,” Simeone said.
“We’ve always competed at the highest level. In sporting terms we’re not very far away from those who have deeper pockets than us.”
Those deeper pockets belong to Spanish champion Barcelona, which this season signed two of the world’s four most expensive players in midfielder Philippe Coutinho and winger Ousmane Dembele.
Spanish media has been rife with reports in recent weeks that Griezmann will soon be on his way to join them. Even Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu has acknowledged his club met with Griezmann’s agent in October.
“He always made the right decisions and I hope he’ll be happy to be with us,” said Simeone, who signed Griezmann from Real Sociedad four years ago. “He has been solid, solid as a rock, always present.”
Since joining, the France forward has netted 112 goals in 208 games to become a firm fan favorite.
“The feelings you have for a club grow over time. I’ve been here for four years and I feel very much at home here,” Griezmann said after his match-winning performance. “When I arrived at the club I didn’t have this feeling. Now I feel it’s much stronger, I have stronger ties with my teammates and fans.”
However, he stopped short of saying those ties are enough to prevent him leaving.
“I don’t think now is the time to talk about my future,” Griezmann repeated when twice asked if he’ll stay.
If he leaves, Simeone will have to do what he does best in reshaping his team while keeping it highly competitive. Losing Griezmann would hinder Atletico’s chances of winning the Spanish league again and the Champions League for the first time.
But Simeone, a skillful yet extremely hard-working midfielder during his own player career, never puts one player above the team.
“We only focus on the good of the team, and when we only focus on that the players keep demanding more of themselves,” he said. “They themselves are the ones who rise to the challenge. That’s what allows us to reinvent ourselves.”
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England need the difference the soon-to-be Gloucester fly-half can provide, with the national side’s attack needing a reboot
Gloucester is less a king’s home for Danny Cipriani and more a pretender’s bolthole. The fly-half is being released by Wasps at the end of the season but instead of making an expected lucrative move to France, he is taking a pay-cut to put himself in contention for next year’s World Cup after his international career was revived last week.
Eddie Jones had ignored Cipriani for more than two years, with the England coach not seeing him as a starter ahead of George Ford and Owen Farrell and not wanting to risk souring the mood in the squad by harbouring a perceived recalcitrant tackle bag holder.
Continue reading…Gareth Southgate has praised the “personality and ability” of Trent Alexander-Arnold after the uncapped full-back earned a place in his World Cup 2018 squad. The England manager, speaking at his first press conference since revealing his final 23 for Russia on Wednesday, also insisted Joe Hart still has an international future.
Related: Gareth Southgate sticks to his guns with squad it’s hard to argue with | Daniel Taylor
Continue reading…The sport has been part of the problem for years, doing its best to keep out of the fixed-odds betting terminals debate while pocketing millions in media rights payments
Finally, the deed is done. It is too late to mend or renew the countless lives that have been blighted by high-stakes gaming on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), or to reclaim any of the total of about £25bn that has been sucked from the poorest communities in the country over the last 13 years. But the long-awaited – and long-overdue – decision to limit FOBT stakes to £2 does at least signal a start to the process of recovering from one of the most catastrophic blunders ever committed in the name of deregulation.
The bookmakers with big betting shops chains – Ladbrokes/Coral, William Hill and BetFred – will no doubt continue to whine about the unfairness of it all for some while yet. They have, after all, watched and marvelled as billions of pounds in entirely risk-free profits has poured onto their balance sheets since FOBTs were legitimised in 2005. As it would be for any individual or any business, the effect has been intoxicating – and ultimately addictive. Free money is pernicious. Before too long, you convince yourself that you have earned it and deserve it, and that the good times are never going to end. A finger in each ear ensures that you do not hear those who tell you otherwise.
Continue reading…The health check was a long time in coming but a trend towards a softer approach to coaching, as seen in hockey, bodes promisingly for sport’s wellbeing
“The truth will be uncovered,” promised Dame Katherine Grainger as she revealed UK Sport’s first culture health check. “Whether it is good, bad, or ugly.”
The good? The report found that 90% of British athletes are proud to be on the world class programme. The bad? Thirty-one per cent of athletes have witnessed or experienced unacceptable behaviour. And the ugly? Eighteen per cent of athletes feel there are no consequences when people behave inappropriately. The sincerity of Grainger, who took over as chair of UK Sport last year, was obvious and her pledge to lance any lingering pus in the system welcome. But one question hung uneasily in the air: why had it taken so long to confront the ghost in the machine?
Continue reading…
File Photo: Holstein Kiel player Rafael Czichos, center right, celebrates with Stephen Lewerenz, center left, after scoring his side’s fourth goal, during the match against Eintracht Braunschweig, on Sunday May 13, 2018. Photo: Associated Press
With a stadium too small for the Bundesliga, Holstein Kiel nevertheless dreams of playing in Germany’s top division for the first time.
Five years after securing promotion from the fourth division and only one after progressing from the third, the northern German club is on the verge of another promotion to complete a fairy-tale ascent to the Bundesliga.
“It’s something special, something historic,” Kiel coach Markus Anfang said. “It’s possible of course – we’re in the competition – and we’ll do everything we can to achieve it.”
Before mixing with Germany’s top clubs, Kiel will have to get past Volkswagen-backed Wolfsburg in a two-leg playoff. The winner of the games in Wolfsburg on Thursday and Kiel the following Monday will play in the Bundesliga next season.
If Kiel did make it through, it will have to quickly increase its stadium capacity after the German soccer league ruled that its 10,000-capacity Holstein-Stadion is too small for Bundesliga games. The league wants stadiums to hold at least 15,000 supporters in the top division, 8,000 of those seated.
On Wednesday the league said it would allow Kiel to construct an extra stand to accommodate the increased numbers by October, while work on the stadium’s east stand will increase capacity to 18,400 by next year.
Kiel fans lined up for tickets to the games and excitement in the port city of 250,000 inhabitants is palpable. It’s been a long time since a soccer team from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s most northerly state, generated national headlines.
The club’s heyday was between 1910 and 1930 when it won six Northern German championships. Kiel defeated Karlsruher FV with a penalty from Ernst Moeller to win its only German title in 1912. It finished runner-up in 1910 and 1930 and just missed out on promotion to the Bundesliga in 1965.
This season, Kiel has the advantage over Wolfsburg after finishing third in the second division with a 6-2 rout of Eintracht Braunschweig. Wolfsburg only avoided automatic demotion from the Bundesliga with a 4-1 win over already-relegated Cologne, its first victory in four games.
Anfang began his coaching career with Kiel in September 2016 and led the side to promotion in his first season.
“Up to now, we’ve gone into every game to win it, and that’s what we’ll do against Wolfsburg,” the former midfielder said.
Whatever happens, Anfang will not be coaching in the Bundesliga next season. The Cologne-native has already agreed to take over his hometown club following its relegation. Anfang and assistant Tom Cichon signed three-year deals with Cologne.
Last season was Kiel’s first in the second division in 36 years. The team finished with the best attack, scoring 71 goals in 34 games. It lost only six of those – another best-mark in the division.
Wolfsburg could only win six of its 34 games in the Bundesliga. It scored 36 goals, just over half of Kiel’s total, albeit in a tougher division.
It will be Wolfsburg’s second playoff for survival in as many years, underlining the club’s fall in stature in the wake of the Volkswagen emissions scandal in 2015. Wolfsburg won the German Cup and finished runner-up in the league that year, securing a spot in the Champions League, but it has struggled since, particularly in the last two seasons.
Wolfsburg’s troubles are encouragement for Kiel.
“For us, it would crown the last two years if we could manage it,” Anfang said. “We believe in it.”
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John Stones may count himself fortunate to be in England’s World Cup 23 but the manager has largely remained true to principles he set out just after his appointment
A video has been doing the rounds in the last couple of days showing the moment when Fagner, a defender for Corinthians, is waiting to discover whether he has been named in Brazil’s squad for the World Cup. It is lovely to see. Fagner is with his family – lots of family, mostly wearing that famous yellow kit – but standing apart, listening to the names being announced, one by one, on television. If he looks nervous it is understandable bearing in mind his whole career, at the age of 28, has brought him only four caps. He has clearly not had any advance warning. And then, finally, it is his name read out and, amid the screams and the hugs, we see what it means for a footballer to be selected for this tournament.
Festa na casa do lateral direito Fagner… CONVOCADO PARA A SELEÇÃO BRASILEIRA! pic.twitter.com/yPIDns1Ixk
Continue reading…‘Culture health check’ shows widespread pride but reports almost a third of Olympic athletes fear reprisals for speaking out
The optimistic tone of the UK Sport hierarchy as they presented the results of what they called a “culture health check” has rarely been heard over the last two years as they lurched from one duty-of-care crisis to another.
Barely a corner of the system has been left untouched by allegations of bullying, discrimination and favouritism – from cycling to gymnastics, canoeing and bobsleigh, to mention just a few. Now Chelsea Warr, the performance director of UK Sport, has claimed this survey of more than 2,000 elite athletes and staff across the Olympic spectrum is proof that those problems are not endemic in the system.
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