Sky Sports understands Liverpool midfielder Joe Cole has rejected a move to Spartak Moscow.
Sky Sports had earlier indicated that the Anfield giants were ready to listen to offers for player
before the close of the transfer window.
And it's understood that the Russians, who were drawn to face Barcelona, Benfica and Celtic in
Group G of the Champions League, were keen on signing the experienced 30-year-old.
Liverpool is a possible destination for Valencia coach Unai Emery, according to Valencia Plaza.
Emery is set to leave Los Che when his contract expires on 30th June, with the Mestalla faithful
having grown disillusioned with the club's failure to challenge Barcelona and Real Madrid in La
Liga.
Memories of the heady days of Rafael Benitez are still fresh in Valencia and Emery's inability to
move his side beyond third spot is causing Los Che to look elsewhere, despite the Spaniard having
to operate with a significantly smaller budget than the Blaugrana and Los Blancos.
Adrian further established his growing reputation with a stunning goal for Atletico Madrid, as the
club secured their place in the Europa League final in Bucharest, running out 5-2 aggregate winners
against La Liga rivals, Valencia.
The striker added a ninth Europa League goal to his tally in this year's competition, helping the
club reach the final, where they will now meet Athletic Bilbao.
Jozy Altidore started for AZ and his size and strength was an obvious problem for Valencia, the
third Spanish side on display in the quarter-finals. He was brought down in the box clearly impeded
but Martin Atkinson did not see anything wrong. Valencia however looked far more dangerous and
racked up a number of scoring chances through Roberto Soldado and Antonio Barragan.
Jozy Altidore started for AZ and his size and strength was an obvious problem for Valencia, the
third Spanish side on display in the quarter-finals. He was brought down in the box clearly impeded
but Martin Atkinson did not see anything wrong. Valencia however looked far more dangerous and
racked up a number of scoring chances through Roberto Soldado and Antonio Barragan.
At a press conference in the new stadium today, the Dynamo annonced they will host Valencia from
La Liga in the 2012 Dynamo Charities Cup. The match will be played on Thursday, May 31st and markes
the first time the Dynamo have played a club from Spain's top division.
Official Dynamo Press Release:
The Houston Dynamo and Spain's Valencia announced today that they will meet in the fourth
edition of the BBVA Compass Dynamo Charities Cup.
21.02.2012 - Días difíciles se viven en Valencia, incluso en el club de Mestalla
donde el surrealismo viene en forma de automóvil. El inverosímil accidente de Ever Banega
viene a sumar gotas al vaso que empezaron a llenar (hace unos meses) Ricardo Costa
estrellando su Ferrari contra una valla de la ciudad deportiva y Miguel Brito atropellando
dos ancianas a la salida de una rotinda.
Well, I didn't see the match v Racing this past weekend, but from all accounts, it was yet
another shit performance from both Unai Emery and his players. Emery tried to play some nice
offensive football away in Santander, starting both Tino Costa and Éver Banega in midfield, and
within 2 minutes VCF was down 1-0.
Real Madrid midfielder Lassana Diarra looks set to join Spartak Moscow this summer according to
his agent.
The holding midfielder has one year left on his contract with the current La Liga champions but
Jose Mourinho seems disinclined to offer Diarra a new deal. Rather than let him leave for free in
12 months, Madrid are looking to recoup some of their investment in the player by selling him this
summer.
Big boost for Valencia after Roberto Soldado has agreed to extended his contract until the
summer of 2017.
Soldado was the joint top-scoring Spaniard in La Liga along with Fernando Llorente last season
as his 17 goals helped guide Valencia to their third consecutive third-placed finish.
Valencia have announced the appointment of former defender Mauricio Pellegrino as their new
coach. The former assistant manager to Rafael Benitez at Liverpool and Inter Milan, Pellegrino has
signed a two-year deal with Valencia.
Valencia president Manuel Llorente told the club's official website:
"The board have signed and ratified the agreement reached this past Friday with Mauricio
Pellegrini, who will be the first-team manager for the next two seasons.
Barcelona gets themselves back on winning ways with a massive 7-0 victory over Rayo Vallecano in
the weekend and temporarily held Real Madrid's title celebration at least for the next few matches.
Lionel Messi and Pedro bagged a brace for the Catalan while the other goals were scored by Thiago,
Seydou Keita along with an own goal from Rober.
Just when things are starting to look well for Valencia's young playmaker, Sergio Canales,
another bad luck haunts him as the youngster is set to rest from the playing field for a long time
again after picking up an injury against Atletico Madrid on Thursday.
Canales who was stretchered out early in the second half on that Europa League apparently had a
new ligament injury on his right knee and according to the club's doctor, Jordi Candel.
Valencia's tactician, Unay Emerey was obviously disappointed with his team's elimination from
the Europa League by Atletico Madrid, but the Spaniard manly admitted that Diego Simeone's squad
were the better team in their two meetings.
Emery admitted that not being able to reach the final left a bitter taste for El Che but he
urged his players to forget about Europa League and continue their focus in maintaining the third
place spot at La Liga.
Despite being in a lower league position than their opponent, Atletico Madrid, managed to show
their superiority against Valencia in the Semifinal of Europa League as Diego Simeone's side
eliminated Unay Emery's boys with two victories.
Having already taking a 4-2 lead in the first leg, Atletico picked up another victory at
Mestalla thanks to a lovely striker from their young striker, Adrian Lopez, which simply ended the
home team's effort.
Malaga's Champions League gets even bigger as they managed to sneak into third place, surpassing
Valencia after Manuel Pellegrini's boys convincingly defeated 10 men Racing Santander 3-0.
Despite missing a penalty in the early minutes, goals from Isco, Santi Cazorla and Ruud Van
Nistelrooy were more than enough to lift them up a place, giving more hope on their European dream
by the end of season.
Welcome to La Liga Lunes, our weekly wrap on Spanish football! We'll start off
with Valencia, who held Madrid to a goalless draw at the Bernabeu
an impressive feat which cements their third spot in the table. Sure, a whopping 26
points separates them from Barcelona right now, but at least they're one point ahead of
local rivals, Levante.
Real Madrid are getting more cautious with their title battle as they're gap with Barcelona got
reduced again this weekend after Jose Mourinho's team only managed to pick up a 0-0 draw against
Valencia at Santiago Bernebau.
Both teams had their share of goal scoring chances but the home team might be felt more harm
done by the result as they do edged it a bit in terms of creating opportunities as the visitor were
counting more from their counter attacks.
Valencia picked up a rather disappointing results in their last three home games, losing two out
of their latest three, including the latest one on Wednesday against bottom table, Real Zaragoza,
leaving their fans plenty bitterness.
This situation is obviously being acknowledged by El Che's tactician, Unay Emery, but he still
hope that the Mestalla faithful won't be ditching the club because their support remains an
important element for Emery's team.
Valencia advanced to the next stage of Europa League and simply glad not to pay for their
mistakes in throwing away a four goal advantage into only having two for the second leg against PSV
Eindhoven.
Adil Rami's goal was obviously the show for El Che on the night as not only he was the one
scoring the La Liga side's only goal in a1-1 draw, but the French international also got himself
send off, leaving some scarce in the last few minutes for his team.
Valencia justified their pre-match billing as favourites by becoming the first foreign visitors
to win at Stoke City.
Mehmet Topal's brilliant first-half strike put Valencia in control of this round of 32 tie,
ending Stoke's proud unbeaten home record in Europe in the process. The home side went down
fighting, but it was the Liga outfit who were closest to a second goal when, with 19 minutes left,
Sofiane Feghouli stepped inside Andy Wilkinson and beat Asmir Begović, but not the post, with a
deflected shot.
The Timbers U23s trained today at Jeld-Wen Field ahead of their first ever US Open Cup game,
which will be played at Jeld-Wen tomorrow evening after the conclusion of the Timbers' game in
Houston. Under a sunny sky, the Little Timbers spent the morning working on possessing the ball and
linking up with each other.
The Portland Timbers U23's took on the Fraser Valley Mariners yesterday and did something that
the Timbers first team has not done since the first week of the season: they won big and they won
in style. With a final score of 3-0, a score that was generous to the Mariners, the U23's opened
their season with an exciting victory.
Emory, emery... whatever. "Board" yet?With a few roster spots still remaining and with
the sudden departure of Geovanny Caicedo creating a (bigger) hole in their defence, Toronto FC have
signed American defender Logan Emory. The 24-year old, who has been trialing with TFC this spring,
has spent the large chunk of his pro career in the USL with Puerto Rico Islanders where he made 51
appearances.
It's always nice to know that people read your work, and when they do they take it to heart.
Clearly, Pablo Hernández has a good understanding of English and reads The Offside, because just
days after I called him rubbish and whatnot, he put on a blinder of a performance against Levante
in the Copa del Rey.
I'm back (kind of)! For those who used to visit The Offside but haven't in a while, welcome
back. For those who have never visited before, welcome. As Cesar mentioned in the previous post,
it's sad that I closed down Loco4LosChe, but I'm very excited to be a part of The Offside team now,
as I think it better suits me at this time in my life to write one to two articles a week instead
of daily news updates.
Three goals in 10 minutes saw Spartak Moscow beat Fenerbahce 2-1 at home in a first-leg playoff
match, with striker Emmanuel Emenike on target against his former club. Emenike,
who joined Spartak last year after just two months at Fenerbahce, scored on 59 minutes Tuesday,
hammering the ball into the net after pouncing on a low left-wing cross from Dmitry Kombarov.
The Europa League has been very entertaining at times this season, but it is still an overpriced
consolation tournament. And so Valencia have decided to give season ticket holders free entry to
the second leg of their Europa League semifinal against Atletico Madrid in an effort to ensure they
have a full stadium as they trail 4-2 (thanks in part to the lovely Falcao goal above) after the
first leg.
I woke up this morning wanting the ‘D' Word to stand for ‘Defense' – as it was in my opinion,
the main talking point to last night's match vs. Valencia. Having read some of the comments from
the liveblog at RMFB (and what some Madrid fans are saying), perhaps another ‘D' Word should be
added into the mix: disappointment – Madridisimo's collective disappointment for the result (an
obvious one) and my personal disappointment for their nitpicky reaction to the game.
