Football news, match reports and fixtures | theguardian.com

El Ahmadi escapes with sore shin from Ramires tackle
José Mourinho wary of Didier Drogba homecoming with tie in the balance
Will foreign stars revive Australia's traditional football clubs?
FA set to reject Hull owner's name change to Tigers
World Cup protests to be 'very small'
What is David Moyes's blueprint – his vision for Manchester United? | Jamie Jackson
'More than half of players have witnessed racist abuse'
The Fiver | Skintight leather and a crock of gold | Barry Glendenning
'Football needs more defibrillators'
Fabrice Muamba was lucky help was at hand. It's the exception not the norm
Why more must be done after Muamba
Football Weekly: Liverpool swat aside miserable Manchester United
Forget Julian Draxler, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is Schalke's real key man | Raphael Honigstein
Real Madrid ready to face Schalke and Barcelona, says Carlo Ancelotti – video
Mata insists: 'The sun will rise again'
Rayo Vallecano's all-or-nothing approach is finally coming good | Sid Lowe
Roberto Donadoni wounds Milan but shows he may be their summer saviour
Curtis Woodhouse: 'Someone said it's like Rocky but Rocky is made up'
Jermain Defoe, Will Bruin and Thierry Henry display MLS goalscoring exploits
Manchester United's David Moyes was 'never interested in Everton youth team'
The best goals of the week: Pirlo, Trezeguet, Morrison and FC United
Qatar World Cup timing decision put back to early 2015
Manchester United's David Moyes on Liverpool defeat: 'It's difficult to explain' - video
Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool demolish Manchester United with 3-0 win - video
Tottenham Hotspur's Tim Sherwood: 'We deserved to win against Arsenal' – video

El Ahmadi escapes with sore shin from Ramires tackle

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 02:19 PM PDT

• Chelsea player sent off for potential 'leg-breaker'
• 'Thankfully he's OK,' says Villa's Paul Lambert

The Aston Villa manager, Paul Lambert, has confirmed Karim El Ahmadi has escaped serious injury following the horror tackle by Ramires in Villa's 1-0 win over Chelsea on Saturday.

Ramires was sent off in injury time for a wild lunge on El Ahmadi's leg which Lambert described as a "leg-breaker".

Lambert told Villa's official website: "If Karim comes in from another angle, he breaks his leg. It was shocking. He has got a sore one but thankfully he's OK.

He has a sore one on his shin. It certainly could have been worse."

José Mourinho wary of Didier Drogba homecoming with tie in the balance

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 01:54 PM PDT

The striker and Chelsea favourite is set for an emotional return to Stamford Bridge with Galatasaray on Tuesday night

Didier Drogba claimed he was "apprehensive" about the homecoming ahead, though the manner in which he broke the ice when holding court in the Harris Suite on the eve of his return suggested otherwise. While confusion reigned between the Galatasaray press officer and Uefa-appointed interpreter, the Ivorian took the initiative. "I'll ask myself a question: 'Didier, how do you feel about coming to Stamford Bridge?'" he offered. "Yeah, I'm really happy to come back and to see some familiar faces. Yes, it's all good."

That was all delivered through a toothy grin, the man whose last touch for Chelsea had claimed the European Cup instantly at ease in familiar surroundings. He spoke of being better able to control those same emotions which once overcame him on his return to Olympique de Marseille, of "finding a way" to play in an arena where he will be showered with adulation before kick-off and raucously appreciated long after the final whistle. And of one day, "but not now because I still want to play", even coming back in a coaching capacity. He will be just as warmly received then, given the 36-year-old remains an icon at the club, a veteran of eight years' service, 157 goals and a trio of league titles.

There will be a presentation on the pitch pre-match yet former team-mates, as well as the manager who made him, must now accept Drogba as nothing more than a considerable threat. This tie remains awkwardly on edge, for all that Chelsea appeared so comfortable through the opening period in Istanbul and claimed a critical away goal, and Drogba, even at the twilight stage of a glittering career, has an adrenalin-fuelled incentive to make his mark. This will not be the cowed forward who was so diminished at the Stade Vélodrome in December 2010 before that dead rubber against Les Phocéens. "It's difficult playing Chelsea, but it's not going to be difficult for me to put myself into the competition," he said. "Because now I belong to Galatasaray. I need to be professional.

"Of course there will be emotions. Like the first leg when I saw my ex-team-mates, and the Chelsea fans at the stadium. It was special. But then there was the game and the game was tough with high intensity. This will be the same. If I score, with all the respect I have for this club, for the fans and the players, I might not celebrate. But if we win, I will be happy."

Did he feel a need to remind people here of his continued worth almost two years after his departure under freedom of contract? "No, not that way. I've nothing to prove to this club. Everything I have to prove I did already with Chelsea. No, I come here with another team and I just want to win the game and qualify. There's nothing personal against Chelsea. There will never be."

Mourinho would empathise with that. It is four years since he, too, returned to this corner of south-west London – then as manager of Internazionale – to oversee the elimination of his former employers from this competition. The manager had thrilled at the pre-match circus on that occasion, revelling in the limelight afforded him, but had been coldly professional enough on the night to separate himself from the theatre of it all. The Inter he sent out to defeat Carlo Ancelotti's Chelsea were expertly drilled, aware of the weaknesses they would encounter in their hosts. Even the playful chants directed at the Portuguese from the local support went ignored until the job was done.

Drogba, too, will feel he can exploit frailties in the home defence. "Didier will have probably one of the best moments in his career when he goes on to the pitch, and maybe he can't [control his emotions] for a couple of minutes then," said Mourinho. "But, after that, players, managers … we can all do it. We can clean it from our minds and focus on the game. He is still top-quality, and we know he is in good form. Is he the same player at 36 that he was at 26? Nobody is. But he's one of the best strikers in the world, that's for sure. He doesn't look his age. He is good, strong."

He is also missed. That final in Munich had seemed like the perfect cut-off for both parties to go their separate ways but there have been times since – not least at Villa Park on Saturday – when Chelsea have cried out for a battering ram of a player such as Drogba, even if only to fling on late from the bench in tight contests.

Some might suggest they have one, in Romelu Lukaku, though Mourinho's insistence that the club were well aware that the older man's contract is ticking down in Turkey was intriguing. "It has to happen one day," he said. "As a player, as a coach, as an ambassador, next year, in four or five years, or 10 years, I don't know. But when a person represents so much to a club and the club represents so much to a person, as is the case, I think he has to be welcomed back."

Samuel Eto'o is expected to start against the Turkish club, the Cameroonian trotting on to the training pitch at Cobham on Monday joking loudly with Mikel John Obi, Demba Ba and Eden Hazard about being "the Daddy". Eto'o has had his moments since his move from Anzhi Makhachkala last summer but, particularly before this second leg, that moniker still feels more appropriately applied to Drogba. This will be a welcome return. Chelsea must ensure it falls short of being a glorious one.

Dominic Fifield

Will foreign stars revive Australia's traditional football clubs?

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 01:47 PM PDT

Joe Gorman: Sydney Olympic have suffered in the A-League era but their Greek roots could help them rediscover past glories

Joe Gorman

FA set to reject Hull owner's name change to Tigers

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 01:39 PM PDT

• FA's membership committee backs fans' opposition to change
• Owner Assem Allam repeats threat to 'walk away' from club

The Football Association looks set to reject the application by the Hull City owner, Assem Allam, to change the club's name to Hull Tigers, after the FA's membership committee unanimously voted against it. In response Allam reiterated that he would "walk away" from the club if the full FA council follows the committee's recommendation at its meeting on 9 April.

Allam, a local businessman who bought the club in 2010, clarified that he meant he would put the club up for sale, not seek immediately to recover his £72m loans and cause the club financial difficulties.

"How could you imagine I would change my mind?" he said of his promise to walk away. "People who know me know that I do not go back on what I say."

The FA confirmed that its membership committee, at a meeting last Wednesday, "made a unanimous recommendation to the FA council to reject Hull City's request to change their playing name to Hull Tigers from next season".

The committee is understood to have decided that Allam and his son Ehab, who works with his father at their industrial generators' business and as the football club's vice-chairman, had not adequately made a case for the name change. The Allams argued that playing as Hull Tigers, dropping the name City because it is shared with other clubs and therefore "common", would deliver a major commercial boost in global marketing.

They were opposed by an alliance of supporters' groups under the campaign name City Till We Die, who argued that the club's name since 1904 is an integral part of its heritage and character and that there was no research to back the idea that "Tigers" would provide a commercial advantage. Talking to the Guardian in November, Assem Allam acknowledged he had not conducted research to support the plan for a name change.

Any change of a club's playing name has to be approved by the FA, which accepts the importance of tradition and requires reasons to be soundly argued. The FA's membership committee formed a three-man subcommittee to consult widely across football and hear the submissions from the Allams and City Till We Die. The fans' campaign produced a video and 21-page submission, arguing that the Hull City AFC name had been "hard fought for" and the club could achieve much more commercially under its current name.

"This is a pivotal moment for English football," the submission said. "The FA decision-makers can become the heroes that protected the national game. Or they can usher in a new era where money and ego matter more than anything else."

The FA's subcommittee is understood to have found that the Allams had not justified the name change on commercial grounds or to have consulted adequately with supporters. The subcommittee's recommendation to reject the name change proposal was then approved unanimously by the full membership committee, which is chaired by Philip Smith of the Kent FA, and includes Jez Moxey, chief executive of Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Malcolm Clarke, chief executive of the Football Supporters' Federation.

Allam told the Guardian he now intends to ballot City's 17,900 season-ticket holders – he said it would have made no difference to have done so before the FA committee considered the issue – and hopes the FA council will sanction the name change.

"We will announce a ballot this week," he said, "and we will challenge the decision. If the FA does not allow our plan, we will walk away, put it on the market to sell the club. We would not put it into liquidation; there is a lot of money at stake. I will get my money when I sell."

Ian Waterson, a spokesman for City Till We Die, welcomed the FA committee's decision and thanked the "overwhelming" support for the campaign. "The FA committee has recognised our heritage and history as Hull City AFC and the views of supporters, and the wider implications this decision has for other clubs," said Waterson. "We trust the FA council will listen to its committee's recommendation and reject the application."

David Conn

World Cup protests to be 'very small'

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 12:46 PM PDT

• Aldo Rebelo says prices of flights and hotel rooms will fall
• Thousands set to have flights rerouted due to 'no-fly zones'

Brazil's sports minister has promised highly expensive flights and hotel rooms will come down in price before the World Cup and says street protests will be "very small" compared with those that gripped the Confederations Cup last year.

But even as Aldo Rebelo attempted to reassure 600,000 overseas fans that travelling to the World Cup would be straightforward, it emerged that up to 16,000 passengers would have their flights rerouted because of security concerns.

The Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported the government had decided to enforce "no-fly zones" over the 12 host stadiums on match days, affecting eight airports. It said more than 800 internal flights would be cancelled as a result and a further 150 rerouted, adding to the uncertainty for travelling fans.

Rebelo promised that all 12 World Cup stadiums would be finished in time for the tournament's kick-off in June but admitted the three outstanding venues had been held up by "paralysis" and that the last would not be ready until early May.

"There have been some delays, some of them are characteristic of this type of construction," Rebelo told the Guardian. "We have very strong regulations and controls. Compliance is extremely important. Sometimes there was a paralysis but the stadiums will be ready. Six were delivered for the Confederations Cup and we have already delivered three more. The final three will host test events as planned."

He said the stadium in Cuiabá would be ready on 2 April while the São Paulo ground , delayed by the deaths of two construction workers in November, would be handed over in mid-April. The Curitiba stadium, over which there has been most concern, with Fifa insiders admitting they faced a race against time to fit it out before the World Cup, would be completed by "the end of April or beginning of May", said Rebelo.

But he admitted that there was no plan B if the stadiums, supposed to be finished by the end of 2013, were not ready in time. "I don't think it's necessary," he said.

Rebelo promised the 600,000 overseas fans expected to travel to the World Cup, as well as 3m Brazilians, that prices for flights and accommodation would start to come down now that organisers and tour operators had begun to release block bookings back on to the market.

According to local media, a two-star hotel room in some host cities has risen to at least £245 a night while the cost of internal flights has also soared. Rebelo said that the provision of more domestic flights and a rush of rooms returning to the market would bring prices down.

He said that in even the most populated host cities, hotels would be at only 90% capacity and he outlined plans to compile a comprehensive register of private residences offering accommodation.

He emphasised that 6m tourists visit Brazil during carnival season, concentrated in three cities, compared with 600,000 expected for the World Cup.

"So I can't see how we'll have a major challenge," he said. "During the World Cup there will be no other major activity. People will not be going to congresses, visits and fairs – they will want to stay at home to watch the football."

The Brazilian sports minister said that in contrast to the 1m-plus who protested last June against the disparity between the money lavished on World Cup stadiums and under-investment in public services, they would be "very small" in number during the tournament.

"The possibility of protest during the World Cup is very limited," he said. "People are more interested in celebrating the World Cup. Peaceful protests are protected by the constitution. Violent protests are forbidden by law and they are matters for the police to deal with."

Scenes of hooliganism in half-empty stadiums during domestic Brazilian matches have blighted the run-up to the World Cup but Rebelo said they would not be repeated during the tournament. "We are preparing our list so that they can't disrupt the games," he said.

Rebelo also insisted the World Cup would not leave behind a host of white elephant stadiums. But he admitted that the higher prices that privately owned stadiums would charge in the wake of the World Cup to recoup their costs could have the effect of "preventing the poorer people to come".

He conceded that "this is one of the undesirable effects" of constructing new stadiums, but planned to hold talks with stadium operators to ensure that they reserved certain parts of the stadium for cheaper tickets.

Owen Gibson

What is David Moyes's blueprint – his vision for Manchester United? | Jamie Jackson

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 10:15 AM PDT

United's manager is floundering, Juan Mata is being dragged down and signs that things are coming together are sparse

There was a moment among the wreckage of Manchester United's 3-0 trouncing by Liverpool when David Moyes was forced to confront reality.

He was asked if being the manager of the 20-times champions was more difficult than he had thought. "The job was always going to be hard," he said. When pushed if the post was not just hard, but harder than he had hoped, the man who has overseen a 43-point swing to United's fiercest enemy, had to reply in the affirmative. "Harder? Yes I would say so, yes."

With each demoralising defeat the ire and concerns of United fans focus more on Moyes and whether he is the man for the job. The manner of the defeats the 50-year-old is overseeing is the chief charge against him. All teams lose but to go down constantly by playing like a team of strangers seven months into his inaugural season offers scant hope of optimism.

Supporters want to look at the Moyes project and see a glimmer that things are coming together. Instead, the evidence of the dire 2-0 defeat to Olympiakos three weeks ago in the Champions League and Sunday's equally abysmal reverse to Brendan Rodgers's dazzling Liverpool suggests that United are going backwards under Moyes.

Tactically, Rodgers had no compunction playing the 19-year-old Raheem Sterling in the No10 slot while Moyes again shunted Juan Mata, his £37.1m club record buy, out wide on the right. Adnan Januzaj, another No10 in-waiting was on the opposite flank, while the £27m Marouane Fellaini continues to look a player sucked under by the challenge of playing in the famous red shirt.

Mata has played seven games under Moyes but whereas the eye can see the Spaniard operating with success in a wide position for Barcelona or Bayern Munich – where the central players are creative – in this United side he has become an auxiliary wingman, who is yet to score, and is being dragged down to the level of the average player.

It begs the questions: what is Moyes's plan, his blueprint, vision? And, can he arrange Mata, Januzaj, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie into a slick, interchangeable front four who can terrorise teams?

The answer is that no one knows. From the moment Moyes replaced Sir Alex Ferguson he has constantly talked of "transition". The word has been applied to the club, the squad, the expectations of fans. Yet Moyes is also in transition.

He is the time-served manager who arrived at Old Trafford having spent 11 years in charge of Everton, a club of more modest achievements than the institution of George Best, Sir Bobby Charlton, Cristiano Ronaldo, three European Cups and a self-professed 659m fans around the globe.

One of football's great truisms is about it being a results business. Winning convinces everyone – from owner to star player to supporter. A glance at Moyes's record shows failures in the League Cup and FA Cup, that reverse to Olympiakos, supposedly the round's "easiest" opposition and a dismal seventh position in the league.

The bad news continues. If United drop one more point in the closing nine games they will return a poorest points tally of the Premier League era, dropping below the 75 of the 1996-97 and the 2003-04 campaigns.

Moyes carries the can for this. To retain the title might have been a stretch but to be 12 points from a Champions League place is perhaps the most damning of the facts that show how far he is falling short.

In a season of disappointments two moments illustrate the gradient of the learning curve Moyes is on. In a mid-December briefing, the manager revealed he had to tell Danny Welbeck to be "last off the training field", pointing to Wayne Rooney as an example. Moyes also admitted to being a "little bit" surprised at having to urge Welbeck, who is an England striker, to do so.

Moyes said: "I've got to say we had a word with him about a month ago and we said that he needs to be the last off the training field. Wayne's out there practising his finishing each day, whether it's taking free-kicks, shooting from tight angles or bending them in, whatever it may be Wayne's practising. I said: 'Danny, you need to be out there every day finishing, even if it's 15 minutes at the end.'"

While Moyes went on to say that Welbeck had heeded the advice, it still seemed a strange approach from a manager to go public if he wanted to keep the player onside.

This was confirmed when three days later, Welbeck questioned the veracity of Moyes's comments. "I have been doing that ever since I have been at United. I have been injured this season so maybe the manager has not seen me on the training pitch as much," he said. "At Manchester United I want to be working hard and I have been doing that ever since I was a kid. I just want to keep on getting better and improving. Those extra hours on the training pitch, whether it be with the boys or individually, I am just looking to improve."

Beyond whatever was the truth of the exchange an overriding sense was that Moyes had missed an opportunity. If, say, Ferguson had informed Welbeck of the need to train more you could imagine him spinning the tale on its head. He would have informed journalists that, actually, extra training had all been Welbeck's idea. In a classic bit of man-management, Welbeck would have been placed in the best light while Ferguson would earn his undying loyalty for doing so.

The second moment came last Friday when Moyes admitted not knowing that Van Persie had done an interview with the United Review in which the striker offered assurances of contentment and that he hoped to stay beyond his contract.

Moyes said: "Well, I didn't know what was coming out. I've only just heard this morning about it." The mind struggles to imagine Ferguson not knowing that a key player, whose future had been in doubt, was to speak to the club's in-house magazine and what might be said. Yet if somehow this had slipped under the radar, Ferguson, who understood that control was paramount, would have been loathe to admit as much to the media on the day the interview was aired in the national press.

If United manage to overcome a Champions League first-leg deficit for only the second time in their history on Wednesday against Olympiakos, and progress to the quarter-finals, the picture will change markedly.

"We have to go for the throat to get the win. We won't be gung-ho but we will certainly go with a mindset to overhaul the deficit as quickly as we can," Moyes said.

The manager knows he needs a result, perhaps as never before in his career.

Jamie Jackson

'More than half of players have witnessed racist abuse'

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:49 AM PDT

• Survey of players by Kick It Out reveals extent of problem
• 62% of players questioned would welcome 'Rooney rule'

More than half of all professional footballers in England have either witnessed or been subjected to racist abuse in stadiums, according to the results of a survey.

The poll of 200 players in the Premier League and Football League was carried out by football's anti-discrimination group Kick It Out. The players, of whom one third were from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, also overwhelmingly backed the 'Rooney rule' being brought into English football to give black coaches more of an opportunity.

The survey follows high-profile criticism of Kick It Out by players such as Jason Roberts and Rio Ferdinand following the John Terry and Luis Suarez racist abuse cases.

Results of the poll show:

• 57 per cent of players have witnessed, and 24 per cent have been subjected to, racist abuse in stadiums. Seven per cent of players have been subjected to, and 20 per cent have witnessed, racist abuse on the training ground or in the dressing room.

• 62 per cent of players felt mandatory shortlisting should be in place for black and minority ethnic candidates applying for coaching or administration jobs in football.

• 39 per cent of players have witnessed homophobic abuse in stadiums and witnessed it on the training ground or in the dressing room.

Paul Mortimer, the former Charlton and Crystal Palace player who was appointed as Kick It Out's professional player engagement manager partly in response to criticism of the campaign, said carrying out the survey was an important first step.

He told Press Association Sport: "These statistics show what players see from the pitch and in the training grounds. Now we have these figures we can go ahead and do something about it, pinpoint areas and put strategies in place."

The backing for the Rooney rule, named after the regulation in American football where clubs have to interview at least one black or ethnic minority candidate when appointing coaches, came from both black and white players.

Mortimer added: "In fact the biggest portion of support for that were white players, across the board people looked at that. I am a black coach who found it difficult to find management roles and all you want is a fair opportunity to fight for the job, to be able to be interviewed and judged, and to know what the procedure is and for it to be transparent."

The results showed 65 per cent of players were aware of the process to report abuse and were confident about doing so, while 91 per cent said social media has led to a big increase in abuse.

"It is a huge problem," added Mortimer. "We have a reporting app which players can report social media abuse on and we also want to educate people how to handle abuse, such as not responding in person."

Mortimer has held talks with Kick It Out's leading critics Jason Roberts and Jason Brown, and plans to speak to Rio Ferdinand too.

He said: "What I am trying to say to all of them is that has happened and now it's where we go from there. From now onwards we can come together and really be a voice, but if there are factions it loses power."

• The Football Association has launched four short animated films detailing exactly what to do if players or fans encounter discrimination while attending or taking part in a football match.

The films, available to view on www.fa.com, are being distributed across professional and grassroots football.

The Fiver | Skintight leather and a crock of gold | Barry Glendenning

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:35 AM PDT

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THE LUCK OF THE IRISH

March 17 is an important day in the life of the Fiver's green felt hat-wearing, alcoholic Irish cousin Theme Pub O'Fiver. A professional stereotype whose ancestors suffered 800 years of oppression at the hands of the Brits, but didn't really notice because they were all too drunk, Theme Pub is always in big demand on St Patrick's Day, flying around the globe at the behest of assorted politicians and actively encouraged to engage in the kind of behaviour that invariably results in his arrest on the other 364 days of the year.

Need your city's river dyed green? Hire Theme Pub O'Fiver, who'll do it in a heartbeat with one of his crème de menthe suffused technicolour yawns. Need somebody to aggressively wave a knobbly stick at complete strangers while marching down your main street with a pig under his arm? Theme Pub O'Fiver and his faithful sidekick Rashers are the ones to call. Need a bloke wearing a novelty Guinness hat and false red beard to stand on the back of a moving lorry hosing down bystanders with torrents of traditional Irish red lemonade? Theme Pub O'Fiver will certainly do it if the price is right. But there are some jobs that are just too big for Theme Pub O'Fiver and filling the size nines of Lord Ferg is one of them, which is why our drunken Irish cousin is so relieved he turned it down last May, forcing Manchester United's owners to offer it to David Moyes instead. Truth be told, you get the feeling that if Moyesie had got the Irish patron saint gig instead, Theme Pub O'Fiver's homeland would currently be over-run with satanists and snakes.

Increasingly bearing the countenance of a bewildered leprechaun who can't for the life of him remember where he hid his crock of gold, a season that was already going disastrously for Moyes got a whole lot worse yesterday afternoon, when his side was humbled in their own stadium by a Liverpool side that could hardly have been more dominant if they'd dressed in skintight leather and set about their opponents with whips.

Moving quickly to avert the looming catastrophe, Moyes needed just 75 minutes and two goals before attempting to clear up the mess, deciding Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck and Rio Ferdinand were the answers to the many questions United's bitter rivals were posing. "The job was always going to be hard," Moyes said afterwards, although he can scarcely have envisaged it being harder than a fully tooled-up Chuck Norris encased in a giant slab of concrete.

With a 2-0 deficit against Olympiakos to overturn in Big Cup and potential humiliation at the hands of Manchester City looming, it will be interesting to see how much gas is left in this explosion. Manchester United's manager could certainly do with the luck of the Irish this week. At the very least his team could do with some of the aggression of Theme Pub O'Fiver as he's bundled into an NYPD paddywagon shortly after midnight tonight.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The storm will pass and the sun will rise again" – the day after being tonked by Liverpool, Juan Mata perhaps wanted to think twice about channelling the lyrics to You'll Never Walk Alone on his personal blog.

FIVER LETTERS

"Remember when Liverpool had spent 20 years dominating the league and then pitifully fell to sixth in 1991-92, not winning the league for another 23 years at least? Manchester United, as the lamentable Newman and Baddiel famously said, 'That's you, that is'" – Noble Francis.

"Interesting that Tactics Tim was obviously reading Alistair Drummond's letter (Friday's letters) re his gilet during the game yesterday. Amazing sartorial response though!" – Rob Worsfold.

"When did the notoriously unfashionable bodywarmer become the gilet? What's next – the 'débardeur' (yes, I did have to google the translation)?" – Frankie Dodds.

• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today's winner of our letter o' the day is: Frankie Dodds, who wins a copy of the very enjoyable Falling for Football, courtesy of the kind gents at Magic Spongers.

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BITS AND BOBS

French midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin has donned a bowler hat and stiffened his upper lip in a bid to convince Mr Roy he is English enough to represent England. "Never say never," he said, ordering a plate of roast boeuf.

Arsenal's Tomas Rosicky says that Arsenal will ignore doubters as they target the Premier League title. "I mean no disrespect to you [the media], but I absolutely don't care what you are saying," he disrespected.

Hull City manager Bernard Cribbins (isn't it time we updated this? –Fiver Ed) has issued a textbook 'not that kind of player' defence after George Boyd was accused of spitting at Joe Hart. "George Boyd wouldn't do that, no chance. Not deliberately, anyway. He is as honest as they come – he was playing non-league six years ago," non-sequitured Cribbins.

Antonio Cassano is so desperate to go to the World Cup with Italy he has stopped stuffing his face with bread six days a week. "I've lost 10 kilos to go to Brazil. I'm on a diet and I've stopped eating focaccine [mini foccacia], except for once a week," he burped.

French referee Freddy Fautrel has admitted that, in all truth, he probably shouldn't have allowed Monaco to score three offside goals in their 3-2 win over Lyon. "I made judgement errors that changed the context of the game," understated Fautrel.

And players at Mexican second division side Celaya posed for an official team photograph with bags over their heads on which they had written peso signs and the words "pay me" in a dispute over unpaid wages and claims that their dressing room is often without water and electricity.

STILL WANT MORE?

It's Monday. So here are your Premier League talking points. Clunk!

Square pegs in round holes was just one of the things on Jamie Jackson's mind after watching Manchester United's white-flag waving exercise against Liverpool.

Why are Premier League teams struggling in Big Cup? Sean Ingle gets his stats on.

Drool! It's our goals of the week.

Tactics Tim has not lost the Spurs dressing room but is instead leading it very eagerly and at high speed down a dead-end country lane with a crate full of energy drinks in the boot of the car. Yup, it's Barney Ronay.

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WELCOME ST PADDY'S DAY BABY, OISIN LOUGHNANE, WEIGHING IN AT 4.084KG (9.00368LBS IN OLD MONEY)

Barry Glendenning

'Football needs more defibrillators'

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:11 AM PDT

• Former midfielder calls for more defibrillators at grounds
• Tobi Alabi's story: a career ended, but a life saved
• Muamba was the exception not the norm

Fabrice Muamba has called for more defibrillators to be made available at football grounds across the country, two years after the former midfielder suffered a severe cardiac arrest at White Hart Lane when his heart stopped beating for 78 minutes.

Muamba, who retired following the incident but made a full recovery, currently works alongside the Professional Footballers' Association to raise awareness of cardiac health and believes increased numbers of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) – which provide an electric shock to the body to restore a regular heartbeat – will save more lives.

The Football Association and the British Heart Foundation joined forces last year to co-fund a campaign making 900 AEDs available to football clubs outside the professional game – from steps one to six of the national league system and the Women's Super League.

The scheme, which cost approximately £4m, has seen 360 clubs sign up so far and the BHF is currently in the process of distributing defibrillators to these teams. However, Muamba believes more can be done to prevent future fatalities.

"My incident happened at the right place at the right time," said Muamba, who collapsed on the pitch in March 2012 during an FA Cup match between Tottenham and Bolton Wanderers. "People were able to help me quickly but at lower league it would have been a completely different story. It's about being able to increase the emergency treatment in the lower leagues so if it happens there players can have the same treatment that I had.

"Access to defibrillators is key and being able to train everybody to do CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). That's what needs to be done. A lot of sports people die from sudden cardiac arrests so I think it's important to train kids, train everyone involved in football clubs to be able to do CPR. Access to defibrillators is very important.

"More equipment [is needed] and to teach kids about CPR. Teaching needs to be accessible to everyone, everywhere. It costs but you just need access to defibrillators."

Muamba, 25, was given 15 defibrillator shocks following his collapse on the pitch at Tottenham and ambulance trip to the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green after suffering ventricular fibrillation – rapid chaotic electrical activity within the heart.

Twelve people aged 35 and under die each week from sudden cardiac problems according to the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young, and the head of sports medicine at Liverpool, Dr Zafar Iqbal, has campaigned for 18 months in an attempt to secure legislation that would make it mandatory to have defibrillators in schools and public places across the country.

Dr Iqbal, who previously worked at Spurs where he set up a number of emergency protocols, said: "The Fabrice Muamba incident highlighted the issue but not enough was done to improve our research in this area compared to countries such as America and Norway.

"There they've got an out of hospital survival rate of more than 50% for sudden cardiac incidents but here it only ever goes up to 25%, depending on where you are in the country. AEDs should be at all sports clubs and all fitness centres. In Italy they have reduced certain types of cardiac deaths by more than 90% by doing annual screening on people who do any sport."

Muamba added: "I'm just thankful that I had the right people at the right time, who did a great job on me. I'm very thankful for that."

James Riach

Fabrice Muamba was lucky help was at hand. It's the exception not the norm

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:10 AM PDT

In reality little has changed since the midfielder nearly died. Elite athletes get more protection, but everybody needs it
• Tobi Alabi's story: a career ended, but a life saved
• We're still not doing enough, says Muamba

The unfortunate truth about cardiac arrests sustained by sportsmen and women, whether playing in the Premier League or down the local park, is that they will never be fully eradicated. Two years on from Fabrice Muamba's collapse at White Hart Lane and his remarkable recovery, the fact remains that death in such cases is extremely rare. However, the devastating effect of a fatality on the pitch provides lasting scars that are never wiped from memory.

It can seem incredible that elite athletes, at the peak of physical fitness, suddenly drop to the ground without any prior warning because of a severe heart defect. Such cardiac arrests are usually caused by genetic abnormal heart rhythms, leading to a problem in the organ's electrical system. A common cause of an arrest is ventricular fibrillation, when the heartbeat becomes shallow and uncoordinated, not contracting and therefore preventing blood being pumped effectively around the body.

There can also be problems with the muscle around the heart. Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, abnormal thickening of the heart muscle, may lead to a fatal rhythm disturbance due to the stress of exercise. It is a cruel twist of fate that sportsmen are three times more likely to die from these conditions than people who do no exercise at all.

Since Marc-Vivien Foé collapsed while playing for Cameroon in the 2003 Confederations Cup, a number of professional players have suffered fatal cardiac arrests, including Antonio Puerta while playing in La Liga for Sevilla and, more recently, Piermario Morosini in Serie B for Livorno. Since the 19th century more than 80 footballers are known to have died suddenly while playing.

Using an automated external defibrillator is the only way to re-establish the heart's natural rhythm and CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is also crucial to artificially pump blood round the body. The Football Association and British Heart Foundation are providing an increased number of defibrillators to amateur clubs, vital equipment that significantly increases the chance of survival after a sudden cardiac arrest. Survival rates drop 10% each minute without defibrillation.

Tragedy can strike even when a defibrillator is present. Jamie Skinner, a 13-year-old from Edinburgh formerly on the books at Hearts, suffered a fatal suspected cardiac arrest on his debut for Tynecastle FC in December. Emergency equipment was present, but the Edinburgh Leisure company, owners of the location where the incident took place, has since suspended two employees and launched an investigation into whether its emergency operation procedure was correctly carried out.

Experts argue that more can be done to increase awareness of heart problems, warning signs and procedures, claiming that more cardiac screening would save lives. The Professional Footballers' Association funds a screening programme in conjunction with the FA, costing £300,000 each year, for all academy scholars at professional clubs when they reach 16, with young players given an ECG (electrocardiogram) test and an echocardiogram.

However, these tests rarely filter down to any of the several hundred semi-professional and amateur clubs, while professional players can regularly go unchecked again until they sign for another club, especially outside of the Premier League where testing is undertaken less regularly. In the top flight thorough screening is common, while all Uefa and Fifa tournaments require pre-tournament screening for players and the FA enforces tests for the England men's, women's and disability squads.

Professor Sanjay Sharma, chairman of the FA's expert cardiac group that was convened after Muamba's collapse, believes more screening should be available for players at professional level and below. He said: "Young players not in the Premier League should be screened every two years until the age of 20. I also believe that screening should be available to all athletes, not just the best players.

"Most deaths occur in non-elite athletes. We need more experts in the UK, this is a major challenge and everyone who exercises should be offered screening. We need to include this type of thing in the medical curriculum to train more doctors to deal with the problem.

"We also need to educate all young people about the symptoms of heart disease so that they don't falsely attribute problems to being unfit."

In reality, little has changed since Muamba's collapse at Tottenham, other than the increased number of defibrillators made available, although the BHF did raise awareness of CPR through an advert campaign with Vinnie Jones.

Emergency treatment was already at a high standard and Muamba has admitted that the expert medical care he received, including from a doctor in the crowd, is the reason he is still alive today. Pitchside medical care in the Premier League improved drastically after Petr Cech was knocked unconscious playing for Chelsea against Reading in 2006, sustaining a depressed fracture of the skull following a collision with Stephen Hunt.

The debate around screening, though, is a contentious one. There can be little doubt that increased tests on players will help save lives, but even then things can slip under the radar. The widely available tests only pick up 80% of cardiac problems and the conditions that cause death are actually present in one athlete out of every 300. The majority of those conditions never manifest themselves in serious incidents.

Dr Ian Beasley, head of medical services at the FA, said: "It is an area that needs constant evaluation and, together with the relevant bodies in English and international football, we continue to assess the best approaches and methods for early detection and care."

Sudden death is rare, at a rate of one in every 50,000 for elite athletes. However, outside of professional sport 12 people under the age of 35 die each week from cardiac arrests. "Far too often there is a death in a person where screening had never been considered," said Prof Sharma. "What a waste of a life."

James Riach

Why more must be done after Muamba

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:10 AM PDT

Tobi Alabi was 19 when he collapsed on the pitch with a heart problem that ended his career. Here he talks about what should be done so that other players can avoid the same fate
• Fabrice Muamba was lucky - the exception not the norm
• We are still not doing enough, says Fabrice Muamba

Tobi Alabi is both grieving and grateful. He is mourning for a career that could have been but thankful he is still alive. Five months after collapsing on the pitch with a severe heart defect while playing for a Ryman League side, the former striker, who spent 11 years coming through the academy and youth ranks at Millwall, is coming to terms with a life away from football. It is a future which at first seemed bleak, yet the darkness that threatened to consume him is slowly fading.

"I thought I was going to die," says Alabi. "After it happened I just felt 'why me?' But you can't dwell on those thoughts. What's done is done. You can either be angry with the world or you can move on and help others."

Alabi will always remember his 20th birthday. It was the day that, instead of celebrating as a normal young man might, he had a heart monitor fitted in his chest. He will wear it for the rest of his life, following two serious incidents that curtailed his footballing dreams. The first, in October last year, came 15 minutes into a midweek Ryman Premier Division match for the Metropolitan Police against Molesey, when Alabi collapsed and was taken to Darent Valley hospital in Dartford. From there he was transferred to a specialist cardiac unit at St Thomas's in central London. His second and more worrying incident occurred there, a few weeks later when, while being examined by doctors, his heart stopped beating.

"It was bad. My heart stopped for five seconds. I know people may think that isn't long but if your heart stops you are effectively dead for that amount of time," Alabi says. "I was doing a stress test in the hospital on a treadmill. I had done 20 minutes but it wasn't fast and I started to feel funny, my chest was tightening up. I couldn't breath and I collapsed, sweating really, really badly.

"It went dark and I had a vision of a church we went to when I was younger, I was there with my brother, my sister and a load of kids that I used to know. I remember their faces so vividly even though I hadn't seen them for years.

" Then everything got slowly and progressively lighter and there was a really bright light, then the nurse was saying my name repeatedly. I don't know how to describe it – horrible is the best word. That's when I knew I would never play football again."

On a grey morning in Canary Wharf, Alabi, from Erith in south-east London, reflects on a seminal period in his young life and speaks eloquently about his recovery. He now works as a stockbroker, admitting that on the more mundane office days his mind often drifts to thoughts of football training or matchdays, vignettes of a life that now seems a world away.

Alabi spent 11 years at Millwall, never progressing to the first team but demonstrating sufficient quality that the Championship club did not release him at an early age. He played on loan at Ebbsfleet and Gravesend & Northfleet, before signing for the Swedish second division side Ljungskile SK. Returning to England last year, Alabi had firm interest from a number of Football League clubs before his collapse.

That chapter of his life has ended prematurely. How far he could have gone, no one will ever know, but the bitter disappointment of having a promising career cut short in its infancy, while devastating, has been turned into a remarkable positive. Alabi now has renewed purpose, having launched his Heart4More Foundation aimed at raising awareness of cardiac problems, striving for mandatory annual screenings for all players aged 14 and above in the professional game. He aims to raise £7,000 by 25 March to screen 100 young people at a Premier League match before the end of the season.

Alabi cites myriad warning signs that were not picked up before his collapse against Molesey, dismissed on separate occasions as dehydration, asthma and even weather acclimatisation. He says that, two years after Fabrice Muamba suffered a cardiac arrest playing for Bolton Wanderers, awareness of various heart conditions at lower league and amateur level is in need of drastic improvement.

"People don't know anything about this, all they know is that something happened to Fabrice Muamba and Marc-Vivien Foé a few years ago. They don't really know much about it. People need more knowledge on the subject, education on different conditions and certain symptoms that you have that you should do something about. It's better to be over-cautious than to lose a life," he says.

"There were a number of warnings for me. The first was when I was 14 and when I felt weird at training. One of my team-mates' parents was a paramedic and she said it was down to dehydration, but it happened again during a basketball game at school. Because I'd just been hit on the head they thought I was a bit concussed. The third incident was on the first day that I landed in Sweden, they thought I wasn't used to the climate. It was the sixth incident in hospital when my heart actually stopped for sure.

"People say now that we have more defibrillators, but they need to ask what a defibrillator does – it reacts to a worse-case scenario. It's not proactive, it's reactive. Why don't you put something in place that means you won't need the defibrillator. I'm disappointed because if we'd had the education as players and if the coaching staff had the education, I could have looked at my condition more seriously."

The alarming thing for Alabi is that he will never know what actually happened to his heart on the day of his first collapse. Unlike at Premier League and Football League stadiums and elite training grounds across the country, most semi-professional and amateur matches proceed without any emergency cardiac equipment or trained health personnel on site. Even now, his exact condition has yet to be diagnosed.

Alabi was fortunate. At the time the Met Police coach, Jim Cooper, said: "We thought we had a Fabrice Muamba incident on our hands." If that had been the case Alabi almost certainly would have died, but he eventually regained consciousness after a Molesey defender, a cardiologist, assessed him on the pitch.

He says: "The thing is nobody really knows what happened and we'll never know. I didn't feel right in the warm-up, I didn't feel right during the whole day. Then again in the game the incident happened. In hindsight I shouldn't have played.

"I woke up and it's very hard to explain. If you imagine in a film when someone gets knocked out and the screen goes blurry, then you hear muffled noise, that's what it was like. Then it was pitch black. I woke up and a guy was checking my pulse and loads of people were around me. I managed to get off the pitch and my brother took me to hospital. My girlfriend came and she was just crying. It was difficult.

"I'll never know how far I could have gone or what level I could have played at. I can only think of what could have been, that's one of the hardest things to take on board. When the doctors told me that I shouldn't play professional football I knew it was coming. But when they left I broke down, crying."

The time for tears has passed, even if the pain still lingers. Alabi is now focused on using his experience for good, lobbying the FA to enforce mandatory screenings without leaving the decision in the hands of clubs. He is due to meet the PFA in the coming weeks, claiming that there is a lack of urgency surrounding the issue.

"Credit to the PFA who enforce screenings to professional players at 16, but I can't comprehend why there are not more," he says. "Twelve people between 14 and 35 collapse every week with a cardiac-related issue. More than 50 footballers have died in the last 10 years, and that's just the ones we know."

Alabi is grateful that he did not join that list. As he departs, with a new path in front of him, the grieving for a lost career continues. Yet, far more significantly, no one is mourning a lost life. "I'm now quite thankful. Football was my dream and my life but, at the same time, I've still got my life. I'm alive."

To donate to Tobi Alabi's Heart4More Foundation, go to www.crowdfunder.co.uk/heart4more

James Riach

Football Weekly: Liverpool swat aside miserable Manchester United

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:08 AM PDT

On today's Football Weekly, AC Jimbo has Philippe Auclair, Simon Burnton and Barry Glendenning in situ to give the hot talk on the weekend in the wide world of football.

We start with the fun and games at Old Trafford, where Liverpool, much to everyone's delight, gave Manchester United a right old tonking. Can Liverpool go on to win the Premier League title? And will a bad week get worse for David Moyes and United when they try to claw back a two-goal deficit in the Champions League at home to Olympiakos? (Inevitably, yes.)

Also in the podcast, we look back on Arsenal's victory in the North London derby and praise Fulham for finally starting to perform like they're in a relegation fight.

Finally, we round up all the news that's fit to print from around Europe - including Scotland, where it's a first trophy in 18 years for Aberdeen. Does anyone have a number for Derek McInnes?

Rafa Honigstein and James Horncastle will be with us on Thursday after a whirlwind 24 hours in Dublin, featuring our live Q and A in front of 500 fans. Should be interesting...

Forget Julian Draxler, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is Schalke's real key man | Raphael Honigstein

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 08:38 AM PDT

The Dutch striker has been in magnificent form for Schalke and the club will do well to keep him this summer

It's one of the strange (and ever so slightly deflating) realities of modern football that staying in a competition is sometimes less of a pressing need than qualifying for the next campaign in the following year. Reluctant Europa League participants from the Bundesliga know all about this phenomenon but even the Champions League sees its fair share of conflicting priorities. Schalke 04, for example, are going into Tuesday night's last-16 round against Real Madrid thinking mostly about next week's Bundesliga home game. The opponents? 18th-placed Eintracht Braunschweig. Take that Cristiano Ronaldo. (On reflection, please don't. One humiliation is enough.)

"I hope that nobody will hurt themselves in Madrid and then miss the game against Braunschweig," said the Schalke sporting director Horst Heldt. He wasn't joking. The Royal Blues are not pretending that the trip to the Spanish capital will be anything but a damage limitation exercise following the 6-1 home defeat at the hands of Carlo Ancelotti's side three weeks ago. "We want to depart the Champions League in a sensible manner," said the captain Benedikt Höwedes. That probably translates into "we'll take a 2-0 win to Madrid". Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, the former Madrid striker, remarkably feels that the game will be an occasion "to enjoy". Maybe he presumes that things will look a little nicer (read: less horrific) from his vantage point, 60 metres ahead of his own defence. Chances are he'll only be on the bench though.

If it were down to Heldt, Huntelaar would probably not be on the plane but stuck on his sofa, both legs vacuum packed in marshmallows. The 30-year-old striker hasn't just made all the difference since coming back from his knee injury after the winter break – he has been the difference. On Friday night, he scored another two goals to up his tally to nine goals in 10 league games. No one has been more successful in 2014. And thanks to his strikes at the SGL-Arena, Schalke climbed to third in the league, ahead of Bayer Leverkusen. Heldt seemed to suggest that the position flattered the team – "we are still far away from being third", he insisted – but this attempt to downplay expectations was pretty transparent. As long as Schalke have Huntelaar on the pitch, coming third will be a near certainty.

His incredible dependability contrasts pleasingly with the haphazard performance levels of his team-mates and Schalke's capriciousness as a whole. The goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmänn summed it up best. "When you tell 'Hunter' to score a goal before the game, he will score a goal," he said. It's hard to argue with this assessment in light of the stats – Huntelaar has scored every 91 minutes – but does perhaps beg the question what exactly Keller told him ahead of the four league games in which he didn't score in the current campaign.

Never mind. Huntelaar's importance has now outgrown his efficiency in the box. At Augsburg, he was the first player to repay the club's high-energy pressing game in kind. His hard work and physical aggression sparked the rest of the side into life, and Schalke took control of a game that seemed to be flitting away from them. "We all defended the win together and ran until we were dead," said Huntelaar, "that's great for the mentality and the morale". Keller had a big hand in the turnaround with a change of formation at half-time but it was Huntelaar who fired up the side with a strong pep talk in the dressing room. "We were not aggressive enough, I made that clear in the break," said the Dutchman.

Süddeutsche Zeitung noted that Huntelaar seems to have undergone something of a metamorphosis in recent weeks. "He's changing from a solitary hunter of goals into a social authority and ambitious role-model," wrote the broadsheet. His age was a factor too, mused SZ. "He's the one ordering the beers since the others – Goretzka (19), Meyer (18), Kolasinac (20), Ayhan (19) Draxler (20) –would be forced to show their IDs."

You can't buy that kind of experience. Actually, you can. Huntelaar insisted on the inclusion of a €15m release clause (kicking in after this season) when he renewed his contract in December 2012. It's a ridiculously low fee for a player who routinely pulls off the most difficult trick in football: scoring goals. Short, unsuccessful spells at Real Madrid and Milan shouldn't blind us to his skills – the problem was them, not him.

Keeping him at the Veltins-Arena is likely to pose a bigger challenge than holding on to Julian Draxler this summer. The midfielder is three times as expensive but still developing, whereas the striker is fully formed and at the peak of his powers.

Schalke will benefit immensely from the new, multidimensional Huntelaar but his increased awareness of matters beyond the 18-yard line could yet spell trouble in the long run. The Hunter will eventually realise that his club provide him with easy prey – in goals and good money – but little else. If his appetite is no longer quenched that readily, one last big move to a more challenging and potentially more rewarding realm might become appealing.

Talking points

• Day 1 AH (after Hoeness) for Bayern Munich brought an empty seat next to Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in the Alianz Arena, a regulation 2-1 win over Leverkusen and a few banners in support of the soon-to-be-jailed former president. The home side's 50th unbeaten Bundesliga game in a row – and their 17th win on the trot – wasn't to the liking of Pep Guardiola ("we did very, very little in the first half") but enabled Bayern to pull away even further at the top of the table. The lead is now 23 points. Next week, the title race (haha, "title race", hahaha) could be over, at last, if Bayern beat Mainz and neither Schalke nor Dortmund win their games. "We want to win the title as soon as possible," said their captain Philipp Lahm. Facing up to two months of friendlies could pose its own problems, however, as far as keeping concentration and match sharpness. The whole of Germany will empathise with the Bavarians' lot, no doubt.

• Jürgen Klopp was sent to the stands – again – after an altercation with the fourth official in the final minutes of the 2-1 home defeat against the other Borussia from Mönchengladbach. "This time, there was nothing," pleaded the coach while admitting to putting on his "by now world famous face". The German FA disciplinary commission will have to establish if that view can itself be classified an insult to the official.

• Down at the ugly end of the table, Stuttgart picked up what seemed like a valuable point under their new coach Huub Stevens at Bremen but then slipped to 17th the next day, when Hamburg (2-1 v Nürnberg) and Freiburg (4-1 at Frankfurt) celebrated fantastic results. "The relegation battle is the new championship," said SC's sporting director Jochen Saier. Maybe the DFL should indeed hand out a couple of trophies for the winners. The way it looks at the moment, it's the only chance for anyone other than Bayern to get their hands on silverware.

Results: Augsburg 1-2 Schalke, Dortmund 1-2 Gladbach, Bremen 1-1 Stuttgart, Braunschweig 1-1 Wolfsburg, Hertha 0-3 Hannover, Hoffenheim 2-4 Mainz, Bayern 2-1 Bayer Leverkusen , Hamburg 2-1 Nürnberg, Eintracht 1-4 Freiburg.

Raphael Honigstein

Real Madrid ready to face Schalke and Barcelona, says Carlo Ancelotti – video

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 08:28 AM PDT

Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti says his squad is prepared to play against Schalke in the Champions League on Tuesday

Mata insists: 'The sun will rise again'

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 07:50 AM PDT

• Spaniard optimistic despite Sunday's 3-0 defeat to Liverpool
• Club record signing now focused on beating Olympiakos

Juan Mata has claimed that "the storm will pass and the sun will rise again" following Manchester United's dire 3-0 defeat to Liverpool on Sunday.

Mata cut an anonymous figure in the loss in which he was played in a wide right position by the manager, David Moyes. Yet writing on his weekly blog, the Spaniard attempted to strike an optimistic note. "The storm will pass and the sun will rise again," he said. "I have no doubt. Besides, no one said this would be easy, but this is football. It gives you fantastic moments but also very hard times you have to cope with, when you have to show pride and professionalism until the end. And when all this is gone I'm sure I will be a more mature footballer.

"I'll be very honest: on a day like this it's not easy to write the blog. I even thought it would be better to keep quiet and not to write, for I know many fans are really upset now, and so are we. However, there is a commitment I made to update the blog every week. So far in these two seasons I haven't failed to do it one single time, and I won't fail in the future either. No matter how sad things may look."

Mata, the club's record £37.1m signing, claimed that the build-up to the Liverpool, game had been good. "I have to say that our week at the training ground had been good and we were very hopeful ahead of this derby. However, on the day of the match everything went bad. It was a tough defeat and I want to tell you that we will give everything we have in order to forget about this in the remaining games. And there is a very important one around the corner. We know the history of this club and its achievements, based on a winning spirit. That is what we need to beat Olympiakos and get through in the Champions League [on Wednesday evening]."

He also hailed the club's fans. "There are no words to describe your support in the stadium," Mata added. "In games like yesterday it makes me mad not being able to give you what you deserve. I know there is nothing I can say right now, but at least I want you to know how I feel."

Jamie Jackson

Rayo Vallecano's all-or-nothing approach is finally coming good | Sid Lowe

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 07:34 AM PDT

Paco Jémez, Rayo's coach, has earned plaudits for telling his lowly team to attack – but it's only now that it's starting to work

In the middle of Rayo Vallecano's dark days, when they'd been beaten 15 times in 20 games and the goals were flying in; when they'd let in five from Atlético Madrid, five from Málaga, five from Villarreal, four from Espanyol, four from Sevilla, four from Barcelona, three from Madrid, three from Osasuna, and three from Valladolid; when they plummeted to 19th and stayed there for 11 long weeks; when the only reason they didn't fall further was that Betis were even worse; when even a glimmer of hope, a 4-1 win over Málaga, immediately gave way to a six-goal hammering; and when relegation wasn't an "if" but a "when"; there was a phrase that got repeated over and over: Paco Jémez will die with his ideas.

Paco Jémez, though, had other ideas. Not because Rayo's coach was going to back down on his principles – "any club that signs me knows what it's getting," he insisted – but because he didn't have any intention of dying at all.

Even when Rayo were a disaster, Jémez had his defenders. Off the pitch, that is. Last season, only two teams in Europe had the ball more than Rayo did: Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Early this season, when Rayo played Barcelona, they had more possession than them, the first team to manage it in 316 games. They threw men into attack, they were fun to watch, and parading the touchline in a dizzying array of multicoloured elbow patches and waistcoats, pink shirts and purple ties, Jémez urged them forward, always. In a country that values the aesthetic, or in which some do, he was eulogised for the way his teams played de tú a tú: as equals. Rayo didn't simply defend – sometimes they didn't defend at all – but instead they went for it.

And, mostly, they lost. Rayo took the ball off Barcelona and Jémez declared himself "very proud". But they were beaten 4-0. They went to the Camp Nou where they were praised by Barcelona's players but they were beaten 6-0. This wasn't brave, said his critics, this was stupid; "there is a fine line between braveness and temerity," Jémez admitted. Familiar trenches were dug and this became another moral battle, almost an ideological war. The stupider they said it was over there; the purer they said it was over here, as if there was something deeper and less tangible. "At times of crisis, people spend money to see us play: we've got a responsibility to play nice football, otherwise what the hell are they spending their money for?" Jémez said and while some applauded, others groaned.

They all agreed on one thing: Paco Jémez was going to die with his ideas. Yet the focus on deeper meaning hid the ultimate meaning: to compete. Talk of style hid the substance. Jémez's WhatsApp status ran: "The only satisfaction to be derived from losing is knowing that you did all you could to win." That's the only satisfaction, not the satisfaction. Somehow the debate had become perverted, as if Jémez was trying to lose.

He wasn't. He insisted his team did not cross that line between bravery and temerity. The defeats came, he said, not because of the approach, not because they were too far forward but because of lapses of concentration; the application, not the idea, was at fault. He talked about a team who kept "slitting its wrists".

The defeats also came because they had to come; relegation beckoned because it has to beckon. Rayo are the poorest team in the division; their annual budget is €7m. Real Madrid's is over €500m. Rayo's squad cost a total of €0.

In 2011-12, their first season in the top flight for eight years, Rayo survived in the last minute of the last day. Last season Rayo started with five defeats in nine games, conceding six against Valladolid, five against Barcelona, four against Atlético and three against Espanyol; they finished the season in a European place that they could not take up because of their financial crisis. It was their best finish. In the summer, 12 players arrived and 11 departed; half the squad were new. The men who left included their two central defenders and their three top scorers. They have not repeated a starting XI and not always because Jémez hasn't wanted to.

As he himself put it: "We're the shittiest team in the league and unless we realise that we will suffer." But realising that did not mean rolling into a ball and protecting themselves; in the long run that may be no protection at all.

Sitting back was no guarantee, quite the opposite. "If, as well as being small, you're a coward, you're going to get a beating from all sides," the coach told Panenka magazine. So Rayo went for teams. Only Madrid and Barcelona have attempted or completed more passes than them, only four clubs have put the ball in the opposition area more and only six teams have created more chances. Rayo have scored more than half of the league. Their goalkeeper has only made one save more than Real Madrid's. Levante's Keylor Navas has made almost twice as many.

The nerves grew, the gap too, and relegation beckoned but the way Jémez saw it, eventually the wins had to come. "The people who say we're dead turn me on," he said. That didn't include the fans who, even as they feared, even if they appealed for a little pragmatism too, continued to support the team. "Giving their all" tends to mean running around a lot, defending "heroically"; in Vallecas it meant something different. When they were defeated against Sevilla at the end of February, supporters chanted and shouted until the team came back out and then gave them a standing ovation. Rayo had taken 10 shots but lost 1-0.

Then, in March, the results did come. Against Valencia, Rayo went into the game five points from safety and Valencia were unbeaten in a month. They won 1-0. Then they went to San Sebastián and won 3-2. And this weekend, they faced Almería. It was 18th against 19th and the normal cliché underwent inflation. This was a relegation seven pointer: the three points you could win, the three points you could stop them winning, and the chance to secure a head-to-head advantage, decisive if the sides finish level. Vallecas was packed on three sides, the Marseilles rang out: "to arms!", drums beat and bodies bounced and Rayo blew Almería apart.

Alberto Bueno scored an "'ave it" of a header to open the scoring. Roberto Trashorras took control and Almería couldn't handle Rubén Rochina or Iago Falqué on the wings. Virtually the whole game was played in Almería's half. Pressured and pushed back, they could not find a way out; the visitors had only two shots on target, although Fernando Soriano scored from one of them to momentarily give them hope. Almería's keeper Esteban prevented more but Rayo's second to make it 2-0 and third, which made it 3-1, were genuinely wonderful goals, precision constructed on the left, Almería sliced open until all that was left was to pass the ball into the net.

For the first time in 12 weeks, Rayo are out of the relegation zone. "This is a giant step," a smiling Rochina said. They have won three in a row, four in the last six. "Now we can try to do something that only the very biggest teams do: win four in a row," Jémez said. This was his 25th first division victory as manager of Rayo, overtaking Juande Ramos for a new club record. From 17 points in 22 games to 12 in six and nine in three, this morning they stand three points clear. "Sí, se puede!" the fans chanted: Yes, we can! When the third goal went in, another chant went up, tongue in cheek, European ambitions. "Next year, Rayo-Liverpool!"

"The fans gave us everything and expected nothing in return and when someone does that they've won you for ever. One of the key reasons we have recovered is them. If we play football it is for them, so that they can enjoy football. If not, this game has no meaning," Jémez said. But, he added: "I have to be a party-pooper: we've still only got 29 points." Survival is likely to require 40 points. At least now it is possible, maybe even probable.

Errors have been ironed out of their game, the focus is firmer. It would be nonsense to say that they haven't changed, that they haven't made improvements, that lessons have gone unheeded, but there has been continuity too. "We're a tougher side now," Bueno insisted. "We're not committing the same mistakes that cost us so many points."

When Rayo got the third, Jémez pulled his centre-back Alejandro Gálvez over to the touchline and talked him through the Almería goal six minutes earlier. From an average of 2.4 goals conceded per game, they're on one-a-game over the last four matches. Not including the Barcelona battering, their one defeat in seven, they have conceded five in the last six games. There was even a 0-0 draw with Levante.

"Of course you're always improving things, making adjustments, but the fundamental idea is the same. If it hadn't been, we would not be as strong now: you can't go changing every day. We never thought of taking a different path. I wouldn't do it any other way," Jémez said. "But I have never wanted to die with my ideas; I have always wanted to win with my ideas, to live with them. I don't do this to die."

Talking points

• Barcelona are back? It's too easy to say, not least because they have mostly played well at home this season and the real tests come away. Meanwhile a crisis always lurks just around the corner, but they were impressive in winning 7-0 against Osasuna. Some of the pressure and speed was there again and they looked more themselves with Pedro rather than Neymar. The focus though was on Leo Messi who scored a hat-trick, making him the club's all-time top scorer, overtaking Paulino Alcántara.

• Real Madrid and Atlético, Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Costa, both got 1-0 wins to keep the top of the table looking the same for another week. Next Sunday: the clásico. If only someone had written, etc and so on ...

• Typical. All year, you sit through frankly pretty dire games at Getafe and then one day your flight gets in late and you don't go ... and they and Granada only go and score six goals between them. Apparently, the atmosphere was pretty good too. Getafe were under new management, after Cosmin Contra took over from Luis García. But, although there was improvement, he could not end the run without a win: it's 13 weeks now for Getafe, they're two points off the relegation zone and their run-in may be the hardest of the teams down there.

• Goal of the week? Well, Kevin Gameiro's first for Sevilla was pretty tasty ... they beat Valladolid 4-1 ... but it is all about the game against Betis in the Europa League on Thursday. Sevilla are 2-0 down from the (home) first leg. But, said the scoreboard, alongside a picture of them celebrating Uefa Cup success, "Europe knows what we're capable of."

• "Some people are being ridiculous when it comes to referees." This column is liking Ernesto Valverde more and more.

Results: Getafe 3–3 Granada, Levante 0–1 Celta Vigo, Rayo 3–1 Almería, Málaga 0–1 Real Madrid, Atlético 1–0 Espanyol, Elche 0 – 0 Betis Barcelona 7–0 Osasuna, Sevilla 4–1 Valladolid, Real Sociedad 1–0 Valencia.

Tonight: And if it's Monday it must be Athletic ... or Villarreal. So, inevitably, it's Villarreal v Athletic.

Sid Lowe

Roberto Donadoni wounds Milan but shows he may be their summer saviour

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 07:10 AM PDT

Parma's 4-2 win at San Siro made the ultras restless and left many wondering if Seedorf's appointment was a mistake

What Clarence Seedorf refused to do, Milan's supporters did for him. The manager had insisted on Saturday that he would use only the carrot, not the stick, to incentivise his players, suggesting that they had gone through enough pain already this season. But by the time the Rossoneri showed up for their home game against Parma a day later, 500 fans were waiting outside San Siro ready to dish out some punishment.

"We're coming after you with clubs," ran one of the more ominous chants directed at the players as their bus swung into the stadium car park. Milan's arrival had already been delayed by close to 45 minutes due to their path being blocked by those same supporters.

Ultras from the Curva Sud had released a statement on Friday, forewarning of this action. In it, they criticised the club's transfer policy, pointing out that Milan's biggest recent mistakes – failing to reinforce the defence over the summer and signing Alessandro Matri for €11m instead – could have been avoided if directors had simply followed the advice that fans laid out on a series of banners last August.

The statement did not mention the fact that the Curva Sud had also opposed the appointment of Seedorf. In a previous press release, last May, the ultras had offered support to the then manager, Massimiliano Allegri, but warned that if he must be replaced, then it better not be by "someone who has zero experience on the bench".

By this weekend, such scepticism was beginning to look justified. After a briefly encouraging start to his tenure, Seedorf had now presided over five defeats in his last seven games. With Milan joint-10th in the Serie A table, any hopes of playing in any European competition next year were rapidly fading from view.

As if to rub it all in, Sunday's opponents would be a Parma team coached by Roberto Donadoni – another former Rossoneri great, and one whose season has been going considerably better. His team sat eight points clear of Milan in Serie A, and arrived for this fixture in the midst of a club record 15-game unbeaten run.

Donadoni could be forgiven for lacking sympathy towards his opposite number. Unlike Seedorf, he had not walked straight from his playing career into one of the most prestigious coaching jobs in Europe. Instead he began his managerial career with Lecco in what was then Serie C1 (now rebranded as the Lega Pro Prima Divisione) – the third tier of Italian football.

From there he moved to Livorno, Genoa and Livorno again before taking over as manager of the national team in 2006. His results with the Azzurri were mixed, although exiting the 2008 European Championships on penalties to Spain looks a little different now in light of La Roja's subsequent rise to world domination. Donadoni went on to manage Napoli in 2009, and then Cagliari a year later.

There were ups and downs along the way, but he earned his position at Parma in 2011 on merit. And during an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport last week, Donadoni hinted at the belief that his path had been the right one.

Asked if it was hard for a successful player to be a strong manager, he replied: "Yes, if you go around thinking that all your players should be able to easily do all the things that you used to do. But it's not difficult if you immerse yourself completely in your new role. I started at Lecco in Serie C, and you cannot ask a kid from Serie C to trap the ball like Van Basten. That would have made me a madman."

Donadoni, clearly, is nothing of the sort. Instead he has shown himself to be an adept man manager, helping to draw the best out of journeymen players such as Gabriel Paletta and Marco Parolo, each of whom are enjoying one of the best seasons of their respective careers. His greatest achievement, though, might just have been keeping Antonio Cassano on track.

Written off yet again after a typically tempestuous season with Inter, Cassano had landed with Parma on loan over the summer. Overweight and undervalued, the player had just begun to win his new club's supporters around when he alienated them by expressing his enduring affection for former club Sampdoria. Jeered and heckled at Parma home games, he could easily have retreated into hostility. Commentators braced themselves for the inevitable meltdown.

It never came. Instead Cassano continued to both create and score goals at a prodigious rate, seducing Parma's fans all over again with his performances. "Antonio can be very difficult to manage, but also very easy," Donadoni would explain. "It all depends how you take him.

"In this period, right now, it is impossible not to want good things for him. In December, on the other hand, he was throwing tantrums, and I had to draw the best out of myself to calm him down. I spoke to him, I listened to him, and these are the results."

Milan would witness the consequences first hand on Sunday. Just five minutes had passed at San Siro when Cassano played the pass that would define the entire match – a first-time chip lifted over the defence and into the path of team-mate Ezequiel Schelotto, who was cut down by Christian Abbiati as he bore down on goal. Parma received a penalty, and the keeper was shown a red card.

Cassano stepped up to convert the spot-kick, before adding a second goal early in the second-half. That was already his 11th league strike of this campaign, just three fewer than he managed for Roma in 2003-04 – the most prolific season of his career.

Milan, to their credit, did not roll over. After Adil Rami had pulled one goal back, Mario Balotelli made it 2-2 from the penalty spot with just under a quarter of an hour left to go.

But no sooner were they back on level terms than Parma scored again, Amauri – on as a substitute for Cassano – wrong-footing Abbiati's replacement, Marco Amelia, with a devilish backheel . Perhaps it is something that Donadoni encourages his players to work on in training. After all, Amauri's effort was not a patch on the one scored by Alessandro Lucarelli against Torino earlier in this campaign.

Parma added a fourth goal in second-half injury time, and Milan left under a chorus of boos. Their bus would be blocked from departing after the game until members of the first team had met with a delegation of ultras, and listened to their grievances first-hand.

Donadoni, though, could depart in triumph, having authored not only Parma's 16th consecutive game without defeat but also their first league victory away to Milan since 1996. He has been on the other side of this picture before. During his first full season with the Rossoneri, 1986-87, they lost twice at home to Parma – both times in the Coppa Italia, which back then included a group stage.

So impressed was the Milan owner, Silvio Berlusconi, with Parma's performances, that he subsequently went out and hired their manager at the end of the campaign. Arrigo Sacchi would lead Donadoni and his Rossoneri team-mates to one Scudetto and two European Cup triumphs over the next three years.

Might Berlusconi be similarly taken by this Parma team, and their manager that he already knows so well? Perhaps, although the owner is not likely to give up easily on Seedorf, an appointment that was very much of his own choosing.

Donadoni, in any case, is not worrying about any of that right now. "Am I not a fashionable coach?" he mused at full-time in response to a question about why he had not received more attention for the top jobs. "I am simply myself. Some people will like that more than others."

Suffice to say, Parma are very keen on him indeed.

Talking points and results

• The only Serie A team in better form than Parma right now are Juventus, unbeaten in the league since October. They took another step closer to the Scudetto with a 1-0 win over Genoa, secured by a glorious 89th minute free-kick from Andrea Pirlo. Pablo Osvaldo had previously seen two goals disallowed for the Bianconeri – one of them wrongly – but the outcome could easily have been so very different if Emanuele Calaiò had converted the penalty that Genoa were awarded earlier in the second half. As it was, his weak attempt was easily blocked by Gigi Buffon, and Juve punished his mistake fully.

• Sinisa Mihajlovic quoted Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy during his pre-game press conference this week, before telling reporters: "I want my lads not to content themselves but to go beyond, I want to push them towards the unknown like Ulysses and his men in the 26th canto of hell," said the Sampdoria manager. "Right now we are in purgatory, but I hope to arrive in paradise." On Sunday his team lost 3-0 to Atalanta.

• Everything just got a little bit more interesting at the bottom of the table, after Sassuolo – thought to be dead and buried in last place – shuddered to life just in time to beat Catania and leapfrog the Sicilians in the process. This was only the second win of 2014 for the Neroverdi, although it is clearly no coincidence that it has taken them this long. The return of Eusebio Di Francesco has clearly given a lift to a team that lost all five games that it played after he was briefly replaced by Alberto Malesani.

• Bologna dropped into the relegation zone after being beaten 2-1 by Livorno, but at least they did score. They have failed to do so in four out of six games since selling Alessandro Diamanti to Guanghzou Evergrande in early February.

Results: Atalanta 3-0 Sampdoria, Cagliari 0-2 Lazio, Fiorentina 3-1 Chievo, Genoa 0-1 Juventus, Livorno 2-1 Bologna, Milan 2-4 Parma, Sassuolo 3-1 Catania, Verona 0-1 Inter

Paolo Bandini

Curtis Woodhouse: 'Someone said it's like Rocky but Rocky is made up'

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 06:47 AM PDT

Former Premier League footballer triumphs over doubt and defeat to be a British champion in the hurt business

Curtis Woodhouse has been through such hardship and struggle that he has learned to move from one testing memory to another with cackling good humour. In the same way that he overcame doubt and defeat to complete one of the year's sporting stories, Woodhouse relives his tangled past and the gritty detail of how he gave up the comfortable wealth of professional football for "the hurt business" of boxing.

The dramatic saga has a sweet centre because, last month, Woodhouse sealed his transformation from a former million-pound England Under-21, Premier League and Championship footballer turned derided no-hoper into the British light-welterweight champion. He announced his retirement on a giddy Saturday night just over three weeks ago after he defeated Darren Hamilton in a gruelling battle. Now, on a sunlit morning in Sheffield, Woodhouse admits he will remain in boxing until it ends in one of two ways – "on my face or on my back".

This remains a story of great hope and fierce truth. "Without wanting to sound arrogant, no one is going to go from Premiership footballer to British champion ever again," Woodhouse says. "No one's as daft as me for starters. Someone said it's the equivalent of Frank Bruno scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup for Sheffield United. Someone else said, 'It's a bit like Rocky.' But it's nothing like Rocky. Rocky is fucking made up. This shit is real."

Words tumble from the 33 year-old with lucid feeling. It's the day before he returns to Bridlington to bury his grandmother but there is more wonder than sadness in his voice. "She was an unbelievable woman, my nanna. She adopted my dad and his twin brother in 1957. Two black kids and she's a white lady, in northern England. It took guts. When they were toddlers she would get spat at in the street. I just want to celebrate her life now."

His father had been abandoned as a nameless baby and, on his birth certificate, he was called Barnardo. "He was a Barnardo's baby," Woodhouse says. "My nanna changed his name to Bernard."

Bernard Woodhouse was loved by his son and, even on his death bed, he shaped Curtis in a profound way. "The last thing I said to my dad was a promise I'd become British champion. But when you make a promise to someone you revere, and you haven't fulfilled it, the words eat away at you. It caused me such heartache but, if I hadn't made that promise, I would've given up boxing years ago."

When Woodhouse switched from football to boxing eight years ago, he "was in a blind alley. I was getting beaten up in the gym by amateurs who'd had 10 fights and lost seven. They were handing me my arse in sparring. I remember my first session down at Dave Coldwell's gym in Rotherham. I'd had one pro fight and I sparred against Daniel Thorpe. He had 139 fights and lost 113. But I didn't know Daniel then. I got absolutely took apart. Thorpey hit me with shots you can't even throw on computer games. I sat on the side of the ring and said: 'Fucking hell, Dave, he's good!' Dave said, 'Yeah, he's a good kid, Thorpey, but he's not won a fight in 16 months.'

"I'm ambitious but I'm also a realist. I thought, 'That's me done. This geezer's not won in a year and he's hammered me. I've walked away from my very well-paid job in football and I've got children. I've made the biggest mistake of my life'."

Woodhouse believes that hard work turned the impossible promise he made to his dying father into the delirious reality of becoming British champion. He learned from his mistakes as a footballer, when he lost the dedication that helped him break into Sheffield United's first team at 17 and become their captain at 19. Woodhouse had once out-trained everyone around him but then, softened by money and adulation, he settled for a life of shortcuts and long afternoons of drinking. "I became average again and, as a boxer, I remembered that."

Unstinting in his desire to master the raw basics of boxing, Woodhouse toiled for years in the gym. "I knew these guys were a lot better technically than me but when you're fit you can often grind them down into oblivion. I thought if I can mix that with learning the basics I've got an outside chance – possibly. I used to spar with Ryan Rhodes and Kell Brook, and they're good fighters. Even if they were only going 50% they'd still beat me up. I'd go 100% at them but it's like a little dog yapping. It reaches a point where the big dog has to bite the little dog. They put me in my place on many occasions but the next day I'd be there early. Eventually they were like: 'Oh God, here he is again …'"

Woodhouse lost six fights, and four of them were contentious decisions. His worst night was against Derry Mathews six months ago and he tells a chilling story of how he had to boil down to the nine-stone-nine limit, a division below his usual weight, to get a title shot. He put on almost two stone in the 24 hours after the weigh-in, but he was still so dehydrated he felt "like a zombie" as he was stopped in four rounds. Those dark moments inspired his title win. "My resolve got tested but setbacks don't mean shit if you're mentally strong enough. Hamilton had never been in a tough fight and he died down the stretch. I took him to a place he'd never been before."

His joy when hearing the verdict, on a split decision, still runs through him. "It was unbelievable. Even now it bubbles me up and I must have watched it 500 times. I just fast forward straight to the announcement. You'd think by the 500th time you'd be a bit numb but it still makes me go, 'Wow!"

The next day Woodhouse visited his father's graveside with the championship belt. "It felt like this massive weight lifted from me. I then went to my mum's pub in Driffield and the place was packed. The fight came on TV and it was surreal to sit with the belt over my shoulder and everyone I'd ever known seemed to be there. They were watching it as if it was live and people were screaming at the TV: 'Go on, go on!' It made me feel good to see how much it meant to them. I feel proud when people tell me I've inspired them. Before, I used to get fan mail as a footballer and be asked to sign this or that. I'd say, 'Fucking hell, get lost'. I reply to everyone now."

Woodhouse believes that football, the beautiful game he once loved, has been distorted by greed. He made a lot of money from football, having left school at 15 to join Sheffield United, and in 2001 he was transferred for £1m to Birmingham City. He also played for years in lower-division football and he still manages Goole AFC, a semi-professional club.

Comparing the two sports which have shaped him, Woodhouse says: "I love boxing. There's loads of shit in boxing but, when the bell rings, the truth comes out. Football is swamped in bullshit. Even when the whistle blows people are diving and cheating. Football lost its soul because there's so much money in it. There's no integrity. Boxing is brutal but it's honest. When the bell rings we bleed the same. That's why there is so much respect among fighters. It's the better sport by miles."

His love of boxing runs so deep that it's unsurprising Woodhouse has decided to keep fighting. "I knew the next day it would be impossible to walk away. It's taken me so long and I've worked so hard to get here. I'd be cheating myself if I stopped now. The pressure is off and now you're going to see the best of me. I'd love a crack at the European title."

Woodhouse is sharply intelligent and so he must have considered boxing's terrible dangers? "A million per cent. I'm a boxing student and so I'm not naïve. I'm 95% sure how my career is going to end – on my face or on my back. That's how fighters normally retire. Mine will end the same. When that is, I don't know. I still love it but this is the hurt business. It's tough and unrelenting – and addictive. Fighters all think we have one more fight in us. One more, and then we'll call it a day. And you box great and so you say, 'Wow, I've got plenty more … one more.' That 'one more' might become 10 fights. Fingers crossed I'll know when to go but we know what happens."

It's rumoured that, in 2006, Woodhouse placed a £5,000 bet on himself, at 50-1, to become British champion. "Allegedly," Woodhouse says magisterially as he winks at that supposed £250,000 win.

The previously discontented footballer is not fighting for money or fame. He made national headlines last year when he became The Troll-Hunter. Having been taunted for months by an illiterate keyboard warrior on Twitter, who questioned Woodhouse's right to be in the ring, the boxer decided to track him down. He posted messages on Twitter, coolly informing his abusive tweeter that he was about to knock on his front door. Grovelling apologies were tweeted back to Woodhouse while the troll ensured he was far from home.

Woodhouse, of course, would have just had a quiet word about respect, but in the end the troll and his hunter were united on morning television. The fighter accepted the apologies with some grace but a few weeks before his title fight he was spotted in Rotherham. "You're Curtis Woodhouse," he was told, and the former footballer nodded as he had once played for Rotherham.

"You're that troll hunter aren't you?"

"Jesus," Woodhouse thought, "400 pro football matches, 28 fights and I'm known for chasing some idiot off the internet?"

He is admired now for his British title victory but his wife, Charlotte, with whom he has been 13 years, worries about his safety. "Charlotte will be OK," Woodhouse cracks. "On our first wedding anniversary I'm taking her to see Froch-Groves. The romantic in me keeps coming out."

He admits more quietly that their eldest son, who is 10, endured real trauma on the night he won the title. "He'd watched the Derry Mathews fight and to see that happen to your dad is not nice. So he was really nervous. The mother-in-law stayed at home and watched it with him, and as soon as the ring walks began he started to cry. He cried all the way to the end of the fight just because he was that worried. So the best feeling the whole night was when I got to the dressing room and rang my little boy. I said: 'I've done it, son.' He said: 'I know, daddy, I watched it.' That felt brilliant."

There is vicious risk in the ring but, at least to Woodhouse, it seems a price worth paying for a life which consumes him in a way football never did. Even when his words are deadly serious they sound like they have been spoken by a man who has found himself. "It's tough for my family. Charlotte wanted me to retire seven years ago and my mum said she's not watching any more fights but they have to understand that without this I might as well be dead. This is what keeps me alive. This fulfils my life. I'm a fighter."

He stretches out his hand to take mine and smiles because, now, he is entitled to add another word before his chosen way of life. Curtis Woodhouse is a champion fighter.

Donald McRae

Jermain Defoe, Will Bruin and Thierry Henry display MLS goalscoring exploits

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 06:05 AM PDT

MLS: Five things we learned in Week Two: Jermain Defoe off to a scoring start in Toronto; Will Bruin scores again in great start for Houston Dynam; the Goonies still never say die

Graham Parker

Richard Farley

Manchester United's David Moyes was 'never interested in Everton youth team'

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 05:14 AM PDT

• Everton Under-18 coach criticises United manager on Twitter
• Kevin Sheedy says Moyes played to draw matches at Everton

Kevin Sheedy, the Everton Under-18 coach, has claimed that David Moyes was "never interested in our youth team" during the United manager's 11 years in charge at Goodison Park. He also claimed the Scot played to draw matches when Everton manager. Sheedy tweeted: "All of you out there moyes was never interested in our youth team or players. In my 7 years moyes showed no intereset (sic) in our youth team." When @Nic_Turk tweeted in response: "'@kevin11sheedy: All of you out there moyes was never interested in our youth team or players.' Wow, big statement," Sheedy responded: "truth". Sheedy, who won two championships, the FA Cup and the Cup Winners' Cupleague titles while playing for with Everton in the 1980s, also suggested that Moyes's approach was not to lose rather than try to win. In response to GeorgeRobboEFC, the former winger tweeted: "George chill. We now have a Manager who wants to win games. COYB."

Sheedy also appeared to criticise Moyes's tactics during United's 3-0 loss to Liverpool on Sunday at Old Trafford. "Punt the ball up to Fellaini. Great viewing," he tweeted.

Jamie Jackson

The best goals of the week: Pirlo, Trezeguet, Morrison and FC United

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 04:56 AM PDT

Featuring a scorcher from Scunthorpe, a bootlace-breaker from Ecuador, a backheel volley from Italy and a glorious fluke

Paul Campbell

Qatar World Cup timing decision put back to early 2015

Posted: 17 Mar 2014 03:58 AM PDT

• World Cup 2022 could still be moved to winter
• Task force to decide whether players can cope with heat

A decision on the timing of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will not be made before the start of 2015. Fifa had said an announcement could be made later this year but Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, the head of the task force that is making the decision on the timing of the tournament, said it would be not be taken before next year.

Salman, from Bahrain, is the president of the Asian Football Confederation and a Fifa executive committee member. "There are a lot of partners that we need to sit and talk with and find the best solution and I am sure this decision will not be taken before the first quarter of 2015.

"The decision is to look at the possibilities of the timing, as we speak now it is still June/July but the aim of this task force is to look at the other options and the concerns that some will have."

Salman was speaking on a visit to London where he also signed a co-operation agreement with the Premier League, whose chief executive Richard Scudamore said lengthy talks were needed with all stakeholders about moving the time of the World Cup.

He said: "Our position is quite clear – Qatar were awarded it, Qatar should hold it. It was awarded in full knowledge of the conditions. The bid book contained how they were going to deal with those conditions and that is the current situation. Their entire campaign was about how you would cope with holding it in summer.

"If anything is going to change, all we have ever said is this is complicated and complex, all factors need looking at and weighed up, can we calm down and look at it properly?".

Salman said the fact the World Cup was being held in Qatar had acted as a catalyst to improve the rights and conditions of migrant workers. Investigations have revealed a shocking number of deaths among workers from Nepal and Salman said: "I think because of the World Cup, this issue is being addressed and looked at.

"I am sure that the government of Qatar is co-operating positively in that sense. The best thing the World Cup is doing now is trying to improve the working conditions in Qatar. If it wasn't for the World Cup I'm not sure we would have heard of this issue."