German international retires

Lionel Messi paid tribute to Diego Maradona on Sunday with a goal celebration that came as a beautiful surprise to his Barcelona team-mates.

Former Barca and Argentina great Maradona died on Wednesday at the age of 60 and has been honoured before all LaLiga matches over the weekend.

Messi scored his side s fourth goal in the 4-0 win over Osasuna and afterwards removed his Barca shirt to reveal a Newell s Old Boys jersey emblazoned with Maradona s famous number 10.

He then pointedly saluted the sky in honour of his compatriot, who spent a season at Newell s the club where Messi began his youth career.

Antoine Griezmann and Philippe Coutinho each got a goal in Barca s comfortable victory, along with striker Martin Braithwaite, who opened the scoring in the …

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Jose Mourinho has turned down the chance to sign Christian Eriksen back from Inter Milan, according to . It has been reported that the attacking midfielder has been offered to Spurs, but Mourinho is not interested in incorporating the Denmark international back into his team.

Eriksen left Spurs for Inter in January 2020 for £16.9 million and was expected to be a success at the Italian club. However, the 28-year-old has struggled to fit into manager Antonio Conte’s system and is struggling for playing time at the moment.

According to , the 28-year-old attacking midfielder has made three starts and three substitute appearances in Serie A and has made one start and two substitute appearances in the Champions League for Inter so far this seas…

Central Coast Mariners ended a run of three successive defeats on Sunday but could only stop the rot with an underwhelming 0-0 draw at home to rock-bottom Wellington Phoenix.

The visitors went into the trip without a victory in their last five games, though they looked lively in attack during the early exchanges, with Roy Krishna going close twice.

Phoenix finished the first half on top as well, seeing Krishna and Matthew Ridenton force Ben Kennedy into a pair of smart stops just before the break.

Chances became more infrequent after half-time, but things did liven up again towards the end, with Storm Roux going close for the hosts with 18 minutes left.

Ultimately there just was not enough quality in attack on either side, the result leaving Mariners t…

AS Monaco have been interested in Strahinja Pavlovic, 18-year-old Serbian centre-back, for some time now and it looks like the initial talks of the youngsters joining the Ligue 1 side are actually going to be confirmed. According to media in Serbia, Partizan defender will become Monaco player on the first day of 2020.

The story goes that Pavlovic, who has been held in high regard by quite a few European clubs, will become Monaco player, but will remain at Partizan for the entirety of the 2019-20 season, as a loaned player. AS Monaco will pay 10 million euros as a transfer fee, but that will not be all.

They could pay as much as three million euros in add-ons and 10 per cent from the next transfer of the player. Pavlovic made his Partizan debut in early 2019, when he was…

Papiss Cisse and Jack Colback boosted Newcastle United s survival hopes as the strugglers produced a brilliant second-half display to draw 2-2 with Liverpool on Rafael Benitez s latest return to Anfield.

Liverpool entered Saturday s Premier League contest in a rich vein of form, including a 4-0 battering of Merseyside rivals Everton on Wednesday, and they appeared in cruise control at half-time.

Daniel Sturridge scored in the second minute to make it four goals in as many league games, before Adam Lallana s fine effort on the half hour deservedly made it 2-0.

But Benitez knows a thing about comebacks having led Liverpool to Champions League glory in 2005 after being 3-0 down against AC Milan at half-time, and Cisse s header after the break started the revival.