Hazard wanted to honour Zidane

Valencia striker David Villa, one of the stars of Spain s victorious Euro 2008 squad, has signed for Real Madrid for close to 40 million euros, a Spanish newspaper said Saturday.

Marca, citing sources at Real Madrid and Valencia, said both clubs were hammering out the fine details of the deal before officially announcing the transfer.

If confirmed, Villa would become the third big name to join the club under new president Florentino Perez, after Brazilian playmaker Kaka and Portuguese winger Ronaldo from AC Milan and Manchester United respectively.

Perez has established a 200-million-euro war chest for players, vowing to create a spectacular team capable of overtaking arch-rivals Barcelona next season.

The top scorer at Euro 2008, the 27-year-old Villa s…

Frank Lampard suffered defeat in his first match back in charge of Chelsea as Matheus Nunes hit a dream goal to earn Wolves a 1-0 Premier League victory.

There was a touch of Marco van Basten s famous goal against the Soviet Union at Euro 88 about the game-winning strike from Nunes on Saturday at Molineux.

It lit up a drab first half and Chelsea could not find a suitable response, leaving them still one short of the 40-point mark after 30 rounds of games, with Real Madrid next up for them.

While the focus fell on Lampard, this was a huge result for Wolves, easing relegation concerns for Julen Lopetegui s side.

— Wolves (@Wolves)

Lampard was without Mason Mount, but the caretaker boss pepped up Chelsea s attacking options by bringing in…

Thomas Tuchel has been fined £20,000 and warned about his future conduct over comments made about referee Anthony Taylor following Chelsea s 2-2 draw with Tottenham.

The Football Association (FA) has imposed the sanction on the Blues boss, who was left incensed by what he deemed as errors from the Manchester official during the clash at Stamford Bridge earlier this month.

Tuchel claimed neither of Tottenham s goals should have stood, insisting Richarlison blocked Edouard Mendy s line of sight from an offside position when Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg first levelled, before Cristian Romero pulled Marc Cucurella s hair in the build-up to Harry Kane s late equaliser.

The German, who also received a one-match touchline ban following an altercation with Spurs boss Antonio…

Portuguese heavyweights Benfica are inches away from sealing their first summer signing with Nigeria defender Tyronne Ebuehi already in Lisbon to conclude his transfer from ADO Den Haag.

The 22-year-old right-back made a strong impression during the 2017/18 season in the Netherlands which got him nominated by VoetbalPrimeur as one of the 10 best defenders in the Eredivisie.

Ebuehi missed the final stage of the campaign through injury but his flying form for Den Haag was more than enough to turn Benfica’s head.

The Portuguese giants are on the brink of sealing the move for the highly-rated defender .

Transfer details have yet to be disclosed but it now looks almost certain that Benfica will conclude a deal for the Nigeria international to move to Estadi…

Thibaut Courtois acknowledged Real Madrid were left bugged by their inability to put Chelsea to the sword in their Champions League victory.

Los Blancos notched a 2-0 victory over the Blues in the first leg of their quarter-final clash at the Santiago Bernabeu, with goals for Karim Benzema and Marco Asensio.

Yet despite a man advantage for the final third of the game after Ben Chilwell was dismissed for a professional foul on Rodrygo, Madrid failed to make their pressure tell.

Speaking afterwards, former Chelsea goalkeeper Courtois voiced his frustration that his team were unable to inflict more damage ahead of next week s return leg.

Every time you play a big knockout match, you re left with the sensation that you could have, should have, killed the tie…

Campaign group Women in Football has applauded ITV for the broadcaster’s criticism of Joey Barton – and called on employers in the football industry to stand by their female employees in “the current epidemic of misogynistic abuse”.

Former Manchester City midfielder Barton described ITV pundits Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward as “the Fred and Rose West of football commentary” on X, formerly Twitter, following the channel’s coverage of Crystal Palace’s FA Cup draw with Everton on Thursday.

ITV Sport said in a statement on X: “For Joey Barton, an ex-professional player with a significant social media presence, to target two of our pundits, Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, with such vindictive remarks based on gender and to invoke the names of serial killers in doing so i…

Neil Taylor has urged Swansea City not to rest on one-goal leads ahead of Tuesday s visit of QPR in the Premier League.

For the second season in succession, the Welsh club saw Crystal Palace snatch a 1-1 draw with an equalising penalty on Saturday Mile Jedinak s 25th-minute spot-kick cancelling out Wilfried Bony s earlier effort.

The disappointing result followed up a 2-1 defeat at Manchester City in which Swansea also held an early lead, with Garry Monk s side having now dropped 13 points from winning positions in the Premier League this term more than any other club.

And Wales international full-back Taylor says Swansea must maintain their positivity after breaking the deadlock.

When we go ahead we need to go on and get two or three, it s as simple …

Hereford United have been suspended from all football activity by the Football Association (FA).

The sanction comes after the Southern League club relegated from the Football League in 2012 failed to comply with orders from the Independent Regulatory Commission to answer questions relating to the Owners and Directors Test Regulations.

Hereford had been given until Monday to submit further requested documentation, but failed to do so.

As well as the club, official Alan McCarthy has also been banned from all football activity.

An FA statement read: Following consideration of a document submitted by the club, the Independent Regulatory Commission gave the parties until 4pm on Monday 8 December 2014 to submit further documentation to satisfy the orders of t…

So often the question has been asked: Why can t England s top Premier League protagonists translate that form to major tournaments with the national team?

In Monday s dramatic 2-1 Group G win over Tunisia, Harry Kane took the first tentative steps towards confining that criticism to the history books and laying it squarely at the feet of those belonging to vintages gone by.

Time and again since the turn of the century, England s so-called golden generation failed to deliver for their country in the way they had for their clubs their campaigns often undermined by a poor opening showing that ultimately scuppered their chances of advancing beyond the group stage with any degree of confidence.

Or, as was the case in Brazil four years ago, advancing beyond the group s…

Portuguese media outlet that Sporting CP are among clubs showing interest in Astana midfielder Nemanja Maksimovic.

The 21-year-old has shown a great deal of potential since joining the Kazakh giants from Domzale and he is now being heavily linked with a big club move.

Sporting CP are just one of the sides interested in his signature, while others include Sevilla, Monaco, Lyon, AC Milan and AS Roma.

The good news is that Maksimovic will be out of contract at the end of the season, and seeing that he doesn’t believe it would be fair to leave Astana on a free transfer, January exit seems on the cards.

The central midfielder was a key member of the Serbia squad that lifted the 2015 Under-20 World Cup title in New Zealand, and he has since made three appea…