Milan president confirms Ronaldinho interest

AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi has confirmed today in an interview with Italian news agency ANSA that his club is trying to sign Barcelona playmaker and Brazilian international Ronaldinho (28): "I hope and think that we will be able to close the deal." Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport had claimed this morning that Berlusconi would have made clear to some friends that the transfer is almost sealed. The paper says that Milan would be wanting to pay 20 million euro° for Ronaldinho.

Meanwhile, Inter Milan would also be trying for months now, with the support of sponsor Nike, to convince Ronaldinho to join them. Inter manager Roberto Mancini repeated today at a press conference his interest in signing Ronaldinho: "Six months ago I said that I would sign him if it was possible. Now he might be for sale and he remains a great player. Even if he's going through a difficult time, he is a great player who can make the difference." The player's agent and brother, Roberto de Assís, nevertheless doesn't seem very keen on a deal with Inter.

In an interview with Catalan radio station Ona FM, Roberto de Assís didn't want to pronounce on his visits to Milan and London in the past days nor on the future of Ronaldinho: "He just got injured, so this is not the best time to talk about this." Asked if the fans would ever see Ronaldinho in the Barcelona shirt again, Roberto ironically replied: "Since he has a contract until 2010, there will be enough time for that."

The race to the bench: Guardiola takes Mourinho's pole (1)

This week there was a sudden and quite drastic turn-around in the race to next season's Barcelona bench. While former Chelsea manager José Mourinho (45) has been the top candidate since the beginning of this year, Barcelona B manager Josep Guardiola (37) seems now to to have taken over his position.

Everything began after last Saturday's defeat against Betis Sevilla and the subsequent rumours about an early exit of current Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard (45), with Guardiola then coming forward as the only possible emergency solution to replace Rijkaard until the end of the season (read more here and here). This scenario seems nevertheless history after the away win against Schalke 04 in the quarter finals of the Champions League.

But on Wednesday Guardiola turned from a possible temporary solution into a possible definitive solution when Catalan television station TV3 claimed that the Barcelona board would have decided not to go on with Rijkaard and that Barcelona president Joan Laporta had approved the proposal of Barcelona sports director Txiki Begiristain to appoint Josep Guardiola as his successor. Guardiola would be assisted by his current assistent Tito Vilanova and by former Barcelona player Luis Enrique.

Only a few hours later, Barcelona took the very unusual initiative to release an official statement denying the rumour: "FC Barcelona denies categorically that the club would have decided to replace manager Frank Rijkaard next season. The Dutch coach has a contract until the year 2009 and the board of directors has total confidence in him."

What is very clear for most Barcelona insiders is that Barcelona president Joan Laporta is still holding on to Rijkaard. The president would like to finish his term with the manager he started with back in 2003 (read more here). If Barcelona would win the Champions League (or who knows, the Liga), there would be no doubt and Rijkaard would start in the summer his sixth season as Barcelona head coach.

(this is the first part of this contribution, the second part will be published tomorrow, the third part on Monday)

Everybody wants Ronaldinho

It becomes more and more clear that Barcelona playmaker Ronaldinho (28) will be the centre of the coming transfer summer, with all kinds of speculation, rumours and comments. It also seems that Barcelona's fear that no club would be interested anymore in Ronaldinho, was somewhat besides the truth. The usual suspects - AC Milan and Chelsea - are back (read more here and here), but also other clubs are keeping an eye on the player. An overview:

- Catalan sports paper Sport claims that Atlético Madrid defensive midfielder and former Barcelona player Thiago Motta, a close friend of Ronaldinho, called the Brazilian a week ago and tried to convince him to join Atlético. Ronaldinho kindly rejected the offer saying that Barcelona will have to move first. Atlético Madrid president Enrique Cerezo said this week in an interview with Spanish radio station Cadena COPE that his club could sign a player like Ronaldinho: "We have enough money to pay what would be needed for that."

- São Paulo striker and Inter Milan loan out Adriano (26) reacted cautious to the rumours about a possible summer move to Barcelona in a kind of swap deal including Ronaldinho (read more here). In an interview with Italian sports paper Tuttosport the Brazilian said: "Of course it would be nice to play for a club like Barcelona, but it is not something I'm thinking about now. After I have returned to Italy, I will see what will happen."

- Asked about the rumours linking Ronaldinho with his club (read more here), Fenerbahçe manager Zico said in an interview with Catalan radio station Catalunya Ràdio that, if possible, he would without any doubt sign his compatriot: "I'm an admirer of Ronaldinho and the Fenerbahçe president is too. Notwithstanding his current situation, every team would like to have him, including us. He would make our team better, like Roberto Carlos has done."

- Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon said on Thursday in an interview with Italian newspaper Il Corriere dello Sport that if he could bring one player to Juventus, it would be Ronaldinho: "I would take a player like him straight away if the price would be accessible, which I don't think is the case." Roberto de Assís yesterday thanked the Italian international today in the same paper for his kind words in this difficult times: "His words prove that the great football players still admire Ronaldinho and want to play with him." For the paper this is enough to conclude that Juventus has now also officially joined the race for Ronaldinho.

- British tabloid The Daily Mail claims today that Manchester City has joined the race for Ronaldinho. Manchester City president and Thai billionnaire Thaksin Shinawatra would have been contacted by intermediaries and alerted to contact Barcelona and the player's agent about a possible deal. Although it's unclear how much money Manchester City manager Sven-Göran Eriksson will be able to spend in the summer, sources in Italy report that Milan believes the City interest is serious and that the club has therefore increased their efforts to close the deal shortly.

(read everything on the Ronaldinho transfer story here)

Ex-Barça: Ruud Hesp to Dutch national team

The Dutch football association KNVB has officially announced that former Barcelona goalkeeper Ruud Hesp (42) will act for the next two years as goalkeeping coach under future Dutch national team coach Bert Van Marwijk, who will succeed current manager Marco Van Basten after the Euro 2008 and will have to qualify the team for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Hesp is the goalkeeping coach of the Dutch national team since August of the year 2006. He currently combines this function with his job as FC Groningen goalkeeping coach.

Ruud Hesp came to Barcelona on a free transfer from Dutch club Roda JC in the summer of 1997. Three years later, the goalkeeper left for Dutch club Fortuna Sittard. Under manager Louis van Gaal, Hesp was most of the time the first choice goalkeeper. With Barcelona, Ruud Hesp won two Spanish league titles in 1998 and 1999, one Copa del Rey in 1998 and a European Super Cup against Champions League winner Borussia Dortmund in 1997.

(read all ex-Barça stories here)

Alves doesn't exclude Lahm

Catalan sports paper Sport claims that the possible arrival of Sevilla right back and Brazilian international Daniel Alves (24) (read more here) does not mean that Bayern Munich full back Philipp Lahm (24) would be off the list. While the German, whose contract with Bayern expires in 2009 and who refused until now any renewal, can both play at the right and the left back position and could that way be a solid back-up for both positions, Alves can also play higher up the field, in midfield or even as winger.

After the Uefa Cup game against Getafe on Thursday, Lahm declared to the journalists that he was thinking about his future: "I have always said that I would like to play abroad."


pep's opinion:
Lahm as regular right back, doesn't appeal a lot to me. But if Lahm would agree with this kind of "super back-up" position, he could be a very interesting player: at the left he could be a more attacking option than Abidal, at the right he could be a decent number two behind Alves.


Read more here:
Barcelona confirms Lahm interest
Lahm is the first option
Lahm battle coming

Or read the whole Lahm transfer here.