Tag: AC Milan

Sardar Azmoun linked to Milan move.

Sardar Azmoun is the latest striker to be linked with a move to AC Milan but as per Italian media, the interest is not that concrete. In fact, the Rossoneri remain focused on Chelsea’s Armando Broja.

Lorenzo Colombo is expected to join Monza on a season-long loan and therefore, Milan are set to bring in a striker before the window closes. Broja is their primary target, per Italian media, but Azmoun has also been linked with the club.

AC Milan are looking for a striker on the market and they have been linked with several players over the last few weeks. The latest name is Sardar Azmoun, who reportedly already has an agreement with the club.

Milan will send Lorenzo Colombo out on another loan spell for this season (Monza in pole position) and as a result, they are expected to sign a striker before the window closes. The latest player to be linked with the club is Azmoun.

The Iranian international currently plays for Bayer Leverkusen and according to BILD, he has a personal terms agreement with Milan. The latter are thus in talks with the German side over the transfer and it remains to be seen if an agreement can be reached.

Azmoun made 33 appearances for Leverkusen last season, 12 of them from the start, but found the back of the net just four times. At the age of 28, he needs to revive his career and his next destination might be Milan.

Tottenham are reportedly trying to land Mehdi Taremi from Porto

By RYAN TAYLOR – The Daily Express
UPDATED: 16:44, Sat, Aug 5, 2023

Tottenham are reportedly trying to land Mehdi Taremi from Porto
Super-agent Jorge Mendes is ‘on the ground’ negotiating the potential transfer of Porto striker Mehdi Taremi to Tottenham, according to reports in Portugal. The Iranian is the subject of shock talks with Spurs and that would suggest Daniel Levy is exploring the prospect of adding attacking reinforcements to Ange Postecoglou’s squad as the uncertainty surrounding Harry Kane’s future threatens to rumble on.

But there has now been a surprise twist after it emerged Tottenham were looking into a surprise swoop for 31-year-old Taremi.

According to Record in Portugal, Mendes is working on bringing the Iran international to north London for Levy and Co.

Tottenham are reportedly prepared to pay £21m for Taremi and hopes they can shake off competition from the likes of AC Milan for the player.

Porto are looking for at least £26m, however, and even still are reluctant to lose their star man so close to the start of a new season.

Taremi is mindful that this could be his last chance to play in the Premier League as he approaches the latter stages of his career.
There has already been interest from England this summer from Sean Dyche’s Everton.

However, the offer was of little interest to Taremi, who recently told Varzesh3: “Now there is an opportunity, but even now, for example, Everton’s offer doesn’t interest me.”

He also claims he had the chance to join Newcastle back in 2021 but he instead opted to play Champions League football with Porto.

Taremi continued: “I have had an offer from Newcastle but I rejected their offer because we were in the Champions League and I could play against teams like Liverpool, AC Milan, and Atletico Madrid.

“I preferred to stay at Porto because Newcastle were fighting to remain in the Premier League and I didn’t think they could qualify for the UCL after their bad season.”

Spurs chairman Levy has now reportedly flown to the USA for a two-week holiday, which could scupper Bayern’s chances of landing Kane.

It has been suggested that the striker would favour staying in north London if a move hasn’t been resolved by the start of the new season next weekend.


Milan ready new offer for Porto striker Taremi

By Oliver Fisher – 

AC Milan have agreed personal terms with Porto forward Mehdi Taremi and are now working on a deal with the club, according to reports.

The Rossoneri are on the hunt for a new center-forward to complement Olivier Giroud and fill the void left behind by Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s departure.

Belgian journalist Sacha Tavolieri is reporting that Taremi has an agreement in principle with Milan over a four-year contract that would therefore run until June 2027.

Talks are now ‘concretely ongoing’ with FC Porto in order to find the right deal for the Iranian striker, with an official offer expected soon and more news to follow in due course.

Meanwhile, Claudio Raimondi has reported to SportMediaset (via MilanNews) that Milan has indeed agreed terms with Taremi, who is the Rossoneri’s first-choice target for the attack.

They say a three-year contract worth €3m net per year is ready, which is a pay rise compared to what he gets at Porto (€1.8m). However, there is still no agreement with the Portuguese club who are asking for €25m.

The club already made an offer for Taremi, proposing a deal worth around €13m, but this was swiftly rejected by Porto, who made it clear that they wanted around €20-25m for the Iranian striker.

The Milan management is willing to offer €20m maximum, while Jorge Mendes – who is the striker’s agent and also an intermediary in the operation – is working to try to find a meeting point.

The move could be the difference maker in securing the 30-year-old’s signature, considering that he’s entered the last year of his contract with the Portuguese side.

Last season, Taremi scored 31 goals and provided 14 assists in 51 appearances across all competitions.

Sardar Azmoun Named Top Goal Scorer of Russian Football League

For the second time in history, an Iranian player wins the League Top Scorer in Europe

Sardar Azmoun,  Team Melli and Zenit Saint Petersburg center forward, has finished the 2019/20 season at the Russian Premier League as the top goal scorer after scoring the winner against FC Rostov in the season’s last fixture. Match ended 2-1 for the champion.

Both Azmoun and teammate Artem Dzyuba played 28 games, with both forwards scoring 17 goals, but the Iranian was ahead of the Russian striker by virtue of fewer goals from the penalty spot. Azmoun scored one penalty, whereas Dzyuba scored seven.

In the history of the RPL, Azmoun is the third Zenit player to finish a season as top scorer.
Much was expected of Azmoun when he was snapped up by Rubin Kazan as an 18-year-old, and he has grown to become a superstar of Asian football.

Alireza Jahanbakhsh finished the 2017-18  Dutch Eredivise as the top scorer with 21 goals. Jahanbakhsh becomes the first Asian ever to finish as the highest-scoring player in an Eredivisie campaign.

Now Azmoun is repeating a similar feat by becoming the first Asian player to win the top scorer title in Russia, and the second Iranian player to achieve this honor in a European league.

Azmoun is both the youngest Iranian to score in a Champions League game, as well as the Iranian record-holder for the most goals scored in UEFA Champions League games, having scored 4 goals in the two seasons he has taken part in the tournament. Azmoun has a great chance to add to his tally as Zenit has qualified for next season UEFA Champions League.

Azmoun is now linked to several top European football teams, from AC Milan, Napoli, and Lazio in Italy to Arsenal and West Ham in England. It is reported that Azmoun’s agent has already met this week with Napoli owner discussing players transfers.

AFC Annual Awards in need of reforms.

Once again the pathetic AFC Annual Awards are upon us, and once again the much criticized set of awards is being flaunted as the première platform of Asian Football top awards. Accusations that the awards are highly politicized, has very little to do with reality and lack of transparency has marred this annual process. All hopes of improvement and reform has been meat by deaf ear of the hierarchy of AFC with the announcement of this year’s list.

Unfortunately, it is the only award that the rest of the world looks at , as because no other forum or reputable organization nor any strong media in Asia bothers about creating a highly respectable alternative. So, for the those World Media unversed and the less informed in Asian football  , these awards can be mistakenly be taken as the representative of the best of Asian Football excellence while the reality is so far from it.

Year after years and without any culpability, the AFC announces a short list of names for the awards which has little relevance to reality or actual standards. The worst of the awards is the “AFC Player of the year”  which has been the main target of critics and frankly has been scandalous on occasions. All sort of criticism and accusations have been targeted by many who were affected by these nominations.  Political clout, influences and lobbying has been said to play the major part of nomination and selection of supposedly the best Asian footballer. No all criticism were impartial though as the West Asian Arab states have been always vocal when their nominees were absent from the list!

In reality, the flaw in the nomination process seems to be apparent when previous candidates and winners are scrutinized.  A quick look at the historic data and past winners will confirm to any knowledgeable person that the AFC list is out of touch with the real world. AFC Player of the year has even been selected on nepotism during Bin Hamam’s days and hardly improved ever since.

Whether the new President is willing to tackle this issue, or even if he has any interest in reforming this particular process or maybe very well be covenant with the highly unpopular process , is yet to be seen. However, the secretive on goings behind the scene or under the table in the nomination and selection procedures, is quite a thorn in AFC’s credbility.

At least the FIFA award has some transparency and is much closer to reality . That is hardly the case with the Asian version of the award.

Take a look at this simple and no brainer  list of quality Asian players who had made headlines in Europe with their exploits in European Champions League and the Leagues like Son Heung-min (Tottenham) , Sardar Azmoun (FC Rostov) and Keisuke Honda (AC Milan)  and what AFC thinks who should the best in Asia 2016 based on God know what ; Omar Abdulrahman (AlAin & UAE) , Hammadi Ahmed (Air Force & Iraq) and Wu Lei (Shanghai SIPG & China PR)

Not that the AFC nominees are bad players, but when it comes to the top awards, the excellence has to be measured in a systematic method. There is no way that these players have anything near the three top Asian players in performance and quality, but then again you be the judge.

Great tournament but Asia still fights credibility gap

By Nick Mulvenney

SYDNEY Sun Feb 1, 2015 3:48am GMT

(Reuters) – There is no doubt that to some jaundiced eyes, Australia winning the Asian Cup at their third attempt will be just further evidence of the weakness of the game on the world’s most populous continent.

The Socceroos became the eighth different winners of the title in the 16th edition of the continental tournament with their 2-1 victory over South Korea after extra time in front of 76,000 fans at Stadium Australia.

It was a Saturday night thriller worthy of bringing a close to a tournament that was organised with usual Australian efficiency and embraced by a nation normally in thrall to cricket and tennis at this time of year.

sardar azmoun Iraq

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I thought it was a beautiful game. It’s what football is all about,” Australia coach Ange Postecoglou told reporters after a pulsating match.

“It’s a final. It’s two teams going at it, giving everything they’ve got because they know what’s on the line. No team took a backward step.”

Postecoglou had joked earlier in the tournament about his team giving headaches to FIFA statisticians trying to figure out how such a lowly ranked team could be playing such good football.

The fact is though, for all the anomalies of the ranking system, Saturday night’s final matched the 100th-ranked hosts against the 69th ranked Taegeuk Warriors.

Both countries were among a four-strong Asian contingent that returned from last year’s World Cup in Brazil without a win between them.

Player of the Tournament, Australia midfielder Massimo Luongo, will fly back to Europe this week to rejoin Swindon’s campaign for promotion from England’s third tier.

The energetic 22-year-old may not be stuck in Wiltshire for too long, though, after he sealed a breakthrough campaign with a well-struck goal to give Australia the lead in the final.

That goal undoubtedly helped him edge out Omar Abdulrahman for the top player award despite the 23-year-old Emirati leaving a bigger stamp on the tournament with his exquisite ball skills and imagination.

Another of the standout players of the tournament, attacking midfielder Son Heung-min, recovered from illness early in his stay in Australia to take South Korea very close to ending their 55-year wait for a third Asian title.

There was plenty of quality goalkeeping on show as well with Australia’s 22-year-old Mat Ryan taking the award for the top shotstopper and also perhaps destined for a bigger European league than Belgium’s top flight.

Kim Jin-hyeon might have claimed the award had South Korea won the final having helped his team keep clean sheets in all their matches until the final, while Uzbekistan custodian Ignatiy Nesterov also deserved a mention.

fans and players mingle in brisbane

GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

Ali Makhbout was the top goalscorer of the tournament with five and his combination in attack with Abdulrahman and Ahmed Khalili made United Arab Emirates a threat to any side.

Of the bigger names to coming into the tournament, Tim Cahill’s brace in the quarter-final defeat of China took his tally to 39 goals in 80 internationals and proved there was plenty of life yet in the 35-year-old.

AC Milan striker Keisuke Honda’s disappointing campaign reflected that of Japan with their continuing problem of converting well-worked approach play into goals.

It was perhaps summed up when he blasted the opening penalty in the shootout against the UAE, that saw the defending champions crash out in the quarter-finals, high over the bar.

That came on the same night as the match of the tournament, when Iraq overcame Iran in a two-and-a-half hour rollercoaster ride played out in a sensational atmosphere in Canberra that ended with a 7-6 shootout victory to the 2007 champions.

That the match probably turned on the controversial dismissal of Iran’s Mehrdad Pooladi by Australian referee Ben Williams was a reminder that Asia still has plenty of work to do to improve the quality of officiating in the region.

Qatar’s early departure does not augur well for their hopes of qualifying at least once for the World Cup in 2018 before hosting the finals in 2022, while the decline of three-times champions Saudi Arabia continued as they were bounced out in the group stage for the second tournament in a row.

Carlos Queiroz’s work with Iran proved the value of quality coaching to mould raw Asian talent, while Postecoglou, South Korea’s Uli Stielike, Alain Perrin with a fast-improving China and Emirati Mahdi Ali also had good tournaments.

Postecoglou and German Stielike are at different stages in rejuvenation projects but after their experiences in the Asian Cup, will be confident of taking much stronger sides to represent the continent at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

“The goal for this confederation should be to break the European and South American monopoly on the World Cup,” Postecoglou said.

“It’s a great achievement but it’s not the end of the journey. It’s the beginning for us.”

 

AC Milan legends give Iranian soccer fans a boost

(CNN) — As Iran’s relations with the Western world seem to be thawing following a historic U.S. agreement over its nuclear production, sport is also doing its part to bring Tehran in from the cold.

AC Milan, the world’s most successful soccer club in terms of trophies won, sent a team stacked full of its former stars to take part in a charity match against counterparts from Persepolis FC.

Thursday’s game, watched by 65,000 fans in Persepolis’ Azadi Stadium, was won 3-1 by the seven-time European champion.

But as Iran’s nuclear deal will help lift some of the economic sanctions that have hurt its growth, this exhibition has bigger meaning for Persepolis and the development of Iranian football.

It is part of a collaboration that began at the end of last year when Persepolis president Mohammad Rouyanian visited Italy to meet with Milan chief executive and V.P. Adriano Galliani.

Milan’s website reports that the “Rossoneri” (“black and reds”) will be sharing knowledge of the club’s successful youth academy with Persepolis — which is Iran’s most successful team and one of the most popular in Asia.

“Mohammad Rouyanian expressed his admiration for the way that the club and its proprietor made Milan the most decorated in the world,” the website said. “The desire to create and develop a form of collaboration between the two clubs came naturally.

“Collaboration is already underway that will see the Milan Academy help to export and replicate the Milan Model with Persepolis, which celebrates its 50-year anniversary this year.”

Legendary defender Paolo Maldini headed a star-studded Milan lineup at the 100,000-capacity Azadi Stadium for a match that marked the last Persepolis appearance for former Iran captain Mehdi Mahdavikia.

Mahdavikia, 36, retired this year following a distinguished career in which he appeared at two World Cups — representing his country 111 times in all — and spent eight seasons with German club Hamburg.

The Milan team also included another of Italy’s defensive greats, Franco Baresi, and his fellow World Cup winner Gennaro Gattuso.

Its goals came from Daniele Massaro — part of Italy’s 1982 World Cup-winning squad — Christian Lantignotti and Stefano Eranio, while Alireza Emamifar scored for Persepolis.

“Thank you to @acmilan glorie for coming to Iran and putting a smile on the Iranian AC Milan fans :)” one supporter wrote on Twitter.