Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi’s decade-long domination of football’s individual awards is under threat from Real Madrid and Croatia midfielder Luka Modric and Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah when FIFA’s player of the year is announced on Monday. For the first time in 12 years Messi is not even nominated among the three finalists for […]

Antoine Griezmann’s claims to the 2018 Ballon d’Or have been talked up by Atletico Madrid and France team-mate Lucas Hernandez. A man who helped his club to Europa League glory last season before landing the ultimate prize at World Cup 2018 with his country is considered to be back in contention for football’s most prestigious […]

Tweet Barcelona captain Lionel Messi was missing on the final shortlist for UEFA’s 2017/18 Men’s Player of the Year award. His fierce rival, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric and Mohamed Salah were all preferred to him as the list was released on Monday. Both Ronaldo (now a Juventus player) and Modric played key roles as Real […]

Italian-based strikers Lautaro Martinez and Giovanni Simeone are among the 20 new faces in Argentina’s squad for upcoming friendlies against Guatemala and Colombia, while Lionel Messi was not included as expected. Messi was left out after requesting an unspecified time out from international duty following Argentina’s disappointing World Cup campaign, after which coach Jorge Sampaoli […]

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah will compete with Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo for UEFA’s award for best Champions League forward, while his new teammate Alisson is up for the top goalkeeper award. Salah scored 10 goals in the 2017-18 competition to help Liverpool into the final, where they were beaten by Real Madrid. Cristiano […]

Inter Milan vice president Javier Zanetti has laughed off suggestions his club are preparing a bid for Lionel Messi in response to Juventus’ signing of Cristiano Ronaldo. Marco Tronchetti Provera, the CEO of Pirelli, one of Inter’s main sponsors, suggested earlier this week that Inter’s owners would consider a move for Messi in response to […]

Neymar is the biggest omission as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Mohamed Salah headline The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2018 nominees. The 10-man shortlist was selected by a Fifa panel of experts, including Ronaldo Nazario and Frank Lampard. Voting begins on 24 July and ends on 10 August. It would be decided by four voting panels, […]

Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic has said his side have already “managed to stop Messi” and so can cope with England’s Harry Kane in Wednesday’s semi-final. The teams meet in Moscow to compete for a place in the 15 July final after Dalic’s side overcame hosts Russia on Saturday. Dalic identified top-scorer Kane and Raheem Sterling […]

A Russian man has filed for divorce after a fight with his wife over whether Lionel Messi is better than Cristiano Ronaldo. According to a report in newspaper Argumento I Fakti, the football-mad couple — named only as Arsen and Lyudmila — fell out when Arsen celebrated Argentina’s victory over Nigeria, reports Mirror UK. Arsen […]

Diego Maradona has attacked Lionel Messi following Argentina’s exit from the World Cup. Messi played an ineffectual role for most of the 4-3 defeat to Argentina on Saturday. The Barcelona star played as a false nine with Cristian Pavon and Angel Di Maria either side of him. It meant centre-forwards Gonzalo Higuain, Paulo Dybala and […]