Karim Benzema moved into fifth place on the Champions League’s all-time scoring list by netting his 51st goal to bring Real Madrid level with Napoli on Wednesday.
The goal moves him past Arsenal legend Thierry Henry on the all-time scorer’s list, as Benzema also took sole possession of first place for goals scored by a Frenchman in the competition.
Just over 10 minutes after Napoli grabbed the lead courtesy of Lorenzo Insigne’s stunning long-range strike, Benzema brought the hosts level when he got on the end of Dani Carvajal’s cross into the box before delivering a powerful header.
3 – Karim Benzema has scored more headed goals than any other player in #UCL this season. Roar. pic.twitter.com/sQCRE0TcRY
— OptaJose (@OptaJose) February 15, 2017
Benzema had a chance to give Real the lead before halftime, but his effort smacked off the post.
The European Championship could take place in a country straddling Europe and Asia.
On Wednesday, the Turkiye Futbol Federasyonu announced that Turkey is bidding to host Euro 2024. An information meeting was held at the TFF’s administrative center in Beykoz, Turkey, and the organisations’s president, Yildirim Demiroren, confirmed the bid.
“We deserve to be the host of Euro 2024,” Demiroren said. “Today we came together for a good job on behalf of Turkish football. We are together for Euro 2024 bid, which we have already applied for three times today, for the fourth time. The deadline for candidacy application is March 3, 2017 which we will apply on March 2, 2017.”
In 2014, the TFF dropped its bid to host the final and semi-finals of Euro 2020, which will take place in 13 different countries across Europe. The federation was convinced Turkey is ready to host more than just two rounds, saying, per ESPN FC: “We are at a point where we can undertake the entire tournament, not just the semi-finals and final.”
There will inevitably be questions about Turkey’s ability to host Euro 2024, as the country – once held as an example of secular democracy in a Muslim state – is the “world’s biggest prison” for journalists under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who became the nation’s president in 2014 and tightened the grip on freedom of expression.
Arsenal’s victory over Hull City last weekend appears to have been Mark Clattenburg’s last match as a Premier League official.
Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) released a statement Thursday confirming that Clattenburg is leaving his role to take up a position with the Saudi Arabian Football Federation.
“The PGMOL would like to wish Mark Clattenburg well as he prepares for his move to the Saudi Arabaian Football Federation,” the statement read.
“… We understand this is an exciting opportunity for Mark as well as further underlining what high esteem English match officials are held (in) throughout the world game.”
The statement did not specify a date for Clattenburg’s departure, but the Press Association suggests he will leave before Premier League matches resume Feb. 25.
It remains unclear if Clattenburg will continue to officiate football matches in his new job, or if he’ll take up a role similar to the one former Premier League official Howard Webb accepted in 2015 when he became the head of refereeing for the Saudi Arabian league.
Clattenburg, who officiated the 2016 European Championship final in France as well as the Champions League final in Milan, Italy, had previously expressed a desire to work abroad. He said he was intrigued by the thought of plying his trade in China after being linked with a move to the high-spending Chinese Super League.
“If an opportunity came along – I am contracted to the Premier League – but I have to look at my long-term strategy of my career,” Clattenburg told Rob Harris of the Associated Press in December. How long can I last as a referee? I have been in the Premier League 12 years. It’s been a wonderful 12 years.”
His last match, however, was far from wonderful – the English referee missed a blatant handball committed by Alexis Sanchez before the Arsenal star scored the go-ahead goal. According to Hull players and coaches, Clattenburg apologised for the mistake at halftime as Arsenal went on to claim a 2-0 win.
How Arsene Wenger has transformed Arsenal since his 1996 arrival is remarkable. The lager was whittled out of the players’ diets at a club that bore a reputation of playing boring football, and in its place rose a supremely fit side showcasing some of the most beautiful patterned passing English football had seen. It was often played by leggy imports that changed the landscape of the country’s game.
The narrative has staled since “the Invincibles” romped to the Premier League title in 2003-04 though. Each season has bored into a more repetitive and sorry sequel, until Wednesday’s 5-1 humiliation at Bayern Munich showed a gulf in class that simply cannot be bridged under the watch of Wenger. Chelsea had done something similar earlier in February.
It’s been stasis at the Emirates Stadium for over a decade, and the supporters that want a divorce from Wenger reach far beyond the monosyllabic grunts and barks of Arsenal Fan TV. Plenty of blame for this inactivity will also be fairly apportioned to the boardroom; a hierarchy that has put ensuring the club is a marketable entity over making it a trophy-winning force.
The crowded French market
Wenger was a pioneer at the beginning, but perhaps it was partly because his outreach was unmatched. Patrick Vieira, Nicolas Anelka, and Emmanuel Petit soon joined his Highbury revolution as the long-coated tactician plucked players from France, his native land and where he guided AS Monaco to the 1987-88 Ligue 1 title.
Others followed in the ensuing years, like Juventus flop Thierry Henry, Sylvain Wiltord, and the wing musketeer Robert Pires, but it has since dried up. Laurent Koscielny and Olivier Giroud pose the only successful arrivals hailing from that region in the last nine seasons. Maybe the important numbers in Wenger’s address book lost influence or contact, or maybe it’s just the Gallic market is now saturated with scouts. Newcastle United’s chief talent spotter Graham Carr has ravaged it in the past, and Steve Walsh plucked N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez from there for Leicester City – the kind of players that would’ve likely fallen onto the lap of Wenger 15 or so years ago.
Like with the diets and training methods at Arsenal, the scouting is vastly improved across the Premier League. The old flat-capped blokes who scribbled notes on the back of cigarette packets are figures of a bygone era; players are analysed on a laptop by studious people with sensible haircuts. Manchester City, a team that used to pick up aged rejects from the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool, now has its fingers in North America, Asia, Australasia.
Top four and no more
There’s another point of contention that rang the death knells long before the recent withering and wimpering of Wenger’s regime: Arsenal, a sports behemoth with a 60,000-capacity ground and merchandise worn in all corners of the globe, refuses to flex its muscles in the same manner as its compatriots and other sides that habitually compete in the late rounds of the Champions League.
True, setting up something akin to the City Football Group may be a stretch – there are deep resources at Manchester City’s Etihad Campus – but the cosy relationship between the elusive owner Stan Kroenke and Wenger has anchored the club in comfortable routine. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Kroenke, a shrewd businessman who’s involved with well-run yet not particularly successful sports franchises, and a qualified economist in Wenger are overseeing an operation run purely for a handsome bottom line rather than silverware.
There’s no doubting Wenger wants to win trophies, but the need to remain in the black is paramount. Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez were acquired for vast sums, but under immense pressure from the support – it was the same situation with the late summer signings of Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez this season – while other dearths in the squad (the need to sign a top quality striker or, most importantly, for a defensive midfielder of bite and intelligence) haven’t been addressed. The club is rich, so this lack of investment is merely a miserly practice that denotes a distinct lack of ambition.
Kroenke isn’t guilty for the other aspect, though. Wenger hasn’t adapted to the new frantic world of reactive tactics, and continually plays favourites in his team selections.
Time to go
At Bayern Munich, there were no new ideas. There was no game plan deployed to stymie a better team. Paris Saint-Germain’s tactical clinic in besting Barcelona by a 4-0 scoreline a day earlier was encouraging for the Gunners’ support, but they were instead given the same drivel.
Arsenal’s players don’t look drilled in a system, or disciplined in the slightest. Ozil, someone who should’ve been under consideration for the axe in a fresh approach, was listless and resembled a skulking child, and Francis Coquelin and Gabriel Paulista again showed that they are not good enough for a side with title aspirations. Yet they hang around, and the Emirates Stadium coffers remain full.
Wenger has to go, but with all he did for the club in the first half of his stay in north London it has to end amicably. Let him know his tenure is reaching its end, and include him in the recruitment process for the next manager.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s recommendation of David Moyes didn’t work particularly well at Manchester United, but the wily Scot had left his successor with an aging squad. There is no such caveat at Arsenal, and it could take a while for the new boss’ ideas to take hold, but a change needs to happen so the club isn’t left behind. And for the sanity of its support.
