Paris – The race to succeed Zinedine Zidane is on following the Frenchman’s shock resignation from Real Madrid on Thursday, only days after steering the Spanish giants to a third successive Champions League trophy.
Tottenham’s Argentinian manager Mauricio Pochettino tops the bookmakers’ list of favourites, with Chelsea handler Antonio Conte and former long-time Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger also in the mix.
AFP Sport looks at the potential candidates:
Mauricio Pochettino
As a former centre-back with Barcelona-based Espanyol, Pochettino has vast experience of Spain’s La Liga.
But it is the 46-year-old Argentinian’s coaching nous, man-management skills and consistency with Tottenham Hotspur that has hoisted him among the favourites to replace Zidane.
Under Pochettino, Spurs have secured three successive top-four finishes in the Premier League, allowing the London club to rub shoulders with the elite of European football on a regular basis.
But Pochettino has yet to win a trophy in any of his coaching stints, at Espanyol (2009-2012), Southampton (2013-2014) or Tottenham.
Pochettino signed a new, improved contract extension until 2023 last week and Spanish sports newspaper AS reported Friday that it does not contain any written agreement allowing him to leave if Real make an approach.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is a notoriously tough negotiator, but apparently has good relations with Real president Florentino Perez.
Antonio Conte
Amid claims that Chelsea’s players are fed up with his demanding training sessions and intense ways, Conte could soon be on his way out of the club, who have been linked to current Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri.
But whether the 48-year-old Italian is an adequate replacement for the taciturn Zidane, and the right choice for such a demanding club, is up for debate.
Conte enjoyed unbridled success with Juventus in Italy’s Serie A, leading the club to three successive domestic titles before joining Chelsea.
But in Europe, the Turin giants struggled, failing to reach the Champions League final in his tenure.
Conte led Chelsea to the Premier League title in his first season in charge at Stamford Bridge, in 2016-2017, but failed to repeat the achievement in a far less successful 2017-2018 season, in which only an FA Cup triumph saved his reputation.
Arsene Wenger
Wenger is available and has the name and the top-level experience, having coached Arsenal for 22 years in England’s Premier League and, less regularly, in Real’s favourite playground of the Champions League.
But would Real Madrid’s demanding fans back the 68-year-old Frenchman, whose last piece of silverware with the Gunners came in 2017 with the FA Cup? His last league honours date back 13 years to 2004, proving the steady decline during his long reign.
Wenger spent the intervening years trying, unsuccessfully, to replicate the success of his early campaigns.
Real, record 13-times winners of the Champions League including the last three years in succession, are used to winning trophies and fans will expect a coach with lofty ambitions.
Jurgen Klopp
Leading Liverpool to the Champions League final, and a 3-1 defeat to Real last Saturday, won’t have done any harm to Klopp’s chances of joining the Spanish giants.
But whether the easy-going, fan-hugging German fits the bill at Europe’s most successful club remains to be seen.
In coaching terms Klopp’s CV stands up to scrutiny: tactics, man management and unfettered enthusiasm for the game and his players are among his biggest attributes.
But the 50-year-old’s rate of success is less impressive.
Klopp led Borussia Dortmund to the Champions League final in 2013, only to suffer defeat to Bayern Munich.
Three other runner-up places grace Klopp’s CV, including the English League Cup (2016), the Europa League (2016) and this season’s Champions League.
Jose Maria ‘Guti’ Gutierrez
In the absence of a standout favourite from outside the club, Real president Florentino Perez could opt to promote from within and push their under-19s coach Jose Maria Gutierrez, known as Guti, into the Real hot seat.
A former star midfielder for Real, who made over 500 appearances between 1995 and 2010, Guti’s intimate knowledge of the club would be a distinct advantage over his rivals.
As coach of Real’s under-19s, Guti enjoyed regular contact with Zidane and his successful methods.
On paper, the 41-year-old Guti is an outsider as he has yet to cut his coaching teeth at senior coaching level — although, prior to his appointment in 2016, the same could be said about Zidane.
The Frenchman, who made over 150 appearances for Real, became a sports director with Real in 2011 before becoming assistant to Carlo Ancelotti in 2013 and then heading the Real Madrid ‘B’ team.
Covered Vikings for Minneapolis Star Tribune, 1999-2008
The wider field won’t impede Johnny Manziel in the Canadian Football League. Neither will the 20-second play clock, the 12-man defensive looks, the punts on third down nor the pre-snap motion. It’s all of it, all at once, all while Manziel is in a hurry to master this league so he can move on to the next.
Most American quarterbacks need a year or more to adjust and thrive in the CFL. But if Manziel is to return to the NFL when his two-year contract expires, he must speed up the traditional timetable and put extended periods of high-end play on tape right away. He can start measuring his progress Friday night when he debuts in the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ preseason opener, scheduled to kick off on ESPN+ at 7:30 p.m. ET.
“Some guys come up here and they can have success right away,” said Edmonton Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly, the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player in 2017. “But it takes some time to really understand what’s happening. It’s hard. It’s hard to be successful here right out of the gates. That’s definitely going to be a challenge.”
To be fair, most quarterbacks who migrate north don’t have Manziel’s athletic skills and pedigree. Reilly, for example, went undrafted in 2009 out of Central Washington. He was released by four NFL teams over 18 months before moving to the CFL, and only after spending two seasons on the bench did he get a chance to start in 2013.
Current Tiger-Cats starter Jeremiah Masoli spent three seasons on the bench after signing in 2013 out of Mississippi. Hamilton coach June Jones has said he is committed to Masoli as the starter, but some of Jones’ other public comments — such as when he said last winter that Manziel would be the “best player to ever play up here” — suggest he is eager to get Manziel on the field.
Johnny Manziel will compete with the incumbent starter, Jeremiah Masoli. Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
“I think Johnny will come fast because we’re not going to change things from here on,” Jones said this week. “He has the whole offense in, and he’s been running it on the field. Now, does he know what he’s doing with it yet? No. But because we’re repping it all with him now, he’s going to come faster than what is typical.”
Manziel has acknowledged the steep learning curve but told reporters this week that he has “a pretty good grasp on almost everything that we’re doing.” He said he has played Jones’ run ‘n’ shoot scheme “a million” times on EA Sports’ “NCAA Football,” and Jones said his approach in many ways mirrors the three- and four-receiver sets Manziel utilized at Texas A&M.
“I looked at every pass he threw in the NFL out of a four-wide, a three-wide, out of an empty set,” Jones said, “and he threw the ball just like he did in college out of those. What the NFL did to him is put him in something he had never been in before. Never in high school, never in college, he had never run what he was asked to do. But when he was asked to do the things he had done, which is what he’ll be asked to do here, he looked like an All-Pro.”
Indeed, 97 percent of Manziel’s throws in college came out of sets with at least three receivers on the field, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. That number dropped to 70 percent over two seasons with the Cleveland Browns.
But Jones’ enthusiasm for his scheme, and Manziel’s fit in it, glosses over the more fundamental challenges of this transition. People I spoke with this week reinforced what others said during a trip to Hamilton in 2016: American visions of Manziel mirroring the success of Doug Flutie, another Heisman Trophy winner who moved north to find success, are outdated. Rather than scramble madly from wide sideline to sideline, successful CFL quarterbacks must now throw accurately and efficiently from the pocket above all else.
If anything, the league’s three-down structure discourages quarterbacks from taking chances on unscripted runs or off-schedule throws. Lost yardage on first down, or even a minimal gain, leads to the NFL equivalent of third-and-long, effectively quashing drives. Historically, according to league data, CFL teams convert first downs on second-and-10 or longer between 12 and 14 percent of the time. In 2017, they converted 35.9 percent on plays of second-and-7 or longer.
“A lot of guys start out up here by extending the play and trying to make things happen downfield,” Reilly said. “That’s how you can make up for a lack of seasoning. But that’s only going to take you so far. Defensive coordinators aren’t stupid. They can take that away and keep you in the pocket. You have to be able to go through your progressions and understand what the defenses are and where the advantages are.”
While he appreciates Manziel’s mobility, Jones said that — if anything — it’s less important in the CFL than in the NFL.
“Accuracy is the most important thing,” Jones said. “A lot of times, people think it’s guys with mobility and that kind of stuff, but to me, it’s always been accuracy with the football. You look at the guys that are at the top of the league with a chance at the Grey Cup, they’re not runners. They’re accurate passers. If you want to win it all, you have to have a guy that can see a guy and hit him.”
Can Manziel be that player? Jones thinks so. And you might be surprised to know that in his final college season, Manziel led all qualified players in completion percentage on throws from the pocket (73.5). But first, Manziel will have to master a set of rules and alternate structures that have tripped up many American quarterbacks north of the border.
During a phone conversation this week, Reilly detailed five differences quarterbacks have to adjust to while transitioning to the CFL. Here are those five differences in his words:
1. Twelve players on each side
Reilly’s breakdown: “Having 12 guys on offense, that sounds great. OK, I get an extra receiver. But the additional guy defensively allows defensive coordinators to draw up so many different coverages that you don’t even see in the States. There are essentially three safeties. When you get an extra guy out there, they can bring pressures that they can’t bring in the States. They can drop into certain zone coverages and things like that.
“You have your typical zones that you see in the NFL or in American football: Cover 2, Cover 3, Cover 4 and some combination. You may get two to one side, four to the other side, two-man, man, things like that. But the way that the defensive coordinators here can create different schemes in different zones, it’s not the same as in American football. The windows aren’t the same. How you read different coverages is not the same.”
Mike Reilly led the CFL in passing yards (5,380) and passing touchdowns (30) in 2017. David Kirouac/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
2. Only three downs
Reilly’s breakdown: “You have to be extremely efficient with every single play that you have. We don’t have that extra down. We can’t just go in there and pound the ball up the middle and run the ball and try to get yards. If we’re going to run the ball on first down, we have to get 4 or 5 yards for it to feel successful. Likewise when you’re throwing the ball on first down. You need yards.”
3. Wider (about 12 yards) and longer (10) fields
Reilly’s breakdown: “When we’re on the left hash and we’re throwing the ball to the right sideline, you’re talking almost the width of an American football field. And so the windows that you have to be comfortable throwing in are different, understanding that the ball is going to be in the air longer and that the defensive backs have more time to break. That cushion that you might have in American football where a guy is open and you throw it, here that cushion and that window is different.
“You see it all the time with young guys that come up here and try to throw a corner route to the field side and the ball skips 10 yards short of the wide receiver. They’re like, ‘Wow, I’ve got to recalibrate and readjust.’ Everybody generally has a strong-enough arm to do it, but understanding what makes a guy actually open enough to throw the ball requires a different thought process.”
4. Twenty-second play clock and two timeouts
Reilly’s breakdown: “If you’re [at the line of scrimmage] and things are a little bit confusing, in American football, it’s the second quarter, you can burn a timeout. There’s no problem with that. Here in Canada, we get two timeouts for the game, we only have one challenge per game and we have to have a timeout to use a challenge. So if it’s the second quarter and we burn a timeout, we’ve just limited ourselves in what we can do potentially in crunch time if we need to throw a challenge flag.
“You can’t just snap the ball and throw it out of bounds, because it’s second-and-10 and you’ve pretty much wasted that drive. So that’s a big change as a quarterback, is knowing where the play clock is at all times and being able to get your guys in and out of the huddle at a fast tempo.
“You have to be able to assess what the defense is doing in a very short period of time, and if you’re trying to change out of the play with a pressure check, the operation has to be very, very quick. So I think everything in terms of mentally what you have to do pre-snap, it is all much more sudden.”
5. Pre-snap motions
Reilly’s breakdown: “That changes everything, too. It is an advantage to be able to have three or four receivers motioning from one side of the field to the other, and motioning toward the line of scrimmage to get a running start against the defense. That’s all great. But what you have to understand, too, is that the defense is also going to be moving around and making adjustments based on your motion. So when you’re at the line of scrimmage and you send your receivers in motion, you’ve got about two or three seconds before you’re going to snap the ball, and what the defense was showing you before the motions versus after the motions is going to be completely different.
“A big change is being able to process things way faster after the ball is snapped. … You’ve got to be able to catch the ball in shotgun, see the ball coming from the center and also see what the defense is doing. So it really does test whether or not you can process information in a very short amount of time.”
Each day during the season, the Eskimos wrap up practice at about 12:30 p.m. local time. Reilly said he stays at the stadium as late as 7 p.m. to watch film. His advice for Manziel, and any young American quarterback, is to “make sure you spend every minute you think you should spend in the film room — and then add an extra hour or two.”
Madrid – Before Real Madrid’s 13th European Cup could be displayed at the Santiago Bernabeu on Friday, the club’s trophy cabinet needed to be enlarged, Spanish media reported.
The 13 trophies are lined up in one of the rooms in the bowels of the stadium that together make up the third most visited museum in the Spanish capital. More than one million come each year to admire Real’s history.
It was almost a week after the final before the latest “Big Ears”, as the Spanish have dubbed the trophy with its distinctive large handles, could be installed.
Spanish sports daily Marca reported that when the glass case was renovated just four years ago, “the most optimistic of the club directors thought they needed to have three spare places.” None foresaw that the club would win the Champions League in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
BELLEVUE, Wash. — Shaquem Griffin says he has been an avid video game player since he was a kid, when he and his twin brother Shaquill would compete, with the loser owing the winner pushups.
Not having a left hand made it a challenge for Shaquem Griffin to maneuver the controller. That made the Seattle Seahawks rookie linebacker a natural choice to promote Microsoft’s new Adaptive Controller, which was designed for gamers like Griffin who have accessibility needs.
He spent part of his Thursday evening at a Microsoft store in Bellevue playing a game of Madden with a young Seahawks fan who also has accessibility needs. He let the young fan, Matthew, use the Adaptive Controller while Griffin was using one of its features — pedals connected via Bluetooth to a traditional controller, allowing him to use his feet to hit buttons he’d otherwise have difficulty getting to.
Griffin was born with amniotic band syndrome and had his left hand amputated at age 4.
“Me missing one hand, the left side of the controller, like the L-T, the L-B, the triggers and stuff, usually when I’m playing a game, it’s kind of hard to get to that trigger,” he said. “I usually have to use my leg and pressure to use L-T. … So as I’m playing, I don’t have to use this L-T button no more. I can use the pedals. So if I’m playing a game and I need to use the L-T button, I use my foot to press it and I’ll still be able to move around with everything else that I have. I don’t have to press it on my leg or anything. I just move around, pedal, and keep moving. I don’t have to slow down and have to look and make sure I’m pressing a button. I might slip, or if I eat popcorn, I might miss the button. But that device is so effective because I can use foot.”
Margie Strite, a community development specialist with Microsoft, said the product will be available for sale later this year.
“The Adaptive Controller really was about living out our company’s mission statement of empowering every person to achieve more,” Strite said. “So for gamers who have mobility issues or gamers who can’t really work with the traditional Xbox controller, the Adaptive Controller was designed to really provide an assistive technology that allowed them to use whatever method or modality that worked for their needs.”
The Seahawks chose Griffin in the fourth round, reuniting him with Shaquill, a cornerback drafted in the third round last year. Griffin couldn’t play as himself on Madden since the 2018 version has yet to be released. So instead he played as Shaquill.
“He’s in everything,” Shaquem said. “I put him on kick return, punt return, linebacker, spots he’s not supposed to be at, but I put him there.”
Seahawks defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. had a positive assessment of Shaquem’s progress after Wednesday’s OTA.
“Just like anybody, being a rookie, everything is the first time for him,” Norton said. “But his speed, he’s really knowledgeable, he has a brother who has been here before, so they kinda talk about ball a little, so it’s not completely new to him. He has a brother that’s really passionate and smart as well and has had some success. But he loves ball. He goes to sleep thinking about, he wakes up talking about it, so the passion and the love for the game is no problem for him.”
