Madrid – Cristiano Ronaldo trained apart from the team on Monday just two days ahead of Real Madrid’s Champions League last-16 home leg against Napoli.
The Portuguese goal machine, with a record 96 Champions League strikes to his name, suffered a heavy tackle during a 3-1 win over Osasuna at the weekend.
And, as the rest of the Real Madrid squad trained on ball skills Monday, Real website reported that “Cristiano Ronaldo and Fabio Coentrao trained inside the facilities.”
Ronaldo suffered a knock to his right leg, according to press reports, adding that he was expected to shake off the injury in time to play Wednesday.
On a happier note for the 10-time European champions, Welsh forward Gareth Bale took full part in training Monday, looking fresh, sharp, and upbeat after three months out with a heel injury.
Bale will take no part in Wednesday’s game but could be back in the starting lineup for the Feb. 22 return leg in Naples.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — New San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan admitted at his introductory news conference that he will “go back through every play” of Super Bowl LI for the rest of his life. And though the ending of that Super Bowl and his tenure as Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator will undoubtedly be hard to shake, not everything from Shanahan’s Super Bowl experience will take on such a serious tone.
After last week’s news conference and making the rounds with various media outlets, Shanahan popped into the media room to chat with a group of writers in a more informal session. At the start of that sit-down, Shanahan recounted the case of his missing backpack, which included his iPad playbook, from early in Super Bowl week.
It was a particularly amusing story for Bay Area media considering the accidental thief of the backpack was Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner. Spander is a local legend in San Francisco sports writing, earning the McCann Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
Here’s Shanahan’s recollection of what happened in his own words:
“It was a very panicked feeling,” Shanahan said.
But Shanahan wasn’t panicked because of the presence of his game plan, which would still have needed a password to access.
“[But] that had all my Super Bowl tickets in it for all my friends and family, so it’s basically a $30,000 bag of cash that was missing,” Shanahan said. “So that was my panic.”
It was a panic that held Shanahan for a long time as he tried to figure out where the backpack went.
“I was just looking for my backpack,” Shanahan said. “I didn’t know who took it. But I couldn’t get more than five feet without someone stopping me. And I was getting insecure because people were trying to talk to me and I can’t even look them in the eye. [I was thinking] ‘I’ve got to find my backpack!’ And they’re [thinking] ‘this guy’s weird.’
“So finally I went back to my seat where I was and there was this one backpack sitting there. And so I just went and started looking in that backpack and finally I found Art’s name on it. I was asking some reporters around and someone had his cellphone, so they called him.”
But recovering the backpack wasn’t that easy.
“They talked to Art,” Shanahan said. “And I was like, ‘Does he have it?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know.’ I’m like ‘you just talked to him for 30 seconds, what do you mean you don’t know?’ [He said] ‘I don’t know. He’s coming down here, though.'”
So Shanahan sat down and waited 30 minutes for Spander to return with his backpack. He missed the team bus while waiting.
“Finally he came, he was wearing the backpack,” Shanahan said. “But he still didn’t know it was mine. I tried to grab it from him and he shook me off. And then eventually he realized it and then he was awesome. Just a mistaken backpack.”
Shanahan said the backpacks were placed in a dark area so it was understandable that his black backpack could be mistaken for Spander’s blue one. He also acknowledged that he has a knack for misplacing things.
“The worst part about it is I am a forgetful person, besides football,” Shanahan said. “My wallet, I lose regularly. All the quarterbacks, my wife, every friend I’ve ever had, they’re like, ‘Of course, you lost the gameplan.’ I’m like, ‘No I didn’t! Someone jacked me, I promise.’
“No one believed me.”
Eventually, the backpack was returned with everything intact. Shanahan looks back at it and laughs now.
“I messed with Art on that,” Shanahan said, chuckling. “‘What, do you work for [Patriots coach Bill] Belichick or something?’ He didn’t get my joke, though.”
Spander was unable to attend Shanahan’s first news conference. He was tending to his other sporting passion: covering the AT&T pro-am golf tournament at Pebble Beach but they will be reunited soon enough.
“I was waiting to see him,” Shanahan said. “We have a bond now.”
Marc Ingla, a former Barcelona director who now occupies a similar role at Ligue 1’s Lille, believes there was a “little friction” between Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Catalonia, hence the latter lasting just a year at Camp Nou.
The gangly Swede fashioned 16 goals over 29 appearances en route to top spot in La Liga, but his relative lack of mobility – when compared to the rest of Pep Guardiola’s breathless ranks – was widely deemed detrimental to the side’s work.
In that campaign, Barca was eliminated from the last 16 of the Copa del Rey by Sevilla, and lost 3-2 on aggregate to Inter Milan in their Champions League semi-final.
“Why did Zlatan not get on at Barcelona?” Ingla told Telefoot, with translation from ESPN FC’s Samuel Marsden. “He’s a beast, a machine. But he was next to another machine, a smaller one (laughs).
“He was too static and Messi perhaps needed more space. Zlatan occupied too much. There was a little friction, I think.”
Ibrahimovic was shipped on loan to AC Milan in 2011, and made a permanent switch to the Italian powerhouse a year later. Since he was deemed surplus to requirements by Guardiola, the 35-year-old has been less than complimentary about the trophy-laden Spanish manager.
“Guardiola is a fantastic coach. But as a human? He is a coward. He is no man,” Ibrahimovic told Der Spiegel in 2013, as reported by ESPN FC.
“I told him that if I don’t fit here, you have to please tell me that. But all I got was sweet talk: ‘Ibra you are a super player, you do everything right.’ But I still ended up on the bench.”
The veteran striker has nabbed 15 strikes and four assists in 24 Premier League outings for Manchester United this term.
The New York Giants released wide receiver Victor Cruz and running back Rashad Jennings on Monday, creating significant salary-cap space by parting ways with two veteran members of their offense.
Cruz, an undrafted free agent from nearby Paterson, New Jersey, described his seven-year stint with the Giants as an “amazing journey.”
Ranking
Targets
71
48th
Rec.
39
49th
Rec. TD
1
T-50th
— ESPN Stats & Information
“I pretty much grew up in front of the eyes of this entire organization,” Cruz said as part of a statement released by the team. “The Giants fan base, the community, my hometown, my family. I grew up there. It’s very much a family atmosphere and it’s very much like leaving your family. That’s what it feels like. I did some great things there.”
Cruz, 30, is 2½ years removed from major knee surgery and would have counted for $9.4 million against the Giants’ salary cap in 2017. New York frees up $7.5 million in cap space with his release.
Jennings would have counted $3,062,500 against the cap in 2017. Releasing him frees up $2.5 million in cap space.
Giants general manager Jerry Reese described Cruz as “one of the great stories in the National Football League.”
After spending most of his rookie season on injured reserve, Cruz burst onto the scene with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons in 2011 and 2012, and he caught a touchdown pass in the Giants’ Super Bowl XLVI victory. But he has struggled to regain that form since suffering a torn patellar tendon in October 2014. He missed the entire 2015 season and had just 39 catches for 586 yards and a touchdown this past season.
“He came in here and earned everything that he’s gotten,” Reese said in the Giants’ statement. “It has been amazing to see him grow from an undrafted free agent to a Pro Bowl player and one of our go-to guys during the Super Bowl XLVI run. He will always be one of the great Giants.”
Cruz took a significant pay cut to return to the Giants last season. He still made $5.4 million and wanted to return to the team that signed him as a free agent out of UMass in 2010.
“There are so many experiences, times and moments that I shared in that building with that team in that jersey,” Cruz said. “Those can’t be replaced or forgotten. I’m happy I have those moments to look back on.”
Jennings, 31, averaged just 3.3 yards per carry last season, his third with the Giants. He rushed for a career-high 863 yards in 2015.
“It’s an honor to play here, playing for a team that has so much history, a team that falls under great leadership and high character,” Jennings said in the statement. “In the mecca of everything, the relationships I’ve built are priceless. The people, the fans, teammates, ownership, I’ve been blessed to play with the Giants and see that side of the NFL. I have nothing but good things to say.”
