Verdict: Borussia Dortmund win and both teams to score
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Desperate to restart the Bundesliga season with a win on Friday, Lucien Favre s Borussia Dortmund side will be hoping to remain unbeaten when they welcome Eintracht Frankfurt to the Westfalenstadion.
Borussia Dortmund
Starting with the hosts, while BVB did manage to secure Champions League football last season, Dortmund will be hoping Lucien Favre can help close the gap on Bundesliga kings Bayern Munich. Coming off the back of a 0-0 draw with Hannover before the international break, The Yellow and Blacks are still boosted by their very impressive 4-1 win against RB Leipzig on the opening weekend. With last years top scorers Michy Batshuayi and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leav…
The end of the club season means individual awards are dominating the discourse right now in European football. Well, if you can t beat them, join them.
Rather than just run through the usual categories highlighting the best player and best coach – although we will do that, too – why not focus on some alternative prizes?
The NBA Awards provide a fine blueprint, rewarding superstars alongside breakout performers, recovering veterans and valuable bench players.
Relying heavily on Opta data, we ll steer clear of team honours – a blow to Wout Weghorst, whose eight blocks (leading all forwards in Europe s top five leagues) might have carved out a spot leading the All-Defensive First Team – but there remains plenty to go at
Most Valuable Player
Mauricio Pochettino believes his players have been their own worst enemies this season after Chelsea’s recent good form was derailed by last weekend’s thrashing at Newcastle.
The 4-1 loss on Tyneside came after the team had given arguably their two most promising performances of the season, first winning by the same score away at previously unbeaten Tottenham, then in drawing a frenetic match 4-4 against Premier League and European champions Manchester City at Stamford Bridge.
Yet at St. James’s Park they were routed by Eddie Howe’s side, with Pochettino admitting to feeling angry and disappointed at the manner in which his players capitulated in the second half against a Newcastle team ravaged by injuries.
The latest team news update from Cobham is in. …
Branko Ivankovic insists he is not willing to take over as Iran s national team coach at the World Cup, as well as claiming he has had nothing to do with Dragan Skocic s reported dismissal.
Iran s state news agency IRNA reported Skocic was sacked on Monday, despite Iran winning 15 of their 18 games during his tenure, after taking over from Marc Wilmots in February 2020.
Although Skocic reportedly met with the Iranian FA s board and has not officially been dismissed, reports also suggest his sacking is imminent.
Team Melli topped their World Cup qualification group ahead of South Korea to book an automatic place in Qatar, losing their only game of the AFC s third round of qualifying in the final international window, once qualification had already been secured.
Valencia are interested in re-signing Joao Cancelo from Manchester City in January, according to .
Cancelo arrived to City from Juventus in August this year in a swap deal that involved Danilo going the other way, but since his arrival, he hasn t been able to push Kyle Walker from the right-back spot in the starting XI, and has been deployed as a deputy to Benjamin Mendy on the left a few times.
The defender has already been a Valencia player. He came to the Estadio Mestalla initially on loan from Benfica in 2014, and the deal was made permanent 12 months later. He made 91 appearances for them in all competitions, scoring four goals, before making his way to Inter Milan in 2017 and then to Juventus in 2018.
City boss Pep Guardiola recently expressed his hope the…
Harry Kane earned a passionate tribute from Tottenham boss Antonio Conte ahead of the north London derby where the striker could break Jimmy Greaves Spurs goals record.
Head coach Conte described the England captain as not also a world-class striker but also a really good man , saying he had deserved the chance to overtake club legend Greaves and predicting he would beat every record .
At the age of 29, Kane is already the highest-scoring player in north London derby history with 14 goals, and he has scored in all but one of his eight Premier League home games against Arsenal.
Kane moved to 265 goals for the club by scoring to earn Spurs an FA Cup win over Portsmouth last weekend, now just one short of Greaves haul.
Ahead of what would be Kane s 413th app…
Pep Guardiola is confident Erling Haaland and the rest of Manchester City s new signings will settle in swiftly, though he acknowledged the Premier League champions have lost some key players.
Club stalwart Fernandinho left when his contract expired at the end of last season, and City have sold three other players who played a role in Guardiola s success, with Raheem Sterling joining Chelsea while Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko departed for Arsenal.
City already have most of their replacements through the door. Julian Alvarez was signed in January and has now linked up with the squad, while a deal was struck with Borussia Dortmund for prolific striker Haaland in May.
Kalvin Phillips has been signed from Leeds United to bolster City s midfield and Stefa…
Allan will join Everton, Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has confirmed.
Brazil international Allan is set to finally depart Napoli in a reported £25million (€27.9m) deal after repeated talk of a move away from the Serie A club in recent years.
A €100m transfer to Paris Saint-Germain was mooted in 2019 when Carlo Ancelotti was in charge of the Partenopei.
But Allan is instead now heading to Merseyside to link up with Ancelotti again at Goodison Park, De Laurentiis says.
He told Radio Kiss Kiss: We are at the final greetings. Allan will go to Everton.
Allan, 29, joined Napoli from Udinese in 2015 and has since made over 150 Serie A appearances for the club, also winning the Coppa Italia last season.
Everton have also been widel…
Best odds: 11/8
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The time has come for the Champions League season to begin, and in one of the matches on the opening day of the campaign, Paris Saint-Germain will be playing host to Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday.
Neither of these teams have been getting the results their supporters expect lately, and this will be a good opportunity for both to try and turn their fortunes around.
Paris Saint-Germain
The main thing PSG have had their focus on for several months before the start of the season, as well as early on in the Ligue 1 campaign, was the fate of Kylian Mbappe. There was plenty of unpleasantness between the France captain and the French champions in that period as he reportedly made plans to leave next summer to joi…
Juventus have completed the signing of Leandro Paredes on a season-long loan from Paris Saint-Germain.
An official agreement published by the Serie A side on Wednesday stated the deal includes an obligation to buy the player permanently subject to the achievement of certain given sporting objectives by the end of the season for a fee of €22.6million, with a further €3m in add-ons.
Paredes joined PSG from Zenit Saint Petersburg in 2019 and made 117 appearances in all competitions for the French giants, scoring four goals.
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