Man United to face Granada in Europa League quarter-finals | Football News – Times of India

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PARIS: Manchester United were paired with Spanish side Granada in Friday’s draw for the quarter-finals of the Europa League, while Arsenal will take on Slavia Prague.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s United, who beat AC Milan in the last 16, are due to play away in the first leg on April 8 but it remains to be seen where that match will take place.
The Old Trafford club faced Spanish opponents in Real Sociedad in the last 32 but the first leg of that tie was moved to Turin in Italy because of restrictions on travel from the UK to Spain as a result of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Ajax will face Roma with the winners of that quarter-final playing either United or Granada in the last four. United beat Ajax in the 2017 Europa League final.
Arsenal are set to host Slavia in the first leg of their quarter-final and will be wary of the runaway Czech league leaders who have eliminated Leicester City and Scottish champions Rangers in the last two rounds.
However if the Gunners get through they could face their former coach Unai Emery in the semi-finals.
Emery’s Villarreal will take on Dinamo Zagreb, last-16 conquerors of Tottenham Hotspur, in the other quarter-final.

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Paul Pogba goal sends Manchester United into Europa League last eight | Football News – Times of India

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MILAN: Manchester United reached the Europa League quarter-finals after a brilliantly-taken Paul Pogba goal earned them a 1-0 win at AC Milan to secure a 2-1 aggregate victory in their last-16 tie on Thursday.
Pogba came off the bench at halftime to make his first appearance for United since Feb. 6, and the France midfielder made an immediate impact as he turned the tie in his side’s favour three minutes after the break with a fine goal.

Former United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic came on as a substitute to try to drag Milan back into the match, and he almost equalised in the 74th minute but was denied by a good save from the visitors’ goalkeeper Dean Henderson.

Milan applied plenty of late pressure but United held on to remain in the hunt to win their first trophy since a Europa League success under Jose Mourinho in 2017.



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Inter Milan, a storied Italian soccer club is threatened by shifting prospects in China | Football News – Times of India

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HONG KONG: The new, high-rolling Chinese owner was supposed to return Inter Milan to its glory days. It spent heavily on prolific scorers such as Romelu Lukaku and Christian Eriksen. After five years of investment, the storied Milan soccer club is within striking distance of its first Italian league title in a decade.
Now the bill has come due – and Inter Milan’s future is suddenly in doubt.
Suning, an electronics retailer that is the club’s majority owner is strapped for cash and trying to sell its stake. The club is bleeding money. Some of its players have agreed to defer payment, according to one person close to the club who requested anonymity because the information isn’t public.
Inter Milan has held talks with at least one potential investor, but the parties couldn’t agree on a price, according to others with knowledge of the negotiations.
Suning’s soccer aspirations are crumbling at home, too. The company abruptly shut down its domestic team four months after the club won China’s national championship. Some stars, many of whom chose to play there instead of in Chelsea or Liverpool, have said they have gone unpaid.
China has failed in its dream of becoming a global player in the world’s most popular sport. Spurred in part by the ambitions of Xi Jinping, China’s top leader and an ardent soccer fan, a new breed of Chinese tycoons plowed billions of dollars into marquee clubs and star players, transforming the economics of the game. Chinese investors spent $1.8 billion acquiring stakes in more than a dozen European teams between 2015 and 2017, and China’s cash-soaked domestic league paid the largest salaries ever bestowed on overseas recruits.
But the splurge exposed international soccer to the peculiarities of the Chinese business world. Deep involvement by the Communist Party make companies vulnerable to sharp shifts in the political winds. The free-spending tycoons often lacked international experience or sophistication.
Now, talks of defaults, fire sales and hasty exits dominate discussions around boardroom tables. A mining magnate lost control of AC Milan amid questions about his business empire. The owner of a soapmaker and food-additive company gave up his stake in Aston Villa. An energy conglomerate shed its stake in Slavia Prague after its founder disappeared.
Suning’s plight reflects “the whole rise and fall of this era of Chinese football,” said Zhe Ji, director of Red Lantern, a sports-marketing company that works in China for top European soccer teams. “When people were talking about Chinese football and all the attention it got in 2016, it came very fast, but it’s gone very fast, too.”
Suning paid $306 million in 2016 for a major stake in Inter Milan. Suning is a household name in China, with stores stocked with computers, iPads and rice cookers for the country’s growing middle class. While it has been hurt by China’s e-commerce revolution, it counts Alibaba, an online shopping titan, as a major investor.
On a brightly lit stage to announce the Inter Milan deal, Zhang Jindong, Suning’s billionaire founder and chairman, raised a champagne glass and talked about how the famous Italian team – which has won 18 championships since 1910 but none since 2010 – would help his brand internationally and contribute to China’s sports industry.
Boasting about Suning’s “abundant resources,” Zhang promised the club would “return to its glory days and become a stronger property able to attract top stars from across the globe.”
Under the leadership of Zhang’s son, Steven, now 29, the club spent more than $300 million on stars such as Lukaku, Eriksen and Lautaro Martínez, an Argentine forward nicknamed The Bull for his relentless pursuit of goals.
Suning also agreed to pay $700 million to England’s Premier League for the rights to broadcast games in China beginning in 2019, stunning the industry.
Suning lavished money on a domestic club that it bought in 2015.
It spent $32 million to acquire Ramires, a Brazilian midfielder, from Chelsea, and 50 million euros for Alex Teixeira, a young Brazilian attacker, who chose the Chinese team over Liverpool, one of soccer’s most popular franchises.
The recruits were put to work selling air conditioners and washing machines. In one advertisement, Teixeira urged viewers to buy a Chinese brand of appliances. “I am Teixeira,” he says in Mandarin, adding, “come to Suning to buy Haier.”
The money, said Mubarak Wakaso, a Ghanaian midfielder, helped make China attractive. “The money that I’m going to make in China is far better than La Liga,” he said in a mix of Twi and English in an interview last year, citing the league in Spain where he once played. “I’m not telling lies.”
Suning’s soccer bets were badly timed. The Chinese government began to worry that big conglomerates were borrowing too heavily, threatening the country’s financial system. One year after the Inter Milan deal, Chinese state media criticized Suning for its “irrational” acquisition.
Then the pandemic hit. Even as Inter Milan won on the field, it lost gate receipts from its San Siro stadium, one of the largest in Europe. Some sponsors walked away because their own financial pressures. The club lost about $120 million last year, one of the biggest losses reported by a European soccer club.
In China, Suning was slammed by e-commerce as well as the coronavirus. Its troubles accelerated in the autumn when it chose not to demand repayment of a $3 billion investment in Evergrande, a property developer and China’s most indebted company.
Suning’s burden is set to get heavier. This year, it must make $1.2 billion in bond payments. The company declined to comment.
Suning began to take drastic steps. Last year, it abandoned its broadcasting deal with the Premier League.
Then, in February, it shut down its domestic team, Jiangsu Suning, nearly four months after the team won China’s Super League title against an Evergrande-controlled team. At least one of the team’s foreign recruits has hired lawyers to help recoup unpaid salary, according to a person involved in the matter.
One former Suning player, Eder, a Brazilian-born star forward, set the soccer world buzzing after media reports quoted him saying Suning had not paid him. On Twitter, Eder said the comments had been taken from a private, online chat without his permission. His agent did not respond to requests for comment.
To save itself, Suning took a step that could complicate Inter Milan’s fortunes. On March 1, it sold $2.3 billion worth of its shares to affiliates of the government of the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The deal gave Chinese authorities a say in Inter Milan’s fate.
Greater financial pressure looms for Inter Milan. It must pay out a $360 million bond next year. A minority investor in Hong Kong, Lion Rock Capital, which acquired a 31% stake in Inter Milan in 2019, could exercise an option that would require Suning to buy its stake for as much as $215 million, according to one of the people close to the club.
Inter Milan officials are looking for financing, a new partner or sale of the team at a valuation of about $1.1 billion, the person said.
The club until recently was in exclusive talks with BC Partners, a British private-equity firm, but they were unable to agree on price, said people with knowledge of the talks.
Without fresh capital, Inter Milan could lose players. If Inter Milan can’t pay salaries or transfer fees for departing players, European soccer rules say it could be banished from top competitions.
“We are concerned, but we are not frightened yet about this situation – we are just waiting for the news,” said Manuel Corti, a member of an Inter Milan supporters club based in London.
“Being Inter fans,” he said, “we are never sure of anything until the last minute.”

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Stage set for Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s return in AC Milan’s decider with Manchester United | Football News – Times of India

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PARIS: Zlatan Ibrahimovic looks set to face Manchester United in AC Milan‘s Europa League showdown with the English giants on Thursday as the resurgent ‘Rossoneri’ aim to announce their return to the big stage.
The Swede should be in good spirits after announcing his return to international football after nearly five years away on Tuesday, and appears to be winning the race to face his old club in the second leg of their last-16 clash at the San Siro.
The tie is locked at 1-1, with Milan having the slight advantage thanks to Simon Kjaer’s stoppage-time away goal in the first leg at Old Trafford last week.
Italian media reported on Tuesday that the veteran forward trained with the rest of the Milan squad and should be available for the first time since he left his side’s 2-1 win at Roma with a thigh injury at the end of last month.
Since then he has made headlines on a different kind of stage, co-hosting the Sanremo music festival which is possibly Italy’s biggest pop cultural event.
With 14 goals in 14 league games, the 39-year-old was a major reason behind Milan occupying top spot in Serie A for large periods of this season and his return to Old Trafford for the first leg had been highly anticipated before he picked up his injury.
Coach Stefano Pioli knows that he doesn’t need Ibrahimovic to get past United after a superb display in Manchester last week, and his side could well start the game with their talisman on the bench.
However to ensure passage to the last eight, Milan will need to turn around a dismal recent record at the San Siro which has contributed to their slipping nine points behind Serie A leaders Inter Milan having been top themselves little more than a month ago.
Sunday’s 1-0 defeat by Napoli was their fourth straight match without a win at the San Siro, preceded by draws against Udinese and Red Star Belgrade and a 3-0 derby thumping at the hands of Inter.
Five defeats in 13 league matches in 2021 also has second-placed Milan looking over their shoulders at a series of rivals for a place in the Champions League, a competition in which the seven-time European champions have not played since 2014.
The next few days will also be crucial for United’s chances of silverware this season.
They follow their trip to Italy with an FA Cup quarter-final at Leicester City on Sunday, putting their season at a crossroads with Manchester City 14 points clear of their local rivals at the top of the Premier League.
United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has Marcus Rashford back after the England forward played the full 90 minutes of their 1-0 win over West Ham at the weekend.
Of the remaining ties, only Rangers’ with Slavia Prague looks to be in the balance as they will kick off at Ibrox all square at 1-1 following their draw in the Czech Republic last week.
Steven Gerrard’s side have already been crowned Scottish champions, although they will also have one eye on the Old Firm derby with Celtic at the weekend.
Four-time European champions Ajax and Roma are both virtually assured of passage into the next round as they are 3-0 ahead in their ties with Young Boys and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Also strong favourites to go through are Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Villarreal and Granada thanks to their two-goal leads going into their second-leg matches.
Olympiakos head to the Emirates to face Arsenal, who are fresh from a derby triumph over Tottenham, but face a battle at 3-1 down.

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic back in Sweden squad | Football News – Times of India

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STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s record goalscorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been named in coach Janne Andersson‘s squad for their upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Kosovo, five years after the striker retired from the national team.
Ibrahimovic, 39, scored 62 goals in 116 internationals before quitting the team following their exit at the group stage of Euro 2016.
He opened the door to a return in a newspaper interview in November 2020, and coach Andersson flew to meet him in Milan to pave the way for his comeback, which was announced on Tuesday.
Ibrahimovic has scored 14 goals in 14 Serie A appearances for AC Milan so far this season.

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