Cristiano Ronaldo scored all of Al Nassr’s goals in a 4-0 rout of Al Wehda in the Saudi league on Thursday as he passed the 500 league goal mark in his club career.

The 38-year-old Portuguese star now has 503 goals scored for five different teams stretched across five leagues.

He hit three for Sporting Lisbon in his fledgling career, 103 for Manchester United over two spells, 311 for Real Madrid and 81 at Juventus.

Ronaldo now has five for Al Nassr who he joined after the World Cup following his bitter divorce from United.

On Thursday, he hit the 500 mark in the 21st minute with a left-footed strike.

He made it 2-0 with his right foot just before the interval before his hat-trick arrived from the penalty spot eight minutes into the second half.

It was his 61st career hat-trick.

He added a fourth just after the hour mark when he was first to a rebound.

Ronaldo had opened his account for his new employers last Friday with a stoppage-time penalty in a 2-2 away draw against Al Fateh.

The five-time Ballon d’Or winner, who holds the all-time records for Champions League and international goals, is banking more than 400 million euros for his surprise move to Saudi, according to sources close to Al Nassr.

The giant sum includes 200 million euros for promoting Saudi Arabia’s expected joint bid to host the 2030 World Cup, the sources told AFP.

Ronaldo has become a figurehead for the conservative kingdom’s push to improve its reputation through sports — a process that has drawn accusations of “sportswashing”, or trying to sanitise its human rights record.

Source: AFP

Ghana international winger Christian Atsu has been found alive after being buried under rubble by the earthquake, the vice president of his club Hatayspor told media on Tuesday. He had been reported missing in Turkey’s Hatay province.

“Christian Atsu was pulled out injured. Our sporting director, Taner Savut, is unfortunately still under the rubble,” club vice president Mustafa Ozak told Radyo Gol.

Atsu, 31, played in the Premier League for Newcastle United and Everton, on loan from Chelsea, and joined Hatayspor in September. He was last selected to play for Ghana in 2019, but has not officially retired from international football.

Fresh from their brilliant performances at the World Cup, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe are among the nominees for FIFA’s The Best award for last year, world football’s governing body announced on Thursday.

Messi, who has won the prize once before, captained Argentina to victory in Qatar, a career-defining triumph that has boosted his chances of winning an eighth Ballon d’Or but may also make him favourite for this prize.

As well as Mbappe, who netted a hat-trick in the World Cup final, another two Paris Saint-Germain players are nominated in Neymar and Achraf Hakimi.

Karim Benzema, who won last year’s Ballon d’Or for his performances with Real Madrid, is also nominated, as is Robert Lewandowski, winner of the FIFA prize in the last two years.

The list of nominees is completed by Manchester City’s Julian Alvarez, Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland; the Real Madrid pair of Luka Modric and Vinicius Junior; Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Jude Bellingham.

Alexia Putellas is nominated for the women’s award despite being out for the last six months due to injury.

The Barcelona and Spain midfielder won the award last year and retained the Ballon d’Or in October.

Arsenal striker Beth Mead, runner-up to Putellas for the Ballon d’Or, is also nominated, as are two other members of the England team that won the European Championship on home soil in Leah Williamson and Keira Walsh.

There are also prizes for the best male and female coach, the best goalkeeper, and the Puskas Award for the best goal of 2022.

A public vote, open until February 3, will decide the three finalists in each category.

The winner is then voted for by a jury made up of national team coaches and captains as well as journalists and fans.

Source: AFP

The five times Ballon d’or winner Cristiano Ronaldo departed the shore of Europe and completed a shock move to Saudi Arabia club side Al-Nassr and was officially presented to the excited club supporters in a fully stadium.

After his unveiling, he quickly made his way into the club dressing room and met with his new teammates.

In the dressing room the iconic number seven Cristiano Ronaldo took time to exchange pleasantries with his teammates before he finally began his training session in his new environment.

One of the popular players in the Al-Nassr dressing room is the Cameroon captain Vincent Aboubakar whose fame grew at the just concluded 2022 FIFA world cup tournament in Qatar, the two likewise exchanged pleasantries.

The two will hope to strike up a devastating partnership upfront for Al-Nassr and help them win plenty of trophies both in their league and in the continental competitions.

Source: Opera News

A month after his release from prison, Boris Becker will return as a consultant for Eurosport during the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the season, the sports television channel announced on Tuesday.

“I am delighted that Boris Becker is returning to our Eurosport team at the Australian Open,” said Jochen Gundel, one of the managers of the German subsidiary of Warner. Bros Discovery, the chain’s parent company.

“Since 2017, Boris has been an integral part of the tennis broadcasts on Eurosport.”

The German six-time Grand Slam champion was released from prison in England last month after serving eight months of a two-and-a-half year sentence for flouting insolvency rules.

Becker was found guilty of hiding £2.5 million ($3.1 million) of assets and loans to avoid paying debts.

His lawyer explained that Becker, now 55, had “served his sentence” and was “not subject to any criminal restrictions in Germany”.

Becker will appear on Eurosport every day after the night sessions of the Australian Open which begins on January 16.

Source: AFP

Cristiano Ronaldo has been sent an emphatic message by new Al-Nassr teammate Vincent Aboubakar amid the Cameroonian’s ongoing feud with Liverpool star Mohamed Salah.

The Portuguese forward sealed a big-money switch to the Saudi Arabian outfit earlier this week having penned a deal worth in the region of £173m per year until 2025. It sees Ronaldo venture outside of Europe for the first time in his glittering career following his explosive exit from Manchester United.

His first assignment once he arrives in the Middle East will be to break into the Al-Nassr starting XI – an easy task most would think considering the eye-watering wages that he will earn during his spell with the club. New teammate Aboubakar might have something to say about that first though.

The former Porto star has been with the Saudi outfit since a move from Besiktas in the summer of 2021. The 95-time Cameroon international has gone on to make 36 appearances for the club since, scoring 11 goals.

One of those strikes came in his most recent outing as he opened the scoring in the fifth minute against Al-Khaleej. That goal proved to be the winning strike as Al-Nassr rose to top spot in the Saudi Pro League ahead of Al-Shabab.

It also came at a perfect time for Aboubakar who will certainly be hoping to hold onto his starting berth regardless of Ronaldo’s arrival at the club. And the striker has already proved that he has no issues in putting himself up against the world’s best, having previously compared himself to Kop ace Salah.

Speaking shortly before the World Cup, he claimed that he shared the same ability as the Egyptian – his lack of a move to a top five league the only thing preventing him from displaying that more regularly.

Source: The Mirror

Brazil starts three days of national mourning on Friday for football legend Pele, the three-time World Cup winner widely regarded as the greatest player of all time, who has died at age 82.

The death of “The King” who transcended football triggered a wave of tributes around the globe from the sports world and also from political and cultural leaders.

Pele died Thursday at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo after a long battle with cancer.

“We love you infinitely. Rest in peace,” daughter Kely Nascimento wrote on Instagram.

The football world — from his former teammates to current stars — came together to honor “O Rei”, who transformed the sport during a long professional career that began when he was still a teenager.

Brazil star Neymar said Pele “transformed football into an art.” France’s Kylian Mbappe said his legacy “will never be forgotten,” and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo called him an “inspiration to millions.”

Argentina’s World Cup-winning captain Lionel Messi simply wrote: “Rest in peace.”

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who declared three days of national mourning, paid tribute to a man who “transformed football into art and joy”, while president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is due to take office Sunday, tweeted: “There had never been a number 10 like him.”

Pele is the only footballer in history to have won three World Cups — in 1958, 1962 and 1970.

He scored a world record 1,281 goals in 1,363 matches during a 21-year career.

He had been in increasingly fragile health, battling kidney problems and colon cancer — undergoing surgery for the latter in September 2021, followed by chemotherapy.

A wake will take place on Monday, followed by a funeral on Tuesday in Santos, the southeastern city where he played most of his career, his former club said.

The city declared seven days of mourning as fans flocked to the team’s stadium to leave flowers.

In front of the Sao Paulo hospital where he died, fans held up a banner which read: “Eternal King Pele.”

In Rio de Janeiro, the Christ the Redeemer statue which overlooks the city was illuminated in homage to Pele, as was the legendary Maracana stadium.

For the Brazilian daily O Globo, whose front page was packed with stories about the sporting legend, Pele remained the “immortal king of football”.

In a testament to Pele’s influence, international figures including US President Joe Biden and former leader Barack Obama, Brazilian music legends Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach also paid tribute.

“As one of the most recognizable athletes in the world, he understood the power of sports to bring people together,” Obama wrote.

‘Samba football’

Born on October 23, 1940, in the southeastern city of Tres Coracoes, Edson Arantes do Nascimento — named for American inventor Thomas Edison — grew up selling peanuts on the street to help his impoverished family get by.

He was soon given the nickname Pele, for his mispronunciation of Bile, the name of a goalkeeper at Vasco de Sao Lourenco, where his footballer father once played.

Pele dazzled from the age of 15, when he started playing professionally with Santos. He led the club to a flurry of titles, including back-to-back Intercontinental Cups in 1962-1963.

He epitomized the Brazil national team’s sublime style of play, called “samba football.”

Pele set his scoring records playing for Santos (1956-74), the Brazilian national team, and the New York Cosmos (1975-77).

But beyond the many benchmarks he set, he will be remembered for revolutionizing the sport, his ever-present number 10 on his back as he tapped into his preternatural athleticism.

The first global football star, he played a lead role in making the game a sporting and commercial powerhouse.

He also played with heart, visible in the black-and-white footage of the 17-year-old bursting into tears after helping Brazil to its first World Cup title, in 1958.

Eight years earlier, seeing his father cry when Brazil lost the 1950 World Cup final on home soil to Uruguay, Pele had promised to bring the trophy home one day.

Sports royalty

Pele reached the pinnacle of his greatness at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, the first broadcast in color, where he starred on what many consider the greatest team of all time, with talents such as Rivellino, Tostao and Jairzinho.

He was often welcomed like royalty when traveling abroad with Santos or the national team. Legend has it that his arrival in Nigeria in 1969 prompted a 48-hour truce in the bloody Biafra war.

Pele declined offers to play in Europe but signed for a brief, lucrative swansong with the New York Cosmos at the end of his career, bringing his star power to the land of “soccer.”

His influence extended beyond the pitch, with gigs as a movie star, singer and sports minister (1995-1998) — he was one of the first black cabinet members in Brazil.

But he faced criticism at times in Brazil for remaining quiet on social issues and racism, and for what some saw as his haughty, vain personality.

Unlike Argentine rebel Diego Maradona, one of his rivals for the title of greatest of all time, Pele was seen as close to those in power — including Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime.

‘Eternal, unforgettable’

Pele’s health began to fail in the last decade. His public appearances grew increasingly rare, and he frequently used a walker or wheelchair.

He was hospitalized several times for urinary infections, then again in 2021 and 2022 for the colon cancer that marked the beginning of the end.

He met his health problems with typical humor.

“I will face this match with a smile on my face,” he posted on Instagram in September 2021, after surgery to remove his colon tumor.

Mario Zagallo, who won the World Cup alongside Pele in 1958 and 1962, said the King had “stopped the world several times” with his talent.

“He leaves an eternal, unforgettable legacy,” the 91-year-old Zagallo said.

Source: AFP

Pele burst onto the global stage at just 17 with dazzling goals as Brazil won the World Cup for the first time in Sweden in 1958.

“I have good and bad stories from World Cups. The ’58 World Cup was a dream. I was a kid. Nobody was expecting it. Nobody believed in us. I remember some reporters saying: ‘how can they take a 17-year-old kid to the World Cup finals,” Pele recalled in an interview with FIFA.

As ever on the football field, Pele’s timing was impeccable.

While the 1954 World Cup had been broadcast live to a small European audience, 1958 was shown more widely and far more people owned television sets.

Pele, who crowned his career 12 years later in Mexico in the first World Cup broadcast in colour, was the first football star to play his entire career in the TV era.

In 1958, Brazil under coach Vicente Feola were also innovating.

They embraced the 4-2-4 formation and adopted a detailed approach to every aspect of preparation and planning.

The federation assigned a psychologist, Joao Carvalhaes, to the squad. He tested the players and pronounced Pele “too infantile”.

“You may be right,” Feola replied. “But you know nothing about football and I’ve seen Pele play.”

Pele, nursing a knee injury, missed the first two group games, a 3-0 win over Austria and the first goalless draw at a World Cup against England.

He made his debut against the USSR in the final group match.

The brilliant and unpredictable winger Garrincha was also recalled after being left out of the first two group matches.

Veteran defender Nilton Santos is said to have led a delegation of players to see Feola demanding he change the team.

Their recall altered the complexion of a side which had only contained one black player in the opening game.

Youngest scorer

In the first three minutes, Pele and Garrincha hit the woodwork and Vava scored. Vava added a second after the break as Brazil won 2-0 and secured first place in the group.

Pele made history in the 66th minute of the quarter-final scoring the only goal against Wales to become, at 17 years and 239 days, the youngest scorer in a World Cup.

He controlled the ball with his back to goal and Mel Charles marking him closely, flicked the ball toward goal with his right foot, spun and poked a shot through a challenge by Stuart Williams and in off the far post.

It was a goal fit to win a World Cup quarter-final, but because all the quarter-finals kicked off at the same time and the technology meant only one game could be shown live, it was not seen at the time by the global audience.

Pele hit the last three goals as Brazil beat France 5-2 in the semi-finals, pouncing on two loose balls in the goalmouth for a pair of well-taken poacher’s goals and completing his hat-trick with a stinging volley.

Just Fontaine scored for the losers and went on to finish the tournament with 13 goals.

“When I saw Pele play, it made me feel I should hang up my boots,” Fontaine said later.

Pele made his mark in the final on a Rasunda Stadium pitch made slippery by rain.

Although his play, behind centre forward Vava, epitomised the all-round attacking role associated with the modern number 10, he had that shirt only by accident. Despite their careful planning, the Brazilians had neglected to submit squad numbers and were assigned them at random. Goalkeeper Gilmar, for example, wore three.

Sweden took a fourth minute lead. Pele struck the woodwork. Then Garrincha twice beat his men on the right and hit low crosses for Vava to tap in.

In the 55th minute, Pele scored the third with a memorable flourish.

With the hulking Sigge Parling at his back, Pele leaped and twisted to control a ball into the penalty area. By the time he landed Parling was behind him.

‘Quick thinking’

As Bengt Gustavsson lunged in, Pele opted not to shoot, instead flicking the ball over the defender’s head.

Shrugging off a bootful of studs in his thigh, Pele composed himself as the ball dropped, from a height of 3.2 metres, FIFA have calculated, leant forward and bounced a volley under goalkeeper Kalle Svensson.

“If I said I thought about it, I’d be lying,” Pele told FIFA. “It was a spur-of-the moment reaction, quick thinking. When I controlled it I was going to hit it first time but then I thought quickly and adjusted. One of the strengths in my life and in my football was my improvisation, to change at the last second.”

In the final minute, Pele rounded off another 5-2 win, with a looping header that finished a one-two he had started with a backheel.

At the final whistle, Pele wept as teammates hoisted him in the air.

“After the fifth goal, even I wanted to cheer for him,” said Parling.

Fans watching round the world cheered too. King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden came down to the pitch to shake Pele’s hand. Football’s king had been crowned.

Source:  AFP

When FIFA declared Pele and Diego Maradona jointly the players of the 20th century, and effectively the best of all time, they side-stepped but did not resolve a heated debate that has grown more complicated as Lionel Messi has dominated the 21st century.

Just who is the greatest?

Pele, who died on Thursday, and the two Argentines all won the sport’s greatest prize — the World Cup — and were undoubtedly the kings of their eras.

AFP Sport looks at who is the best between the magical Brazilian, the controversial Maradona, who passed away in November 2020 at the age of 60, and a second Argentine, the twinkling Messi who is still playing:

Triple crown v single titles

— Pele played in four World Cups, winning three times, a record not yet beaten and giving him one more than Maradona and Messi combined. He was just 17 in 1958 when he was world champion in Sweden, scoring six goals, two in the final. Pele was injured in the second match as Brazil won the 1962 World Cup but claimed a third title, and sealed his international reputation, in 1970 as his magical side beat Italy in the Mexico City final.

Maradona, not picked in the squad that won the World Cup at home in 1978 and sent off in a tournament-ending 3-1 loss to Brazil in Spain in 1982, shot to global fame in 1986 for the right and wrong reasons. His infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal against England was followed by an individual effort voted FIFA’s ‘Goal of the Century’. He scored twice in the semi-final win over Belgium and supplied the crucial pass in the 3-2 win against West Germany in the final.

After Messi completed his World Cup quest in Qatar this month, the ailing Pele saluted on Instagram: “Messi winning his first World Cup, as his trajectory deserved. Diego is certainly smiling.” The Argentine has a complete set of major medals: a World Cup (2022), a Copa America (2021), four Champions Leagues and three Club World Cups as well as a multitude of domestic Spanish and French trophies.

Number 10 v number 10 v number 10

— All three men wore the No 10 shirt.

Pele’s role was often described as a “nine and a half”, his attacking skills yielding 1,281 goals in 1,363 matches for his clubs, Santos and New York Cosmos, and the Brazilian national team.

Maradona, known as “D10S” (a word play with the number 10 and God in Spanish) played in a free role, more the playmaker, and his career statistics reflect that: 345 goals in 692 matches.

Messi, who plays a variety of attacking positions, has also piled up the goals: 793 in 1,003 professional matches by the end of 2022.

Role model v a rebel and a quiet child

— Pele was the clean-cut hero, scandal-free, honourable, sporting, with a career spent at just two clubs — Santos (1956-74) and New York Cosmos (1975-77).

Maradona played for six teams, was sent off at the 1982 World Cup, scored with his hand against England in the 1986 tournament, was banned in Spain for fighting on the pitch, and was sent home in disgrace from the 1994 World Cup after failing a drugs test. He also suffered a cocaine addiction.

Messi, the quiet child, resembled Pele in his loyalty to his first club Barcelona until their money troubles allowed Paris Saint-Germain to pry him away in 2021. His difficulties with the Spanish tax authorities and a host of sponsorship deals have not tarnished his image.

Ego wars

Until they reconciled in 2016, Pele and Maradona sparred over who was the greatest.

Pele has a museum. Maradona said Pele belonged “in a museum”.

Maradona, who enjoyed showing off his Fidel Castro and Che Guevara tattoos, mocked the Brazilian’s respect for authority.

Pele condemned Maradona as “not being an example” to youngsters because of his drug problems.

The more guarded Messi, as heir to Argentina’s greatest sporting hero, has avoided suggesting he is better than Maradona.

Source:  AFP