Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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Cristiano Ronaldo has a message for the Bernabéu crowd during Real Madrid’s Champions League quarter-final win against Bayern Munich. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Ronaldo has Done so Much for Real Madrid – So Why Do some Fans Whistle him?

by Sid Lowe | Apr 22, 2017 | Sports

Madrid – There are supposed to be about 1,300 words in this article. It is tempting to just spend 1,287 of them listing the things that Cristiano Ronaldo has done at Real Madrid – and there are more than enough of them to take up all that space, that is for...

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Neymar is presented as a Barcelona player in June 2013 – the legal fallout from the deal continues to this day. Photograph: David Ramos/Getty Images

Race for Neymar: the Inside Story of How Barcelona Sealed the Controversial Deal

by Alex Duff and Tariq Panja | Apr 10, 2017 | Sports

On a July evening in 2011 the football world’s focus was on the Vila Belmiro Stadium in Santos, which appears little changed from the days when a teenage Pelé lived in a dormitory under one of the stands. National-team coaches had arrived in Brazil before the World...

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‘It will be fascinating to see how this compelling little sprite of a footballer finds room to grow and assert his will, a mere superstar in the presence of greatness.’ Illustration: Nathan Daniels for the Guardian

Neymar Won’t leave Barcelona while He is Hovering Close to the Throne

by Barney Ronay | Apr 3, 2017 | Sports

Mourinho was surely right when he described the week’s most exciting transfer rumour, the notion Neymar might be lured to Manchester United, as “absurd”, “impossible” and “like trying to break into a safe”. Sadly for the Premier League, this must surely be the case....

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Jermain Defoe celebrates his goal, his first for England for four years, scored midway through the first half in England’s 2-0 home win against Lithuania. Photograph: Sandra Mailer/Rex/Shutterstock

Jermain Defoe Rolls Back the Years to Show England What They Have Missed

by Dominic Fifield | Mar 30, 2017 | Sports

There was something very familiar about all this. The sight of a winger bustling to the byline and, even as he pulled the ball back across goal, being absolutely convinced the net would be billowing by the time his momentum had carried him on to the artificial turf...

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Samir Nasri said Jamie Vardy should ‘play the game like a man’ after their altercation at the King Power Stadium. Photograph: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

Lack of Winter Break or Not Good Enough: Why are English Clubs Failing in Europe?

by Paul Wilson | Mar 18, 2017 | Sports

English football may be about to plunge into one of its regular periods of introspection now that Leicester City are left as the only standard-bearers for the Premier League in the Champions League quarter-finals, though the rest of Europe will not find anything too...