Young goalkeeper's streak ends as St. Pauli salvages a draw with Gladbach
HAMBURG, Germany — Goalkeeper Tiago Pereira Cardoso's dream start to life in the Bundesliga hit a snag Sunday as he conceded his first goal in Borussia Moenchengladbach's 1-1 draw with St. Pauli.
Injuries and other issues affecting regular goalkeepers Moritz Nicolas and Jonas Omlin have given the Luxembourg keeper a surprise starting spot for Champions League-chasing Gladbach over the last month.
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Omar Berrada: Manchester United's CEO on Amorim, transfers, apologies and more
I first met Omar Berrada when he was an executive at Barcelona in the mid-noughties. He was highly rated and helped monetise the huge popularity of the Catalans, who were then a long way behind Manchester United and Real Madrid commercially. Such was his reputation, he was headhunted for a job at Manchester City in 2011. Berrada's last game before moving to England was the 2011 Champions League final at Wembley between Barca and United. Advertisement Berrada continued to excel at City, gaining experience on the commercial and then the football side. Then, in January 2024, Manchester United offered Berrada their chief executive officer job — and he did not hesitate to take it. I had asked Berrada midway through last season if he would do an interview for United We Stand, the fanzine I have edited since it launched in 1989. And on June 2, I went to meet him at the open-plan office where he works at Old Trafford. We spoke for 70 minutes in his first sit-down interview since he took the United job last July. I had a lot of questions. After the Europa League final defeat to Tottenham in Bilbao, I had never felt as low as a United fan but, having done the interview, I came out of the room feeling more optimistic about the club's future. Berrada knows it'll be tough, but he's got a clear idea of what he wants to do, plus serious experience in football to know what success looks like. You can read the full interview in United We Stand, but this is a selection of the topics we covered, and my analysis of what he said. Berrada outlined the thinking behind bringing in Ruben Amorim in November, a decision led by 'the technical people, so that's not my area of expertise'. He acknowledged that making an appointment midway through the season was always likely to make it 'even more difficult for the team to perform. We saw it as an investment for the following seasons, because we were going to give time to Ruben to get to know the squad, the club, the Premier League. 'So by the time that we got to now (June 2025), we'll have had all the discussions about what does the squad need, the two-to-three-year plan to get to a squad that's capable of winning the Premier League. 'We have a very clear roadmap of how we're going to get there. Had Ruben started on July 1, 2025, we wouldn't have been able to have all that knowledge, right? And that's what I feel these seven or eight months that he's had. He's suffered in the Premier League, and the team has suffered. That's why I feel that it's really going to help us in the future.' I asked if there were similarities with Pep Guardiola, who struggled in his first season at Manchester City when he arrived at the club in 2016, five years after Berrada had arrived. 'Very much so,' he replied. 'Pep stuck to his principles and given what he'd won, he had an enormous amount of credit in the bank. He was allowed that first year to be below-par by his standards. The club backed him that summer, the team started winning and created this winning cycle that lasted until this season.' Advertisement There was a succession of negative stories coming out of Old Trafford last season. With staff losing their jobs and the team losing matches (18 in the Premier League alone), the mood was and remains bleak. Berrada, who described his first 11 months as a 'whirlwind', admitted that he could not have predicted the team having such a fire season in the Premier League but maintains that things will start to improve. 'We've taken all the short-term pain in this season, but as of this summer, the worst bit is going to be behind us,' he said. 'We will have settled the management team; we will have settled the coaching team with the technical team around them. 'And on the football side, there's a clear idea of what we want to do, what players we want to get, how we want to see the team playing, how we're going to integrate academy players, how we're going to go and invest in future talent. 'I sit here today and I'm actually very optimistic and quite positive about what's ahead. Of course we need to get a lot of decisions right. And we will make mistakes, there's no doubt. We'll try to minimise those. But what we want is to build something that's sustainable for the long, long term, right?' One of the most notable targets Berrada has set since he arrived at United is 'Project 150' — the name given to a set of milestones he wants the club to have achieved by the time it celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2028. These include off-field targets — being 'cash positive' is one example — but others are on-field. Berrada wants United's women's team to win its first Women's Super League title in the next three years and for the men to follow suit in the Premier League. But is that realistic? 'Of course,' Berrada replied. We've just finished 15th and it seems like an impossible task. But why not aim for it? Why not do everything in our power?' Advertisement He speaks with some experience. When Berrada arrived at Barcelona in 2004, the club was on the floor. They finished second to Valencia in La Liga, lost in the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey and didn't even play in that season's Champions League. They were instead cast into the UEFA Cup, where they lost in the fourth round to Celtic. Things seemed similarly hopeless at the Camp Nou, but within two years they were European and Spanish champions. It is the kind of revival that gives Berrada hope for United. 'I firmly believe that we can do it,' he said. 'We have two or three summer windows to build a team to start competing to win the Premier League, and if we can achieve it before then, we'll all be happy — and so nobody's saying that we don't want to win it until then.' Berrada said that United would be 'active' in the rest of the summer window. Although, predictably, there were few promises over exactly how much could or would be spent, and on who. He insists there is alignment between Amorim and Jason Wilcox, the technical director, and that the 'vision' for the squad is clear. But he admitted that there would need to be 'some player exits' in order to 'balance the books'. 'We've put ourselves in the best position possible by doing everything that we've had this year around cost-cutting,' Berrada added. 'I'm confident that we will come out of the window with a much stronger team than what we've gone into.' Berrada was also effusive in praising United's sole addition to the squad so far, Matheus Cunha, who has joined for £62.5million ($83.7m) from Wolverhampton Wanderers and — according to the CEO — has traits reminiscent of one of the club's greatest signings. 'He's a player that I think fans are going to love,' Berrada said. 'We can talk about his technical abilities and he can play in three different positions. He's a playmaking attacking midfielder; he can score goals, he can make assists. I think he's going to lift people off their seats. He's got a bit of a swagger about him that people are going to really like. Dare I say, (Eric) Cantona-esque. Advertisement 'He was an important one to get done. We're going to do our best to do more signings quickly. Sometimes when you're not quick, it's because you're negotiating and you're trying to make sure you get the right value for money. So being efficient or quick isn't necessarily the best thing for the club.' If last season was grim on the field, it was hardly much better off it. United announced two rounds of redundancies — one in September, when around 250 staff were sacked, and then another just after the end of the season. Berrada had told staff in that September meeting that there was only going to be one wave of cuts, and he acknowledged that there had been a backtrack, for which he had apologised to staff. 'We didn't foresee at the time that the finances of the club were in such a bad state and there are many things that you need to manage,' he explained. 'It's not just financial fair play, but it's also cash and the ability to operate with your own means, which is what we're being asked to do. 'We're a massive club; we should be able to operate on a profitable basis, as the club has done for a long time and still won (trophies). You can be very successful on and off the pitch consistently.' Redundancies were just one of the negative headlines United generated. Another was the decision to scrap concession prices midway through last season, meaning younger fans and OAPs faced paying £66 for tickets, and moving long-term season ticket holders from seats in Old Trafford's South Stand so they could be resold as high-end corporate seats. When I put it to Berrada that the £66 policy was a failure and did more harm than good, Berrada replied: 'What I accept is that the way it was rolled out was not good. I raise my hand, I'm responsible for that decision. 'If we go back to the actual decision itself and the percentage of people that it was going to impact, it's low. Really low. But we didn't communicate it well. And we did it too quickly, mid-season. So that was a lesson and something that we will try to avoid in the future. Advertisement 'What we've done since is engage heavily with the fan advisory board and they've all been good. We've had some robust conversations and they pushed back on a lot of the ideas that we had and the initiatives that we wanted to implement.' As for the South Stand protests, Berrada said that it was important for the club to 'understand their frustration' but insisted the decisions were for 'the good of the club', regardless of how unpopular they were. Berrada is smart. His father was an economics professor and his mother worked for UNICEF with the United Nations; he speaks five languages and has lived in as many different countries. His ability to see through football's 'bulls***ters' — as he puts it — will be put to the test in the coming years but he understands the need to stay calm and retain perspective. He says he has a 'very good relationship' with Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the INEOS founder and United's co-owner, and speaks to him 'quite often. With him, you know exactly what you're getting.' Born in Paris, Berrada spent much of his childhood in the Moroccan city of Rabat. He loved football, chiefly the Moroccan national team and Barcelona. His first football memories were of the 1986 World Cup finals, and he clearly knows his stuff. 'Morocco played England and drew (0-0), then beat Portugal 3-1 to become the first African team to qualify from the group stage,' he recalled. 'That was a proud moment for the country and I was completely hooked on football.' From the age of nine, his family lived in the United States (he later returned as a student to start an engineering degree) and he also lived in Brussels and Barcelona. He read a lot before he took the United job and continued reading, including books on the club's football history; he seems just as at ease talking tactics as he does accounts. Advertisement It is one of the reasons he has faith in Amorim and dismisses the idea that the Portuguese is too wedded to one way of playing. 'We want an attractive attacking style of football, but Johan Cruyff played with 3-4-3 and nobody said it was defensive,' he said. 'So I wouldn't spend too much time thinking about the formation and thinking more about the identity and the style of play that Ruben is trying to put in place.'
USA Today
6 hours ago
- USA Today
Frenchman Nolan Traoré among second group of prospects invited to NBA draft green room
Frenchman Nolan Traoré among second group of prospects invited to NBA draft green room Frenchman Nolan Traoré is among the second group of prospects invited to attend the 2025 NBA draft from the green room at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Traoré was named the Champions League Best Young Player after averaging 12.2 points, 4.7 assists and 1.9 rebounds in 44 games with Saint-Quentin in France. He registered seven 20-point games, including a 25-point effort on May 9. Joining Traoré in the green room are Noa Essengue (ratiopharm Ulm), Liam McNeeley (UConn), Collin Murray-Boyles (South Carolina), Will Riley (Illinois) and Thomas Sorber (Georgetown), according to Jonathan Givony of ESPN. Teams with first-round picks each year vote on the players they believe will be drafted early, typically the top 20-25 prospects. Last year, 25 prospects were invited to the green room, and only two weren't selected in the first round (Kyle Filipowski, Johnny Furphy). Last week, the first batch of invitations was reportedly sent out to the top players, including Cooper Flagg (Duke), Dylan Harper (Rutgers), Ace Bailey (Rutgers), VJ Edgecombe (Baylor) and Tre Johnson (Texas). The league is expected to invite at least five more prospects. The 2025 NBA draft will feature a two-night format for the second consecutive year, with the first round scheduled for June 25 and the second round for June 26.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Chelsea defeat LAFC in poorly-attended Club World Cup opener
Enzo Fernandez celebrates after scoring Chelsea's second goal against Los Angeles FC on Monday (Paul ELLIS) Chelsea kicked off their Club World Cup campaign with a solid 2-0 victory over Los Angeles FC on Monday in Group D, although there were nearly 50,000 empty seats in the stadium in Atlanta. Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez's goals got the Blues off to a good start in a competitive clash against one of the three qualified MLS teams. Advertisement New signing Liam Delap made his debut as a substitute and helped set up Fernandez's strike, with Chelsea hoping to go far after their UEFA Conference League triumph and Champions League qualification, looking to re-establish themselves among the elite. After a solid start to the tournament regarding attendance numbers over the opening weekend, a sparse crowd of just over 22,000 settled in at the stylish 71,000 capacity Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Behind former Tottenham Hotspur stopper Hugo Lloris' goal in the first half, a couple of hundred LAFC 'ultras' helped provide an atmosphere with a drum beat and constant song. Although the closed stadium roof offered refuge from the Georgia humidity and mid-afternoon summer sun which Paris Saint-Germain and Atletico Madrid stars roasted under on Sunday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the attendance suffered badly because of the 3:00 pm local time kick-off. Advertisement Despite regular strong crowds for MLS side Atlanta United, the best supported US team, few locals decided to take a Monday off work for the tournament's first weekday afternoon game, seemingly chosen to suit a British television audience. After beating Club America in a play-off to qualify for the competition as late as May, LAFC took the place of the banned Mexican side Club Leon, and play none of their three group games in California. The top ring of the stadium was entirely shut and other levels were only partly filled, despite ticket prices dropping in the days ahead of the game. Lloris rated his team's chances against Chelsea as "really thin" on the eve of the game and was called into action several times as the Blues took control from the start. Advertisement The French stopper saved from Nicolas Jackson and then Noni Madueke after the Senegalese forward set him up, while Cole Palmer whistled a strike narrowly over. With new signing Delap looking on from the bench, Jackson played like a man determined to keep his starting spot. The striker was instrumental in Neto's opener, releasing the Portuguese winger with an excellent through ball. Neto chopped in the box to leave LA defender Ryan Hollingshead stumbling helplessly out of sight and then buried a powerful strike past Lloris low at the near post. - Delap debut - Former Chelsea striker Olivier Giroud came on at half-time for the Americans, hoping to threaten Robert Sanchez's goal more than Steve Cherundolo's team managed in the first half. Advertisement Jackson came close with a header and LA almost levelled but Sanchez made a fine save with his outstretched leg to thwart 2023 MLS golden boot winner Denis Bouanga after he shook off Neto. Maresca brought on 22-year-old striker Delap for his Chelsea debut after the hour mark, having begun the game with all of the club's new faces on the bench. The forward drove into space and tried to tee up Fernandez with a promising first move in a Chelsea shirt since his arrival from relegated Ipswich Town. Chelsea star Palmer, who had shown occasional flashes of brilliance, hammered over. LA threatened increasingly, with Marc Cucurella blocking well from David Martinez, before Fernandez grabbed Chelsea's second. Advertisement Running into the six-yard box the Argentine midfielder controlled Delap's cross from the right and beat Lloris to put the game to bed. Elsewhere in Group D Esperance Tunis face Brazil's Flamengo later on Monday. rbs/as
