Latest news with #FerranTorres
BBC News
19-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Gossip: Villa interested in Barcelona's Torres
Aston Villa are interested in Barcelona forward Ferran Torres, 25, and are prepared to offer around 50m euros (£42m) for the Spain international. (Mundo Deportivo - in Spanish), externalAtletico Madrid are among several clubs interested in Aston Villa's Argentine midfielder Enzo Barrenechea, 23, who is on loan at Valencia. (Birmingham Mail), externalWant more transfer stories? Read Monday's full gossip columnFollow the gossip column on BBC Sport
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
☕️🥐FC Breakfast: Pedri out for a ride 🚴, huge controversy in England 🏴
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here. After parading through the streets of Barcelona with their teammates to celebrate their victory in La Liga, Dani Olmo, Pedri, and Inigo Martinez left the festivities to visit Ferran Torres, who was hospitalized due to an appendicitis operation. But having left their car in the stadium parking lot, the three friends decided to cross the city... by bike. 🤩 QUÉ IMAGEN👏 Dani Olmo, Eric García, Iñigo Martínez y Pedri recorrieron las calles de Barcelona en bicicleta para festejar LaLiga en el hospital junto a Ferran Torres, operado de apendicitis — Mundo Deportivo (@mundodeportivo) May 16, 2025 On Saturday, Crystal Palace clinched the first major trophy in its history by defeating Manchester City in the FA Cup final (1-0). A match that was marked by a terrible controversy. While the score was 1-0, goalkeeper Dean Henderson was guilty of a handball outside the box in front of Erling Haaland. An incident not clear enough to warrant a red card according to the match referee. What do you think? On Saturday afternoon, Harry Kane was officially crowned top scorer of the German championship. A historic record as he is the first player to finish as top scorer in his first two seasons in the Bundesliga. He is also the first to have scored 25 goals in each of his first two seasons. - Cherki almost officially announces his departure! - L1: the 🔟 top scorers and the 🔟 top assist providers of the season 👑 - OL: Lacazette's emotional farewell for his last game 15:15 : West Ham - Nottingham Forrest (Canal+ Foot) 17:30 : Arsenal - Newcastle (Canal+) 19:00 : Barcelona - Villarreal (Bein Sports 4) 19:00 : Sevilla - Real Madrid (Bein Sports 4) 20:45 : Parma - Napoli (L'Équipe Live Foot) 📸 Shaun Botterill - 2025 Getty Images
New York Times
18-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
How Barcelona celebrated winning La Liga – players cycling to see Torres and 670,000 fans in the streets
The Barcelona players formed a circle and started jumping on the pitch. They had been La Liga champions for about 30 seconds on Thursday night when their coach, Hansi Flick, ran over and started urging each player towards the dressing room. Some of them who were ignoring him were given a small push in the right direction. Advertisement Less than a minute after the referee blew the final whistle, the RCDE Stadium (home of Barcelona's cross-city rivals, Espanyol) turned on the sprinklers to bring an even more abrupt end to the title winners' celebrations. Two years ago, Barcelona were crowned champions in the same venue under Xavi Hernandez. That occasion hurt even more for Espanyol — not only did they have to watch their rivals lift the title, the result also relegated them to Spain's second division. There was a pitch invasion and the Espanyol supporters chased after the Barcelona players, who had to be evacuated by the police. Flick asked for respect if Barcelona won the title there again and he was very keen to avoid a repeat of what happened last time. 'It was very clear on the pitch that we couldn't celebrate,' Flick said at the post-match press conference. Their celebrations were only just getting started. There was dancing in the dressing room, with president Joan Laporta and sporting vice-president Rafa Yuste joining in the fun. The players made a video call to Ferran Torres, who missed the match and the celebrations after undergoing emergency surgery for appendicitis, and the Polish goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny lit the first cigar, which he shared with his compatriot Robert Lewandowski. The squad took the bus back to Barcelona's training ground, just 6km away from the RCDE Stadium. They were met by a crowd of fans with red flares who were desperate to celebrate the club's 28th league title with them. The players and coaching staff appeared on one of the balconies at the complex to join in the fans' chants. 'We have to get down to the mud (get in with the fans),' said their outstanding young centre-back Pau Cubarsi, a graduate from La Masia who is a key part of the first team at the age of 18. Advertisement The cars began to leave with the players one by one. The first to go was Alejandro Balde. On his way out of the training complex, the young full-back stopped his convertible car and stood up, topless, to salute the crowd. The midfielder Marc Casado, like so many of this Barcelona squad another graduate from their academy, kept looking at his mobile phone. On the Twitch streaming account Jijantes, Casado asked how many people were at Canaletes, the fountain in the city centre where tourists often gather and the spot where Barcelona fans celebrate titles. A few minutes later, the 21-year-old appeared alone at Canaletes, where he was cheered on by the 7,000 fans who had gathered after midnight to party. He was escorted by two fans who covered his face and made sure he was not mobbed by the adoring fans. Casado was living his best life. In another part of Barcelona, near the Hospital de Barcelona on Avenida Diagonal, four footballers had taken the Bicing — the public bike service in the city — to go to visit a friend in hospital before going out to celebrate. Dani Olmo, Pedri, Eric Garcia and Inigo Martinez wanted to see their team-mate Ferran Torres, who had surgery on Wednesday for appendicitis. A post shared by Dani Olmo (@daniolmo) 'Look how beautiful the moon is,' Pedri said in one of the videos shared by the players on social media. The moon was full and they looked like four children straight out of 'The Goonies' on their bikes, oblivious to the fact they were the idols of the Barcelona fanbase in that moment. The partying on Thursday (or the early hours of Friday) ended at two well-known nightclubs in the city: Luz de Gas, where the Barcelona board went to mark the triumph, and Twenties, where the staff and players went. Luz de Gas has become famous for being the favourite venue of the Barcelona president Laporta and it was there that he celebrated Pep Guardiola's treble in 2009. The night was long, but a few hours later on Friday, it was time for the victory parade through the city. It started at the Camp Nou, which is being renovated for the 2025-26 season, and ended at the Arc de Triomf in the city centre. At the Camp Nou, as the open-top bus passed by, the workers came over to greet the players from their positions. Without stopping work on what will be the new home of this team, they waved to the players from behind their protective helmets. There were 670,000 people in the streets to catch a glimpse of their heroes and to paint the city blue and red. It has been a tough couple of years, but now it was time to celebrate. Advertisement The street party summed up everything this season has been about. Flick was busy looking after his players like a father, just as he has done all season. When Fermin Lopez was singing at the top of his voice on the safety bar of the bus, Flick was holding him from behind to prevent him from falling. When the fans threw shirts up for the players to sign, Flick was organising things and making sure the shirts went back to their correct owners and that another supporter didn't grab them. A post shared by FC Barcelona (@fcbarcelona) The coach looked like a school bus. At the front were the more responsible players. At the back, guarding the trophies, the cool kids — Lamine Yamal, Alejandro Balde, Gavi. Although in the end, rather fittingly, it was two defenders who ended up looking after the silverware: Inigo Martinez (the MVP of the celebrations) and Eric Garcia. Raphinha was wearing a Barcelona hat with spikes on it, accompanied by Jules Kounde. Two of last season's stragglers have become heroes this year and are among the most beloved players of this double-winning campaign. It was Kounde who scored the decisive goal in the Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid last month. The most acclaimed during the parade were Pedri, Cubarsi, Raphinha, Yamal and Flick. All five have had a massive impact on the club in this memorable season. It's easy to forget that two of them (Yamal and Cubarsi) are still teenagers. On the bus, Cubarsi was drinking a can of Fanta. The 'Szczesny smoker' chant was sung again and again, led by the players with a microphone and repeated back to them by the fans. The Polish goalkeeper has embraced the chant as his own, wearing a hat that says 'Smoker'. He also played with a fan, throwing sweets into his mouth from the bus. As the celebrations played out, you could see the character of each player and how close the group are, like a family. Hanging out of the league trophy at the back of the bus was a shark soft toy, an attempt to include Torres in the celebrations given his 'shark' nickname. Advertisement There was collective hysteria over the achievements of this brilliant young team, built around stars from the club's academy, which makes it far easier for supporters to identify with them. 'If we weren't on this coach, we'd be down in the front row going wild,' Marc Bernal and Gerard Martin told club media during the parade. The players were struck by the atmosphere generated by the fans and the amount of joy they were bringing them by succeeding on the pitch. The 'Baby Barca' tag is catching on. With so many of these players, the fans feel that they have one of their own defending the famous shirt. You could see it with Casado going alone to Canaletes, with Cubarsi wanting to go down with the fans, wanting to be 'in the mud'. This Barcelona is the result of La Masia. And with the quality of youth that Flick has at his disposal, they seem destined to mark a new era at the club.
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
La Liga belongs to Barcelona again. Here's how they did the double
Way after midnight and visiting hours had long since finished but they had only just got started and they weren't going to leave the patient with appendicitis lying there alone, not at a time like this. So Pedri González, Dani Olmo, Iñigo Martínez and Eric García rented four city bikes and cycled up Avinguda Diagonal in the dark. They had been out to Cornella and come back with the league, double done. They had gone to the training ground at Sant Joan Despí, belting through Bad Moon Rising from the balcony with the fans below. Now they were heading to the hospital to share the moment with Ferran Torres, recently out of emergency surgery and watching from the ward as he became a champion like them. At the end of the game that finally won the title, a campaign concluded with victories over Real Madrid first and Espanyol four days later, just about as good as it gets, the first thing Hansi Flick was asked was what he was most proud of. 'Pfff,' the coach replied. 'I don't think we have time for this …' There was so much, which is why there was a long pause before he finally said: 'The most important thing is you feel like a family. The atmosphere in the dressing room is so great; I've never seen this before. They really take care of each other.' And which was why when he was asked whose league this was – Lamine Yamal's? His – he replied: 'Barcelona's. This is not about one guy.' Lamine Yamal had scored the extraordinary goal that set it all up, another strike so very his. Nobody had played the way Pedri had. And Raphinha had been involved in 59 goals across all competitions, a captain recovered for the cause. But cause is the word: this was about all of them. Think about this season and every playerwas better than before; together they had been better than anyone else, and a lot more fun. When Fermín López scored the second on Thursday, La Liga won with two games left, it was Barcelona's 97th league goal, their 169th overall, no one near them. Eight were against Real Madrid, and that's just the league; there were eight more across the Super Cup and the Copa del Rey. By then, Barcelona winning the league had come to feel natural, inevitable, right, but it wasn't always so. This season didn't have to end with Wojciech Szczesny smoking a fat cigar, at least not in the Cornellà dressing room; it had started without him being a footballer at all. It didn't need to end with Marc Casadó on the shoulders of supporters at Canaletes, traditional gathering point for cule celebrations, and had he gone 10 months ago no one would have noticed. It didn't have to end with Alex Balde bare-chested and hanging out of the sunroof, singing. Or with Joan Laporta in Luz de Gas, or perhaps it did. But the rest wasn't supposed to happen. Madrid had added Kylian Mbappé to a team that had just won the league and European Cup. Atlético Madrid had spent more than anyone. Barcelona, well behind last season, had signed Olmo, it is true, but couldn't register him yet. And the player that they had most pursued had escaped them, so they had to settle for the best instead. They had seen their coach Xavi Hernández renew his contract in September, resign in January, be convinced to continue in April and get sacked in May. But now they had Hansi Flick, who had a plan plus the personality to put it into place. There was a change of culture and atmosphere, a seriousness worn lightly. Jules Koundé sat out games against Espanyol and Alavés, punished for being a few minutes late, and didn't do it again. Iñaki Peña lost his place entirely for the same reason, or at least that was the initial excuse. There was a change in the physical preparation. There was a change on the touchline and the press room too, a calmness about a coach not drawn into all the noise, not once complaining, even when Olmo was unavailable. Above all there was a change in idea and the conviction to see it through. Barcelona were going on the attack with everything they had. Especially their guts: never mind sticking your head in where the boots fly, this is bravery. Fun too, if you get it right. If there is a stat that defines the season, perhaps it is that Barcelona have caught opponents offside 289 times; no one in Europe is even within a hundred of them. Their opponents have had 38 goals ruled out for offside. The margins may have been fine, it may feel like a risk and some players' subconscious may be screaming 'Don't do it!', but it is not luck; it is a plan, precision executed, and life has been good lived on the edge. 'There were doubts because it was different but we can see the results now,' Flick said. 'Dropping back doesn't help us. The key point is to get pressure on the ball. We train this. The first player starts the dynamic to press and then the next one goes. We want that the opponent cannot pass clearly. Maybe not the first, not the second; maybe the third player gets the ball. That is what we train and everyone is included.' There's something of the fearless of youth in that, embraced by the coach and expressed of course by Lamine Yamal – and something very special is happening with the 17-year-old, the player Simone Inzaghi said that 'is born every 50 years'. 'When you see the babies they always want to learn, want to learn: it is in our DNA and this is what I want from the players,' Flick said. 'They have this hunger and that for me is crucial.' On the opening day of the season, Barcelona had three 17-year-olds in their starting XI. On the day they won the title, nine academy products played. They had the youngest average age in La Liga. But it is is not just them and at the other end of the spectrum was Robert Lewandowski. Xavi had not been keen on keeping him – a significant factor in the decision to change coach – but Flick put him back in the area, and if some doubts remain, Torres an able sometimes even superior replacement, the Pole set off towards a 40-goal season. When he was asked in those opening months what he had done, Flick said this was just the Robert he had always known. When Marc-André ter Stegen injured his knee, Lewandowski called Szczesny and convinced him to come out of retirement; now he is a double winner. Another veterans have been vital, Martínez especially alongside Pau Cubarsí. Koundé too. By the final months Frenkie de Jong became what Frenkie de Jong had always been supposed to be. Raphinha felt important and responded with the season of his life. Pedri's centrality to everything spoke of talent but also the shift in the physical preparation, Flick publicly thanking sporting director Deco for bringing in new medical and fitness staff. Pedri moved to a deeper place on the pitch, controlling everything; just as important was that he was on the pitch at all. Still only 22, the man who missed 75 games over the previous three years started his 33rd league game at Espanyol. No one has covered more kilometres or recovered more balls. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion The change has been good for all of them. 'We needed that fresh air,' Lamine Yamal said. Yet even the optimistic, and Laporta is always optimistic (and, it should be added, often right), couldn't have imagined things would change quite this much. Flick told his players that the start was vital: they had to get points on the board while Real Madrid adapted to Mbappé. They won every match until the first clásico, and that night they beat Madrid 4-0; they also caught them offside 12 times, which was a statement of intent, the season set up. Thursday Osasuna 2-0 Atlético Madrid, Rayo Vallecano 2-2 Real Betis, Espanyol 0-2 Barcelona, Getafe 0-2 Athletic Bilbao Wednesday Alaves 1-0 Valencia, Villarreal 3-0 Leganés, Real Madrid 2-1 Real Mallorca Tuesday Real Valladolid 0-1 Girona, Real Sociedad 0-1 Celta Vigo, Sevilla 1-0 Las Palmas Barcelona though lost their captain and goalkeeper. Then came what the coach called 'shit November', which was about right, except that it took in December too, just six points earned from 24 and the advantage lost. They would find themselves seven points behind Madrid and trailing Atlético too. In the last game of 2024, they dominated Diego Simeone's side but lost 2-1 at Montjuïc, shot down by the hitman. It was their third consecutive defeat at home, after Leganés and Las Palmas, two of the bottom three. It didn't happen again anywhere in Spain, not even when they came back from that defeat in Milan and went two down to Madrid, title race back on. So much for being found out, so much for fear. They might have crumbled, a normal team probably would have done; instead, they produced their 10th comeback and scored four in less than half an hour, taking Madrid apart so completely you could be forgiven for thinking that had let the first two in just for the fun of it. For 24 minutes, Madrid didn't get out of their half. Yes, literally. Then on Thursday night, Szczesny and Lamine Yamal took them to another victory. They had done it. In an eight-week period in the middle of the season, Barcelona had won just one but either side of that, their record reads: 29 wins, one draw, one loss, one super cup, one Copa del Rey and one league title. 'When I see the people and they are happy and they are smiling, for me it is the greatest thing. It's time to celebrate,' Flick said on Thursday night and that meant all of them, four bikes heading up the diagonal in the small hours with champions on board.
Egypt Today
15-05-2025
- Sport
- Egypt Today
Barcelona's Torres undergoes appendicitis surgery
FC Barcelona's Ferran Torres in action REUTERS/Albert Gea/File Photo (Reuters) - Barcelona forward Ferran Torres is set to miss their push for the title after undergoing surgery for appendicitis, the Spanish league leaders said on Wednesday. The club did not provide a timeline for his return but local media reported that the 25-year-old, who provided three assists in Barcelona's crucial 4-3 win over second-placed Real Madrid on Sunday, will miss their last three games of the campaign. Barcelona will be champions if they beat Espanyol on Thursday.
