Latest news with #MehdiTaremi
The Star
a day ago
- Sport
- The Star
Soccer-Humiliated Inter were never in the game with PSG, say Italian papers
FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Champions League - Final - Paris St Germain v Inter Milan - Allianz Arena, Munich, Germany - May 31, 2025 Inter Milan's Mehdi Taremi looks dejected after the match REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Inter Milan fans will be in no rush to read Sunday's Italian newspapers which all tell the tale of their team's humiliating defeat at the hands of Paris St Germain in Saturday's Champions League final in Munich. A 5-0 thrashing, a record defeat in a final of Europe's premier club competition, left no room for argument as Luis Enrique's side completely outclassed Simone Inzaghi's team from start to finish. "Inter Humiliated" was the verdict on the front page of the Corriere della Sera, which added that Inter were never in the match in a "final without a story" after PSG went two goals up after 20 minutes. The Gazzetta dello Sport went with the simple but effective "Not Like This", which accurately described the nature of Inter's performance in a final where the team which clearly wanted it more went on to earn a convincing win. It also mentioned how Inter were never in the game, and inside the paper were headlines such as "Inter Overwhelmed" and "Inter Humiliated". In the Gazzetta's player ratings, PSG's Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma received the lowest score of his team for the simple fact that 'If they had played without a keeper, PSG would have won anyway'. While Luis Enrique was given a 10 for planning the perfect match, Inzaghi received a three for what it said was his complete lack of understanding of PSG's game and the "almost embarrassing choice of substitutions". Inter had hoped to go one better than their 1-0 defeat by Manchester City in Istanbul two years ago, but instead suffered the type of loss which will take even longer to recover from. As for PSG, after a season in which they won every trophy they competed for, their real ambition had always been winning the Champions League and in Munich they did that in style. In France, L'Equipe carried a headline which no PSG fan will disagree with, "This is Paradise", but for Inter the headlines all speak of a hellish night in Munich as the Italians ended the season without a trophy to show for their efforts. Inter also finished runners-up to Napoli in Serie A as they lost their title by a point. (Reporting by Trevor Stynes; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inter Milan & Iran Star Proud Of Champions League Dreams: ‘Not Many Iranians Can Say They've Played In A Semifinal'
Inter Milan & Iran Star Proud Of Champions League Dreams: 'Not Many Iranians Can Say They've Played In A Semifinal' Inter Milan striker Mehdi Taremi is proud to be one of the few Iranian internationals to have played in a Champions League semifinal. The 32-year-old gave his thoughts to UK broadcaster TNT Sports, via FCInterNews, ahead of today's Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain. Advertisement Striker Mehdi Taremi joined Inter Milan last summer. He arrived on a free transfer after his contract with Porto had expired. It has been a season with ups and downs for Taremi. The Iranian has dealt with injury problems, and he has not scored anywhere near the number of goals that most had expected. Nevertheless, Taremi has the chance to end his first season at Inter on a real high. Inter face PSG in the Champions League final today. And Taremi played his role in the Nerazzurri getting to this point. He came off the bench against Barcelona in both legs of the semifinals. And it was in fact Taremi who assisted Davide Frattesi for Inter's dramatic extra time winner in the second leg. Inter Striker Mehdi Taremi: 'Not Many Iranians Can Say They've Played In A UCL Semifinal' RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA – JANUARY 06: Mehdi Taremi of FC Internazionale celebrates scoring his team's second goal during the Italian Super Cup Final between FC Internazionale and AC Milan at Kingdom Arena on January 06, 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by) Mehdi Taremi looked back, 'the semifinal against Barcelona was a great night for me and for the team.' Advertisement 'I was happy with how Davide Frattesi and I did when we came onto the pitch,' he continued. 'As well as the other players. It was really great for all of us.' Then, Taremi gave his thoughts on his best moment at Inter so far. 'The most important thing for us was winning the match.' 'The assist was important, but also all the emotions of that evening. Everything was perfect for me.' Meanwhile, Taremi explained his thought process in assisting that big goal for Frattesi. 'Marcus [Thuram] is not a player who crosses the ball high very often,' he said. 'But I know him. And I went where I thought he would put the ball.' Advertisement 'Then I passed it to Frattesi, and he finished it perfectly' Taremi recalled. 'It was emotional for everyone.' 'As an Iranian and a Middle Eastern player, I would say this is a dream come true,' Taremi declared. 'Not many players from my country can say that they've played in a Champions League final,' he continued. 'The biggest tournament in the world.' 'That moment, I can't describe it in words,' Taremi said of the semifinal second leg.
Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Mehdi Taremi: From Iranian military to Champions League final with Inter
For one tiny fragment of time, the possibility of doing something extraordinary appears. How many opportunities do you get, in your entire career, to execute something indelible, to make the world stop and gasp? As Nanu's high, outswinging cross comes over from the right, Mehdi Taremi weighs the angles, the timing, the obstacles in front of him, and chooses to go for it. Then he launches himself into an act which is equal parts biomechanical genius and blind faith. His incredible overhead kick against the eventual champions Chelsea in the 2021 quarter-final remains the last Champions League goal to finish in the Puskas Award top three. Arguably, no one has since scored a better goal at a higher level of football. But what strikes you most, watching the video back, is the dissonance of the reaction. There is no explosion of incredulous joy. The stands are empty. No one is going out of their mind with the sheer 'Ohmygoddidyoujustseethat' of it. Taremi doesn't allow himself so much as a fist pump or a high five; he simply jogs backwards towards his own half with no expression on his face besides a faint grimace of exhaustion. There is a certain humility here: the humility of the unobserved. Most of the 40-odd footballers whose journeys will converge in the 2025 Champions League final have scarcely known life without eyes on them. Achraf Hakimi was scouted by Real Madrid when he was eight. Gianluigi Donnarumma and Warren Zaïre-Emery have been spoken of as generational prospects since they were 15 years old. Yann Bisseck made his Bundesliga debut before his 17th birthday. That it takes belief to reach the highest level of the sport has always been true. But in this age, it is also almost impossible to reach the top without gathering a retinue of believers — the social-media hype-men, the friendly journalists, the agents, the coaches, the scouts, going back to that first moment of discovery. What happens, though, if no one sees you? What if you're from one of the few places on earth the watchers don't go? Taremi was born in Bushehr, a port city on the Persian Gulf coast of Iran. He learnt to play football there on a bare, dusty pitch with a gnarled old juniper tree growing in the middle. The tree was protected and could not be cut down, Taremi told the Iranian football journalist Adel Ferdosipour in an interview three years ago, as they visited his home town, so he learnt to dribble round it, to play wall-passes with it, to find the beauty in the obstacle. Who was the first person who told you you were a talented footballer, Ferdosipour asks him? Taremi purses his lips, ums and ahs, thinks for a bit. 'I found it out myself,' he says. You might have noticed Taremi, wearing the No99 shirt, in the epic semi-final second leg against Barcelona, for his bustling hold-up play after he came on as a substitute. He supplied the assist for Davide Frattesi's winning goal. At the end, as the Barcelona players splintered into postures of individual desolation and the Inter players ran into each other's arms and the cameras followed their exuberant celebrations, quietly, in a corner of the pitch that no one was looking at, Taremi went over to Raphinha, lying face-down in the turf, peeled him up off the floor and gave him a consoling tap on the shoulder. In truth, Taremi hasn't had a great season. In 43 appearances, he's only managed three goals. He has no chance of dislodging Marcus Thuram and Lautaro Martínez from Simone Inzaghi's starting XI, and he's not likely to play a significant role in Munich. He might not even get on the field. So why write about him? Because sometimes the unlikeliness is the whole point. Because sometimes the glory is in the journey. His mother told him that his dream wouldn't lead him anywhere, that he was 'chasing after the wind'. When she left him in the care of his aunt one day, Mehdi's football was placed on a shelf too high for him to reach. He still has the scar on the back of his head from when he climbed to try to reach it, and fell to the floor. His father, who had been a footballer himself, was more encouraging, and when he was 18, Taremi joined his hometown club. Still, at an age when Martínez and Nicolò Barella and Alessandro Bastoni had already made their international debuts, Taremi was serving out his military conscription in a garrison. Eventually, he joined Persepolis, one of Iran's biggest clubs, where he found someone who believed in him: their manager, Ali Daei, the former Iran striker, once the all-time top scorer in men's international football. In his first three seasons, Taremi scored 50 goals. But he knew that in order to reach the top of the sport, he needed to leave his homeland. A move was arranged to the Turkish club Caykur Rizespor, but at the last minute Taremi, along with his team-mate Ramin Rezaeian, decided it just didn't feel right, and backed out of the transfer. For reneging on the agreement, Fifa banned the two players for four months each. In the interview with Ferdosipour for his Football360 channel, Taremi recalled that he and Rezaeian cried in each other's arms when the news came through. After one more season at Persepolis, he ended up at Al-Gharafa in the Qatari league. By now he was established in the national team, and it was this that would give him his big opportunity. The Iran manager was the Portuguese coach, Carlos Queiroz, who recommended him to Carlos Carvalhal, then the manager of Rio Ave, a small club in the Primeira Liga. It's important not to overlook this: though his story is in some ways a fairytale, Taremi had to work his connections to get himself noticed. Taking a leap of faith — and an enormous pay cut from his Qatari salary — he moved to Portugal. One 20-goal season at Rio Ave was enough to persuade Porto to sign him. He was 28 when he played in the Champions League for the first time, against Manchester City in 2020. When he moved to Inter, after four stellar seasons at Porto, last summer, he sounded like a man who had come to the end of a long odyssey. 'This is the happiest moment of my life,' he told the club website. 'It has been a very beautiful journey for me.' Little did he know that there was a Champions League final in his future. But that's the thing about Taremi's journey: the next link in the chain was never clear. He didn't plot his move to Rio Ave with Porto in his sights, and he couldn't count on interest from Serie A when he moved to Porto. He just flung himself at each opportunity, living entirely in that moment and trusting that his talent would find its own path. And now he has reached the biggest game in football. Elite club football can sometimes seem like a hermetically sealed world of privilege, where the participants are identified from a young age and groomed for greatness in academies. But it matters that you can still get from as far outside that world as you can imagine to the pinnacle of the sport. And even if Taremi doesn't play, his presence, his having got there, still feels like a kind of triumph. Champions League final
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Iran Superstar Increasingly Likely To Join Inter Milan Club World Cup Squad Despite National Team Call-Up
Iran Superstar Increasingly Likely To Join Inter Milan Club World Cup Squad Despite National Team Call-Up Iran star Mehdi Taremi has received a call-up for upcoming World Cup qualifiers but should play for Inter Milan at the Club World Cup instead. According to Iranian journalist Hatam Shiralizadeh via FCInterNews, the 32-year-old will probably skip June's international window. Advertisement With Iran already securing a spot at the 2026 World Cup, there's no need to risk Taremi in 'dead rubber' matches next month. Indeed, they'll take on Qatar and North Korea in games carrying no bearing on qualification. Meanwhile, Simone Inzaghi could make good use of the ex-Porto striker in the summer tournament in North America. Mehdi Taremi to Feature for Inter Milan at FIFA Club World Cup at The Expense of Iran World Cup Qualifiers LECCE, ITALY – JANUARY 26: Mehdi Taremi of FC Internazionale celebrates after scoring his team's fourh goal goal during the Serie A match between Lecce and FC Internazionale at Stadio Via del Mare on January 26, 2025 in Lecce, Italy. (Photo by) It's not been an impressive maiden Serie A season for Mehdi Taremi, who joined Inter as a lethal goalscorer. On the contrary, he has flopped at San Siro, making the Nerazzurri contemplate a summer sale. However, he may still have a chance to redeem himself at the Club World Cup. With Marko Arnautovic and Joaquin Correa set to leave, he'll be the only reliable backup option in attack.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Poland Star Praised For ‘Fiery' Performance In Como 0-2 Inter Milan Serie A Clash
Nicola Zalewski has won praise for a 'fiery' performance in yesterday's Serie A clash between Como and Inter Milan. Today's print edition of Milan-based newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, via FCInterNews, hail the Polish international as having been one of Inter's outstanding players. Advertisement Nicola Zalewski got the start for Inter Milan in yesterday's Serie A clash with Como. The 23-year-old has enjoyed a strong end to the season, starting a number of Inter's Serie A matches in the run-in. Zalewski has recently been playing a more central and attacking role. Rather than playing at wingback, Zalewski has played as one of two attacking midfielders behind striker Mehdi Taremi in a 3-4-3 or 3-4-2-1 shape. Zalewski Praised For 'Fiery' Display In Como 0-2 Inter Milan Serie A Clash MILAN, ITALY – MAY 03: Nicola Zalewski of. FC Internazionale competes for the ball with Nicolas. Valentini of. Hellas Verona. FC during the Serie A match between FC Internazionale and Hellas Verona FC at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on May 03, 2025 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by) Nicola Zalewski has looked very comfortable playing in the attacking midfield role for Inter. Despite playing primarily as a wingback, the Pole is not only a player who thrives using his pace in big spaces. Advertisement Zalewski has also looked very proficient in tighter confines. And that was certainly on display yesterday against Como. Moreover, Zalewski also showed energy and a willingness to try and make things happen for Inter. The 23-year-old's energy in trying to win the ball back was key for Inter in the midfield battle. And he was one of the Inter players who was most consistently showing for the ball.
