Zlatan Ibrahimovic continues to be linked with a move away from Paris Saint-Germain, despite his agent Mino Raiola denying he will leave the French champions.

AC Milan are currently linked with his services, per David Amoyal of GianlucaDiMarzio.com. Premier League clubs Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal have also been touted as potential suitors, reported by Charles Perrin of the Express.

Continue for updates.

Ibrahimovic ‘Open’ to Milan Return

Wednesday, June 10

“Milan is looking to make a big move this summer to return to the Champions League,” reported Amoyal. “The rossoneri want Ibrahimovic to once again be the face of the club, today (CEO Adriano) Galliani made the first concrete step by calling the Swedish striker along with his agent Raiola from Casa Milan, Ibrahimovic stated he’s open to a return to Milan.”

Amoyal suggested Galliani will now have to make contact with PSG and club President Nasser Al-Khelaifi.

Raiola previously told French paper Journal du Dimanche (h/t Perrin) Ibrahimovic is not marked for sale this summer: “He has a contract and cannot just decide to leave by himself,” said Raiola. “President Nasser Al-Khelaifi was asked about this and said no, PSG will not sell Ibrahimovic.”

Perrin cited Sky Sport Italia when suggesting Galliani offered Zlatan a three-year deal during a phone call with the player.

Ibrahimovic is the symbolic figure in PSG’s transitional phase, the icon who highlights the club’s increased wealth after Qatar Sports Investments injected its cash. He has won eight trophies in three years at the Parc des Princes, including three consecutive Ligue 1 titles. 

The 33-year-old Swede has never remained at a club for longer than three seasons, having previously represented the likes of Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan and Barcelona throughout a glittering career.

He joined Milan on loan in 2010 before securing a permanent deal the following season. Zlatan scored 52 goals in 77 appearances across Serie A and the Champions League for the San Siro outfit, per WhoScored.com.

Despite an injury-plagued 2014-15 season, Ibrahimovic still managed 29 strikes across the two competitions for PSG.

He remains one of the game’s great characters—a lovable combination of cocky and brilliant—ensuring his transfer would rank among the summer’s biggest.

PSG would struggle to replace such a flamboyant goalscorer, but Ibrahimovic’s departure could finally see Edinson Cavani pushed toward his favoured central role for the club.

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Chelsea are reportedly eyeing Paris Saint-Germain striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic as they look to add strength to their forward line ahead of next season.  

Following Didier Drogba’s second departure from Stamford Bridge at the end of the 2014-15 season, the Blues now have just Diego Costa and Loic Remy in the strike department.

Costa, while a fantastic player, is something of a fitness liability, rarely in top shape over a long period—hence the need for a quality new striker as the Premier League champions go in search of further glory next term.

The 33-year-old Ibrahimovic is undoubtedly a top-class striker, but his age could potentially be of some concern.

However, according to Italian outlet Calciomercatoweb (h/t Metro‘s Jamie Sanderson), Chelsea have reportedly held talks with the Swede’s representatives about a potential switch from Paris to west London.

Ibrahimovic apparently wants assurances of a long-term contract if he is to move to Stamford Bridge, but that may not be of interest to Chelsea.

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has worked with Ibrahimovic before at Inter Milan, and the towering striker has previously spoken of his admiration for the Portuguese manager, per Telefoot (via Rohan Banerjee of the MailOnline).

However, the previous relationship between the pair is no guarantee that Ibrahimovic will move to Chelsea.

Indeed, his agent Mino Raiola recently insisted his client would be staying put at PSG, per French outlet Journal du Dimanche (h/t the MailOnline’s Matt Maltby): “He has a contract and cannot just decide to leave by himself. President Nasser Al-Khelaifi was asked about this and said no, PSG will not sell Ibrahimovic.”

A much more likely purchase for Chelsea over the summer is Gonzalo Higuain of Napoli, who has been heavily linked with a £30-million switch to the Premier League, per the Sun:

At 27 years old, Higuain has longer left in his career and would constitute a much better long-term buy for Chelsea than Ibrahimovic in the strike department. 

Luis Rejects Real but Move Still On

Chelsea left-back Filipe Luis has reportedly rejected advances from Real Madrid, but he is still open to a potential move back to former club Atletico Madrid, according to Luis Aznar of Marca.

The 29-year-old made the move to Stamford Bridge for £15.8 million from Atleti last summer, but he has been only a bit-part player in his first season with the Blues, turning out just 15 times in the Premier League, per WhoScored.com. 

His failure to settle has reportedly seen a number of top clubs come in for him, with Real making an enquiry as they look for a new left-back.

However, as Aznar reports, Luis has rejected Real, and he instructed his agent, Jorge Mendes, that he will only leave Chelsea if it is to make a return to Atletico.

As noted by football writer Jack Lang, Brazil’s Luis is a fine player and deserves a starting place at a top club:

If he is never likely to be a regular starter under Mourinho, a return to Atletico to work with Diego Simeone would surely be the perfect resolution, as he could simply slot back into the side he left a year ago. 

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Cameras flashed, keyboards tapped away and a well-dressed audience looked on, the spotlight of European football on Florentino Perez as he presented Rafa Benitez as Real Madrid manager in the presidential box at the Santiago Bernabeu. 

For Perez, such events have become regular, almost occasions of habit. Two years ago, he was going through the routine for Carlo Ancelotti. In between, he’s smiled proudly at similar presentations for Daniel Carvajal, Isco, Asier Illarramendi, Gareth Bale, Toni Kroos, James Rodriguez, Keylor Navas, Lucas Silva and Martin Odegaard. He’ll soon do the same for Danilo and possibly David de Gea.

But the Real Madrid president doesn’t appear to have grown tired of the occasions. Instead, Perez relishes them, the events giving him the chance to take centre stage and project images of the club’s grandeur. The presentation of Benitez was the latest such opportunity. 

“There is no one better than you when it comes to knowing what this badge, this shirt and this stadium symbolise,” the president said at last week’s unveiling, directly addressing the lifelong Real Madrid fan he’d appointed as coach. “We want even more because at this club we reject complacency. We are starting a new era with you; welcome home.”

When done sporadically, there’s nothing wrong with proclamations of new eras. New eras can be revitalising, positive forces of change driving improvement and the correction of previous errors. But there’s something distinctly wrong with new eras when they’re reached every 18 months.

Real Madrid have now been under the presidency of Perez for 12 years across two stints. In that time, the president has gone through managers like they’re disposable cameras: Vicente del Bosque, Carlos Queiroz, Jose Antonio Camacho, Mariano Garcia Remon, Vanderlei Luxemburgo, Juan Ramon Lopez Caro, Manuel Pellegrini, Jose Mourinho, Ancelotti and now Benitez. If Perez sees managers as representations of “eras,” he’s had 10 eras in 12 years in charge. 

“It’s always somebody else’s fault,” wrote AS editor Alfredo Relano last month, describing Perez’s attitude to failure following the sacking of Ancelotti. More telling, though, was Perez’s response when asked what Ancelotti had specifically done wrong: “I don’t know,” said the president. He may as well have added: “but someone had to pay.”

It’s just never the man making the decisions. 

In 2004, Perez appointed Arrigo Sacchi as Real Madrid’s director of football. Sacchi managed the famous Inter Milan side that captured consecutive European Cups in 1989 and 1990, and Perez said the Italian would bring “substantial experience to help make our club more professional,” adding that Sacchi would “organise and plan everything to do with football at the club.”

Just a year later, Sacchi departed, criticising the president’s transfer activity he’d been brought in to fix, and in 2009, told AS (h/t Goal): “If an aeroplane crashed in Colombia he [Perez] would blame the coach. Or if a player turned up drunk, the coach would be blamed. He always took away the coach’s authority.”

In 2015, Ancelotti is the latest coach to be discarded at the Bernabeu, Perez viewing the Italian as the problem and himself as the solution following a season of underachievement, ignoring the fact that he created the problems Ancelotti couldn’t solve. 

Last summer, Real Madrid were fresh from the capture of the club’s 10th European title, the club having also snatched the Copa del Rey away from Barcelona in dramatic fashion. It was a summer for stability: Real had an outfit that had conquered the continent; the balance was right; an effective system had been devised; the coach was a good fit; morale was high. And the club’s rivals were entering sticky periods of transition.

In the capital, Diego Simeone’s remarkable Atletico Madrid was being gutted by Chelsea. East in Catalonia, Barcelona, after a barren season, were appointing a new boss, signing a banned forward and working out how to re-energise Lionel Messi.

All Real Madrid had to do was continue on their course; they already had a step on their title rivals. La Liga was theirs if they simply allowed the club’s upward trajectory to continue. 

But Perez ripped it all up anyway. In his thirst for glamour, the president signed Kroos and Rodriguez, forcing Angel Di Maria and Xabi Alonso out the door, halting the progress that had been made in 2014 and essentially lighting a match on the squad that had delivered him La Decima. 

And for what? Shirt sales? Marketing? Branding? Twitter followers? Facebook likes? 

A construction magnate turned football administrator, Perez is fixated on financial dominance. Instead of specifically targeting on-field success, he appears to believe it’s simply an inevitable offshoot of wealth. 

“It is now nine consecutive years of revenue growth, and our figures are the highest in the global sports industry,” he said at Real Madrid’s annual general meeting in 2013. “There is no club, not in football or any other [sport], which can reach this figure. Even Forbes magazine has laid down before us.”

While financial publications might be, footballing rivals aren’t. In the last nine years of Perez’s presidency, Real Madrid have won one league title. 

“Each year, we do the impossible in order to win, but they always take it from us by two points or something like that,” Perez added. “I do not know why.” Funny how he never has the answers to football questions.

More damning, however, is the fact that Perez is currently overseeing Real’s leanest period in the Primera Division for more than 60 years. 

Still, away from the pitch, Real Madrid continue to thrive in an economic sense.

Last year, Perez announced a record revenue figure of €603.9 million for the previous season, and the club has commercial partnerships with some of the world’s biggest companies: Emirates, Microsoft, IPIC, Bwin, Audi, Nivea, Yamaha, Coca Cola, Samsung, Mahou and BBVA, among others.

But what has all of that amounted to?

Football, of course, is big business, but the objective is still to win; financial dominance means little if it doesn’t translate to triumph. “Whereas the Catalans still just use business principles to fortify a football philosophy, Real Madrid use football to further a business philosophy,” wrote notable journalist Miguel Delaney after Barcelona’s latest league title last month. 

Under Perez, Real Madrid is no longer a club defined by its football. The president has overseen the shift of the club’s identity away from the pitch, turning a serial winner into a gross underachiever. 

And yet, as coaches are repeatedly tossed away, as players come and go in Perez’s revolving door, the common denominator remains in place. 

“It’s always somebody else’s fault.”

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Liverpool are in the “driving seat” to sign Juventus striker Carlos Tevez, according to Italian outlet Tuttomercatoweb (h/t Colin Harvey of the Daily Star).  

The Argentinian striker is being “tipped” to leave Turin after leading Juve to Serie A and Coppa Italia titles, not to mention defeat against Barcelona in Saturday’s Champions League final. Harvey’s report indicates Liverpool are front-runners “if Tevez decides he wants to leave.”

He netted 27 goals and provided eight assists in 45 matches across the Italian division and Europe during the 2014-15 campaign, per WhoScored.com.

Tevez used to play for Liverpool’s fierce rivals Manchester United, where he won two Premier League titles, the League Cup, the Community Shield, the Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup, before moving to Manchester City and capturing three more English trophies.

He started his English career with West Ham United in 2006, having previously represented Boca Juniors and Corinthians in South America. Tevez’s willingness to play for City, one of United’s rivals, suggests he could entertain the idea of heading to Anfield.

Sport Witness notes that, although reports in Italy, such as Corriere dello Sport‘s, indicate he is likely to leave, Liverpool aren’t being discussed:

Jonathan Johnson of ESPN FC also doesn’t mention Liverpool and suggests Tevez could end up in Spain:

The hard-working striker usually becomes a fan favourite when he moves to a new team. His bullish nature and industriousness combines with clinical goalscoring ability to define a player who has a knack of leading teams to success. Tevez is powerful, hard to knock off of the ball and the kind of player who doesn’t give up on lost causes.

However, Liverpool confirmed the signing of Burnley striker Danny Ings on Monday, per the club’s official Twitter account:

Reds boss Brendan Rodgers will need to sell at least one of Mario Balotelli, Rickie Lambert or Fabio Borini to ensure the squad doesn’t become overcrowded with forwards who have suffered with a lack of production in recent times. Ings is a quality capture, but only adding him to the club’s attacking numbers would be disappointing.

Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Will Giles of Metro) reports that Borini could be moved on in a player-plus-cash deal for Inter Milan’s Mateo Kovacic.  Giles’ article suggests Kovacic has agreed personal terms with the Merseyside club but that Liverpool’s £15 million bid isn’t enough.

Borini is outlined as a “makeweight,” or if this doesn’t spark Inter’s interest, Brazilian midfielder Lucas Leiva could be utilised as a bargaining chip instead.

In May, David Anderson of the Daily Mirror reported that Rodgers refused to sell Lucas to Inter during the January transfer window. With James Milner now signed on a free from Manchester City, however, it is suggested Lucas is no longer required by the Reds.

Kovacic is a versatile midfielder who can play in the centre or from the left. The 21-year-old is creative and doesn’t shy away from winning the ball back. He also scored a stunning goal for Croatia during Sunday’s 4-0 win over Gibraltar, highlighted below:

Rodgers may be buoyed by the thought of Liverpool’s last signing from Inter, a certain Philippe Coutinho, becoming the club’s star performer over the last year. Kovacic isn’t so technically gifted or attack-minded, but he could fulfill multiple roles for the manager.

Tevez would also be classed as a signing who could dominate in a number of different formations. Rodgers loves to use multifunctional players who allow him to regularly shift strategy, as highlighted by Ings and Milner joining. A superstar striker and strengthening across the pitch is still needed, though.

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Chelsea fans’ opinions of Juan Guillermo Cuadrado are vastly different to those of Fiorentina supporters and Colombians, and that is totally understandable.

The winger moved to Stamford Bridge from the Viola in January and has failed to impress in his 14 appearances to date.

Sadly for him, in the one game where he finally looked a dangerous attacking threat, against Sunderland on the final day of the season, he sustained an injury and had to be substituted just before half-time.

Cuadrado had earned Chelsea the penalty which Diego Costa converted to put Chelsea level against the Black Cats, taken out by a John O’Shea barge in the box.

But thanks to what proved to be a minor leg injury, he had to make way for Loic Remy and didn’t get the chance to complete the game.

The longest he has played in a Chelsea shirt in any given game is the 70 minutes Jose Mourinho gave to him against Everton in February.

He started only four matches, with his other appearances coming as a substitute, and eight of those were for less than 15 minutes.

To say he hasn’t had a fair crack of the whip would be justified. Then again, Mourinho has observed him day-in, day-out in training and had little reason to adjust a winning team.

Chelsea lifted the Premier League trophy, and for most of the season, Willian was deployed in the attacking right-wing position that Cuadrado wants to fill.

The Brazilian is a perfect Mourinho player, offering plenty of energy and physicality, defending and attacking in equal measures, despite his advanced position.

That’s something Cuadrado can offer, too, with Barcelona interested last summer in signing him to play in a full-back role, per Sport, but eventually giving up because of the cost.

Willian‘s impressive form and Cuadrado‘s lack of impact when called upon have limited the Colombian’s game time.

Cuadrado seemed totally off the pace in the Premier League, but he showed at the World Cup last summer and over several seasons for Fiorentina that he is a top player.

The winger was in action for Colombia in a friendly against Costa Rica last week and made more impact than he has during his whole time at Chelsea, with a lovely dart into space and dangerous ball across the face of goal, which Radamel Falcao turned home.

Two players that have widely been mocked for poor performances in England last season, combining for a well-worked Colombian goal.

That could happen a lot during Copa America 2015, with Colombia expected to go far.

They have a tough group, pitting them against the team that knocked them out of the World Cup, in Brazil, as well as Venezuela and Peru.

Cuadrado‘s pre-season starts here, and he should have plenty of energy after being sidelined at Chelsea.

Mourinho could use a player like him, if in good form, to offer a distinct attacking threat on Chelsea’s right, which should buy Eden Hazard a bit more space on the left.

The Belgian has been kicked and hacked at all season long, with defenders making him their primary focus to try to stifle the Blues.

If Cuadrado can build up momentum at the Copa America and come flying into Chelsea’s pre-season, already at a high level, he should be given significantly more playing time next season.

By contrast, if he struggles during the tournament, even as a regular starter, Mourinho will consider cutting him loose, with plenty of sides interested in taking him. 

The Metro report that Inter Milan and Roma would be interested in bringing him back to Italy, and doubtless many other teams will put his past six months to one side and try to revive the Viola’s version of Cuadrado.

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Inter Milan midfielder Mateo Kovacic is being heavily linked with Liverpool, and it is easy to see why the Reds might be interested. 

While on international duty for Croatia on Sunday, the 21-year-old showed superb improvisational skills to score a goal against Gibraltar with a flying backheel. 

Not bad, Kovacic, not bad!

[YouTube, h/t 101 Great Goals] 

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OLYMPIASTADION, BERLIN — For Juventus, the sharp sting of defeat was tempered somewhat by the knowledge of strides made, of tangible progress already achieved.

But as the pain of Saturday’s Champions League final defeat to a worthy Barcelona side begins to recede, the question for Juventus fans, starved of such nights for so long, slowly began to turn to thoughts of when the club might reach such a stage again. 

Was this simply a one-off, a great team peaking for one season only, or the start of a sustained return to prominence for one of the giants of European football?

The performance of La Vecchia Signora this season seems to have reinvigorated the club’s fanbase while simultaneously restoring some pride in the Italian game in general after years of disappointment for Europe’s boot in the continent’s elite club competition.

There was a reminder of Juventus’s own glorious history before kick-off, as current goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon peeled away from his warm-up to greet former team-mate Alessandro Del Piero. Both players were in the side last time Juve reached the Champions League final, the 2003 defeat to AC Milan, while Del Piero was also in the starting lineup last time Juventus won the competition back in 1996.

Since that loss in the 2003 final, when Andrea Pirlo was on AC Milan’s side in an all-Italian meeting at Old Trafford, just three Serie A sides have made it to the final of the Champions League—the most recent of them being Inter Milan in 2010’s treble-winning campaign. Juve have watched from the sidelines in recent times, but so too has Italian football as a whole, with clubs from Spain, England and Germany pushing forth and asserting their superiority.

After Juventus lost on Saturday, falling to a 3-1 defeat as Barcelona secured their fourth Champions League title in 10 seasons, Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri reminded his disappointed players of what they had achieved just by making it to Berlin, of the pride they had restored in both their club and the league they represent by beating the likes of Borussia Dortmund, Monaco and Real Madrid.

“That is down to these boys,” he said of his players, when asked about the enthusiasm of Italian fans throughout the weekend of the final. “Above all, we come out of this final with greater self-esteem, greater confidence and a greater awareness of what we can do.”

Prior to kick-off, Allegri had stressed the need for Juventus to build on the experiences of this campaign regardless of the final result—to take the lessons learned from their knockout adventure, the win over Dortmund being highlighted as a key turning point, and apply them to future campaigns.

Buffon, more bluntly, said: “This is a club that should be reaching the semi-finals every season.” Allegri, keen to temper expectations, was not setting his sights quite so high.

“I think we can improve still,” Allegri said. “Not necessarily in results, because that would mean winning the [treble], but what we can still improve is the quality of the game. We can consolidate and strengthen our way of playing and we can try and stay among the eight top teams in Europe on a stable basis.”

That means continuing to dominate domestically while trying to make further strides on the continent.

“Our first objective is winning the Scudetto and the Coppa Italia. The Champions League is still one of our dreams. This year we came close, and maybe one year, we will win it.”

Domestically, at least, there seems to be little impending challenge to their domination. This season saw Juventus club clinch a fourth straight Serie A title, with challengers to their supremacy once again falling away long before the business end of the campaign.

For now, Juventus seem to face little real threat at domestic level, a situation that may yet come to hinder their hopes of becoming better prepared to contend in the Champions League—a problem Bayern Munich have perhaps been confronted by in the Bundesliga over the last two seasons.

That status is perhaps in part a result of their financial situation—as one of only a handful of Italian clubs that owns their own stadium, the Turin side’s revenues dwarf most of their competitors—but also owes a nod to the impressive nature of their recent recruitment.

Unlike Barcelona, which has a large share of academy graduates, much of Juventus’s side has been put together in the transfer market. Saturday’s side demonstrated the impressive nature of the club’s transfer strategy, with Paul Pogba, lured away from Manchester United for next to nothing, and Alvaro Morata making impressive contributions, while Patrice Evra, Carlos Tevez and Andrea Pirlo have all been important factors this season despite their being discarded by other top sides.

Juventus have already started planning for next term, having completed an expensive deal for young Palermo forward Paulo Dybala, yet the fear lingers that such a signing has been completed with a corresponding sale soon to come—that this impressive current side will be broken up just as it reaches its culmination, with Pirlo likely to seek a new challenge to end his career and the stars in an earlier phase of their career, such as Pogba and Arturo Vidal, perhaps set to receive lucrative offers from overseas.

There is cause for optimism, especially in the growth of the likes of Kingsley Coman and Daniele Rugani, but as with all young players, there are no guarantees.

“Tonight is the continuation of a journey which we set out on years ago and which has seen us enjoy domestic success,” sporting director Beppe Marotta insisted, per the club’s official website. “Now we’ll get stuck into the Champions League again next year and try to get back into the final.

“The footballing season ends here, but we must already start thinking about the future. We need to start again with players of the very highest calibre—players like Paul Pogba, for example.”

Alvaro Morata, on whom Real Madrid have an option to re-sign, added, per Eurosport: “This is a great squad, a great family and we must continue working hard. This team has no limits, it can win the Champions League and the directors are working to build an even stronger side.”

That will be much harder if the team loses its stars, an eventuality only increased by an acceptance that Juventus, while a behemoth in their country, can no longer compete financially with Barcelona or the rest of Europe’s elite. Lionel Messi may have been the architect of Saturday’s victory, but it was Luis Suarez and Neymar who scored the decisive goals. They are players who were signed for the sort of fees Juventus can only dream about these days—but are now almost annual occurrences for others.

“I think we can say he is one of the best players we have signed,” Barca boss Luis Enrique said of Suarez, whose finish to give Barcelona the lead at 2-1 effectively sealed the match. “It was a good decision. We paid a lot of money, but he has tremendous hunger, he wants to win trophies and that is what we have achieved together.”

At the final whistle, after an exhausting and ultimately disappointing 90 minutes, Allegri took his team aside, congratulating them for the season they had just produced and commanding them not to be disheartened by the way it had ended.

They had lost to a great team but could still take great credit from a season in which they restored both the club and Italian football to a level of credibility they once enjoyed.

“Unfortunately, when you play against great players, you think you have things under control and then one of these players gets away,” he added. “During a final, you have to be careful because the thing that tips the balance is the minor detail. But I am proud of what my boys have achieved.”

This defeat was no shame. The battle now for Allegri, his players and the board is to find a way to ensure it is not another 12 years before Juventus reach such a stage again.

Having got there, though, perhaps they are well-equipped to do so again.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise stated.

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