Ronaldo's return to Manchester

Cristiano Ronaldo will return to Manchester United, the club that saw his career take off after he joined them at the young age of 18, and spending six years there, winning three Premier League titles and the Champions League in 2008. In 2009 Ronaldo changed to Real Madrid, where he spent nine years that made him a legend, with four CL titles and 450 goals (the most scoring player in Real Madrid's history). 

Ronaldo's last three years in Juventus saw him win a Serie A title and scoring an amazing 101 goals. But it was perhaps not what Ronaldo expected, and the transfer to United has happened amid stories that he wanted to leave.

Manchester United may be his last club, as he is already 36 years old (but in amazing physical shape), but also a club that will clearly be fighting for titles during the season: Ronaldo will be joining a club with Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw, Bruno Fernandes, Fred, as well as Raphael Varane (former teammate at Real Madrid). 

I think all football fans should be grateful that we will continue to see a fantastic player for more years at the highest level.

Champions League 2021-22 Groups

I have been disappointed that Brøndby did not manage to qualify to the Champions League after two defeats to Red Bull Salzburg. It was probably for the better, as Brøndby has started the season really bad, and may struggle both in the Danish League, as well as in the Europa League (which they will play). Despite this, there are now many reasons to look forward to the Champions league following today's group draw:

Group A:

• Manchester City
• Paris St. Germain
• RB Leipzig
• Club Brugge

Messi's new club, PSG, against Guardiola's Manchester City, in its continuous search for European glory, alongside always-strong RB Leipzig and a Club Brugge that can only surprise!

Group B:

• Liverpool
• Atletico Madrid
• AC Milan
• Porto

There is no way around it: this is a group of giants; AC Milan, who is finally back in the CL for the first time since 2014, alongside Liverpool and the Spanish champions of Atletico Madrid, who always have ambition for the title, and Porto, who can always defeat anyone. This group will be impossible to predict.

Group C:

• Sporting Lisbon
• Besiktas
• Borussia Dortmund
• Ajax Amsterdam

Not likely that the future champions will come out from this group, but an interesting group nevertheless, where Borussia Dortmund are probably favourites (still with Erling Haaland?), but with all other teams surely with a chance, all champions of their respective leagues in Portugal, Turkey and the Netherlands.

Group D:

• Inter Milan
• Real Madrid
• Shakhtar Donetsk
• Sheriff Tiraspol

Two giants from Inter and Real Madrid are huge favourites in this group, where Shakhtar and Sheriff will hopefully be able to upset the two giants.

Group E:

• Bayern Munich
• FC Barcelona
• Benfica
• Dynamo Kiev

Another group with only giant clubs. The "new" Barcelona will likely struggle to show how good they are without Messi. Bayern Munich are surely huge favourites in the group, as the others appear quite even in terms of fighting for the second spot in the group.

Group F:

• Villarreal
• Manchester United
• Young Boys
• Atalanta

The two finalists from the Europa League will face one another again, with Manchester United appearing as a team that has become stronger since then (and soon with Cristiano Ronaldo). Atalanta though, is a team that has shown that they can defeat anyone. Young Boys may struggle to compete.

Group G:

• Lille
• Sevilla
• RB Salzburg
• VfL Wolfsburg

The French champions from Lille and ever-ambitious Sevilla appear as the favourites in this group, but in particular Wolfsburg could surprise.

Group H:

• Chelsea
• Juventus
• Zenit St. Petersburg
• Malmo FF

It is great to see good ole' Jon Dahl Tomasson back in the Champions League, although this time as manager of the Swedish champions of Malmø, who will have to play their best in this group against the defending champions of Chelsea, the Russian champions of Zenit, and mighty Juventus

Pelé

I recently watched a documentary on Netflix about Pelé, the legendary Brazilian footballer.

Pelé is perhaps the greatest player of all time, but certainly the greatest player of his generation. The documentary circles around his four World Cups and his importance at a time when Brazilian society was undergoing profound changes, with modernization and the wake of a dictatorship. The documentary dwells relatively much on the dictatorship, with an implicit criticism of Pelé never taking a clear stand against the dictatorship. Pelé at no time appears to be much interested in politics, and the issue remains relevant to this day: what can or should we expect from footballers, who have been thrown into an unlikely fame for the mere fact of kicking a ball. At the same time the documentary also shows how Pelé transcended football, becoming a world-wide super-star that symbolized and represented Brazil beyond all the political upheavals.

Pelé actually describes himself as an average guy that happened to be good at kicking a ball, and his enormous humility is extremely likeable, but it also borders on boring for a documentary about such a nice guy outside the pitch.

The footballing part is both the most relevant and interesting part of the tournament, and Pelé crying when he recalls the finals of 1958 and 1970 truly shows how much football and the finals meant for him. The interviews with many of his teammates such as Mario Zagallo, Jairzinho or Clodoaldo, also gives weight to Pelé as not only a great player, but also a great friend. At the same time I think that the very interesting stories behind the Brazilian team in each World Cup (including the 1966 World Cup, when opposing teams violently struck down on Pelé's brilliance) could have benefited greatly from including some of the opponents, in particular defenders and goalkeepers who had to struggle with a player of a quality that was almost unseen back then.

In the end the documentary is great for anyone interested in football history, and the focus of Pelé, who remains a legend among legends in international football, but the documentary could have been better.

RIP Gerd Muller

 This week one of the greatest footballers of all-time passed away at the age of 75: Gerd Müller, is arguably the best striker of all time; although some of his records have been broken over the last years, he remains the most scoring player of the German league. He was for many years the most scoring player of the German national team with 62 goals in 68 matches (until Miroslav Klose beat him, but with more than 100 matches). He was European Footballer of the year in 1970, after he had become top-scorer at the 1970 World Cup, and his legend was perhaps cemented by his goal in the 1974 World Cup final, which gave West Germany the world championship:

PSG "Galactico II"

With the transfer of Lionel Messi to PSG the French club has strengthened its already strong team, and it would appear that few, if any, clubs will be able to compete with them at the French league level or European level. Because Messi is only the most famous of the new players that have arrived in Paris this summer, a list that includes: Gianluigi Donnarumma (AC Milan's and Italy's fantastic young goalkeeper), Giorginio Wijnaldum (the Netherlands' captain and solid Liverpool player), Achraf Hakimi (Inter's and Morocco's brilliant right-back) and Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid's and Spain's legendary defender). These players enter a team that already includes Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Marquinhos, Keylor Navas, Marco Verrati, Leandro Paredes, Angel DiMaria, Julian Draxler, Pabloa Sarabia, Rafinha, etc.

The undoubted quality that PSG has is no guarantee that they will be successful in their pursuit for titles, but it is certain that they are the team to watch in the coming season. Almost 20 years ago Real Madrid were dubbed "Galacticos" for the quality of players they had back then; PSG this season appears to be "Galacticos II".