Sports Burst - Barca's Vidal Warning
A general observation or throwing shade? Arturo Vidal suggests that Barcelona might have a new boss next season
By Tim Stannard
Arturo Vidal calls for summer of change and warns that club needs to "choose its future well"
The first option in interpreting Arturo Vidal's comments on the future of Quique Setien at Barcelona is to simply see them as a general observation on Barca's need to make big decisions this summer. Few could disagree with that.
But that would be no fun at all when the alternative is to scream that Barcelona's Chilean midfielder has cast doubts on whether Quique Setien will be Barca boss next season.
Talking to Win Sports TV, Vidal has warned that "when the season is over, Barcelona needs to choose its future well. If the coach is going to carry on, the players."
However, while the drama level of that quote is certainly up for debate, there was definitely some shade thrown at Barcelona's bosses over the troubles he and his teammates had when Ernesto Valverde was jettisoned in January. "It was a very sudden change. We worked for very little time with him and we tried to adapt," admitted Vidal.
Barcelona is currently training ahead of next week's Champions League clash against Napoli in the Camp Nou, which is currently tied at 1-1. However, there was some good news from across the Mediterranean with Gennaro Gattuso complaining that Napoli currently has "no soul," which apparently might be an issue for the clash.
The fiery Italian was talking after a 2-0 defeat for Napoli against Inter that leaves the Coppa Italia winners in danger of failing to reach a top-six finish this season in Serie A.
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Ronaldo continues Golden Shoe chase
Tuesday saw outlandish reports that Cristiano Ronaldo was going to be left off Juve's traveling party that is facing Cagliari, in the club's penultimate Serie A match of the season.
However, the domestic season is not done for Ronaldo who has travelled to Sardinia for the game with one mission in mind - to be Serie A's top scorer and also Europe's Golden Shoe winner.
However, the odds are stacked against CR7. Ronaldo is on 31 goals, three behind the Robert Lewandowski of Bayern Munich and Lazio's Ciro Immobile who also has two more games to wrack up the tally and claim both titles.
Juve's opponents in the Champions League are in action live, live, live on beIN SPORTS on Friday as Lyon takes on PSG in the Coupe de la Ligue final with coverage beginning from 2:30PM ET.
Inter set to sign up Alexis Sanchez
Some very good news for Manchester United on Wednesday with reports that Inter Milan will be more than happy to take Alexis Sanchez off their hands on a permanent basis.
The highly-paid Chilean is signed up to United to 2022 but has spent the season on loan with Inter with relative success - well, four Serie A goals all season.
Real Madrid might have not have to deal with Dani Ceballos for another season with Arsenal reportedly happy to take the Spanish midfielder for another year on loan with new Gunners boss, Mikel Arteta, taking a shine to Ceballos.
The next big transfer of the summer looks set to be Ferran Torres's move to Manchester City from Valencia. The 20-year-old midfielder has just one year left on his contract with the Mestalla club and Pep Guardiola is eyeing the Spaniard as a replacement for Leroy Sane, who left for Bayern Munich.
Marlins put on hold as NBA prepares for season return
American sport continues on its own internal contest of Bubble vs. No Bubble on Wednesday.
MLB continues in its first week of the season but without the Miami Marlins whose activities have officially been put on hold until at least Monday or Tuesday next week, as the team deals with 17 members of the organization testing positive for COVID-19.
However, in more promising news MLB reports that these were the only cases out of 6,400 tests performed since Friday.
Despite a rocky start to the the MLS is Back tournament with two teams dropping out at the beginning, the contest has just wrapped up its first knockout round in Orlando and is set to start the quarterfinals on Thursday.
Over on Florida's west coast, the WNBA tournament is up and running while the NBA is just one day away from its own return in a universe where results of COVID-19 tests are even more important to supporters than the scores.