Barça's €205 million Messi matchmaking investment

Barcelona has spent five years searching for a good pairing for Leo Messi without much success, shelling out a fortune in the process. Including the Neymar deal, it has spent a total of €205 million on forwards. The first was Henry, who only played one season at the level he was expected to.
After Henry, there came Ibrahimovic and Villa. Leo did not gel with either of them. The former lasted a year, and the Spanish player will leave the club during the summer market after a dressing room fall out with the Argentine. Alexis was also taken on as a goalscorer. He performed well the first season, but has been heavily criticised by fans during the course of the second with Barcelona having paid out almost €40 million for him.
Now it is Neymar's turn. His performance is as yet unknown, but Barça has made a big investment in him, being the second most expensive player in the club’s history after Ibrahimovic.

Neymar rides the Messi and Ronaldo wave

The market value of Brazilian striker Neymar has soared by 22.6 percent, from €55 million to 67.4 million, following the Brazilian national team star player being signed by Barcelona, according to the calculations of Brazilian sports business consultancy, Pluri.
"The transfer of the Santos player to Barcelona was decisive in this increase as, aged just 21, Neymar has gone from being a star of Brazilian football to being an international superstar", said the consultancy, which specialises in the footballing market, in explanation of the rise in the player's market value.
According to Pluri, without including the cost of his signing, Neymar's value is benefitting from the fact he "divides his playing time between one of the best clubs in the world (Barcelona) and one of the top national teams on the planet (Brazil)".
The increase, as calculated by the consultancy, makes Neymar the player with the third highest market value in the world, behind Argentine Leo Messi (Barcelona, €140 million) and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid, €96.3 million).
With his move to Barcelona, the Brazilian tops the market value of players like Spaniard Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona, €65.6 million) and Englishman Wayne Rooney (Manchester United, €62.9 million).

Neymar: "I didn't have a medical for Real Madrid"

Neymar was asked about Real Madrid several times during his presentation as a Barcelona player.
He dodged all questions except one: "Did I have a medical for Madrid? No. I didn't," he said.

Sabella: "Messi's looking good, but we have to look at his inactivity"

Argentina manager Alejandro Sabella gave his perspective on Lionel Messi's injury today, Wednesday. Sabella explained that although Messi has shown a notable improvement, they want to be cautious and do not want to risk starting him in Friday's game against Colombia – the big match of the day's South American qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup.
'Pachorra' stated that there is a possibility of him not making the starting line-up because he has not played regularly of late: "Messi's leg is fine. He's looking fast, extremely fast, but we have to look at his inactivity. We have a training session on Thursday," said the manager, who did not rule out playing an attacking midfielder (Walter Montillo) in his place.
Sabella also regretted the absence of Fernando Gago, who has not recovered from his injury: "Together with Mascherano, he formed the core in the middle of the pitch." The manager said that Lucas Biglia might take his place.
Sabella mentioned Radamel Falcao, the Colombians' lethal striker. "He's a great, consistent player. He plays with intensity. He has got great technique and is good in the air. He's gutsy when he attacks and is extremely consistent. We can't afford to give him an inch of space," he warned.
Demonstrating his usual level-headedness, the manager cautiously noted that Argentina still has not secured qualification for the Brazil World Cup, and any points which it can win against Colombia and its following opponent, Ecuador, will be crucial. "We're in a good position, but we haven't qualified. We're mistaken if we think that," he finished by saying.

Chelsea: Abramovich And Mourinho Reunited

 

By Paul Kelso, Sports Correspondent

Jose Mourinho marked his return to Chelsea with the observation that the time was right for he and the club to "marry again".

As opening gambits go it was classic Mourinho, demonstrating that whatever has changed in the last six years he has not lost his ear for a soundbite.
The metaphor fits perfectly with the narrative the Portuguese Mourinho has shaped since he began eyeing a return to England, and Chelsea in particular, at the turn of the year.
It evokes the love of the fans - something that is not in question judging by the mood on the Fulham Road on Monday.
But it also paints a deceptively romantic picture of the circumstances that led to the unlikely reunion between Mourinho and Roman Abramovich.
Far from being a sugar-coated tale of star-crossed lovers this is a case of cold pragmatism driven by the intersecting ambitions of two men driven by a craving for success.
Mourinho and Abramovich parted on very bad terms six years ago, the owner considering that £18m was compensation well worth paying to remove his manager after three trophy-laden years.
The owner had long tired of Mourinho's antics and became immune to his charm amid the constant agitation for more players and resentment at Abramovich's attempts to establish a structure around him.
For his part Mourinho wanted the latitude that brought success to Stamford Bridge and, once denied, the pout and the sneer replaced the smile that had illuminated scores of media briefings.
Putting the messiest of divorces behind them has not come easy.
Abramovich tried very hard not to appoint Mourinho, courting Pep Guardiola for more than a year before reluctantly accepting the former Barcelona coach, now at Bayern Munich, was beyond his reach.
He even considered retaining Rafa Benitez in the teeth of opposition from fans before reluctantly accepting that, like King Canute facing the tide, even the power of billionaire oligarchs is finite and the Shed End was not for turning.
With some of the other leading managers in Europe, notably Carlo Ancelotti (likely bound for Madrid to replace Mourinho) already on the list of those he had hired and fired, Abramovich found himself having to swallow his pride and contemplate a second coming.
Mourinho for his part was also looking hard for alternatives once his departure form Real Madrid was inevitable. He plainly coveted the Manchester United job, flattering the club lavishly when his side faced them in the Champions League.
But United chose David Moyes, a man in the image of Sir Alex Ferguson and selected with a clear brief to plan for the long-term and work with young players. The contrast with Mourinho's shock-and-spend model was deliberate.
Manchester City also chose to give control of the deepest pockets in world football to someone other than Mourinho, turning to another former Real Madrid manager Manuel Pellegrini.

Daniel Pelka: Starving Boy, 4, 'Ate From Bin'

 

A four-year-old boy who was allegedly starved and murdered by his mother and stepfather tried to eat food from the bins at school, a teacher has said.

Beatrice O'Brien, a teaching assistant, said she and other teachers watched Daniel Pelka reach into a bin in the playground on one occasion, "pick out either the core of an apple or a pear, and (he) started to eat it."
She said shortly before his death he felt "like a bag of bones" and his skin was "ashen-coloured".
The Crown alleges that Daniel died from a head injury following an "incomprehensible" campaign of abuse at the hands of Magdelena Luczak and her partner, Mariusz Krezolek.
On day three of their trial at Birmingham Crown Court, the jury heard that teachers at Little Heath Primary School watched from the staffroom as Daniel, 30ft away, reached into a bin.
Later that same day, she said he took an empty tube of yoghurt from a bin in the classroom "and was trying to get the last bit of yoghurt out".
On the last afternoon he was at school, Mrs O'Brien said he tried to shell and eat "dried kidney beans" that were part of the children's sandtable.
"He had sand around his mouth," she said. "Then I really noticed that the sand didn't really stick - there wasn't much saliva and his mouth seemed very dry." She passed her concerns on to colleagues at the time.
Describing how he looked on the last day he attended school, March 1 2012, Ms O'Brien said: "I was very concerned. He did not look at all well and he had lost a lot of weight. His skin colour was ashen, it wasn't healthy."
Daniel, whose mother and stepfather came to Britain from Poland in 2006, was pronounced dead in the early hours of March 3 after paramedics were called to his home in Coventry.
Krezolek, 33, and Luczak, 27, deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The trial, which is expected to last for up to eight weeks, was adjourned until Thursday.

Facebook Profiles Help Users 'Like' Themselves

 

Facebook users can significantly boost their self-esteem by spending five minutes on their profile, a study has found.

But the findings of the study, titled Self-Affirmation Underlies Facebook Use, also revealed the social network can reduce their ambition to excel.
"Most have a very large audience of friends and they selectively present the best version of self, but they do so in an accurate manner," Catalina Toma, who led the University of Wisconsin-Madison.team, told ABC News.
"Facebook gives you a real good image of yourself, but you then don't have to look for that in other ways.
"Your motivation to perform well might be reduced because you already feel really good."
The study said profiles are "self-affirming in the sense of satisfying users' need for self-worth and self-integrity" and "Facebook users gravitate toward their online profiles after receiving a blow to the ego, in an unconscious effort to repair their perceptions of self-worth".
The findings were published in the June issue of the Journal of Media Psychology.
The study employed the widely-used, but still reportedly controversial, Implicit Association Test, which requires participants to make snap word-based associations.
This is said to reveal intensely personal truths and ones about which test-takers may not even be aware of on a conscious level.