Neymar is not provoking opponents – Zidane

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane has defended Neymar following claims the Barcelona star deliberately disrespects and provokes opponents.
Neymar was criticised in the wake of Barcelona’s 5-1 win over Leganes after turning on the flicks late in the game with the result beyond doubt.
Zidane does not believe Neymar is deliberately trying to provoke the opposition, though, and feels the Brazilian is just doing his own thing.
“I cannot watch inside Neymar’s head, but I don’t think it’s a provocation,” Zidane said at a news

FIFA extends bans globally in 6 doping cases

FIFA says its disciplinary panel extended bans to apply worldwide in doping cases for six players

Apologise or Yaya Toure won’t play for Man City again – Guardiola tells Seluk

Pep Guardiola says Yaya Toure will not feature for Manchester City until he receives an apology for Dmitri Seluk’s recent outbursts in the media.
Guardiola left Toure out of his Champions League squad for this season and Goal understands City were keen to move the Ivorian on if they could find a willing buyer in the summer transfer window.
Seluk, Toure’s agent, told the press a day after his exclusion from that squad that the decision “humiliated” his client, and that “if City don’t win the Champions League then I hope that Pep has got the balls to say that he was wrong to humiliate a great player like Yaya.”
Guardiola, however, has not taken kindly to the comments, and said on the eve of City’s League Cup clash with Swansea City that Toure will play no part, and that he can expect to be left out

Rooney at risk as Mourinho’s Man United toil

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho is under pressure to drop Wayne Rooney, with the captain’s clanking performances emblematic of the team’s struggles.
United have lost their last three matches and there is clamour among supporters and journalists for Rooney to be removed from the starting XI.
In an online poll by the United fanzine Red Issue, over 99 percent of respondents called for him to be axed.
“Where do you want Wayne Rooney to play? Or should he be playing at all?” former England captain Alan Shearer wrote in The Sun after United’s 3-1 defeat at Watford on Saturday.
“Not on yesterday’s performance, it is fair to say.”
Despite United winning their first three league games, Rooney’s lacklustre displays meant his

Zidane confirms Bale and Ronaldo return for Villarreal clash

Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale will be available for Real Madrid against Villarreal on Wednesday, coach Zinedine Zidane has confirmed.
The superstar duo missed Sunday’s 2-0 win at Espanyol due to illness and a hip injury respectively.
It mattered little as James Rodriguez and Karim Benzema provided the goals in a comfortable

Venezuelan football team Trujillanos held at gunpoint

A Venezuelan football team were stripped of their clothes and shoes by masked gunmen who hijacked their team bus.
First division side Trujillanos were held for more than two hours by six gunmen carrying high-calibre weapons.
The club said the coach was taken on a one-mile detour before those on board were robbed of “absolutely everything”, including cameras, laptops, clothes and footballs.

Yaya Toure announces international retirement

Four-time African footballer of the year Yaya Toure of the Ivory Coast announced his retirement from international football on Tuesday.

New York bomb suspect charged with attempted murder

This video grab image released September 19, 2016 by the New Jersey State Police allegedly shows Ahmad Khan Rahami.(AFP)

An Afghan-born American was charged Monday with attempted murder after being shot and captured in connection with bombings in New York and New Jersey, thrusting security fears into the heart of the election.
Saturday’s attacks, which wounded 29 people in Manhattan and cancelled a US Marine Corps race in New Jersey, came on the same day that a Somali-American with possible links to the Islamic State extremist group went on a stabbing rampage in Minnesota, wounding nine people.
President Barack Obama, in New York at the UN General Assembly with world leaders, called on Americans “not to succumb to fear” as presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump sparred over how best to combat terror attacks.
Obama stressed that investigators saw no connection between the East Coast bombings and the Minnesota stabbings, where police said the assailant made “some references to Allah” in carrying out the attack.

Marcus Rashford reveals Manchester United mentor who ‘opened my mind’

Marcus Rashford has revealed the secret behind his emergence as a goalscoring talent at Manchester United.
Rashford has scored 10 goals in 23 appearances since marking his senior debut with a double against Midtjylland in last season’s Europa League.
Both his goals this term have been close-range finishes, the first a last-minute winner at Hull and the second in a 3-1 defeat at Watford on Sunday.
The teenager also scored on his full England debut and scored a hat-trick last month on his first