Just announced live by Florentino Perez on Real Madrid TV. So something everyone knew was happening is now official. The trick though is the mutual consent bit. As Rob Harris Tweeted (speculatively but this is a dirty business):

Mourinho leaving Real Madrid at the end of the season after mutual agreement struck. So Chelsea wouldn’t have to pay compensation

— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) May 20, 2013

And that smacks of a gentleman’s agreement. So Mou moves on! Now all eyes...

By Andi Thomas and Alex Netherton

Premier League: Season 21 ★★

It is the curse of all successful, long-running entertainment franchises to be judged by what came before. Last season, the writers of Premier League threw everything they had at the ending. Obviously, the last-minute last-kick denouement stretched the credibility, but that didn’t matter: it was outstanding drama, carefully scripted to maximise the pleasure for Manchester City, the pain for Manchester United, and the entertainment for the viewing public.

But...

The Lead

It’s a holiday Monday today where I happen to live my friends, so posting will be just a tad lighter than usual (leave me alone slavedrivers!). So that means no podcast today. However there will be a few goodies for you including the final entry of this season in our beloved Diary of Love/Hate.

News. News news news. Well hey, some bad stuff happened in Italy. Start there. Or good things if you’re a Milan supporter or...

The end of another year of Premier League football has come. We end where we started, with the two Manchester clubs at the top followed by three London sides that suffered through glaring stretches of futility before getting it together just in time. Chelsea are into the Champions League group stage thanks to Fernando Torres, the much maligned striker that has been fantastic the last few months.

Arsenal finish fourth, playing an uninspiring yet effective brand of football that has...

We’ve been a little Beckham heavy in these parts over the last week. You can read about him here, here, here and here. Beckham–who wore the captain’s armband–probably played his last professional game today, as PSG defeated Brest 3-1 at the Parc Des Princes. Paris St.Germain have one more Ligue 1 game remaining, but Beckham’s teary exit after he was substituted with 10 minutes to play indicates this was probably it.

Former Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini paid tribute to the fans for three years of ups, downs and trophies. A classy gesture from a man who was wrongly sacked according to Sir Alex Ferguson.

Via the Globe and Mail:

“It was quite amazing. He has won the FA Cup, been in the final, second in the league and won the league and it’s not good enough?” he told reporters. “I was surprised, but actually no, you can’t say you are...

Lookie here! Some rando on Twitter says so! Well, a Reuters Miami correspondent:

David Beckham has held talks with MLS over owning a future expansion team – story to follow.

— Simon Evans (@sgevans) May 17, 2013

Beckham ownership of MLS team not just a theoretical ‘option’ – specific locations have been discussed with his advisors

— Simon Evans (@sgevans) May 17, 2013

Talks have taken place since Beckham left Galaxy and will continue. Miami has been discussed as one...

On David Beckham’s retirement, many words have been spoken – a large amount of these have achieved the important mark of being equally as bland as the man himself. But professional opinion-giver Chris Waddle managed the best opinion on Beckham. “You can go down a list of footballers since the Premier League and I don’t think David Beckham would probably be in the first 1000,” was what Chrissy said to the world so that everyone could hear. And he really...

Hey guys, remember when David Beckham played in MLS? Here’s a 47 minute long ESPN documentary on the subject. Cheers to championsleague.ca for putting it all up in my grill.

Hey! It’s the last one of these for the season. I’ve hope they’ve been helpful in some way to you. Next season I will include a running tally of the general success rate, and I’ll get some outside help to see when we’ve hit the magic number of statistical power to pass judgment on our models.

I’ve been noticing that Bloomberg, which is a paid analytics service, is often an outlier, sometimes by ten points on the odds. To be...

Merry Christmas, Twitter!

Chris Waddle, the former footballing semi-great, has opened his gob and the social media machine is now attempting to destroy him with Tweets. Anyway, this is the reason:

“I would say he has been a good player, I wouldn’t put him down as a great,” Waddle, 52, told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“You can go down a list of footballers since the Premier League and I don’t think David Beckham would probably be in the first...

The Lead

I’ve been sifting through posts from last August for some measure of prescience for this Premier League season and it seems the more things change, the more things change the same. One of my first 2012-13 posts involved rumours that Rooney wanted a transfer away from Manchester United. Although there is a delicious irony in the CA’s in-house Mancs questioning their manager’s approach: “questions must be asked of Alex Ferguson.” Not any more they don’t.

Still, there was...

So Mario Balotelli is on Twitter, which means AC Milan’s social media manager or whomever takes care of these things is now in a mad rush to set up a meeting with the player to discuss best practices, what constitutes online defamation, and why Vine cannot and should not be used by any player, ever.

We also know this is Mario (beyond the obvious fact that he’s taken photos of himself and others in the club have verified it, you...

Starring the usual gang, @amhrichardson and @iamthemonkey. I’m sure you’re just as excited to find out who will be relegated as I am!

Ever dreamt of going for coffee and finding Pirlo behind the bar? That’s what happened this morning @trussardinews twitter.com/juventusfc/sta…

— JuventusFC (@juventusfc) May 16, 2013

Cheers to Devang for pressing the Retweet button like an OG.

I had a host of neatly set out appointment posts for the week that were supposed to carry me through to the end of the season. Today was to be on football tactics. That’s all done now, because English football is doing one of those emotional, Doctor Who-esque regenerations in which Tom Baker’s face starts glowing until he wakes up as Peter Davison.

Ten days ago, Sir Alex Ferguson was going to be around for another season at Old Trafford,...

You’re going to get all the gooey goal memories from the Big Papers today, so I thought I would remember Beckham’s career in the way he would have wanted—via his representation in popular media. Despite being considerably good at the football—HEY REMEMBER THE GOAL HE SCORED AGAINST GREECE THAT WON ENGLAND THE WORLD CUP OR SOMETHING?—the dude was made for TV. He was Pele without all the additional skill, although he certainly looked like himself playing football. And he made...

Richard Whittall, Devang Desai, Sean Keay and James Bigg sit down for our Rapid Fire podcast to talk about Monaco’s ambition in Ligue 1, Rooney’s possible adaption to a new footballing role, a possible Mancini: the Movie adaptation, and who would win in a knife fight between a monkey and a bear. Thanks to all who sent in your questions! No animals were harmed in the making of this podcast.

Also, if you like the CA podcast, please...

The Daily Mail has “sources in Paris” who say so. But my inner Rob Beal detector says to be wary. Here’s the scoop from the paper:

Despite the offer of an extended one-year deal at Paris Saint-German, sources in Paris have told Sportsmail that the 38-year-old has played his last game, bowing out on a high after helping Carlo Ancelotti’s side win the French title for the first time in 19 years.

When approached for comment by Sportsmail, Beckham’s...

The Lead

Everyone—myself included, obvs—seems to manically oscillate from wanting managers who did a little worse this season than last (even within basic means regression) to get their asses sacked, and condemning chairman from doing just that.

For example, general consensus holds that Abramovich sacking Carlo Ancelotti in 2011 was bad, but City sacking Mancini at the end of this season was good. Why? Well, ineffable reasons involving the fact that Mancini seemed like he didn’t know what he was...

CNN releases a teaser of Paolo Pinto’s interview with BFF Balo. In it he declares his reasons for not walking off the pitch despite suffering abuse at Roma, and why the next time he won’t hesitate.

It hasn’t been the best couple of weeks for Toronto FC (or months, or years). With a win-less streak now stretching to eight games, and with just one win in its last 24 MLS games, the Reds are in danger of slipping even further into irrelevancy in the Toronto sports market.

For those that were around in the early years, it’s staggering to see the fall from grace. This was a club that wasn’t just the darling of the Toronto...

Newcastle is almost certainly where good players go to flourish. Hey, that’s the consensus on Michael Owen (which, sarcasm aside, wasn’t that bad actually—30 goals in 79 appearances in all comps anyone?).

Seriously, the days of the Toon springing for Alan Shearer and Les Ferdinand and Tino Asprilla are slightly behind us now. As in, what, 1996?

Anyway, the ever-reliable news publication Sports Direct (clothing stores have news divisions now?) has done a bit of self-reporting:

SportsDirect News has...

In the pandemonium that followed Juventus’s home win over Palermo earlier this month, supporters twice invaded the pitch. The Bianconeri had just been crowned champions of Italy for the second year running, prompting over-eager fans to rush the field in the hopes of joining their heroes’ celebrations. But by the time they reached their destination, most of Juventus’s players had already fled, sprinting down the tunnel and taking refuge in the changing rooms.

One player, though, did not run. Gigi...