Cristiano Ronaldo: Can Juventus star restore Serie A to its former glory?

Serie A boasts three of Europe's best attacking players in Milan's Gonzalo Higuain, Juve's Cristiano Ronaldo and Inter's Ivan Perisic

Serie A can never be reduced to a one-man show and it simply cannot be all about Cristiano Ronaldo. Nevertheless, it is hard to understate the impact his arrival at Juventus has had on the league before a ball has even been kicked.

The 33-year-old five-time Ballon d'Or winner is not only one of the two best players of the last decade, he is also one of the most popular people on the planet. Ronaldo has 313m followers across all social media platforms and it feels like he has turned their attention to Serie A.

"Finally the world is talking about the Italian league again," Fabio Capello marvelled in La Gazzetta dello Sport. "In the 80s and 90s we represented the top. Then we lost our way and weren't capable of investing in infrastructure.

"With Ronaldo we can attempt to lift our head up. But it's not enough on its own. We need to have the strength and intelligence to exploit the Ronaldo stimulus and give our game an impulse again."

The consensus in the media viewed the £99.2m deal, which will earn Ronaldo £27.7m a year, as the most significant step yet in restoring Serie A to its former glory.

"The peak was in 2003 when we had two teams in the Champions League final," recalled Claudio Ranieri, a former Juve manager, in La Stampa. "We're not back to those days yet. But I feel like saying the days of skinny cows are over."

Ronaldo is fattening them up.

Does Ronaldo benefit the whole of Serie A?

Debate has raged over the past month about whether the Portuguese benefits the league as a whole or just Juventus.

Financially speaking, the Old Lady's opponents are bumping up ticket prices for her visit, which has led Juve's ultras to hold a protest at the amount that away days will leave them out of pocket.

But can you blame the rest of Serie A? One of the best players of all time is coming to Ferrara, Frosinone and Sassuolo.

As the fixture list for the first fortnight of the new season was being printed, the owner of newly-promoted Frosinone, Maurizio Stirpe, held his breath. Unfortunately for his team, they must play their opening two home games behind closed doors as punishment for the club's ball boys unsportingly throwing balls onto the pitch to stop a Palermo attack late in the play-off final.

The idea of missing out on the Ronaldo effect on the gate receipts was an understandable cause of anxiety when you consider that last season the highest attendance at 11 Serie A clubs coincided with when Juventus came to town.

Chievo, for instance, who only sell out the Bentegodi for the Derby della Scala, pulled the shutters down at the ticket office weeks ago for Ronaldo's first league game on Saturday. The 30,000 allocation might as well have been gold dust.

Still, it's a shame for the league that the new TV rights package was agreed before Juventus president Andrea Agnelli dramatically boarded a helicopter for Greece to shake hands with Ronaldo on what Tuttosport are calling "Il Colpo del Secolo" - the deal of the century.

The rights are now probably worth 20 to 30% more, which means the Ronaldo tide will not lift all boats. The uplift in revenue is forecast to take Juventus to the next level in the rich list, such are Ronaldo's commercial powers of attraction. But what does it say about Serie A?

While Gazzetta think Agnelli and the Juventus board deserve the Nobel Prize for Economics, La Repubblica compared the Ronaldo transfer to the plot of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.

In light of Agnelli's pro-European Super League stance, is this not the clearest sign yet that Juventus want to leave the crop plights and dust storms of Serie A behind for a new planet, where one day all of the continent's elite teams will play against each other week in, week out?

And what about competitive balance? Il Corriere dello Sport reacted to the news with an Atticus Finch line from Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird. "It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

Can anyone challenge Juve for the title?

Is the Scudetto already decided? Juventus edged Napoli to the title by four points last season, in the process securing a seventh consecutive league triumph.

Roma finished third in 2017-18 and their captain Daniele De Rossi said of Juve: "They have already killed the league a little."

But the same comments were made when Juventus paid the buy-out clauses to take Gonzalo Higuain from Napoli and Miralem Pjanic from Roma two seasons ago. And that didn't stop Serie A from being the most compelling league in Europe last term, when Napoli pushed Juve to the penultimate game and you didn't know who had qualified for Europe or who'd be staying up and going down until the final day.

Inter look like the team most likely to challenge Juventus this season. Emboldened by guaranteed Champions League money, the signings of Stefan de Vrij, Radja Nainggolan, Sime Vrsaljko and Keita Balde Diao improve the starting XI, while Lautaro Martinez has the look of the league's next big thing.

As for AC Milan, who would have thought defaulting on their debt and being repossessed this summer would turn out to be such a positive.

The club's new owners, Elliott Management, are credible - the hedge fund have $34bn worth of assets - and the appointment of Leonardo as sporting director has delivered instant results in recruitment.

Aware of how much Juventus needed to sell after the Ronaldo signing and how much Leonardo Bonucci wanted to go back to Turin, the former Brazil midfielder was able to use that as leverage to sign Serie A's most prolific goalscorer of the last five years, Gonzalo Higuain, and the league's best defensive prospect, Mattia Caldara.

Going into the summer Milan were expected to be weaker. Instead they come out of the transfer window looking a lot stronger.

Napoli managed to persuade Carlo Ancelotti to give up the high life of coaching Europe's elite for an underdog story. His predecessor Maurizio Sarri made this team greater than the sum of its parts, defying their status as having only the fifth-highest wage bill in the league. Stopping Napoli regressing will be a challenge for the three-time Champions League-winning manager.

Semi-finalists in that competition last year, Roma have spent the summer signing Football Manager wonderkids like Justin Kluivert and Ante Coric, as well as more established players like the imaginative midfield string-puller Javier Pastore and towering World Cup-winning sentinel Steven N'Zonzi.

The squad they have put together is deep and should make Roma competitive on every front. Winning the cup has to be an objective.

Elsewhere there is great enthusiasm around the kids at Fiorentina. The Viola have the youngest team in the league, which includes Albin Lafont - aka the French Gigio Donnarumma - and a forward line of Federico Chiesa, Giovanni Simeone and Marko Pjaca.

Romantics will of course be drawn to Parma's return to Serie A. Bankrupt and made to start in the fourth division three years ago, they became the first team ever to win a hat-trick of consecutive promotions although the WhatsApp messages of striker Emanuele Calaio almost put all that in jeopardy.

The league still has its issues - chaos and controversy remain a feature of Italian football. But all that adds to the drama and whets the appetite ahead of the most eagerly-anticipated Serie A season in a long time.

"There is life beyond Cristiano Ronaldo," as Il Corriere dello Sport put it.

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Serena Williams learned just before Johanna Konta loss that half-sister's killer had been freed

Serena Williams says she discovered just minutes before her match against Johanna Konta last month that the man convicted of killing her half-sister had been released on parole.

Briton Konta inflicted the worst defeat of Williams' career by winning 6-1 6-0 in the first round of the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose.

Williams' elder half-sister Yetunde Price was shot dead in 2003 aged 31.

"I couldn't shake it out of my mind," said the 23-time Grand Slam champion.

Robert Maxfield was jailed for 15 years in April 2006 and Williams, 36, attended the sentencing.

She told Time magazine: "No matter what, my sister is not coming back for good behaviour."

Price was shot dead in Compton, Los Angeles. Her children were 11, nine and five at the time.

"It's unfair that she'll never have an opportunity to hug me," Williams said.

"It was hard because all I think about is her kids - what they meant to me and how much I love them.

"I would like to practise what I preach, and teach [daughter] Olympia that as well. I want to forgive. I have to get there. I'll be there."

Williams clashed with coach over breastfeeding

Williams returned to the women's tour earlier this year after giving birth to Olympia last September and breastfed for the first eight months.

But she was told by her coach Patrick Mouratoglou to stop breastfeeding as she arrived in France for clay court training, adding it was "hard to take from a guy".

"He's not a woman, he doesn't understand that connection, that the best time of the day for me was when I tried to feed her," she said.

Mouratoglou said the former world number one began to make decisions "through the angle of the family", adding "tennis has to be the priority".

Williams said she eventually listened to Mouratoglou to "get her body back".

She has also revealed she "fell victim" to social media pressure, using a waist trainer to make her stomach appear smaller for a picture she posted of her post-pregnancy body on Instagram.

"I hated that I fell victim to that," she added. "It puts a lot of pressure on women, young and old." 

'That's not being Serena'

The US Open gets under way in less than two weeks, with Williams vying for a seventh singles title at Flushing Meadows.

Williams, who was runner-up at Wimbledon in July, admitted she is at the "start of a long comeback" after losing in the second round of the Cincinnati Open to Czech Petra Kvitova on Tuesday.

She returns to New York having lost in the US Open semi-finals in both 2015 and 2016.

"I'm trying to get a new vibe there," said the world number 27.

"But I'm not going in there thinking I'm going to lose. That's not being Serena. That's being someone else."

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Villa offer Grealish new deal

Aston Villa boss Steve Bruce says Jack Grealish is "the best young player" he has ever worked with and hopes the midfielder will have signed a new contract by the end of August.

Grealish, 22, was strongly linked with a move to Tottenham Hotspur over the summer, but Villa refused to sell him.

BBC Sport reported the clubs were around £7m apart in their valuation of the Birmingham-born Villa fan.

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Tim Hardaway, Brian Scalabrine to visit Manila for NBA PH 3×3

Brian Scalabrine #24 of the Chicago Bulls points to a teammate in the fourth quarter against the Boston Celtics on January 13, 2012 at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Elsa/Getty Images/AFP

NBA great Tim Hardaway and former NBA forward Brian Scalabrine are headed to Manila to grace the 2018 NBA 3X Philippines festivities from August 25-26.

It’s has been a tradition for the league to bring NBA players to the annual 3-on-3 tournament event, which is now in its eighth year in the country.

The culmination of the 3×3 tournament featuring men’s and women’s teams will be held at SM Mall of Asia Music Hall.

Hardaway, a five-time NBA All-Star who is also an assistant for the Detroit Pistons, is looking forward to his return to the hoops-crazy Philippines.

“It’s a great feeling to return to the Philippines and get reacquainted with the passionate Filipino fan base,” said Hardaway. “NBA 3X celebrates the vibrant culture of basketball, which will be in full display for fans to experience throughout the weekend festivities.”

Scalabrine, meanwhile, is ready to experience the Filipinos’ love for the game for the first time.

“Traveling to the Philippines for the first time is an exciting opportunity to experience how the game is played on this side of the world,” said Scalabrine. “As a basketball fan and analyst, I’m looking forward to interacting with the fans and sharing my knowledge with the talented athletes at the NBA 3X event.”

The Detroit Pistons Flight crew will also pay the Filipino fans a visit.

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Pakistan ban batsman Jamshed for 10 years for corruption

Jamshed, who played 48 one-day internationals and two tests, was suspended from all forms of cricket in February 2017 for violating the PCB’s anti-corruption code and handed a one-year ban in December for failing to co-operate with the ACU’s investigation.

Pakistan's Nasir Jamshed plays a shot against New Zealand during their Twenty20 World Cup cricket match in Pallekele September 23, 2012.(Reuters)

Former Pakistan batsman Nasir Jamshed has been banned for 10 years by an anti-corruption tribunal for his part in the spot-fixing scandal that engulfed the Pakistan Super League in 2017, the country’s cricket board (PCB) said on Friday.

Jamshed, who played 48 one-day internationals and two tests, was suspended from all forms of cricket in February 2017 for violating the PCB’s anti-corruption code and handed a one-year ban in December for failing to co-operate with the ACU’s investigation.

PCB’s legal advisor Taffazul Rizvi said Jamshed was the “lynchpin” in the scandal.

“The tribunal has reached the verdict that the PCB’s multiple charges against Nasir Jamshed have been proved and he was banned for 10 years,” Rizvi told reporters.

“He will not be allowed to be involved with cricket or cricket administration even after his period of ban is over.”

Jamshed did not participate in the first two editions of the PSL but was alleged to have played a major role in the spot-fixing scandal that engulfed the Twenty20 tournament last year.

Batsmen Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif were handed five-year bans for their role in the scandal, while paceman Mohammad Irfan and all-rounder Mohammad Nawaz received respective suspensions for 12 and two months.

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Asian Games 2018: Reality check awaits as India eye Asiad glory after topsy-turvy build-up

The build-up has been signature chaos with complaints and even court cases about selection matters, usual controversies over the size of the contingent which came to 804 -- athletes and officials combined, and not to forget, the credentials of the travelling officials.

Manu Bhaker of India competes in the Women's 10m Air Pistol Final during Shooting on day four of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games at Belmont Shooting Centre on April 8, 2018 in Brisbane, Australia.(Getty Images)

A trial by fire for the youngsters and a battle to stay relevant for some ageing superstars but above all, the 18th Asian Games will be a reality check for India’s athletes after the Commonwealth Games high.

The build-up has been signature chaos with complaints and even court cases about selection matters, usual controversies over the size of the contingent which came to 804 -- athletes and officials combined, and not to forget, the credentials of the travelling officials.

But as has been the case with Indian sports for the past several decades, the athletes would try to ensure that focus remains firmly on the results once the competition gets underway.

There was quite literally a gold rush at Gold Coast CWG where India notched up their second best medal tally of all time.

But most athletes and their coaches have already acknowledged that the Asiad is going to be a different ball game given the presence of powerhouses such as China, Japan and Korea.

However, that has dampened neither the excitement nor the expectations.

India had equalled their best performance in terms of medals won in the 2014 Asiad with a total of 57, including 11 gold, and the contingent of 572 athletes this time would be hoping to better that.

The contenders range from a a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Haryana in Manu Bhaker (shooting) to the proven-but-struggling Sushil Kumar (wrestling) to the in-form and consistently rising to new heights, Neeraj Chopra (Javelin Throw).

Then there are the likes of Hima Das, a sprint sensation who has raised hopes by becoming the first Indian woman to claim a world championships gold, albeit in the under-20 competition.

The daughter of a rice farmer in Assam has captured the nation’s imagination and her profile is only expected to rise should she finish on the podium in Jakarta.

There is no denying the fact that she will among the favourites at the Games in Jakarta.

India’s track-and-field stars have historically done well at the Asiad, delivering 282 medals so far, 74 of them gold.

And it is not expected to be any different this time.

On to the badminton court where PV Sindhu would be hoping to break her final jinx. But once again a strong field will stand in the way given that shuttlers from traditional power-centres China, Thailand, and Japan will be in action.

Saina Nehwal’s grit and ability to bring her A game to the table on the big stage can never be discounted but it remains to be seen how her body responds to what has been a gruelling season so far.

Along with K Srikkanth and HS Prannoy, they are among those expected to contribute to India’s medal tally.

India can also hope for a good show on the wrestling mat where the in-from duo of Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat are being seen as sure-shot medal hopes.

Punia not only won a gold at CWG but also emerged champion at Tbilisi Grand Prix and Yasar Dogu International in the run-up to the Jakarta Games.

However, it’s redemption time for a few struggling stars. Olympic medallists Sushil Kumar and Sakshi Malik are not in the best of form. Sushil recently lost his first bout in four years at the Tbilisi GP in Georgia and Sakshi failed to reach the medal round at Yasar Dogu in Istanbul.

Their reputations are at stake and nothing less than a gold will be able to redeem those.

The men’s hockey team will be aiming for a gold and a direct entry into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The team, which recently ended runner-up to Australia at the Champions Trophy, does not have many tough nuts to crack and it will only be a disaster if it returns without gold.

The women’s team missed out on a historic place in the world cup semifinals but the Rani Rampal-led side is expected to fare better and improve upon its bronze-medal show in Incheon.

At the shooting ranges of Palembang, Manu will hold centrestage and given her form, it would be a surprise if she lets the spotlight shift anywhere else.

The boxing arena will have some strong Indian presence too with the likes of Vikas Krishan, Shiva Thapa and the fast-rising Gaurav Solanki presenting India’s men’s challenge. Among the women, world silver-medallist Sarjubala Devi will be a medal hope.

The tennis contingent is already grappling with the kind of drama that has become its trademark at every major event.

The last-minute pull-out by Leander Paes for not getting a “specialist” men’s doubles partner means that coach-sum-captain Zeeshan Ali has to re-work combinations in men’s and mixed doubles.

How this move by the veteran star affects the campaign will be interesting to see.

In the absence of world champion Mirabai Chanu, India’s challenge has weakened in weightlifting.

There will be some interesting sports to track too in pencak silat, an Indonesian indigenous martial arts form, and bridge. India will be there to contest but medal prospects are not too clear.

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