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WA offspinner took seven wickets in the Sheffield Shield final and has fast become one of the best spinners in Australian domestic cricket after playing in a hat-trick of Shield titles

Tristan Lavalette24-Mar-2024

On day one of the Sheffield Shield final, offspinner Corey Rocchiccioli woke up at 4am with a fever. He was feeling rotten to the core, but with Western Australia bidding for a hat-trick of titles there was no way he was going to remain bedridden.”I was a little bit iffy…but came to my senses that if I was to pull out I’ve got five days of watching the boys hopefully win,” Rocchiccioli said. “I just wanted to contribute. I said, ‘Roll up and cop it. Just push through and [there is] plenty of time to relax after the final’.”Rocchiccioli grittily took his place and was thankful that Tasmania decided to send WA into bat as he enjoyed precious rest on day one. When it was his time to bowl, Rocchiccioli produced a lionhearted effort with 22 overs on a pivotal day two and claimed the only two wickets in the middle session to thwart Tasmania, who could never recover.Related

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Rocchiccioli finished with 4 for 48 from 28 overs to help WA gain a decisive 161 first-innings lead. His effort was even more heroic with Rocchiccioli also battling cramps in both his calves.”It was pretty hard at times. At one stage I went through a litre of lemonade to get some sugar back into me,” he said. “I managed to get through it. Playing in a Shield final, you’ve got no excuses. You roll up and do your job. I found a way and that’s what makes me happy.”Rocchiccioli helped WA clinch their third straight title in remarkable fashion when he tore through Tasmania’s lower-order just before the scheduled close of play on day four. He finished with 3 for 55 to punctuate a performance that might have been Shield cricket’s equivalent to basketball legend Michael Jordan’s famous flu game.”I might have called it early doors,” he laughed when asked if the final was the ‘Corey Rocchiccioli flu game’. “I always joke and laughingly say that when I’m sick, I’m sort of out of my own head a little bit.”Rocchiccioli’s affable personality might soon make him something of a cult figure in Australian cricket as he starts to make a serious claim to being the successor to Nathan Lyon in the Test team. He outshined Todd Murphy, who performed well in six Tests last year, during the season as competition heats up with Australia scheduled for a Test tour of Sri Lanka early next year.Corey Rocchiccioli celebrates as WA close in•Getty Images

Rocchiccioli finished the season with 46 wickets at an average of 27.60. Only Ashley Mallett and Greg Matthews have taken more wickets in a Shield season for right-arm finger spinners. Rocchiccioli has become a WACA specialist, and also performed more consistently on the east coast surfaces, as he utilised his 6 foot 3 [1.9m] frame to generate awkward bounce, while he can deceive batters through canny drift.His performances would have caught the attention of national selector Tony Dodemaide, who was in the stands during the match.”I was so sick that I stayed away from him [Dodemaide] as much as possible,” Rocchiccioli joked. “Gaz [Lyon] has the spot, Murph is probably ahead of me at the moment. My job is to take wickets for Western Australia. So it’s as simple as knock down the door and take the opportunity if it ever comes.”The expectations I’ve probably put on myself are higher than anyone’s ever going to put on me. Obviously I want to play for Australia, but right now it doesn’t bother me too much.”Rocchiccioli’s outstanding performances have consigned left-arm spinner Ashton Agar to the outer for WA. Agar’s last first-class match was the SCG Test between Australia and South Africa in January 2023, with his red-ball future in doubt. But Rocchiccioli paid an emotional tribute to Agar, who is his club cricket teammate and close friend.”One of our [WA] values is humility. And if you ever want to see [that] exemplified it’s Ash Agar. He’s looked after me like I’m his little brother,” a teary-eyed Rocchiccioli said. “Even [on day four], I wasn’t bowling at my best, he came out and gave me a couple of tips so that I could get my bowling back on track.”I’m sure he wanted to be out there, but he kept showing up and kept giving me all the love…the respect.”Rocchiccioli, 26, has something of the Midas touch having been part of a hat-trick of titles in his first three seasons. This overwhelming success was beyond his wildest dreams with Rocchiccioli not coming through WA’s strong pathway program. In his early 20s he worked at Bunnings – a prevalent hardware store in Australia – and also studied a sports science degree.”I was able to contribute in the role that I had to play the whole year, which makes it the best out of the three [titles],” he said. “I’ve got three Sheffield Shield titles at 26. Yeah, this is pretty cool.”

The Catalan coach brought ball-playing goalkeepers back into fashion, yet the gigantic Italian can help him solve a huge problem

Victor Valdes will never forget his first conversation with Pep Guardiola. He had been Barcelona's goalkeeper for years and had already won a Champions League and a couple of La Liga titles, but the new, rookie coach immediately challenged everything Valdes thought he knew about football.

The legendary Barca goalkeeper told the documentary 'Take the ball, pass the ball': "He [Guardiola] had a tactics board with two small magnets on either side of the goal, just outside of the box. He said 'Do you know which players these two are? These are your centre-backs.' I had no idea what he was talking about; it sounded like he was talking Chinese. And he said 'When you’ve got the ball, this is where I want them to be. You’ll pass to them, and it’s from here that we’ll build the play'. I thought he was crazy.'"

Valdes put Guardiola's play-out-from-the-back ideas into practice and even when it led to him conceding costly goals against Real Madrid, he kept doing it, earning praise from Xavi Hernandez for "not forgetting our philosophy". Valdes' inferior shot-stopping qualities meant he never overhauled Iker Casillas as Spain's No.1, but he helped Guardiola conquer the world with Barcelona. When the coach left for Bayern Munich, he took the same approach with Manuel Neuer, who was even better with his feet as well as being a more reliable shot-stopper than Valdes.

When Guardiola joined Manchester City in 2016, he was so convinced he needed a ball-playing goalkeeper that he rooted out club legend and fan favourite Joe Hart, at first with disastrous consequences as his replacement, Claudio Bravo, flopped, but then for the better when Guardiola landed Ederson.

The Brazil international is now set to leave the Etihad Stadium after eight seasons and with six Premier League winners medals around his neck, but Guardiola's choice to replace Ederson with Gianluigi Donnarumma has turned heads across football, with many observers wondering whether the coach has abandoned his principles.

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  Constantly evolving

  Guardiola shook up football by making Barca play in a way that hadn't been seen in a quarter of a century, when he was a midfielder in Johan Cruyff's 'Dream Team'. He continued with the same blueprint at Bayern and with City, soon changing the way football was seen in both Germany and England. But contrary to popular opinion, Guardiola has constantly evolved his style of play. 

  He has gone from playing high-flying full-backs like Dani Alves and Joao Cancelo to fielding a back four entirely comprised of centre-backs at City. He has lurched from playing without a natural centre-forward to later building his team around Erling Haaland, the most clinical striker in the world but whose build-up play is limited. He has even modified how he uses his goalkeepers, as Ederson has mixed his short passes with long launched balls deep into the opposition half, leading to him providing eight assists during his City career, including four last season. 

  Guardiola explained his methods to last year: ”It's because otherwise I get bored. Always doing the same thing for eight years would be very boring. Secondly, when you do something and it goes well, they [opponents] watch you and create an antidote. If you go too inside, they close in. If we open up the field too much, they'll open it up more. Anything we do and they respond to us, we have to respond again. The third reason is the players we have. What specific qualities they have and when they adapt best to the way you want to play."

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  Different profile

  Turning to Donnarumma, though, feels like an evolution too far for Guardiola given his usual demands on goalkeepers. Just two weeks ago, the coach told the podcast: "It's difficult for me to find one 'keeper that is not brave with their feet. It is so difficult to find. Now I'm not saying be like Ederson and have the ability to put the ball 60 yards in the pockets. He has an incredible ability to do that, and Stefan Ortega has this ability as well. But all of them have to be a minimum to play."

  Donnarumma, though, is not a goalkeeper who would usually be described as being brave with his feet or who fits the profile Guardiola tends to look for. Indeed, Paris Saint-Germain forced him out this summer at the behest of coach Luis Enrique, even after Donnarumma had helped them win a clean sweep of trophies, including their first ever Champions League, due to the difficulties he faced with the all at his feet. 

  The Italy No.1 was instrumental in taking PSG to the final in Munich, saving two penalties in the shootout win over Liverpool in the last 16, averting a late comeback from Aston Villa in the quarter-finals before making eight saves in the semi-final tie with Arsenal, after which team-mate Vitinha described Donnarumma as the 'MVP'. 

  And yet the club decided to sign young upstart Lucas Chevalier and excluded Donnarumma from training as well as leaving him out of the squad for the UEFA Super Cup in a bid to force his departure. His stalling on a contract over a salary dispute may have played a part in that call, but Luis Enrique owned the decision, saying he was looking for "a goalkeeping profile that is different". 

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  Not Barca enough

  Chevalier is certainly bolder with the ball than Donnarumma. Last season for Lille, he completed far more long passes (158-62) and 'launches' (61-16), which are defined by as 'high balls into space or an area for players to chase or challenge for the ball', than the man he has replaced at Parc des Princes. Chevalier also out-performed Donnarumma in more traditional goalkeeping metrics, as he kept seven more clean sheets than the Italian in Ligue 1 last season (11-4) and boasted a better save percentage (71.65-66.22) despite Lille finishing fifth while PSG romped to the title.

  The fact that Luis Enrique wanted to sell Donnarumma while Guardiola wanted to buy him is telling. Both coaches played and managed Barcelona, and when Luis Enrique was in charge of the Catalans he refused to sell Marc-Andre ter Stegen to City, instead letting Bravo move to the Etihad Stadium so the ball-playing German could become his No.1. 

  When he was in the Camp Nou dugout, Luis Enrique was sometimes accused of veering from the 'tiqui taca' style Guardiola perfected as boss, but when his PSG side met a Barca team coached by Xavi in 2024, he cheekily declared that his team played far more like the Barca of old than the current team. And by choosing to move on from Donnarumma due to his limitations with the ball, it seems Luis Enrique is even a stricter apostle of Barca style than the man who originally brought it back into fashion.

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  Changing his ways

  That is not to say that Donnarumma is particularly bad with his feet when compared to his peers. His passing accuracy was 85.4 percent in Ligue 1 last season, lower than Ederson's 86.3% but higher than City's other two goalkeepers, Ortega (79.4%) and James Trafford (70%). He also ranked third among the four when it came to his save percentage, which was 66.2%, as Trafford led the way with an insane 84.5%, albeit in the Championship. 

  Donnarumma's reluctance to play out from the back might well stem from one of his worst-ever mistakes, when he was mugged by Karim Benzema inside his own six-yard box as Real Madrid sensationally came from two goals down on aggregate to knock PSG out of the Champions League in 2022. Donnarumma also infamously gave away a goal in Ligue 1 by passing straight to Monaco's Takumi Minamino, while he made two tremendous errors with his feet during his time at AC Milan, as he  allowed a Gabriel Paletta back-pass straight into his net while also gifting a goal to Sampdoria when dribbling inside his penalty area.

  Those errors contributed to Donnarumma taking a more conservative approach, playing closer to his goal-line than many other top keepers. But it also led to him being renowned as one of the top shot-stoppers in the business, although his 6'5 frame clearly helps.

  "He's massive, but his positional awareness in his box is excellent," former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson told the . "That's down to the depth perception he has when he is reading a through-ball and his understanding of where his line is. A lot of goalkeepers get sucked into rushing off their line to try to close down the angle and to close down the shot, and they think they are in a better position further away from the goal. It is something I did myself sometimes, and you find the shot is past you before you are ready. What Donnarumma does instead, very cleverly, is stay closer to his line, maybe two or three yards away. Because of his size he knows he can cover most of his goal from there anyway."

Newcastle are interested in signing both Randal Kolo Muani and Samu Aghehowa as they continue to plan for a successor to Alexander Isak.

• Isak wants Liverpool move 
• Newcastle eye Kolo Muani and Aghehowa 
• Have endured tough summer

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  Per , Newcastle are considering a move for Aghehowa at Porto as they continue succession planning for Isak's potential exit. Liverpool are continuing to pursue a deal to sign the Sweden international in a British record transfer that could reach £150 million ($200m). The Magpies have already missed out on RB Leipzig's Benjamin Sesko, who is set to move to Manchester United, and also failed to sign Joao Pedro from Brighton, as he joined Chelsea, and Bryan Mbeumo, who also went to United.

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  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  Amid the context of their multiple snubs, Newcastle are also considering a move for PSG's Kolo Muani, per , but they face serious competition from Juventus. The Frenchman spent time on loan at the Serie A club last season and is said to be keen on a return to Italy. 

• DID YOU KNOW?

  Newcastle have only signed two first-team players thus far this summer: Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest and Aaron Ramsdale on loan from Southampton.

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  WHAT NEXT?

  Newcastle kick off their season next weekend against Aston Villa. They do not currently have a senior No.9 available for selection, provided they do not pick Isak. 

The head of America's top domestic league says the tournament was a significant moment for soccer in the country

Don Garber dubbed CWC "incredible success"Three MLS clubs participated, combining for one winThe commissioner attended final as Chelsea beat PSGFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

MLS commissioner Don Garber is full of praise for the revamped Club World Cup, dubbing it an "incredible success" and a "proud moment' for soccer in the U.S., saying the competition served as a perfect test run for the 2026 World Cup.

"This was a Herculean task. I don't think everyone understands how difficult it is to have dozens and dozens of matches, all running several times a week, in stadiums that have never hosted this type of competition," Garber told Reuters.

"Everything wasn't perfect but nothing in life is perfect,” Garber said. "If you strive to make progress every day, to innovate both on and off the field, you can achieve something special. I look forward to seeing what this tournament can be in the future."

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Garber hailed the impact of the CWC.

"Whenever you do something new that changes people's perspective on international competition, there are always questions about how it will come together and what impact it will have," he said. "We always have a bit of a chip on our shoulder here in the U.S. soccer business."

He also said he was proud of the performances the participating MLS clubs – Inter Miami, Seattle Sounders and LAFC – although Lionel Messi's squad was the only one of the three to win a game and get out of the group stage.

"It surprised a lot of people." he said. "For decades, we've been trying to show the world we can be an influential, meaningful part of the global soccer conversation."

THE BIGGER PICTURE

The expanded 32-team tournament, the brainchild of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, was played across 12 venues in 11 cities in the United States, and considered something of a dry run for the 2026 World Cup. Chelsea beat PSG 3-0 in the final, but there was a strong global presence throughout, with Fluminense making the semifinal.

While acknowledging that Europe's clubs remain dominant on the world stage, Garber said the CWC offered a platform for emerging clubs and leagues.

"There's a lot of positive things happening in Brazil, in the United States," he said. "Some of the leagues that don't get as much exposure as the super clubs were able to stand tall."

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GettyWHAT NEXT FOR GARBER AND MLS?

MLS returns to play Wednesday night. America's top flight has four more match weeks before opening Leagues Cup opens with matches against Liga MX teams later this month.

فرض الاتحاد الأوروبي لكرة القدم، يويفا، عقوبات على المدير الفني لفريق برشلونة، هانز فليك، وكذلك اثنين من لاعبيه، بسبب أحداث تعود إلى النسخة الماضية من بطولة دوري أبطال أوروبا.

كان برشلونة قد ودع منافسات دوري أبطال أوروبا، موسم 2024/25، على يد إنتر ميلان في دور نصف النهائي، بعد مباراة درامية في إياب المرحلة.

وحسبما ذكرت صحيفة “ماركا” الإسبانية، وقع الاتحاد الأوروبي لكرة لقدم غرامة مالية على ثنائي برشلونة، لامين يامال وروبرت ليفاندوفسكي، قدرها 5000 يورو لكل منهما.

اقرأ أيضًا.. إينيجو مارتينيز يفرض شرطًا خاصًا على النصر السعودي

وأوضحت أن السبب في ذلك يعود إلى كون لامين يامال وليفاندوفسكي انتهكا لوائح مكافحة المنشطات عقب آخر مباراة لـ برشلونة في دوري أبطال أوروبا، الموسم لماضي، أي ضد إنتر ميلان في الإياب.

وأشارت إلى أن يويفا رأى أن الثنائي لم يمتثلا لتعليمات مسؤول مكافحة المنشطات، ولم يتقدما فورًا إلى مركز المراقبة، وفقًا لما تقتضيه اللوائح.

وأفادت أن المدرب هانز فليك تلقى غرامة مالية قدرها 20 ألف يورو، وتم إيقافه مباراة واحدة على الصعيد الأوروبي، لخرقه المبادئ العامة للسلوك، والقواعد الأساسية للسلوك اللائق، وكذلك مساعده ماركوس سورج.

كذلك تلقى برشلونة غرامة مالية قدرها 5250 يورو بتهمة إلقاء أشياء خلال المباراة نفسها، ضد إنتر ميلان، إلى جنب 2500 يورو لإشعال ألعاب نارية.

وستُطبق كافة العقوبات فورًا، مما يعني غياب هانز فليك ومساعده عن أول مباراة لـ برشلونة في مرحلة الدوري من دوري أبطال أوروبا، 2025/26.

England opener says tour in early 2024 will be “amazing opportunity” for Brendon McCullum’s side

Matt Roller03-Aug-20232:26

Will James Anderson be involved in India next year?

A five-match series in India presents England with “an amazing opportunity” to test themselves – and their swashbuckling approach with the bat – in different conditions, according to Zak Crawley.England have a six-month break until their next Test match, which starts in Hyderabad on January 25. They struggled badly against India’s spinners on their most recent tour in early 2021, losing three consecutive Tests by heavy margins on turning pitches after winning the first game of the series.Crawley, who played two Tests in the 2021 series and made 67 runs, said that the unexpected choice of venues for the tour meant England were journeying into the unknown – but said that they will be equipped for any challenge, whether the ball seams or spins.Related

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“I don’t really know much about their grounds,” Crawley said, after England’s win in the fifth Ashes Test. “Sometimes in India it seams and swings a bit – and they’ve got unbelievable seamers – so hopefully there are a couple of pitches there that are like that as well, that will suit us a bit more.”But if it’s spinning, I feel like we play spin really well as well. We’ll just have to adapt, see what we get. But they are pretty unknown grounds – I don’t know if they’re going to be raggers like Ahmedabad and Chennai, where we were last time.”Ben Stokes laughed off a question about whether England’s attacking style could work in India during his post-match press conference at The Oval, listing off all the previous occasions that his side had overcome doubts about their ability against other teams. “Who knows if we can do it against India?” he said, suppressing a laugh. “Only time will tell.”

Can Bazball work in India?

Stokes: pic.twitter.com/ixwn1MnJsU

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) August 1, 2023