Though famed for his grace and elegance as a player, Zinedine Zidane apparently has other priorities as a coach, after he made brawny, bustling Finnish striker Eero Markkanen his first signing for Real Madrid’s B team on Wednesday.
Now boss of the UEFA Champions League winners’ “Castilla” reserve side, Zidane sought out the relatively unknown Finn and bought him from Swedish club AIK Stockholm, where his six goals in 14 appearances were enough to convince one of the game’s greats that he is worth a gamble.
“Coming to AIK was a dream come true,” Markkanen said in a statement issued by AIK announcing the move. “Thanks to hard work, my teammates, [AIK coach] Mr Alm and his coaching staff —another dream is now coming true.”
Photo: EPA
No details of the transfer fee have been released.
Unheralded when he joined the Stockholm club from Finland’s JJK Jyvaskyla, Markkanen was only six months into a three-year contract at AIK when Castilla came calling.
For the 23-year-old Finn, who has one cap for his country, the move marks the latest stage in a meteoric rise, but that Markkanen, who makes the most of his 197cms to dominate in the air, is so different to his new mentor, offers an intriguing insight into the mind of Zidane the coach.
Asked how the France legend became aware of Markkanen, an AIK staff member said: “No one knows. Apparently, Zidane went to the sporting director of Madrid with a DVD of Eero and said: ‘I want this guy.’”
Having signed a four-year deal, Markkanen will now come under the watchful eye of the FIFA World Cup winner with France, who played for Real from 2001 until his retirement in 2006.
As Zidane transitions from Real manager Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant, to being the man calling the shots, it remains to be seen if he can replicate his success on the pitch from the Castilla dugout.
Just as Zidane saw passes on the field that no one else did, he may have noticed something in Markkanen that others missed.
In other transfer news, Barcelona on Wednesday said they have bought 30-year-old Valencia defender Jeremy Mathieu for 20 million euros (US$27 million), with a buyout clause of 50 million euros.
Barcelona have been seeking to bolster their defense since veteran Carlos Puyol retired.
Though he is not an established France international, Mathieu is recognized as a powerful operator at leftback and in central defense.
The Catalan club had made several offers to Valencia for Mathieu, who last week issued a public letter calling on los Che to negotiate his release.
“I have a chance to play for the world’s biggest club and that’s all I want right now,” he said.
Barca said in a statement that Mathieu will sign a four-season contract. The previous day, the club sold striker Bojan Krkic to Premier League side Stoke City for an undisclosed fee.
Bojan, 23, has penned a four-year contract with the Potters and becomes their fifth signing of the summer, Mame Biram Diouf, Steve Sidwell, Phil Bardsley and Dionatan Teixeira.
Stoke boss Mark Hughes told the club’s Web site: “Anyone who knows European football will be aware of him [Bojan] as a player and the fact that he sees his future at Stoke City is really exciting and an endorsement of the club itself. He’s desperate to prove himself in the Premier League and we’re pleased to be able to offer him that platform.”
Bojan was expected to fly out to Germany to join his new teammates, including former Barca defender Marc Muniesa, at Stoke’s pre-season training camp.
Bojan, capped once by Spain, came up through the Barca academy and scored 41 goals in 163 appearances for the first team before joining AS Roma in 2011.
After failing to leave a lasting impression there he was sent on loan to AC Milan and spent last year on loan at Dutch giants Ajax and helped the Amsterdam club secure a record 33rd Eredivisie title.
Elsewhere on the Spanish transfer market, Granada agreed a deal with Primeira Liga side Porto for Algeria international Yacine Brahimi, the Portuguese side announced on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old French-born attacking midfielder has agreed a five-season 6.5 million euro deal with a 50 million euro buyout clause, the club said.
Brahimi played up to Under-21 level for France before switching to Algeria.
Capped seven times, he impressed at the just concluded World Cup in Brazil, where he scored his first international goal to help Algeria reach the second round of the tournament for the first time.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier