Goals have a miraculous tendency for clearing any criticism that had preceded them; they’re the perfect antidote to any negative (and forcefully put forward) observations. Goals have lifted Eder from one club to another as his never faltering strike rate attracted ever bigger clubs until, this season he was asked to prove his worth at the highest stage of Italian football. And a goal is how he answered his latest round of critics, those who […]
During the last fortnight, Shakhtar Donetsk have been touring Brazil, playing winter break friendlies with Serie A sides Flamengo, Atlético Mineiro, Internacional, Cruzeiro and recently relegated Bahia. With 14 Brazilians currently listed in their first team squad, this was a literal homecoming for a significant portion of the Shakhtar squad. For no player was this slight return more spiritually nourishing than for Bernard Duarte. His move to the Ukraine has been difficult from the very […]
There is something undeniably romantic in a story of a young player plucked from anonymity by a big club. This is partly because such stories happen so rarely but mostly it is because it is easy for the rest of us to identify with such a player; to want him to succeed and prove that perhaps there is latent talent in all of us if only someone bothered to look close enough. It is why […]