Football News: Australia Announces Hiddink As Chelsea Manager While Manchester United's Martial Is The New Golden Boy

Image from: horyalada.com

1. Aussies jump the gun
The Football Federation of Australia (FFA) announced the appointment of Guus Hiddink as Chelsea interim manager on both their official website and official Twitter feed, before any appointment was confirmed by the club. On its website, Football Federation Australia stated: "Guus Hiddink has taken temporary charge at struggling EPL giant Chelsea after the club announced they'd sacked coach Jose Mourinho overnight following the club's disastrous run in the English Premier League." The official Socceroos Twitter feed announced: "Our former boss has taken charge at ChelseaFC - Good luck Guus!" Mateja Kezman has also said that Hiddink told him that he would be the caretaker manager.

2. Demba Ba admits playing for Jose is exhausting
Former Chelsea striker Demba Ba has revealed that playing in a Jose Mourinho team is very tiring, due to the way he pushes them all the time. Ba also claims that Jose will not help a player suffering a confidence crisis, he will just turn to someone who has that confidence. In the interview, with French radio station RMC, Ba also admitted that Mourinho does not handle defeat well.

3. Scolari overly optimistic
Luiz Felipe Scolari is currently coaching in Chinese football, with Club World Cup challengers, Guangzhou Evergrande, until they were knocked out by Barcelona due to a Luis Suarez hat-trick, so he could be seen as either well-placed to comment, or having to talk up its merits. Whichever way you see it, there is no doubt that his estimates of the future strength of Chinese football is laughable. Scolari has claimed that it is on track to being world-class within five years. Football in China has made major strides, but it is hindered by the weakness of Asian football in general, it will take a lot longer than 5 years for it to become world class.

4. Zimbabwe sack head coach
The Zimbabwe Football Association has sacked the national team's head coach, Kalisto Pasuwa and disbanded the team's training camp just a month before the African Nations Championship begins. Pasuwa had been working without a contract and had also not been paid for five months. Despite this, he was unbeaten in six and had managed to qualify the U-23s for the African Games. Joey Antipas, who had won the 2015 league title with Chicken Inn FC, was named as his replacement.

5. Columbus Crew take their third partner in three years
For the third consecutive year Columbus Crew SC of the MLS have been forced to find a new partner in the USL. Previously partnered with Dayton and Austin, Crew have now joined forces with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, in an affiliate partnership which allows the MLS side to loan the USL side players from its roster for development purposes.

6. Shock as Carroll injured for a change
West Ham United have been hit by a shock injury to their big frontman Andy Carroll. Just days after WWE star HHH claimed the former Liverpool and Newcastle United striker could make it as a wrestler, he has picked up an injury. The not so divine ponytail will now miss the Swansea City trip. This is just his 300th injury in the last couple of seasons, no wonder he is being touted for the WWE with such toughness.

7. Hammers added to rich list
The London School of Marketing has released a list of the 20 most valuable football clubs, with eight English clubs making it onto the list.
1. Real Madrid - £2.07bn
2. Manchester United - £2.05bn
3. Barcelona - £2.007bn
4. Manchester City - £2bn
5. Bayern Munich - £1.492m
6. Chelsea - £870m
7. Arsenal - £832m
8. Liverpool - £624m
9. Juventus - £531m
10. AC Milan - £492m
11. Borussia Dortmund - £445m
12. Paris St Germain - £403m
13. Tottenham - £381m
14. FC Schalke - £363m
15. Inter Milan - £279m
16. Atletico Madrid - £277m
17. Napoli - £224m
18. Newcastle United - £222m
19. West Ham United - £196m
20. Galatasaray - £187m

8. San Antonio advance MLS plans
With the MLS looking to expand, San Antonio City Council approved the purchase of Toyota Field, in order to prepare for basing an MLS team there. In partnership with Spurs Sports and Entertainment (SSE), who own and operate the San Antonio Spurs NBA team, as well as other sports teams, the city are looking to expand and enhance the facilities with the intention of basing an MLS franchise there to be run by SSE.

9. Martial is the new Golden Boy
Since 2003, an award has been given, by sports journalists, to a young player under the age of 21 playing in a top flight of a European nation. This year's winner has been named as Manchester United forward Anthony Martial. The future success of previous winners has been mixed, with the likes of Rafael van der Vaart, the first winner while playing for Ajax, Wayne Rooney in 2004, also at Manchester United at the time, Lionel Messi 2005, Barcelona, Cesc Fabregas 2006, Arsenal and Sergio Aguero 2007, Atletico Madrid, the picks all went on to have successful careers. 2008 saw Manchester United's Brazilian midfielder Anderson win it, another Brazilian, Alexandre Pato of AC Milan and Italy's then Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli in 2010 have all struggled to come close to living up to their potential. Martial joins Mario Gotze (Borussia Dortmund), Isco (Malaga), Paul Pogba (Juventus) and Raheem Sterling (Liverpool) as young players with huge potential, but which way will their careers go?

10. I-League failure means ISL merger should be held off
Former India captain Baichung Bhutia, who works as an advisor to All India Football Federation, has admitted that the Indian League's failings have led to the emergence of the Indian Super League (ISL). The I-League was India's first attempt to professionalise league football within the sub-continent. While it has flopped, it did succeed in leading to the ISL being created to take a different approach to professional football in India. Now there is discussion of the merits of merging the two competitions to create one professional football league. Bhutia suggests that the ISL needs more time to establish itself and increase the percentage of Indian players in the teams, before the merger should take place.

Written by Tris Burke December 19 2015 07:31:24