Ronaldinho Finally Sign For Milan

Ronaldinho has agreed initial terms with AC Milan and the Serie A club will now speak to Barcelona about a deal, Milan and the player's agent have said.

The 28-year-old Brazilian has had a difficult few months at the Nou Camp because of injury and loss of form and a move has long been mooted.

The forward is out for the rest of the campaign with a leg injury and a transfer can not officially go through until the end of the season.

'In general Ronaldinho and Milan are in agreement,' his agent and brother Roberto de Assis was quoted as saying on the Gazzetta dello Sport website on Saturday.

Gazzetta said a deal up to 2012 worth eight million euros ($12.6 million) a year was in the pipeline with a few clauses to be agreed.

Milan chief executive Adriano Galliani said: 'There is a general agreement with the player. Now a deal has to be reached with Barcelona. Give us time.'

Spanish and Italian media reports have speculated about a transfer fee of between 20 and 30 million euros while some newspapers have talked about Ronaldinho buying up the rest of his contract at Barca.

Milan are fifth in Serie A and in danger of missing next year's Champions League after a poor season. They were dumped out of this year's Champions League as holders by Arsenal in the first knockout round.

Carlo Ancelotti's men have struggled to score and create goals with Brazilian Ronaldo playing just a handful of games before being ruled out long term with a knee injury.

Fellow striker Alberto Gilardino has been lacklustre and world player of the year Kaka has been far from his best.

Despite their troubles, Ancelotti has been assured of his job next term.

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Cesc: To Beat Kaka Would Be Fab

Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas spoke about the Milan game, and what it would mean to him if they were to beat Milan. He also stated that he wants to spend the rest of his career at the North London club.

Very Happy Here

Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN, the Spanish international revealed that he has not yet entered discussions about extending his contract beyond its current expiry date but will only leave if he is no longer wanted at the club.

"I am very happy, everything is going well, I have got friends in the club," said the 20-year-old .
"I like the life and I am comfortable with the fans. If they don't want me here, then of course I would like to go back to Spain.

"But if the club wants me and the boss thinks I still can give a lot to the club, then I will stay here. I will be here for as long as they want me."

Wenger Ties Me To Arsenal

Fabregas, who was snatched from Barcelona's youth program in 2003, also said that manager Arsene Wenger was one of the main reasons for him wanting to stay.

"He has an eye to catch young players that he wants in the future, and that is something special," said Fabregas. "I have always been grateful for what he has done for me, what he has done for the club and I feel very lucky to be working under him."

Football Faster Than In Spain

In addition to this, he also highlighted the atmospheres of Premier League stadiums and the fast, attacking nature of the football as crucial factors in his love of the English game.

"Whenever you watch a football game here you can see the passion," he said.
"Even if the two lowest teams in the league are playing you can feel the passion. They always try to go forward, even if the game maybe technically is not the best you can feel they go to win.
"In Spain everything is slower and sometimes it takes 20 minutes to see something happen. But of course technically the Spanish league is very, very good."

Title Challenge

As for the Premier League title, Fabregas sounded a note of caution.
"We have to try to play nice football - not beautiful football, but football that really enables us to win. The fans believe in us and we are quite confident we can do it, but there is still a long way to go."

Beating Kaka And Pirlo Would Be Special

Inevitably, also spoke about this week's Champions League clash against holders AC Milan.
"We are all looking forward to it because it will be a very difficult game," he admitted.
"Everybody says they are not doing well in the league, but this kind of team can kill you in one second. They have massive players like Kaka and Andrea Pirlo - we have to be careful, but I still think we have a good chance."

"To beat a team that contains Kaka and Pirlo would be special for me," he continued.
"They are two of the best players in the world. We must pay close attention to them as they can hurt us. It’s important to cancel them out. If we do this, Milan will have problems.”

Ronaldo To End Career ????

AC Milan striker Ronaldo is fearful he may have to retire after rupturing a tendon in his left knee, claims club owner Silvio Berlusconi.
The 31-year-old Brazilian was carried off in tears after suffering the injury against Livorno on Wednesday and is now set for an operation in France.

"He fears for his career," Berlusconi told Italy's RAI TV.

"I called him last evening and told him to believe in himself. He has enormous physical potential."

Ronaldo is expected to see Gerard Saillant, the same surgeon who treated him for a similar injury to his right knee in 2000.

"As a 31-year-old, he's very young," added Berlusconi of the Brazilian.

"He has an extraordinary physique, and I think within a few months he could return to being the champion that we all know him as."

The striker faces up to nine months on the sidelines after rupturing a tendon in his left knee.

"I don't want to say it's the end of his career because only time can decide - all we can do is stand by him," said Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti.

Milan face Premier League leaders Arsenal in the first leg of their last 16 Champions League tie on Wednesday 21 February.

Ronaldo, who is out of contract at the end of the season, suffered the same injury in his right knee in November 1999.

He lasted seven minutes on his comeback in April 2000 before taking another 20 months to make a full recovery.

Ancelotti said the whole club was worried about the Brazilian, who was named Fifa world player of the year three times and is the record scorer in World Cup finals.

"We're all very sorry and worried about what happened to Ronaldo," Ancelotti added.

"Our players all left the stadium in a hurry to go to the hospital to check on his condition, I think that's the right way to stand by a player who's suffering."

Ronaldo fell awkwardly while challenging for a ball in the air with Jose Vidigal, shortly after replacing Alberto Gilardino in the second half.

"I heard a horrible sound, like a bang, it was a strange sound," said Livorno goalkeeper Marco Amelia, who was close by when Ronaldo fell to the ground.

Pato lives up to the hype

Actual football beats transfer speculation by so much it's ridiculous, so the restart of the Serie A season could not come soon enough.

Although Italians fans who subscribe to Sky Sports Italia will have had their festive fill of football with the dozen or so English Premier League matches the broadcaster aired; most of them bearing the distinctive characteristic of actual fans filling the background on all angles of camera shots.


Sadly the same thing can't be said about Italian grounds, where an early-season upward trend in attendance was followed, right after the November 11 riots following the fatal shooting of a Lazio fan by a police patrolman, by yet another decrease, although statistics are still incomplete.

That sound you heard in the background during the prolonged Christmas holidays for Serie A teams was the incessant hype machine touting the division's hottest new arrival, Brazilian budding superstar Alexandre Pato, who signed for Milan last summer but has only been eligible to play for the Rossoneri since the turn of the year.

Having spent the better part of 22 million euros to get him, Milan clung to him, or better yet the idea of him, like ivy.

In fact, it is well known that once Carlo Ancelotti's side started the season so poorly, falling way behind local rivals Inter in the title race while keeping a reasonable form in the Champions League, the official mantra was that Milan's season would not take shape or meaning until the World Championship for Clubs in mid-December.

To their credit the Rossoneri won and then bolstered their apparent resurgence by propogating stories that Pato had reportedly been doing terrific stuff in training.

While it would not be particularly helpful to know Pato's performances in midweek had raised Ancelotti's eyebrows, since the affable coach seems to wear a permanent mask of calm bewilderment, you have to sit up and take notice when some of the veterans in the side, among them Paolo Maldini, praise the newly arrived youngster, predicting a bright future for him.

This near Patolog... er, pathological anticipation of the young Brazilian's arrival on the big scene was finally dissolved on Sunday night when Pato made his debut for Milan in the home clash with Napoli.

The scene had been set: with a typical disdain for rationality and meteorological history, the match had been brought back from 3pm to 8.30pm - just what the doctor ordered for a mid-January match in cold Northern Italy - and with the rest of the Serie A program already completed, all eyes were going to be set upon Milan, Pato's debut and Ronaldo's return.

For once, the result met the anticipation, as Milan won 5-2, breaking their season-long winless streak at the San Siro in the Serie A, and Pato scored his first Italian goal with a coolly-taken strike 16 minutes from the end: running under a long pass/clearance by Massimo Ambrosini, the Brazilian trapped the ball and cut inside defender Maurizio Domizzi in one darting move, then placed the ball under advancing keeper Gennaro Iezzo, who had left the ground in anticipation of Pato lifting the ball over him.

A great piece of skill which left Pato on the brink of tears and sent headline writers, not to mention pun bandits, on a frenzy: many significant Italian words end with the four letters 'pato' and one can only wonder what will be next.

Although an impressive amount of triviality seems already to have been injected by hyperventilating newspapers in Milan's new approach to the season with the inevitable moniker for the Rossoneri's strike force, Ka-Pa-Ro (Kaka-Pato-Ronaldo), a reminiscence of the glorious Gre-No-Li (Gren-Nordahl-Liedholm) of the early Fifties.

Somehow, the new version lacks the aura and pomposity of the older one, and looks downright stupid to me. But then I do not have to influence readers.

What Milan's win means for the future is difficult to fathom, at the moment.

Last year, the Rossoneri's run to the Champions League final and to third place in Serie A was launched during the winter break, when the squad spent a few days training in the warmer surroundings of Malta.

At the time, Milan were already out of the Serie A title race, not least because they had started the season with a eight-point penalty following their involvement in the Calciopoli scandal: their immediate goal was to climb the table upto fourth place and automatic Champions League participation, but a few weeks after the Malta camp Carlo Ancelotti was facing another test of his coaching skills when Milan announced the signing of Ronaldo from Real Madrid.

Having already played in Europe with the Spanish side, Ronaldo was at once Cup-tied but vital to Milan's season, and Ancelotti basically had to draw up two different versions of the same team, one for domestic competition, one for Europe.

Mission accomplished on both fronts, as Ronaldo's goals - seven in 14 matches - lifted the Rossoneri to fourth place, while some great Champions League nights saw Milan advance to the final and eventually beat Liverpool in Athens to lift the European Cup for the seventh time.

Given the long tradition of superstitions that has always resided in footbal, it is not difficult to see why this year's break in the sun, this time in Dubai, was also seen as the panacea for most of the troubles Milan had seen in their path during the first half of the season.

And the grand manner which the Rossoneri dispatched Napoli, overcoming their own shortcomings in midfield and defence with an exciting display of attacking football, may also encourage comparisons with last year.

Ancelotti will have his work cut out again, though. The 4-3-1-2 formation used on Sunday, with Pato partnering Ronaldo up front and Kakà exploiting the space behind them, means Clarence Seedorf has to revert to being a midfielder, alongside Andrea Pirlo and Ambrosini (or Rino Gattuso).

Seedorf, one of the most vocal and influential members of the team, has already, discreetly but gently expressed his displeasure at leaving what he believes - with some evidence - to be his better position, alongside Kakà in a 4-3-2-1, and only a successful run of results will keep others whose place in the side may be under threat, like Alberto Gilardino, happy.

The irony of this all?

While Ronaldo, Kakà and Pato were stretching Napoli's defence, Inter were already on their way home, having overcome the winter-break syndrome which can affect sides returning from the Christmas holidays with a comfortable lead at the top.

Their win in Siena followed a familiar pattern: once ahead, albeit on a questionable penalty, Inter let their guard down for a moment, allowing Massimo Maccarone to equalise, then shifted gears as they've so often done and coasted home, their skill and physical superiority too much for Siena to deal with.

The introduction of Pato along with Ronaldo's surprising recovery from an apparently endless stream of injuries, should result in a better second half of the season for Milan.

But ironically the onus seems to be on Inter, for some time the better side, to prove their real worth in the Serie A, by increasing their already comfortable seven-point lead over Roma, and in Europe, by outlasting their rivals and getting their hands to the trophy after an awesome 43-year hiatus.

Forgive me for the cliché, but one swallow - or duck, the English translation for Pato - does not make a summer, but it could still make a season, and an interesting one, at that.