Impact confident even if artificial turf may keep Drogba out of key game in Orlando

Didier Drogba is a question mark for a key game at Orlando City on Saturday, but the Montreal Impact have been getting positive results lately no matter who is in the lineup.

It has yet to be determined if Drogba will play because Orlando's Citrus Bowl has artificial turf, which would be hard on the 37-year-old's knees.

"He's not comfortable playing on artificial turf," coach Mauro Biello said Wednesday. "He hasn't played on it throughout his career.

"We'll probably have a training session on artificial turf (on Thursday) just to get ourselves accustomed to the ball and the bounce and then train again Friday on (Orlando's) turf and then make a decision based on that."

Former Chelsea star Drogba, who joined the Impact in mid-season, has seven goals and an assist in six Major League Soccer games and has helped the team get on a six-game unbeaten run.

Orlando players like Canadian Cyle Larin, who set the MLS rookie scoring record of 14 this week with a hat-trick against the New York Red Bulls, said they were looking forward to facing a boyhood idol, but they may not get that chance.

Either way, the Impact is a confident team of late, coming off a sweep of three home games after a pair of draws on the west coast. One of them, a 1-1 tie at San Jose, was without Drogba and several other veterans in the lineup.

"Every game we play now we play with the mentality to win," said midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker. "That's the mentality you have to have in a championship-winning dressing room.

"We don't go in looking for a draw. There are different scenarios that might pop up, but we go in looking for wins."

The Impact (12-11-6) hold the sixth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, four points up on seventh-place Orlando with two games in hand. Orlando will be eliminated if they lose to Montreal, while a draw would also put them in deep trouble.

Drogba's two goals in a 2-0 victory over D.C. United On Saturday earned him MLS player of the week honours for the second time this month. He and Reo-Coker were picked for the MLS team of the week.

Reo-Coker, 31, has come alive since returning to the starting 11 when Biello replaced the fired Frank Klopas after an Aug. 29 loss in Toronto.

The former West Brom and Aston Villa midfielder was a regular until he fell out of Klopas' favour in late June. He was on the bench for 10 matches until the coaching switch, but has played in all of the last six games, five as a starter.

"I haven't paid too much attention to my individual performances," said Reo-Coker. "For us, it's a team effort.

"That's something Mauro implemented as soon as he took charge, that we're nothing without one another. It's the same throughout the team."

Reo-Coker began his MLS career in 2013 with the Vancouver Whitecaps but was traded in August, 2014 to Chivas USA, who folded after last season. Montreal got the former England under-21 captain with the first pick in the waiver draft.

In the Impact's last outing, Biello used a 4-3-3 formation with Marco Donadel just behind Reo-Coker and Patrice Bernier to shore up the defence and start the attack.

"A lot of people were surprised at that formation, seeing the three old men with crutches in the middle of the park," said Reo-Coker. "For three old men I thought we did OK.

"It makes the team very solid defensively and at the same time we managed to get up and create some chances."

Champions League - What hype are the Spanish teams in the draw of Champions?

Barcelona, ​​European champions will be the only Spanish team that will be among the top seeds in the draw for the Champions League on Thursday. Real Madrid contained in Pot 2 with Atletico Madrid and Valencia. Sevilla goes to hype ranking number 3 after Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen.

The Forum Grimaldi of Monaco will host on Thursday at 17:45 the historic draw for the group stage of the Champions League in which for the first time there will be five Spanish teams.

We explain what the draw to give you an idea of ​​the rivals who could face the Spanish teams.

Pot 1, the seedings

The system for designating the seedings has changed already this season and will not be the eight teams with the best UEFA coefficient seedings, but eight major champions league.

The seedings will be Barcelona , Chelsea , Bayern Munich, Juventus , Benfica , Paris Saint Germain, Zenit St Petersburg and PSV Eindhoven.

Pot 2, the Spanish

The Real Madrid will be in Pot 2 next to Atletico Madrid and Valencia and teams like Porto , Arsenal and Manchester City .

Teams in the hype, by order of the coefficient: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Porto, Arsenal, Manchester United , Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester City.

Drums 3 and 4

For the composition of the remaining drums shall address itself to the UEFA coefficient.

Pot 3: Shakhtar Donetsk and Sevilla as top teams. Also: Olympique Lyon, Dynamo Kiev, Olympiakos, CSKA Moscow, Galatasaray and AS Roma.

Pot 4: BATE Borisov, Borussia Moenchengladbach, Wolfsburg, Dinamo Zagreb , Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Gent, Malmoe and Astana .

Ronaldinho failed at Fluminense, but pocketed US $ 222,000 per game

Ronaldinho did not convince the Fluminense fan for even a second. In bad physical and technical form, the player wore the team shirt for only nine games, was booed in at least half of duels and preferred to leave. The failure in the field, however, does not match the money that came into the checking account of the now former number 10 Tricolor.

With salary of $ 800,000, Ronaldinho received the Fluminense R $ 2 million by the time he attended the Orange - made the first practice on July 27 after a few days of vacation. In the nine games that defended the club, the number 10 gave no assistance and did not score goal.

554 minutes in which the player played for Fluminense in official games were not good. Far from it. But earned the player R $ 3,610 every 60 seconds or R $ 222 thousand per duel.

In a statement, explaining the output of Ronaldinho, Fluminense was keen to stress that the player up to expectations off the field. According to the club, there was marketing return, although there has been no specific action with the athlete unless their presentation at the Maracana before the derby against Vasco.

"It should be noted that hiring to expectations regarding the marketing return, increasing storage with box office sales of shirts and number of partners. The Ronaldinho option also showed Brazil to Fluminense arouses the interest of the greatest players in world football" said Fluminense in a statement.

The hiring of Ronaldinho for Fluminense was designed and implemented by the football vice Mario Bittencourt, who was pressed with the failure of the player.The Tricolor was fighting for the top positions but production fell after the arrival of the shirt 10. The drop in the rating reflected very badly internally. The want was to be the 'extra step' to also advocate Flu, he has become a big nightmare.

Belmonte wins 1,500 free on their return

Mireia Belmonte (UCAM Fuensanta) returned after more than 200 days and did not compete with the test victory in the 1,500 meters of the Championships of Spain winter, which began Friday in Gijon .

Belmonte, who did not compete in pool since I did on May 2 in the Cup of Spain of clubs, had to give up World of Kazan by painful problems in their shoulders.

 Fred Vergnoux pupil tries to check their status on these national short course. In its first test, the longest of the program, won with 15: 46.64, ahead of Maria Vilas (15: 53.36) and Bea Gómez (15: 56.42).

10 scorers in the history of the Champions League

If Cristiano Ronaldo is now far ahead of the best scorers in the history of the Champions League, Karim Benzema made a grand entrance into the top 10.
Since they exceeded both the legend Raul last year, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are engaged in a struggle without thank you for the honorary title of top scorer in the history of the Champions League. Tuesday night is Cristiano Ronaldo who has struck a blow by taking three steps ahead of the Pulga, thanks to a hat-trick achieved Shakhtar Donetsk face.

But it is not the only novelty of the top 10 scorers in the history of the Champions League by UEFA held. Now, amid van Nistelrooy, Drogba, Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry and Shevchenko now appears Karim Benzema. The French international striker fact, at age 28, he entered the prestigious top 10, with its registered goal against Donetsk on Tuesday evening. The former Lyon scores a goal from Alessandro Del Piero and more equal the total Parisien Zlatan Ibrahimovic, namely 43 goals.

Against AS Roma tonight for his 100th appearance C1, Lionel Messi will have the opportunity to return to his longtime rival Cristiano Ronaldo. One thing is certain, this top 10 has not finished changing during this new season of Champions League, enough to bring a little spice to the most prestigious European competitions.

Top scorers in the Champions League (in the group stage to final):

1 Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United, Real Madrid) 80 goals in 119 matches

2. Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona) 77 goals in 99 matches

3 Raúl González (Real Madrid, Schalke 04) 71 goals in 142 matches

4- Ruud van Nistelrooy (PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United, Real Madrid) 56 goals in 73 matches

5- Thierry Henry (AS Monaco, Arsenal, Barcelona) 50 goals in 112 matches

6- Andriy Shevchenko (AC Milan, Chelsea, Dynamo Kiev) 48 goals in 100 matches

7- Alfredo Di Stéfano (Real Madrid) 46 goals in nc

8- Filippo Inzaghi (Juventus, AC Milan) 46 goals in 81 matches

9- Didier Drogba (Marseille, Galatasaray AŞ, Chelsea FC) 44 goals in 92 matches

10 - Karim Benzema (Olympique Lyonnais Real Madrid) 43 goals in 73 matches

10- Zlatan Ibrahimović (Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, FC Barcelona, ​​AC Milan, PSG) 43 goals in 109 matches

PSV - Manchester United

English teams naturally are stronger than Dutch teams. Depay was the best player for PSV last season, now he is just one of many top players in this Man Utd team.

It would be easy to plump for an away win and I think that is the most likely outcome.

But in terms of motivation, both sides will certainly be up for this having been out of the competition for some time.

Rooney is out, but that is not a big miss, since he was playing like **** anyway. Hopefully it will be Martial as a striker and not Fellaini again.

LVG said a draw would be fine but I still feel United will create a few chances, it's just a matter of taking them.

The defence has been really solid, Schneiderlin didn't play at the weekend so he'll play today, and he makes the whole team much more solid. De Gea is back which is huge. I doubt United are going to concede.

There is value in a United win, that's for sure. This team is only going to get better.

I'm biased, but United to win is a decent bet. Well I am pretty sure Manchester United will win this match. The Red Devils are much stronger than PSV and even they haven't played really well against Liverpool I think the odd of 2.20 contains value. PSV isn't very strong atm and I think we will see the same difference in quality as against Club Brugge. Maybe not a 0-4, but at least a 1-2 / 1-3.

Possible starting lineups:

PSV: Zoet – Willems, Isimat-Mirin, Bruma, Arias – Guardado, Hendrix, Pröpper – Narsingh, Lestienne, de Jong. (4-3-3)

Manchester United: De Gea – Darmian, Smalling, Blind, Shaw – Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin – Mata, Herrera, Depay – Fellaini. (4-2-3-1)

Referee: Nicola Rizzoli from Italy.

September 14, 2015 - Peter Michalski