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Brazilian wonderkid Vitor Roque is finally on his way to Barcelona as he is set to join the team later this month.

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Date of Roque's arrival in Barcelona revealedRoque to play final Athletico Paranaense game on December 7Will attend first training session on December 28WHAT HAPPENED?

Barcelona confirmed the signing of the player in January 2023 but he was supposed to join in the summer of 2024. The club later decided to speed things up and will now welcome him to the team for the remainder of the 2023-24 season. Roque will play his final Athletico Paranaense match on December 7 against Cuiaba and will then arrive at Barcelona on December 27, according to .

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The report further suggests that the Catalan giants will take a short Christmas break after their clash against Almeria on December 20 and will resume training again on December 28. Roque is expected to reach Barcelona on December 27 and will have his first training session with the club a day later.

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Barca will have to register Roque as soon as he joins the club's training session. They initially did not have enough salary space to accommodate a new player in their squad but now that Gavi has been ruled out of action for the remainder of the season, as per La Liga rules, 80 per cent of the midfielder's salary, approximately €5 million, can be used to register the Brazilian for six months.

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WHAT NEXT FOR BARCELONA?

Xavi's men, who are currently fourth in La Liga and four points behind league leaders Real Madrid, are set to face Atletico Madrid in a crucial fixture on Sunday.

Jude Bellingham has reportedly sacked his personal chef at Real Madrid after being left "unimpressed" by his food preparation.

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Bellingham fires club-recommended chefAlberto Mastromatteo had previously served Karim BenzemaEnglish midfielder 'unimpressed' despite his superb Real formWHAT HAPPENED?

The English midfielder might be enjoying life on the pitch at the Santiago Bernabeu right now, but he still has some complaints when it comes to the food he is be given off it.

According to Bellingham has shown the door to Alberto Mastromatteo, the personal chef appointed to him by the club, who previously managed the diet of Karim Benzema in the Spanish capital.

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Following an extensive discussion with his mother, Bellingham decided to sack Mastromatteo as he was left "unimpressed" with the preparations of the chef. Now, the 20-year-old midfielder is actively seeking a replacement chef to manage his dietary requirements.

DID YOU KNOW?

Bellingham flew to England during the Christmas break and was spotted checking on his younger brother, Jobe, when he was in action against Coventry City at the Stadium of Light with Sunderland, and also made it to the stands at Hull City on Boxing Day as the Black Cats came out on top with a 1-0 win. Before flying back to Spain, he also tried his hand at cricket and darts as 16-year-old sensation Luke Littler grips the UK.

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Bellingham has returned to Madrid and is gearing up to add to his tally of 22 goal contributions in 21 appearances for Madrid across competition when Los Blancos host Mallorca on Wednesday. Real currently sit top of the La Liga table on goal difference ahead of surprise package Girona.

UP were undefeated in the group stages last season, and then fell at the first knockout hurdle

Vishal Dikshit06-Nov-2013Where they finished last time Uttar Pradesh topped Group B last year without losing a match. Their successful run was ended by Services in the quarter-finals.RP Singh has played only one first-class match in nearly two years•Associated PressBig PictureUP started the 2012-13 season with a bang, beating Delhi, who featured all the big stars – Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli, Ashish Nehra and Ishant Sharma. Two draws later, they handed Baroda a 10-wicket loss and after another two draws, thrashed Tamil Nadu by 195 runs.But they fell in the first knockout, to a spirited Services side. Much of their success came courtesy Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who took 27 wickets in six games at an average of 20. This year it is likely they will have to cope without him for long periods, when he is away on India duty.Openers Tanmay Srivastava and Mukul Dagar had prolific seasons but the middle order couldn’t always build on their platforms. Parvinder Singh righted some of that imbalance when he started scoring in the second half of the season. His recent hundred in the draw against the touring West Indians will give him and the team confidence, along with the wickets taken by RP Singh and Piyush Chawla.RP Singh missed the previous Ranji season with injury but looks “extremely fit” this year, coach Venkatesh Prasad said. Praveen Kumar, though, is out for a couple of months with a shoulder injury. While the pace attack has other promising options such as Imtiaz Ahmed and Ankit Rajpoot, UP’s spin hopes will rest with Chawla and left-arm spinner Ali Murtaza, who didn’t enjoy much success last season.Players to watchThe team will be led by Suresh Raina, who has frequently reiterated his desire to play Test cricket. For that, though, he is not making the kind of impact he should in long-format matches. He averaged 33.77 from 10 innings last Ranji season. With India soon heading off on overseas tours in tough conditions, he’ll need a truckload of runs for UP to get the selector’s attention. The retirement of Sachin Tendulkar will open up a spot in the middle order, but can Raina put himself in contention?In the absence of Bhuvneshwar and Praveen Kumar, and RP Singh having played only one first-class match in nearly two years, there will be plenty of expectations on UP’s relatively unheralded pair of quicks, Imtiaz Ahmed and Ankit Rajpoot. While Imtiaz was their most impressive bowler through the season, Rajpoot made headlines in only seven outings with 31 wickets at an average of 18.80.Click here for the full squad.

Tim Ambrose, the former England wicketkeeper, has revealed his battle against depression that almost ended his professional career

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Sep-2012Tim Ambrose, the former England wicketkeeper, has revealed his battle against depression that almost ended his professional career.Ambrose, 29, who played 11 Tests , five ODIs and a T20 for England, has spoken openly about achieving his life-long ambition of playing international cricket was followed by him losing “all direction” and believing his career was over in 2010.”I was awake 24 hours a day, with things going around in my head,” he told the . “I was beyond miserable. It felt like I had this duvet that was soaking wet wrapped around me, and I couldn’t get it off.”Ambrose made his debut for England against New Zealand in 2007-08 and began very successfully with 55 in his first Test at Hamilton followed by a maiden century in the next match at Wellington which helped England level the series. He played 10 consecutive Tests before being dropped after the 2008 series against South Africa and only played once more, against West Indies in Barbados when Matt Prior flew home for the birth of his child, although he scored an unbeaten 76.”I’ve had issues from a long time back,” he explaineds, “But it was an underlying thing that was easy to distract from. Since I was 15 years old my goal was to play international cricket. That’s all I wanted to do. Whenever anything got tough I could always focus back on to that end goal. Once I’d reached that goal and walked away I lost all direction. I thought, ‘Why am I going to play cricket every day?'”You don’t want your team-mates to know you are struggling with something. But at the same time it gets to the point where you can’t hide those things any longer.”During the 2010 season Ambrose approached a psychologist and he took time out of the game before briefly returning for a match against Nottinghamshire where he bagged a pair. “I thought that was it,” he said. “My contract was up at the end of the season, and, if I’m honest, I didn’t care.”However, Warwickshire offered him a one-year contract for the 2011 season and this year he has scored 623 first-class runs at 44.50 for the Championship-winning team.”It is an ongoing process. I still have the odd little issue,” he said. “But now I have the armoury of knowledge. When little things start to happen I can arrest them straight away.”Ambrose will help front a campaign by the Professional Cricketers’ Association, called Mind Matters, to help educate players on depression and anxiety. It will also feature Marcus Trescothick and Michael Yardy.”You’re not a freak or a weirdo,” Ambrose said. “Depression is more common than you’d ever know. Just because of what we do doesn’t mean we don’t need help. It can happen to anyone.”

ESPNcricinfo previews the opening match of the Asia Cup between Bangladesh and Pakistan in Mirpur

The Preview by Kanishkaa Balachandran10-Mar-2012Match factsMarch 11, 2012
Start time 1400 (0800 GMT)Mashrafe Mortaza will be a welcome addition to the Bangladesh line-up•BPL T20Big PictureBangladesh’s and Pakistan’s last meeting seems like it happened yesterday. Not too long ago, Pakistan toured the country, winning all games quite comfortably, before heading to the UAE. There’s a chance they could face each other again shortly for another series of limited-overs games, in Pakistan, if the tour gets a go-ahead. Their meeting tomorrow is not a bilateral event, but a tournament which has been shoe-horned into an already cramped calendar. Seven games have been crammed into 12 days, with each team meeting the other once before the top two make the final. The flip side to such a format is that a poor start, or a surprise defeat could jeopardise a team’s chances of qualifying.The head-to-head record suggests that Pakistan are overwhelming favourites. That’s what many would have predicted after they steamrolled England, the top Test side, 3-0 in the UAE. Yet, their 0-4 crash to the same team in the one-dayers confounded many, coming against a side which has traditionally under-performed in the shorter format.Nevertheless, it was a wake-up call for Misbah-ul-Haq and the rest who took their foot off the pedal after the Test series. Perhaps they were homesick, or plain tired. In that sense, this Asia Cup assumes more context for Pakistan, who would want to sign off their season on a high, synonymous with their performance over the last year-and-a-half.The Bangladesh players have been a busy bunch themselves. In a sense, the Asia Cup has been positioned aptly for the Bangladesh audience, who are just coming off the hangover of the Bangladesh Premier League. Whether the BPL will have a positive impact on Bangladesh’s stature as an international team or not is a discussion for another day.The tournament has given local players a chance to mingle with internationals. Despite that, the performances of some of the local players were underwhelming. There was also some off-field drama, with Mushfiqur Rahim, the Bangladesh captain, calling the BPL a “disorganised” tournament. Despite some of the farcical behind-the-scenes action causing the organisers a lot of embarrassment, the Bangladesh fans appear to be in a feel-good wave and their enthusiasm will be crucial even in matches not involving their team.Form guideBangladesh LLLWL
Pakistan LLLLWIn the spotlightMashrafe Mortaza has made several comebacks from injury. Tomorrow, he opens yet another chapter. A knee injury sidelined him from the 2011 World Cup. He returned for the Australia ODIs shortly after but hasn’t played an international match since. He captained the Dhaka Gladiators to the BPL title, taking 10 wickets with a strike every 24 balls. His presence adds experience to the seam attack.One of Pakistan’s most consistent batsmen in the last year, Mohammad Hafeez, has suddenly slipped. In the ODI series against England, Hafeez managed just 61 from four games. Pakistan will need him to play a steady hand at the top of the order.Pitch and conditionsThe pitch at the Shere Bangla Stadium has a bit of grass, a deviation from the normally slow surfaces which have prompted captains to bring their spinners on from the second over.TeamsAll Bangladesh players are available for selection, but if the pitch continues to have that layer of grass, then the teams might be tempted to field an extra quick bowler. Bangladesh have recalled the batsman Jahurul Islam so there’s a chance for him to stake a claim in the middle order.Sarfraz Ahmed will make a comeback as Pakistan’s wicketkeeper, after Adnan Akmal was left out.Bangladesh (likely) 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Imrul Kayes, 3 Mahmudullah, 4 Mushfiqur Rahim (capt and wk), 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Nasir Hossain, 7 Jahurul Islam, 8 Mashrafe Mortaza, 9 Abdur Razzak, 10 Elias Sunny, 11 Shafiul IslamPakistan (likely) 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Azhar Ali/Nasir Jamshed, 3 Younis Khan 4 Umar Akmal, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq, 6 Asad Shafiq, 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 9 Umar Gul, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Aizaz CheemaStats and triviaShahid Afridi is just one run away from 7000 ODI runs Bangladesh’s first-ever one-day international was at the Asia Cup in 1986, incidentally, against Pakistan Bangladesh have previously hosted two editions of the Asia Cup, in 1988-89 and 2000Quotes”He’s the main player with both ball and bat, so we are focussing on him, but it is a team of 11. Anybody can contribute, so also have to have to a plan against every player.”
Edited by Abhishek Purohit

Dinesh Chandimal has been fined 10% of his match fee, while Mohammad Hafeez has been reprimanded, both for showing dissent at the umpire’s decision

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Nov-2011Sri Lankan batsman Dinesh Chandimal has been fined 10% of his match fee for showing dissent at the umpire’s decision during the one-off Twenty20 against Pakistan on Friday. The Pakistan opening batsman Mohammad Hafeez has been officially reprimanded for the same offence, in a separate incident.Both batsmen showed their bats to the umpire after they were adjudged lbw. Chandimal, who top scored with 56, was dismissed by Aizaz Cheema while Hafeez fell to Thisara Perera for 13. Pakistan went on to win by five wickets with three balls to spare. Both players were guilty of breaching Level 1 offences.”Accepting an umpire’s decision is an essential feature of cricket and part of the game’s unique spirit,” said the ICC match referee Andy Pycroft. “These players’ behaviour was not acceptable in any form of cricket and they must take responsibility for what they do.”

Kumar Sangakkara has said that Sri Lanka will be one of the favourites at the upcoming World Twenty20, despite Sri Lanka’s pitches having become less spin-friendly

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Sep-2012Kumar Sangakkara has said that Sri Lanka will be one of the favourites at the upcoming World Twenty20, despite Sri Lanka’s pitches having become less spin-friendly. Pitches at Pallekele and Hambantota – stadiums built for last year’s World Cup – have suited seam bowling, while the relaid square at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo has also seen bounce and carry in the last year. No team breached 200 in the Sri Lanka Premier League played in Colombo and Pallekele in August and four of the top five wicket takers in the tournament were seam bowlers.”Our sides have changed a little bit,” Sangakkara said. “We don’t depend on spin alone anymore or just one fast bowler in Chaminda Vaas. We have different sets of fast bowlers and different sets of spinners. With the change in conditions our sides have changed, but home advantage is not only about wickets. It’s about playing in your country, playing in front of the people who cheer and love you.”Sangakkara said the Premadasa pitch changed after the ground was renovated, and that winning the toss held no obvious advantage as it had once done. Fifteen of the 27 matches in the World Twenty20 will be played at the Premadasa, including both semi finals and the final.”When the wickets were relaid, in the first few games there was a lot of turn and now they’ve settled down into beautiful wickets where batting first or second you have an equal chance of winning. Batting under lights has become so much easier that some sides now prefer to chase,” he said.The wickets at Pallekele and Hambantota also offer challenges not traditionally associated with Sri Lankan venues, Sangakkara said.”Pallekele seems to have a lot in it at night. It seams and swings around and that will be an interesting challenge for us being a Sri Lankan side playing in our conditions to encounter those conditions. Hambantota is completely different. There is quite a strong wind from one side and the pitch can be a bit up and down. The vicious turn that [Sri Lankan pitches] used to have is no more, so sides have to adjust accordingly.”Sangakkara said that in addition to a home crowd that will give Sri Lanka “a massive advantage”, the team’s recent history of good performances at ICC events would also be a source of confidence. Since 2007, Sri Lanka have been runners up in successive World Cups, and were finalists in the 2009 World Twenty20 and semi finalists in the 2010 tournament.”Sri Lanka have always been favourites in my view in any tournament that we play because we’ve been able to rise to those big occasions really well as a unit and adjust accordingly. If you take our last 4-5 years, it’s been an amazing run in big tournaments. We just need to believe in ourselves and believe in that fact and keep playing.”Sangakkara missed the SLPL due to a fractured finger, but is expected to be fit for the World Twenty20 which starts on September 18. Sri Lanka play Zimbabwe in Hambantota in the tournament opener. South Africa is the other team in their group.

Glen Chapple, the Lancashire club captain, will play on into his 40s after agreeing a one-year extension to his deal until the end of 2014 season

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Oct-2013Glen Chapple, the Lancashire club captain, will play on into his 40s after agreeing a one-year extension to his deal until the end of 2014 season.Chapple had made his intentions clear before the end of the 2013 season that he had no plans to finish his playing days. In an increasingly fluid professional game, Chapple has been with Lancashire since the beginning of his career and made his first-class debut in 1992.He enjoyed another productive season with the ball, taking 53 wickets at 20.73 in the Championship from 14 matches.Chapple was one of a raft of players to agree new contracts at Old Trafford after Lancashire claimed the Division Two Championship title to secure a swift return to Division One.Jordan Clark, who struck six sixes in an over during a 2nd XI match early in the 2013 season, wicketkeeper Alex Davies, offspinner Arron Lilley and allrounder Luis Reece have all extended their stays until the end of 2015.Established players Karl Brown, Kyle Hogg, Paul Horton, Simon Kerrigan, Stephen Parry, Luke Procter and Tom Smith, have also agreed deals until 2015. Meanwhile, alongside Chapple, Oliver Newby and Andrea Agathangelou will be around until at least the end of next summer.The one new name is allrounder Liam Livingstone who has signed a one-year professional deal after making the step up from a scholarship contract.Mike Watkinson, the cricket directior, said: “With the exception of Andrea, all the players are products of our development system, which is a great endorsement of the strength and effectiveness of the cricket played across the county. It also provides the squad with quality and stability as we look forward positively to the challenges ahead.”Lancashire’s major new signing for next season has been Jos Buttler, the England one-day and T20 wicketkeeper, who has joined from Somerset.

Richard J. Kaplan, mayor of Lauderhill, has said that the Broward County ground will need to stage more than one event a year if it is to be commercially viable for the county, and that the USACA and ICC need to step up and coordinate as to how to go abou

Peter Della Penna27-Apr-2013Richard J. Kaplan, Mayor of Lauderhill, Florida, says his letter to the ICC earlier this month was written in a last-ditch effort to get them to intervene and be proactive with the USA Cricket Association (USACA) about holding more events at the cricket stadium at the Central Broward Regional Park before plans are enacted by Broward County officials to convert the venue into a facility for other sports.”I’m afraid what the county is going to do [is] go ahead and proceed (to make the conversion). We’re at the 11th hour,” Kaplan told ESPNcricinfo. “The ICC, if they do nothing or they say sorry there’s nothing we can do, that is the answer. Cricket in the United States will go away.”Kaplan says that last year’s pair of Twenty20 matches between West Indies and New Zealand at the ICC’s only certified ODI stadium facility in USA proved the sport can be commercially viable in Florida as evidenced by the 15,000 people that were estimated to have attended each day. However, he says that the inability to sanction more events is a source of frustration for local officials who want to host more games with ICC Full Members, but can’t without USACA’s permission.”From those games we believe it is [commercially sound], but you can’t have games unless they’re sanctioned,” Kaplan said. “Not because you can’t sell tickets or get TV time. It’s not viable for the one reason you would never expect: you can’t get permission to have the game.”You can’t survive on putting on one event a year, and waiting a few weeks before the event before you even get permission to put it on. That just does not work. If I was USACA, I would embrace this stadium, prove how well it works, get as many games in there as possible, just to go to other parts of the country and prove how well this [concept] works so they can establish more stadiums in the rest of the country.”According to Kaplan, he spoke with USACA president Gladstone Dainty ahead of sending out the letter to the ICC to voice his concerns. Kaplan says that Dainty’s response was that developing and staging events in other areas of the country was a higher priority, specifically in New York.”Their president would prefer games be played in New York at some unknown field,” Kaplan said. “He expressed to me that he did not want to have ODIs in Florida, that he wanted to develop cricket in New York. I asked at what facility and he says he has a couple in mind. There is no facility in New York that can compete with what we have here. I don’t know what it is that he’s thinking but I’m afraid that USACA will be the cause of [their] downfall. If USACA continues down the road it’s going, cricket is going to be set back 15-20 years with no hope in the future of ever getting back to the level that it is right now. We are fully prepared and capable of handling international events.””This is what’s interesting. Dainty started telling me that he’s president of USACA and that USACA gave that authority [to sanction events] to Cricket Holdings America. I said, ‘Who’s the president of Cricket Holdings America?’ He said, ‘I am.’ So you’re the same person on both boards that can provide sanctioning?”Mayor Greg Ballard of Indianapolis, Indiana, visited India earlier this month and discussed plans to construct an international cricket facility in Indianapolis, something that was initially reported by ESPNcricinfo in 2009. Kaplan says that he can’t see how any other city would want to follow through on such an investment after witnessing what has happened with the stadium in Lauderhill, which was built as part of a $70 million county park.”It’s been told to me that [USACA] is trying to get other cities in the United States to build facilities that could be accredited,” Kaplan said. “I will tell you that I know most of the mayors in the country that may deal with this thing, and I presume they’re gonna talk to me about how it turned out in Florida. It isn’t gonna be a positive review. I would assume that any area that is doing due diligence on working out the economic viability are going to look at what presently exists, in which case they’re going to come and take a look at what happened here, and they’re gonna ask what happened.””It’s being utilized a little bit by some Associate members and developmental teams for the ICC. It’s [also] being used by some private groups from American College Cricket, but not one of those events puts anybody in the stands. It doesn’t sell one ticket. I don’t need a multi-million dollar stadium with 5000 permanent seats to sit there with nobody using it. I can understand the county’s point that somebody needs to use it. It’s a wasting asset.”Without more revenue generating events, Kaplan says that stadium reconfiguration may begin by the end of this summer. The most likely sports that the stadium would accommodate would be soccer, lacrosse or minor league baseball.

South Africa Women beat West Indies Women by 80 runs in the first of the five ODIs played in St Kitts

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Jan-2013
ScorecardA combined bowling effort from South Africa Women, led by Dane van Niekerk’s five-wicket haul, secured a comfortable 80-run win over West Indies Women in St Kitts, in the first of five ODIs. Niekerk, a 19-year old legspinner, took a hat-trick and achieved her career-best figures to restrict West Indies to 126.Chasing 207, West Indies faltered in the first over when they lost opener Stafanie Taylor for a duck. They were soon 24 for 3 as Marizanne Kapp (2 for 17) got rid of both the openers. Merissa Aguilleira stitched a stable and brisk 65-run partnership with Deandra Dottin (26), but once the captain was dismissed, Dane van Niekerk ran through the lower order as the hosts lost their last six wickets for 34 runs.South Africa had earlier chosen to bat after winning the toss and their openers put up 49 for the first wicket. Trisha Chetty and Mignon du Preez steered them past the 100-run mark but once this partnership was broken, West Indies did not let any batsman settle down and took their next four wickets for 18 runs. Cameos from Yolandi Potgieter and Sunette Loubser took them to 206, which proved to be too much for the hosts.