ADRIAN MUTU

The Italian striker, Alessandro Del Piero, has rejected Ajaccio’s offer and has decided to continue playing for the A-League club Sydney FC.

One of Piero’s close friends, Fabrizio Ravanelli, has recently been appointed as the manager of Ajaccio. So, Piero was supposed to be attracted to a move to France. But, that wasn’t the case to be. Because of family reasons, the 38 years old Italian veteran has opted to stay in Australia.

Talking to the reporters about the possibility of Piero’s arrival, one of the Ajaccio officials said, “We had been trying to convince him to make a move since quite a few weeks, but, he has finally turned down our offer and has decided to stay in Australia.”

When asked about the reason why Piero rejected the offer, that official said, “He has probably done that because of family reasons and we respect his decision.”

Piero had joined Sydney FC at the start of the last season. Sydney FC is currently paying him 2 million Dollars per season which is the highest amount paid to any player in the A-League.

Piero played his first match for Sydney FC against Wellington Phoenix on 6^th of October last year. His first goal for the club came 7 days later in a home game against Newcastle Jets. That was the first time Piero was playing on the home ground of Sydney FC.

In January this year, Piero netted 4 times in a match against Wellington Phoenix. This was the first occasion in his career that he had found the net more than three times.

Piero ended the season at no. 4 in the list of leading goal scorers. He played a total of 24 matches for Sydney FC and found the net 14 times.

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Video Score: five / five

Chelsea have approached Juventus in the hope of claiming compensation for the Romanian striker Adrian Mutu, who is still being pursued by the club. Former Juventus striker Adrian Mutu tested positive for cocaine back in 2004, which led to him being sacked by Chelsea. Since then, the Premier league outfit have been looking to get around £ 15 million in compensation from the striker. Mutu, though, has been evading the prospect of paying Chelsea this figure, which has been awarded by a tribunal recently.

The club has been locked in a nine-year battle with the player to recover this compensation. Mutu served a seven month ban from football as a result of testing positive for cocaine. After his suspension ended, he moved to Italian club Juventus. He has since represented several clubs including Fiorentina. Mutu was a £ 16 million signing from Parma, but he did not have a great impact at Chelsea even before testing positive for cocaine. The 34-year-old is currently playing for the French club, Ajaccio. He has stated that he will be retiring at the end of the season after failing to reproduce his best form in the early part of his career.

He has managed to score 10 goals in the French league this season.

“We are exercising our legal remedies to recover the amounts owed to us and we will continue to do so,” said a Chelsea spokesman. There have been several who have criticised the move by Chelsea claiming that it would almost destroy the future of Adrian Mutu. The striker has been appealing repeatedly in several courts stating that he does not have the amount of money demanded by Chelsea. Juventus made a profit of £ 6 million by selling the Romanian striker to Fiorentina, which is the reason behind Chelsea knocking on the doors of the Italian club.

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The Ligue 1 match played between Ajaccio and Olympique de Marseille on Friday has ended in a goalless draw.  That match was played at Stade Velodrome which is the home ground of Marseille.

The home supporters who were out there in the stadium didn’t look too happy with the end result of the match. They were gutted and they decided to boo off their own team.

Olympique de Marseille had entered the match as favourites against a relatively weaker Ajaccio team. But, they couldn’t dominate. They came close to finding the net on a couple of occasions, but, they were denied because of some great work by the Ajaccio goalie Guillermo Ochoa. Read the rest of this entry »

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After being heavily criticised by the former Ajaccio manager only a few weeks ago, the former Chelsea striker Adrian Mutu managed to show why he is still regarded as one of the best strikers in the world despite his debacles by scoring two goals in the recent match against Lyon. Despite coming into the match as the favourites, Lyon were unable to assert their advantage of the match. Ajaccio took advantage of this by managing to score two goals through Adrian Mutu, while the third goal killed the opposition off. After going through a terrible run of form in 2012, the team managed to pull themselves together and put forward an unbeaten run of three matches that included a draw against table leaders PSG.

Hence, there was optimism ahead of the Lyon match, but the opposition were clearly the favourites for the three points. After a goalless first half, Lyon managed to take the lead through Lacazette in the 53rd minute. This seemed to wake-up the home team after they managed to equalise after just 4 minutes. Belghazouani scored the equaliser for Ajaccio before the Romanian striker Adrian Mutu put them in the lead on the 65th minute. He then secured the three points for his team with a penalty in the 90th minute, which also saw Lyon receive a red card to Lovren.

As a result of this victory, Ajaccio are now unbeaten in the last four matches and are slowly making their way up the table. They are currently just a few places above the relegation zone, but their position is significantly better than it was a few weeks ago. The 34-year-old Adrian Mutu has made 18 appearances for the team in all competitions, but he has managed to score just seven goals. However, he will be hoping to continue this good run of form.

Movie Rating: 4 / 5