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BARCELONA — Cristiano Ronaldo admits that he suffered for pushing himself too much at the end of last season but is now close to his best as Real Madrid prepare to face Real Sociedad on Sunday.

The Portuguese forward, who was named UEFA’s Best Player in Europe on Thursday, suffered knee problems at the end of the last campaign and was not fully recovered by the World Cup.

Ronaldo will be rested for Real Madrid’s trip to Real Sociedad to allow him fully recover from injuries, coach Carlo Ancelotti said on Saturday.

The Portuguese has struggled with injuries since the back end of last season and has also not been called up by Portugal for the upcoming international break, which means almost three weeks off for the mercurial 29-year-old.

“He is okay but we have preferred to use this week and the following two for him to recover fully and get him in top condition. He will not play tomorrow and is not in the squad,” Ancelotti told a news conference in Madrid.

Ronaldo has recovered from the knee injury that affected him at the end of the last campaign but was also not 100 per cent at the World Cup in Brazil.

Of late, he has been troubled with a hamstring strain he picked up in the defeat by Atletico Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup.

His absence means James Rodriguez is likely to play in the three-man attack alongside Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema with Isco slotting into the midfield.

Real have been weakened by the departures of Angel Di Maria and Xabi Alonso this week, and Ancelotti admitted he was taken aback by the decision of the latter to go to Bayern Munich.

“It was a surprise. Everything was calm and so we were a bit surprised but we respect him a lot. Alonso is a very honest person with himself and with the Real Madrid,” said the Italian.

“He explained it well and said that he needed more motivation. Everyone here at the club respects him and it would have been very difficult to get him to change his mind. You can’t say to a player like Xabi that he couldn’t leave. I wish him luck and he has been a very important player for the team last season.

“It is possible that some people think that the team is under-strength but we have players that can perform in different positions. We have five strikers because Isco and James [Rodriguez] can play there.

“The squad is not closed because the market is still open. Maybe we will sign somebody but at the same time it is possible we won’t.”

“In life you don’t win without making sacrifices and you have to take risks at times. Perhaps in other circumstances I would have acted differently,” Ronaldo told Marca.

Ronaldo played a key role as Real finally won their 10th European Cup crown following a 12-year wait, setting a new Champions League scoring record along the way with 17 goals.

“We were involved in important competitions with the Champions League and then the World Cup,” he added.

“Things went well and I beat the record of goals in the Champions League. I then had holidays where I could rest a month and only had treatment and looked after my body.

“Then there were ups and downs in pre-season which is normal with the Real Madrid tour, the trips, the tiredness and jet-lag. All this means that you can’t work well.

“Last week I was running okay but I still need some days to be at my best although it will be soon.

“Clearly I did [force myself too much]. I should probably have stopped and now I would be fine.”

Real have made an inconsistent start to the season as following an impressive victory in the European Super Cup over Sevilla, they then lost the domestic version to Atletico Madrid.

They won their first match of the La Liga season last weekend against newly promoted Cordoba but it was not a strong display and they lacked rhythm and pace through midfield and attack.

Jaded Atletico

Carlo Ancelotti’s side are now having to come to terms with the loss of Angel Di Maria and Xabi Alonso, who have joined Manchester United and Bayern Munich this week and were fundamental players in the side last season.

“I will miss all the good players that go like Di Maria and Xabi Alonso. The president knows better than anyone what he is doing and we have good players here to help us keep winning,” Ronaldo added.

Atletico Madrid appeared to be suffering the effects of their two-legged Super Cup win over Real as they lacked intensity in their draw away to Rayo Vallecano and will be looking to bounce back against Eibar.

“We have the same ambitions as last year. We know that we have to be at our top level and ready,” forward Raul Garcia told a news conference.

“Last year, people said the team wasn’t strong enough physically and we proved them wrong.”

Barcelona, under new coach Luis Enrique, made a bright start with a convincing 3-0 win over Elche with Lionel Messi scoring twice. They next take on Villarreal.

“I know the team well and Marcelino was my trainer at Sevilla,” Barca midfielder Ivan Rakitic said.

“His philosophy is to have a strong team, work hard on the physical side and prepare the side well. We know that it will be a very difficult game but we are in a positive mood.”

AMMAN — Eight teams have made it beyond the preliminary round of the Jordan Cup as Baqaa, Shabab Urdun and Hussein were eliminated. The top four teams from each of the two groups moved to the quarters, which will see Ahli play Ramtha, That Ras play Jazira, Wihdat face Sarih and Faisali play Manshieh. Ahli, who made a comeback to the Pro League, topped Group A standings and were the first to qualify after impressive results. They were followed by Faisali, Jazira and Sarih. In Group B, holders Wihdat and That Ras topped the group followed by Manshieh and Ramtha. Most significant results were Ahli beating Faisali 3-0 and Baqaa 1-0, while Wihdat beat Ramtha 3-1 and were held 0-0 with Shabab Urdun, who lost 1-0 to That Ras.

AMMAN — The men's Olympic football team is set to host its Uzbek counterpart on Saturday in the final phase of preparations for the Asian Games as well as the 2016 Olympic qualifiers set for March 2015.

The line-up is still missing key players on club and national team duty, and there were calls to reconsider taking part in the Asian Games with this status quo.

Coach Jamal Abu Abed stressed that his aim was reaching Round 2 of the competition, after the team plays runners-up UAE as well as India in the preliminary round.

Earlier this year, the team hosted the England C squad in a historic match, losing 1-0. The team held Iran 2-2 and 1-1, Kuwait 1-1 twice and Qatar 0-0. Jordan settled for second at the Palestine International Championship.

Meanwhile, the women's football teams are in high gear as they prepare for upcoming Asian Games. 

The senior women's team is now on a training camp in Cairo as it readies for a mammoth task, having been drawn in Group A alongside Taiwan,  Japan and China. 

The team had a tough time earlier this year at its first Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women's 2014 Asian Cup, where Jordan was one of eight qualifying teams and the only Arab team to have ever qualified to the premier women's football competition in the AFC region.

Jordan lost to world champs Japan 7-0 after losing to Australia and hosts Vietnam 3-1 in Group A. The top two teams from each group and the best third placed team qualified to the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada.

ROME — The Serie A season kicks off on Saturday with Italian football at a new low following a miserable World Cup campaign and the election of a federation president embroiled in a racism row.

Once Europe’s most prestigious league, Serie A has lost its glamour over the last few years as dilapidated stadiums, financial problems, racism and hooliganism have all taken their toll, not to mention two match-fixing scandals.

It has dropped to fifth, below Portugal, in the UEFA ranking which determines the distribution of places in the Champions League and Europa League.

Rather than signing the world’s best players, Italian football now has to make do with ones who have past their peak in the English Premier League and La Liga, or who have yet to make the grade there.

Champions Juventus chased Chile forward Alexis Sanchez but ended up with 21-year-old Spaniard Alvaro Morata, who struggled to get a place at Real Madrid last season, and 33-year Patrice Evra from Manchester United. Evra’s former United teammate Nemanja Vidic moved to Inter Milan on a free transfer.

There have been flickers of encouragement with Juventus, winners of Serie A for the last three seasons and proud owners of the only club-owned stadium in the top flight, and AS Roma showing what can be achieved with a new outlook.

Italy coach Cesare Prandelli was another beacon of hope as he rooted out the negativity and cynicism often linked with the four-time world champions and did his best to rejuvenate the team despite an unproductive youth system.

But Italy’s group-stage World Cup exit, following defeats by Costa Rica and Uruguay, undid much of his good work and prompted Prandelli to quit with two years left on his contract. He joined Galatasaray in Turkey. 

Antiquated structure

A second, and more far-reaching consequence, was that Italian federation (FIGC) President Giancarlo Abete, who had taken a lead in trying to stamp out the racism which has blighted the game, also resigned.

The election to replace him exposed the antiquated power structure and suggested that old habits will die hard.

Two candidates battled for the presidency, 42-year-old former AC Milan and Italy midfielder Demetrio Albertini and 71-year-old Carlo Tavecchio, head of the association of amateur leagues (LND).

Albertini had the support of the Players’, Referees’ and Coaches’ Associations as well as Juventus and Roma, plus the sympathy of fans and the media. That seemed to suggest that he was the man to take Italian football forward.

The real power in FIGC elections, however, lies with the Serie B, the Lega Pro, which represents the third and fourth division clubs and the LND. They backed Tavecchio.

Amid widespread disbelief among anti-discrimination campaigners abroad, Tavecchio was swept home despite referring to African players as “banana eaters” during a prepared speech to the LND.

Unhappy at the lack of opportunities given to Italian players at professional clubs, Tavecchio talked of a fictitious player who he named Opti Poba and, he said, “previously ate bananas and then suddenly becomes a first-team player with Lazio”.

In many countries, Tavecchio’s career would have been finished, yet, after a quick apology, Italian football carried on as if nothing had happened. The FIGC’s own internal prosecutor has dropped the case against Tavecchio for lack of evidence, although he is now facing an investigation by European football’s governing body UEFA.

AC Milan were among the clubs to offer immediate support to Tavecchio and dismiss the outcry which his remarks caused outside Italy.

Milan are one of the clubs most in need of change, the seven-time European champions having become a pale shadow of their former selves.

Silvio Berlusconi, who has been club president since 1986, and Adriano Galliani, his long-standing right-hand man once famous for his ability to make big-name signings, have seemed unable to cope with Milan’s new reality.

Having announced two years ago that the club would concentrate on developing young players, they did exactly the opposite in the transfer market, signing expensive journeymen and players in their thirties.

When Massimiliano Allegri was sacked as coach in January, Milan announced that Clarence Seedorf was the man to take them into the future, only to fire him at the end of the season in a decision that defied all logic.

They have now turned to their former striker Filippo Inzaghi, previously coach of the under-19 team, who will inherit the same problems as his two predecessors.

Allegri, meanwhile, has found a sanctuary at Juventus following the shock resignation of Antonio Conte after the first training session of the season.

In three seasons, the fiery Conte had led Juventus to successive Serie A titles and made them the dominant force in Italian football while the phlegmatic Allegri had been swimming against the tide at Milan.

The change has put a different complexion on this year’s championship with AS Roma, who finished second in Rudi Garcia’s debut season in charge last term, ready to offer an even stronger challenge.

LONDON — From being the most reviled club in British football, MK Dons woke up on Wednesday to find they had gained new friends all over the world with a single result.

Derided since their formation a decade ago as an artificial “franchise” club, the League One (third tier) side caused widespread delight by inflicting a humiliating 4-0 defeat on Louis van Gaal’s supposedly mighty Manchester United.

It came on the day that United, English champions 13 times in the last 22 years, paid a British record transfer fee of almost £60 million ($99.40 million) for Real Madrid’s Angel di Maria.

Van Gaal, who has yet to win in three competitive matches for his new club, may have made 10 changes for the game, but nobody in Milton Keynes, northwest of London, was allowing that to detract from the greatest day in the history of the football club — and arguably the town itself.

Developed from a small village in the 1960s, with the aim of becoming a major regional centre, Milton Keynes had been best known until a decade ago for its roundabouts and iconic sculpture of concrete cows.

Then in 2003 Wimbledon football club, FA Cup winners 15 years earlier, were moved there from south London by their owners against the wishes of most supporters.

The following year the name was changed to MK Dons, while dissenting fans formed their own club, AFC Wimbledon, who subsequently reached the Football League.

Bad feeling

Bad feeling remains between the two, who have subsequently met twice in cup matches. The most recent occasion was a fortnight ago in the first round of the Capital One Cup, when a 3-1 victory earned MK Dons their glamour tie against United.

By winning it in such convincing fashion on Tuesday night, in front of a record attendance of 26,969, they hope to have thrown off the mantle of unpopularity in which they have always been shrouded.

“It’s the day we came of age,” the club’s owner and chairman Pete Winkelman, a former music executive, told BBC Radio on Wednesday.

“We’re a young club with lots of controversy in the beginning and we’re proud to be making history at last.”

Asked if it would lead to greater acceptance within football, he said: “I hope that it will allow the club to look forward.

“Since the club’s been in Milton Keynes it’s made a real difference locally.”

Although the club have never played above the third tier, Winkelman has greater ambitions. “I’ve no doubt that one day Milton Keynes Dons will be a Premier League football team,” he said.

“But whatever happens, that result will never be forgotten in Milton Keynes.”

ROME — Massimiliano Allegri’s move to Juventus has given the phlegmatic coach the chance to prove that the disastrous run which led to his downfall at AC Milan was caused by reasons beyond his control.

Allegri was named as Juventus coach in July after the shock resignation of Antonio Conte, who had led the team to three successive Serie A titles in as many seasons in charge and made them the dominant force in Serie A.

Out of a job at the time, he was a convenient option for Juventus although their fans were certainly not impressed and greeted the appointment with protests.

AC Milan had dismissed Allegri halfway through last season after a 4-3 defeat to Serie A newcomers Sassuolo on a wet January evening left them languishing in eleventh place with only five wins in 19 outings.

But Allegri hardly seemed to be to blame for the fiasco, having seen his top players, including Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, sold off over the previous 18 months.

The 47-year-old was swimming against the tide against Milan, a club struggling to come to terms with the harsh, austerity-strapped new reality of Italian football.

He had agreed to help the club rebuild the team with talented young players and had led them to a respectable third in 2012/13, winning the backing of the Ultras.

Instead of youth, however, Milan’s leadership seemed all at sea and provided Allegri with a motley assortment of journeyman professionals and players clearly past their best such as Michael Essien and Kaka. 

Pirlo relationship

It had all been very different in his first two seasons when Allegri led Milan to the Serie A title in his debut season, followed by a second place the following year.

Deadpan and unflappable, he proved adept at handling a powder keg of a dressing room which had included unpredictable talents such as, at various points, Ibrahimovic, Robinho, Mario Balotelli and Kevin-Prince Boateng.

The one player Allegri felt he could not deal with was Brazilian Ronaldinho, well-known for his partying lifestyle, who returned to his homeland.

Andrea Pirlo, meanwhile, left at the end of Allegri’s first season in charge and has since enjoyed three seasons of unmitigated brilliance at Juventus and a quirk of fate has now reunited the pair.

“I have always enjoyed a good relationship with him,” said Allegri on his official presentation.

“Andrea is still, a champion. When he was at Milan with me, he went through that season which wasn’t particularly lucky for him considering that it was dogged by injuries. But, he always played when he was fit.

“In football sometimes you think that things might go one way but eventually they take an unexpected turn or head in another direction. As I have explained a thousand times, in the end it just happened. The club, Andrea and I met and he decided to join Juventus.”

Conte shouting

Allegri now finds himself at a club that is going in the opposite direction to Milan.

Whereas Milan play in the fading, municipally-owned San Siro, Juventus are the only Serie A club to own their stadium and the only team to routinely play in front of a full house at home.

With only a few days to go until the end of the transfer window, Juventus have managed to retain all their key players including Pirlo, midfielders Arturo Vidal and Paul Pogba and front pair of Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente.

Allegri knows that he will have no excuses this time, although it is not going to be easy to maintain Juve’s remarkable recent form.

The passionate Conte is a tough act to replace and he made it clear last season that he felt that Juventus had reached their peak in winning Serie A with a record 102 points.

AS Roma, Napoli and Fiorentina all look like serious contenders and may well feel that Juventus are vulnerable without Conte.

But midfielder Claudio Marchisio said that Conte’s departure could reinvigorate the squad who may have suffered enough of his infamous dressing-room tirades.

“It’s up to us to show now that, after three years of Conte, we can still do it without his shouting,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport.

“We’ve got better in these three years and Allegri has inherited a squad which has come a long way. Allegri is calm and has his own character but that doesn’t mean to say we work less.

“It gets harder to win every year but the arrival of a new coach has given us more motivation. It’s wrong to talk about the end of a cycle.

“Our aim is to improve where we failed before and Allegri is the right coach to relaunch us.”

Anyone questioning Liverpool’s purchase of controversial Italian striker Mario Balotelli need only glance at Manchester City’s scoresheet on Monday to understand why firepower up front could be crucial to determining this season’s Premier League.

The Merseysiders, runners-up to City last season in one of the tightest top-flight campaigns in recent memory, looked to be comfortably keeping the champions at bay when three goals in 25 minutes at Etihad Stadium shattered any illusions.

The first two came from striker Stevan Jovetic, who had a forgettable first season in England after arriving from Fiorentina due to injury, but was given his chance after impressing in pre-season.

He rewarded manager Manuel Pellegrini with strikes either side of halftime before Sergio Aguero, still working his way back to full fitness, hit the back of the net 23 seconds after replacing Edin Dzeko up front.

With Alvaro Negredo still fighting to be fit after breaking his foot, City have an embarrassment of attacking riches that should threaten the best defences in Europe and make them one of the favourites for this season’s league title.

Despite that, Pellegrini was keen to emphasise the whole team effort against a side that beat them 3-2 in April.

“We worked the whole game and played a very good team,” the Chilean told the BBC.

“We worked without the ball for 95 minutes and with the ball we made enough danger to score three goals.

“When you play against a strong team you have to concentrate and our concentration and intensity was good. It’s so important to get six points from our first two games as it was a very difficult start for us.”

Liverpool close

As Liverpool went close to ending a 24-year title drought last season, their attacking duo of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge caused their own brand of chaos, netting 52 league goals between them.

After Suarez’s World Cup disgrace, kicked out of the tournament for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini, he was sold to Barcelona.

His sale has funded the arrival of nine new players, the latest being 24-year-old Balotelli from AC Milan, who can excite and anger in equal measure.

Liverpool will be desperate for him to hit the ground running, as despite plenty of ball they failed to seriously trouble City keeper Joe Hart until Pablo Zabaleta’s late own goal.

Another top-class striker is clearly needed at Anfield to take some of the burden off Sturridge, despite the likes of Raheem Sterling increasing his attacking threat by the week.

Manager Brendan Rodgers said taking a chance on Balotelli for a reported £16 million ($26.52 million) was one worth taking — his pace, power and touch compensating for an infuriating habit of going missing in matches and playing up off the pitch.

“There is excitement with him coming in,” he told Sky Sports. “I am certainly looking forward to working with him. He has that self belief and football arrogance on the field. Luis has gone, he was a wonderful talent but now we have to look to the future and hopefully Mario can contribute to what we are doing.

Liverpool signed Italy striker Mario Balotelli from AC Milan for £16 million ($26.5 million) on Monday, taking a calculated gamble on a headline-grabbing player known as much for his controversies as his goals.

Nineteen months after ending a two-and-a-half-year spell with Manchester City to play for his boyhood club, Balotelli will return to the English Premier League as a replacement for Luis Suarez — another of world football’s talented but disruptive stars.

“I’m happy to be back because I left England and it was a mistake,” Balotelli said. “I wanted to go to Italy but I realised it was a mistake.”

Balotelli, who has signed what Liverpool said is a “long-term deal”, spent his first day with his new team watching the Reds lose 3-1 to City in a Premier League game at Etihad Stadium later Monday. He wasn’t registered in time to play.

Liverpool have been looking to strengthen their strikeforce after selling Suarez to Barcelona for $130 million but left it to the last week of the transfer window to secure one of the summer’s most high-profile and intriguing signings.

During his time at City, in which he won the league title, Balotelli was sent off four times, threw a dart at a youth team player and was involved in an incident that saw fireworks explode in his bathroom. Days before news of the fireworks incident emerged, Balotelli had revealed a T-shirt under his City jersey with the question, “Why Always Me?” after scoring in the team’s 6-1 win over Manchester United.

Balotelli, with his physique, technical ability and qualities as a finisher, is one of the world’s best strikers and, at 24, the best times of his career could still lie ahead of him. At Milan, he scored 26 goals in 43 league matches and he is the Italian national team’s top striker, scoring 13 goals in 33 games.

But with trouble always seeming to follow him, some are questioning whether Balotelli is worth the risk for Liverpool, which has fostered a strong team spirit under manager Brendan Rodgers that helped it finish second in the Premier League last season. Jose Mourinho described Balotelli as “unmanageable” during their time together at Inter Milan, which the striker left in 2010 to join City.

“He knows himself this is probably is last chance,” Rodgers said. “Mario is someone we can improve both as a footballer and as a person.”

“He has a reputation but we hope he can curb that behaviour,” Rodgers added after the City game. “He knows his flaws and faults and he is looking for someone to help him. There is no better club for him. Of course it is a risk.”

Rodgers, however, got the best out of Suarez and current first-choice striker Daniel Sturridge, who both had turbulent pasts before arriving at Anfield. Sections of the British media have reported that Balotelli has had to agree to behaviour clauses being included in his contract with Liverpool.

“I believe we have the infrastructure, culture and environment to get the best out of him and help him achieve his true potential,” Rodgers said. “We are a strong group here, committed to hard work and he will benefit from being around it.

“I am looking forward to working with him and helping him learn more, improve and progress as a player.”

Rodgers’ attempts to bring in a striker has seen him look at France forward Loic Remy of Queens Park Rangers, whose switch to Anfield broke down at the last minute, and former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea star Samuel Eto’o. Last month, during Liverpool’s tour of the United States, Rodgers was linked with a bid for Balotelli but said “I can categorically tell you that he will not be at Liverpool.”

The U-turn was completed on Monday.

“This transfer represents outstanding value for the club and I think we have done a really smart piece of business here,” Rodgers said. “There is no doubting Mario’s ability; he is a world-class talent and someone who, for such a young age, has vast experience of playing at the very highest level.”

Asked what his targets at Liverpool were, Balotelli said: “I want to take this team to the Champions League.”

LONDON — Chelsea have paid tribute to life president Richard Attenborough, who has died at the age of 90, saying that the Oscar-winning film director’s “personality was woven into the tapestry of the club over seven decades”.”He was a consistent force for good at the club, even in dark times,” the 2012 European champions said in a statement. “He led a long and successful life and always found time for the things in life he loved most, one of which was Chelsea FC.” Attenborough joined the Chelsea board in 1969 and stayed until 1982, his initial years being marked by the London club winning their first FA Cup in 1970 and their first European trophy, the now defunct Cup Winners’ Cup, a year later.

BERLIN — Fiorentina striker Mario Gomez said on Monday he was determined to earn an international recall with Germany after missing the World Cup following a long injury absence. The 29-year-old, who has won 59 caps and scored 25 goals, last played for Germany in August 2013 against Paraguay. “I obviously want and I will come back to the national team,” Gomez told Sport Bild magazine. “The pre-season preparation went well and we are well prepared for the start of the [Italian] season.” After a promising start in his first season at Fiorentina, the former Bayern Munich forward suffered a knee ligament injury in September last year that kept him out for months, calling last season “the ugliest of his career”. He was then hurt again shortly after coming back, missing selection for the German squad that went on to win the World Cup in Brazil last month. But striker Miroslav Klose, the only forward in Germany’s World Cup-winning team, has since retired from international football, improving Gomez’ chances of a comeback. Germany coach Joachim Loew will name his squad for the September 3 friendly against World Cup finalists Argentina and their first Euro 2016 qualifier against Scotland on September 7.