Quang Hai nominated for best Asian player 2018; 16 teams enter Champions League round of 16

Quang Hai nominated for best Asian player 2018

Quang Hai nominated for best Asian player 2018. Photo: Trung Kien

Showing excellent performance in 2018, midfielder Nguyen Quang Hai was nominated for the 2018 Asian Footballer of the Year award. This is the first time a representative of Vietnamese football has been nominated for the Asian Footballer of the Year award organized by China's leading sports magazine Sports and Fox Sports Asia channel.

Dinh Trong and Quang Hai have a chance to compete for the Vietnamese Golden Ball

On January 2, 2019, the Vietnam Golden Ball Award ceremony will be held. Some Vietnamese football experts affirm that, besides star Nguyen Quang Hai, central defender Tran Dinh Trong is also worthy of competing for this individual title. Dinh Trong is having an excellent AFF Cup with the Vietnam National Team. In the first leg of the AFF Cup 2018 final on Malaysia's field, this central defender played extremely well, a fear for Malaysia's attacking players.

On the evening of December 12, the 12th Thanh Nien Newspaper International U21 Football Tournament 2018 took place at Tu Do Stadium, Hue City. The tournament had 4 participating teams including U21 Gim Hae CFC (Korea), U21 Malaysia, U21 Myanmar and U21 Vietnam team.

On the opening day, U21 Vietnam and U21 Myanmar won a resounding 5-2 victory over U21 Myanmar, while U21 Malaysia defeated U21 Gimhae CFC 1-0.

According to the rules, 4 teams will compete in a round robin to calculate ranking points, choose the 1st and 2nd teams to compete in the final, the remaining 2 will compete for third place. At the end of the tournament, the champion team will receive a cup, medals and a prize of 12,000 USD, the second team will receive a prize of 7,000 USD, the third team will receive a prize of 5,000 USD.

16 teams enter the Champions League round of 16

The 6th round of the Champions League group stage has ended, determining the 16 clubs that have won tickets to the knockout round.

The final matches of groups E, F, G, H have concluded, determining the last team to enter the knockout round.

Hosting Lyon in the "final" match of Group F, Shakhtar Donetsk had to get 3 points to win the ticket to the next round, while Lyon only needed a draw. Moraes helped the home team open the scoring in the 22nd minute, but the Ukrainian team could not protect the result when Fekir equalized 1-1 for Lyon in the 65th minute.

Unable to squeeze through the narrow door, Shakhtar had to watch sadly as the Ligue 1 representative won the last ticket to the 1/8 round of the Champions League.

Champions League results
Real Madrid 0-3 CSKA Moscow
Viktoria Plzen 2-1 Roma
Ajax 3-3 Bayern Munich
Benfica 1-0 AEK Athens
Man City 2-1 Hoffenheim
Shakhtar Donetsk 1-1 Lyon
Valencia 2-1 MU
Young Boys 2-1 Juventus

Thus, 16 teams have won the right to enter the round of 16 including: Atletico Madrid, Dortmund (group A), Barca, Tottenham (group B), PSG, Liverpool (group C), Porto, Schalke 04 (group D), Bayern Munich, Ajax (group E), Manchester City, Lyon (group F), Real Madrid, AS Roma (group G), Juventus, Man United (group H).

The round of 16 draw is scheduled for 17 December. The first legs of the knockout round will be played on 12, 13, 19 and 20 February, and the second legs on 5, 6, 12 and 13 March 2019.

Chelsea want to bring Cavani to Stamford Bridge

Chelsea are reportedly leading the race to sign PSG striker Edinson Cavani in the January 2019 winter transfer window.

Coach Sarri's Chelsea cannot rely on Alvaro Morata or Oliver Giroud in attack. Both have disappointed, failing to meet his expectations.

And according to the French press, the Italian coach is interested in bringing Edinson Cavani from PSG to Stamford Bridge to remedy the situation.

Metro assessed that among the teams pursuing the 31-year-old Uruguayan striker, The Blues have the advantage, due to their financial capacity compared to Ateltico Madrid and Napoli. Chelsea can spend 45 million pounds to own Cavani.

France Football also said that if they cannot convince PSG to release the player, Chelsea could even use Morata to exchange for Cavani, a player with a contract with the Ligue representative until the summer of 2020.

Sarri declares Cahill has no place at Chelsea

This season, Gary Cahill has only been used for 21 minutes in the Premier League this season. In response to questions from the press about the player's future at Chelsea, coach Maurizio Sarri frankly shared. Sarri declared that Cahill is not suitable for the style of play he deploys at Chelsea, meaning he has no future at the team.

"Cahill is in the last year of his contract, he has to decide his future. For a player over 30, the club only signs a one-year contract. If he receives a three-year offer somewhere, Cahill needs to choose," Sarri said. According to British media, Arsenal are currently interested in Cahill's future.

Dembele sets a record at Barca for... penalties

On Catalunya Radio, journalist Xavi Campos revealed that Dembele had broken Barcelona's record for a player's fine when he was fined €50,000 for a disciplinary breach at the end of October. This record was recently extended by Dembele himself.

According to AS, Dembele has just received an additional fine of 100,000 euros from Barca for arriving 2 hours late to training after the 4-0 win over Espanyol. It seems that the administrative penalty is still not enough to deter Dembele's lack of discipline. The reason why Barca's blockbuster contract has become a burden for the team is his addiction to gaming.

According to Spanish media, two Barca officials, Eric Abidal and Pep Segura, were asked by the team's leadership to meet Dembele directly to find a way to resolve the problem instead of talking through the player's representative.