Arsenal Signs Alexis Sanchez from Barca for €42 Million

Arsenal has officially announced the reaching of an agreement between FC Barcelona and themselves for the signing of Star Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez. The deal will fetch FC Barcelona €42 Million Euros, a substantial part of it would be as incentives. We are not yet clear about the fine print, but the initial rumours are we will be paid €30 Million in cash and the rest as incentives which are rumoured to be easy to achieve. Alexis Sanchez was signed by Barca from Udinese in 2011 for a deal with total to €38 Million. Now, selling him for €42 Million sounds like a brilliant deal; especially considering that the player never had the desired impact at Barca. His stocks rose after a brilliant World Cup and Barca may not find a better time to cash on him.

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Jonathan Dos Santos joins Brother Giovani at Villareal

Finally it will happen - Jonathan Dos Santos will get a chance to do other things than twitter updates. Yes, you heard it right - he decided that he has time left to play football and decided to join Villareal. I was one of the few who was delighted to see him stay last season. But an injury and general reluctance by Tata Martino to use youngsters saw him doing nothing other than social media updates. In one of my previous post 5 Player's who could leave Barca, I have mentioned why he needs to leave this summer itself. Al least he heeded the advice and acted quickly. From what I have heard, Villareal will pay 1.5 Million for the player. There is a bonus of 0.5 Million in the deal which will be paid if Villareal make it into the Champions League next season. It is not clear whether the 0.5 Million is included in the 1.5 Million or additional to it. At Villareal he will be joining Giovani Do Santos, his elder brother - who actually got his career back in shape with a spectacular season with Villareal. These two players are so crucial for the Mexico national team future and hope they fulfill the promise and become a strike force in itself.

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Messi may have to do it all alone against the Dutch

A leader is a dealer in hope. Napoleon Bonaparte

With a confident 1-0 victory against the Belgians in the Quarter Finals, Argentina has surpassed a huge mental barrier on its own - The Quarter Finals. A look at the rich Argentinian history at the World cup shows that the two time World Champions have stumbled at the last eight more often than any other country. From 1986, when the knock-out stages were officially introduced as we have now, Argentina have exited three times at the Quarter Finals. The two times they managed to get past their Quarter-Final opponents, they have managed to reach the tournament finals. Now that's a nice statistics to focus as Argentina needs a lot of history to back them up when they meet the Dutch on Wednesday. Since the 1990 World Cup, Argentina has never managed to go beyond Quarter Finals. In that sense this team has already succeeded where many of its illustrious predecessors failed. But then for this team led by the Mercurial Lionel Messi anything short of the ultimate triumph is a disaster.

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