Ferran Torres considers joining Barcelona from Manchester City a "huge step" in his career and is confident he can continue improving under Xavi at Camp Nou.
Barca confirmed on Tuesday that an agreement is in place to sign Torres from City for a reported fee of up to €65million (£54.75m) when the January transfer window officially opens.
The Spain international will be presented on January 3, but a foot injury sustained in October will delay his debut until later in the month.
Torres has spent the past 18 months at the Etihad Stadium after joining from Valencia for a fee of around €23m (£20m) and made an impact across his 43 appearances for City.
Among City players to feature for at least 1,000 minutes across all competitions since the start of last season, Torres boasts the highest goals per 90 minutes return (0.55).
His expected goals on a per-90-minute basis of 0.44, meanwhile, is bettered by just Raheem Sterling (0.47) over that same period.
The 21-year-old is hoping to bring that type of attacking threat to Barcelona, who have netted 29 goals in LaLiga this term – 12 fewer than league-leading Real Madrid.
Speaking to Barcelona's official website, Torres said: "I am very happy to join Barca.
"I hope to continue growing as a footballer and person and to help Barca continue to be one of the best teams in the world.
"I'm very excited to be here. It's a huge step in my career, to continue growing, scoring goals. I am looking forward to joining.
"I can bring versatility; I can play in the three positions up front. I want to help score goals, give assists and also help defend."
Torres joins a Barca side in seventh place in LaLiga after a poor start to the campaign that saw Ronald Koeman sacked and replaced by Xavi in early November.
Xavi has had a mixed start to his tenure, having won three, drawn three and lost two of his first eight games, but Torres is excited to play under the former midfield star.
"He had a formidable career as a player," Torres said. "As a coach he is starting, but he is formidable. He is going to help me grow and improve."
Reggae Girl Van Zanten eyes strong comeback from season-ending injury
The thought of being sidelined for an entire season is almost too much for some players to bear, but Jamaica international Kalyssa ‘Kiki’ Van Zanten has embraced her darkest hour with confidence that she will emerge stronger than before.
Van Zanten, 22, who represents Houston Dash in the United States’ National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was placed on the season-ending injury list, after she suffered damage to her left foot in the match against the Washington Spirit last Friday.
The American-born Reggae Girlz winger, made the revelation on social media, as she expressed her readiness to take on whatever obstacles came her way on what will be a challenging road back to enjoying her passion.
“Absolutely devastated that my rookie season has been put on hold. I’ll come back better and stronger,” Van Zanten captioned the post, which included an X-ray image of the injury.
Van Zanten was drafted with the number 21 overall pick in the 2024 NWSL Draft and signed with Houston Dash on March 15. She paraded her skills in four games this season and earned her first start on March 30, when the Dash earned three points on the road against Bay FC.
Prior to her professional move, Van Zanten strutted her stuff for University of Notre Dame in the NCAA Division 1 Women’s tournament, where she made 95 appearances and scored 27 goals.
On the international stage, the soft-spoken player, whose mother is Jamaican and father of a Dutch descent, made her Reggae Girlz debut during the Concacaf Women’s World Cup qualifiers in 2022. She scored her lone international goal against Costa Rica in Jamaica’s Concacaf Women’s Championships third-place finish in Mexico.
Van Zanten known for her speed and flair on the channels, was also a part of Jamaica’s history-making team that secured a famous Round of 16 finish at last year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
While she grapples with the reality of her injury, Van Zanten finds solace in the support of her teammates, coaches, and fans. Their words of encouragement and unwavering belief in her ability to come back stronger provides the comfort and strength required to face the long road to recovery.
“Thank you to my team, family and friends for all the support,” she said.
Garry Monk unhappy with penalty decision that cost Cambridge two valuable points
Cambridge boss Garry Monk was scathing of referee Will Finnie’s decision to award Wycombe a late penalty as the two sides recorded a 1-1 League One draw on Tuesday night.
Finnie penalised substitute Lyle Taylor seven minutes from time, allowing Luke Leahy to equalise and make Cambridge’s bid to avoid relegation go down to the final day.
A victory would have kept the U’s up and they led through Gassan Ahadme, despite illness and injury leading to Monk having only one fit centre-back available to him.
“It’s not in a million years a penalty,” Monk said afterwards.
“It’s got nothing to do with the players. It was taken out of our hands by a decision from an official that I think’s extremely poor. I’m not surprised that decision was given either, from the performance of the referee today.
“It is what it is, we’ve got to deal with it and the ramifications of it. We’re not in a place that we should have been and deserved to be tonight, where we were safe.
“In the second half, what more can you ask? We had some good chances tonight, we scored our goal. The bitter bit is not coming off with three points. We deserve to be in the situation where the job is done tonight.
“I’m really proud of them. They deserved to walk off this pitch tonight in front of our fans with the job done. We can feel deflated tonight but when we wake up tomorrow, we know what the job is.
“If we continue to show the amount of effort in what we’re doing then on Saturday we’ll get what we deserve, or what we did deserve tonight.”
Wycombe boss Matt Bloomfield was delighted to see his side make it 10 points from their last four away matches.
“We’ve played Shrewsbury, Port Vale – less so Carlisle because they were already relegated – and Cambridge. Teams that wanted points, needed points.
“The one thing I wanted to come away from every game is not being able to pick which team needed the points and which team didn’t.
“I wanted us to play with that intensity, that need to keep improving, the need to keep moving forward. It’s how we feel about ourselves. The boys are disappointed, they wanted to win tonight and I think they way we played showed that.
“You can’t win every game, we have to be very respectful of the way Cambridge played and performed but I think we did enough to win the game.
“First half we were excellent, it’s as dominant as we’ve been. The only slight disappointment was that we weren’t ahead. To show the character to go and get a penalty and come back, I thought we were very good.”
Darrell Clarke urges Cheltenham fans to get behind team in bid to stay up
Darrell Clarke has called for Cheltenham’s fans to travel in numbers as they bid to escape the drop in League One with a final-day win at Stevenage.
Tuesday’s 2-0 home victory over Peterborough kept their hopes alive, sealed by first-half goals from Joe Nuttall and Matty Taylor, leaving them two points behind Burton.
They must win at Stevenage and hope Burton fail to beat Fleetwood and or Cambridge lose to Port Vale.
“I thought the boys were magnificent tonight and we needed to be,” Clarke said.
“Now, we take it to the last game of the season. It was a really good atmosphere tonight and the fans were great so hopefully we can get as many of them as possible down to Stevenage and fill the away end because we need everybody there trying to cheer us on for a win.
“When I came in we had one point and no goals, so of course I would have snapped your hand off for this position with one game left, with 44 points.
“The lads have been magnificent over a period of time and there is a real togetherness in the group, even when we took a lot of knocks recently.
“We have bounced back and found that really good performance. We need to find that last really good performance in the last game of the season.”
With their play-off spot already secured, Posh boss Darren Ferguson rested a host of regulars, making seven changes.
And his youthful side were blown away in the first half by the Robins, who knew anything other than a win meant relegation with one game to play.
Nuttall reacted quickest to bundle the ball over the line from close range after goalkeeper Nicholas Bilokapic could only parry Liam Sercombe’s shot in the 11th minute.
The lead was doubled 10 minutes later when Taylor brought down a ball forward from Lewis Freestone and applied an expert finish.
Taylor crashed a shot against the post in the 32nd minute after Liam Kinsella’s pass and Elliott Bonds forced Bilokapic into a smart save two minutes later.
Posh threatened through Ricky-Jade Jones before half-time, but they were second best and Taylor and Bonds both forced Bilokapic into evasive action in the second half.
At the other end, Luke Southwood parried Jonson Clarke-Harris’ shot in the 58th minute and kept out a late header from the centre forward.
Ferguson admitted his team struggled from the first whistle.
“They got on top of us and we couldn’t sustain any sort of control,” he said.
“The goals were terrible goals to give away, you can’t give goals away like that.
“We spoke about the first 20 minutes before we left the hotel – we had to see that through and try and make sure we dealt with them because we knew they’d be straight down our throats and they were and we conceded two soft goals.
“There were certain things we worked on that we didn’t do well enough, but the goals were poor and you can’t give goals away like that, especially tonight because they got so much energy from it.
“The longer the game went on and they hadn’t scored, the more chances we were going to get. We knew we had pace in behind and I have to say we had five or six very good opportunities as well.
“Congratulations to Cheltenham, they go into Saturday still with a chance of staying up.”
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