Real Madrid Agree to Sign Hamit Altintop

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho made the latest addition to his squad for next season on Thursday when the Spanish club agreed to sign German-born Turkey midfielder Hamit Altintop from Bayern Munich.The 28-year-old, whose deal with the Bundesliga club expires at the end of this term, had agreed a four year contract, Real said in a statement.Altintop is Mourinho's second signing since they lost out to champions Barcelona in the domestic league title race and the Champions League after fellow Turkey midfielder Nuri Sahin joined from Borussia Dortmund last week.Together with Sami Khedira, Mesut Ozil and Sahin, Altintop is the fourth German born midfielder to join the club since the Portuguese took the helm at the end of the 2009/10 campaign.Ozil, like Sahin and Altintop, is of Turkish descent, though he opted to play for Germany at international level alongside Khedira, who has a German mother and Tunisian father.Altintop declined to negotiate an extension with Bayern after failing to hold down a regular starting place this term, when he made 14 appearances and scored two goals.He joined the Munich-based club from Schalke 04 in 2007 and won a league and cup double in 2008 and 2010. He was a Champions League finalist last year when Bayern lost to Mourinho's Inter Milan at the Bernabeu.He has made 64 appearances for his country and helped Turkey reach the semi-finals at Euro 2008, where he was included in UEFA's team of the tournament.

English Premier League club Chelsea will play in Malaysia

English Premier League club Chelsea will play in Malaysia on July 21, the event organiser said Thursday.The club will meet Malaysia XI at the 87,000-capacity Bukit Jalil Stadium in the capital Kuala Lumpur as part of its Asia Tour, John Merritt, the Singapore-based managing director for promoter ProEvents told.Liverpool, another Premier League club, has also said they will play in Malaysia in July, but no date has been announced yet, Merritt said. ‘So far we have only announced this one team (Chelsea),’ he said. ‘There will be more announcements over the coming weeks.’Ticket sales for the Chelsea match will begin Friday, with an online purchasing option up and running on May 30.The team will also stage open training sessions at the stadium, according to its website. Chelsea will play in Bangkok on July 24 and Hong Kong on July 27 and 30.

Diego Maradona was thrilled to resume his coaching career

Diego Maradona said he was thrilled to resume his coaching career in the United Arab Emirates where he would have no restrictions in signing players for his new club Al Wasl.The Dubai-based club confirmed a deal with Maradona on Monday but gave no details. Before returning to Dubai Maradona will going home to Buenos Aires later this week."It's a marvellous experience that I went looking for. I didn't need any recommendation,"Maradona , who had been linked to several jobs since his contract as Argentina coach was not renewed after last year's World Cup, said on Wednesday."I'm happy because I saw the opportunity to be able to coach in a country which maybe doesn't have all the stars but a team to lead, good money,Who give you the players you ask for," he told TyC Sports by telephone from Spain.Maradona said his assistant coaches would be the same two men on his staff at the World Cup in South Africa where his Argentina team were knocked out by Germany in the quarter-finals, Hector Enrique and Alejandro Mancuso."There is a signed pre-contract which needs polishing and then we'll have to start thinking about the work," said the 50-year-old 1986 World Cup-winning captain.

Dutch football 'needs to keep its top players in the country'

Dutch football faces the mammoth challenge of keeping homegrown talent within its clubs if it seeks to scale the heights of glory days of "total football" in the 1970s and 80s, according to a top official from the Dutch Football Association.

"We need our players to stay within our clubs in the Netherlands and our biggest challenge at the moment is to keep the agents away from taking our top players to play in other leagues in Europe," Corne Groenendijk, the technical expert from the Netherlands Royal Football Association told delegates on the final day of the 1st Dubai International Football Academies Forum Sunday.

Known either for their synonymous concept of "total football" or for delivering some of the flamboyant names in the sport like Johan Cryuff, Van Basten and Gullit, the coach believed that the bane of Dutch modern-day football has more to do with the "structural environment" than with talent today.

"Our World Cup team today is even better than the teams of 1974 or 1978," Groenendijk said in response to a question."We have been suffering due to some changes in the structural environment and not due to the paucity of players. We have players like Sneijder, Robben and Van Persie to match those names of the 1970s and 80s," he said.

"What we have instructed our coaches, is to keep away from this 10 per cent of talented players and allow them to develop. On the other hand, the staff has also be told to make the other 90 per cent work hard and try and match this 10 per cent," Groenendijk said.

"In this way, we are not missing too many things to have a successful run, as seen by our entry into the 2010 Fifa World Cup final. But what we see as a definite challenge is how to keep these players back at our clubs in the Netherlands," he asserted.

"The debate following our loss to Spain last year has been ‘Should we be known for good football and go home after the first round? Or should our football be more of a fight and less of play?'. My opinion is good football, and the current team has the stars to show this brand," Groenendijk reiterated.

"We have no Dutch secret on our success. We have a vision at the club level and we have stuck to this vision while working with a single-minded focus. The results will be seen in due course," he added.