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Highly-rated Atalanta midfielder Lazar Samardzic admitted he turned down Barcelona’s advances before moving to Italy in 2021. The 22-year-old swapped Udinese for the Gewiss Stadium in the summer despite being heavily linked with Milan, Inter, and Napoli in the past 12 months.
However, before he left RB Leipzig to link up with the Friulian outfit three years ago, Samardzic was among the hottest young properties in European football. In addition to Milan, several foreign clubs, including Barcelona, had tried to lure him away from the Red Bull Arena.
“I started at Hertha Berlin and the experience at Leipzig was incredible because they have everything a young player could need,” the Atalanta midfielder told Cronache di Spogliatoio, as reported by TuttoAtalanta. “At that time, I already received interest from Barcelona and Milan.
“ I remember Patrick Kluivert, who at the time was in charge of the Barcelona youth academy, came to visit our family home. We were also invited to the Milan training center, but with my family, we decided it was better to wait.
“ It was tough turning down Barcelona, especially as my idol was Lionel Messi and my first jersey was a Barca one, ” the Atalanta ace confessed.
Samardzic joined Atalanta on loan with an obligation to buy set at €20 million, plus an additional €5m in add-ons. He has made 11 appearances for the club this season, tallying two goals and one assist. After a slow start to life in Bergamo, he has recently become a crucial component of Gian Piero Gasperini’s set-up.
After beating Milan to Samardzic’s signature in the summer, Atalanta could add insult to injury as they bid to capture in-demand Monza playmaker Daniel Maldini.
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Green Bay Packers: Matt LaFleur Makes ‘Bittersweet Admission After NFL Preseason Win Against Seahawks
With the NFL preseason over, teams across the NFL, including the Green Bay Packers, now face a series of decisions that will lead to the final 53-man roster. The Packers have until Tuesday to trim their roster down to that count. There will be several factors for the Packers to consider before thinning out the roster. Health, depth needs and offseason performances will all go into the equation for Green Bay. In any case, there will be tough news the Packers have to deliver to players, who will eventually not make the final cut. “A lot of decisions have to be made, and this is always a bittersweet time,” Packers head coach Matt LaFleur told reporters following Green Bay’s 20-7 win at Lambeau Field on Saturday against the visiting Seattle Seahawks, per Ryan Wood of USA Today. Who’s in and who’s out of the final 2025 Green Bay Packers roster? There are plenty of players who are easy calls to be included in the final cut. Quarterbacks Jordan Love and Malik Willis will make it. Running backs Josh Jacobs and Emanuel Wilson should, too. However, MarShawn Lloyd can be expected to be put on the injured reserve, as the oft-injured tailback is dealing with another injury. The wide receiving room should have rookie Matthew Golden, Romeo Doubs, Dontayvion Wicks and Jayden Reed, but it will be interesting to see whether Malik Heath and Mecole Hardman would make it. The offensive line also gives the Packers some intriguing dilemmas, with Kadeem Telfort and Donovan Jennings seemingly at risk of getting released. The defense doesn’t seem to offer as much complexity, particularly on the defensive line, but Barryn Sorrell’s injury could make things interesting as well.
Phillies get terrible injury news on ace starting pitcher
The Philadelphia Phillies received the update they did not want to hear on Saturday. Starting pitcher Zack Wheeler is going to miss the remainder of the 2025 season due to thoracic outlet syndrome, the team announced. He will have surgery to correct the issue with a recovery time of six to eight months. There is no way to sugarcoat this for the Phillies — this is brutal news and a potentially crushing blow to their World Series chances in the National League. While they still have a strong rotation and two excellent front-line starters in Cristopher Sanchez and Ranger Suarez, Wheeler is their unquestioned ace and has been one of the best overall pitchers in the National League since he joined the Phillies prior to the 2020 season. The Phillies are still pretty much a playoff lock at this point and entered the weekend with a six-game lead over the New York Mets in the National League East standings. But taking a front-line starter away from them this late in the season is going to be impossible to replace. With Wheeler, Sanchez and Suarez, they would have had a fierce trio to throw at teams in a short series (or a best-of-seven series) that could have stacked up with anybody. Sanchez and Suarez are still going to give them a great chance, but it's definitely not what they wanted. Prior to Saturday's announcement, Wheeler had a 2.71 ERA and was leading the league in both strikeouts (195) and strikeouts per nine innings (11.7) pitched. He also has the lowest WHIP (walks/hits per innings pitched) in the league (.935).
Green Bay Packers: Matt LaFleur Takes Notice of Tucker Kraft’s Transformation After TE’s Award
Two-time Stanley Cup champion leaves NHL for Switzerland
Last season was a tough one for veteran defenseman Jan Rutta. He dealt with some lower-body injuries, and when he was in the lineup for San Jose, he was often on the third pairing. That has certainly contributed to his going unsigned through the first seven weeks of free agency, but that is coming to an end. Earlier this week, Blick’s Gregory Beaud (h/t The Hockey News) reported that the blueliner is signing with Geneve-Servette in Switzerland. Rutta played in 54 games for the Sharks last season, picking up just three goals and six assists in a little over 17 minutes a night. However, he took a regular turn on their penalty kill and played some tough defensive minutes. Speculatively, NHL teams could be eyeing him as a PTO candidate to fill a sixth or seventh role if things went well in training camp but clearly, a full contract offer has yet to materialize and at some point, a guaranteed deal overseas could be viewed as a better option than trying to earn a contract off a tryout. Rutta debuted fairly late in the NHL with his first season coming at the age of 27 with Chicago. Since then, he has suited up in 417 regular-season games between four different clubs, putting up 23 goals and 75 assists along with 479 blocked shots. He also has a pair of Stanley Cup rings from his time with Tampa Bay. Rutta will be the third veteran NHL player to join that team this offseason. Previously, it signed wingers Jesse Puljujarvi and Jimmy Vesey and has one import slot remaining that it appears they want to use to bring in a veteran defender.
World Series-winning pitcher won't commit to playing beyond 2025
Jon Gray’s season was all but officially ended last week by a diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome and a subsequent placement on the Rangers’ 15-day injured list. TOS surgery would keep Gray sidelined for a big chunk of the 2026 season and perhaps the entirety of next year, and Gray would be 35 on Opening Day 2027. The idea of hanging up his glove entirely has apparently at least crossed Gray’s mind, as Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that Gray “responded mostly with a shrug” when asked by reporters Friday if he was going to keep playing beyond this season. When asked about pitching again in 2025, Gray said “I don’t have any idea about the future. I guess there is always hope. But it’s hard to have hope with everything that’s happened. It’s just become a really frustrating pattern.” That said, Gray noted that he had some interest in looking to “go out with a good feeling” rather than be somewhat forced out of baseball due to injury. Given that a TOS surgery hasn’t even been officially planned yet, it is probably too soon to be reading too much into Gray’s immediate reaction, as his emotions are (understandably) raw about this latest major setback to his career. There is no rush for him to make any big decision about his playing career, and naturally Gray might want to take his time in considering whether or not to walk away from the game entirely. This major injury adds another layer, however, to what was already looking like a crossroads of an offseason for the right-hander. Gray is in the final season of his four-year, $56M contract, and he has pitched only 14 innings this season due to a broken wrist suffered during spring training, and then this most recent IL placement. The Rangers have used Gray out of the bullpen rather than as a starter, and he has struggled to a 7.71 ERA over his six appearances. The sample size is small enough that it’s hard to make any clear observations from Gray’s 2025 performance, and five homers allowed over his 14 innings obviously skewed his numbers to some extent. It still clearly wasn’t the type of platform year Gray was hoping for heading into free agency, and if healthy, he would’ve likely been looking at a one-year guarantee from a team hoping he could bounce back. The TOS surgery could make a two-year deal a possibility, with a minimal salary in the first year and a larger commitment for 2027 when Gray is presumably healthy, yet the overall size of that contract doesn’t figure to be too pricey considering the shaky track record of pitchers returning in good form after thoracic outlet syndrome. Injuries have been a frequent concern for Gray, as a variety of issues (foot problems, an MCL strain, an oblique strain, blisters, shoulder inflammation, a forearm strain, multiple groin strains in 2024 and his fractured wrist) have led to IL stints over the course of his 11 major league seasons. Despite these health woes and the fact that he spent his first seven seasons pitching in the thin air with the Rockies, Gray has a respectable 4.49 ERA, 23.4% strikeout rate and 7.8% walk rate over 1230 2/3 career innings. Chosen third overall by Colorado in the 2013 draft, Gray didn’t quite reach the star level associated with such lofty draft status, but he has been a solid rotation member over his career with some flashes of being a frontline starter. If this is indeed it for Gray, he can look back with pride on a long career that included a World Series ring with Texas in 2023. (Gray contributed to that title with a 1.59 ERA over 5 2/3 relief innings during the Rangers’ postseason run.) Grant suggested two other factors that might impact any of Gray’s retirement plans. Gray has over 10 years of MLB service time — officially crossing that threshold earlier this season — and therefore is already qualified for a full pension. There is also the widespread expectation that MLB will be facing a work stoppage when the collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2026 season, so if Gray does indeed miss next year while rehabbing, a return to the field could be even further delayed by a lockout.
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