Jake Clarke-Salter: ‘I Was With Players I Played With on Playstation. Crazy’

Jake Clarke-Salter was sent off for this tackle on Middlesbrough’s Adama Traoré while on loan at Sunderland last season. Photograph: Richard Sellers/PA
Jake Clarke-Salter was sent off for this tackle on Middlesbrough’s Adama Traoré while on loan at Sunderland last season. Photograph: Richard Sellers/PA
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Jake Clarke-Salter: ‘I Was With Players I Played With on Playstation. Crazy’

Jake Clarke-Salter was sent off for this tackle on Middlesbrough’s Adama Traoré while on loan at Sunderland last season. Photograph: Richard Sellers/PA
Jake Clarke-Salter was sent off for this tackle on Middlesbrough’s Adama Traoré while on loan at Sunderland last season. Photograph: Richard Sellers/PA

As the referee reached for his back pocket less than half an hour into Vitesse Arnhem’s Europa League qualifier against Basel in August it was easy to imagine what was going through Jake Clarke-Salter’s mind. The Chelsea defender’s previous loan, at Sunderland last season, was overshadowed by back-to-back dismissals and now another red card – and a harsh one, too – was about to be shown in his direction. Holding his head in his hands, Clarke-Salter had only one thought: “Not again.”

Pulling up a chair at St George’s Park before England Under-21s’ game against Scotland on Tuesday, Clarke-Salter talks about “a massive learning curve” as he reflects on those red cards and his loan experiences, starting two years ago at Bristol Rovers, where he ended up having a metal plate inserted in an arm after a painful fracture-dislocation of his elbow.

At times it has been a test of his character as much as anything, especially at Sunderland, where Clarke-Salter had been so keen to have a positive impact only for everything to unravel. “It was tough, I was 20 years old and obviously I had to deal with the responsibility because they were my mistakes,” he says. “The first sending-off was a derby game and I made a badly timed tackle. The second one was just a bit of inexperience on my side. I’d just come back into the team, so I was gutted. But I’ve learned from it.”

Although his dismissal against Basel was controversial and hard to accept – Clarke-Salter clearly made contact with the ball first – he could be forgiven for worrying about picking up a reputation for seeing red. “You say that but then Sergio Ramos has had 20-something red cards in his career and he’s one of the best center-backs ever, so it happens,” Clarke-Salter replies. “It might be the last red card in my career. It might not be. But you live and learn.”

It is easy to overlook the leap from academy to senior football, even for those who have enjoyed spectacular success at youth level – and Clarke-Salter falls into that category. He was in the England squad who triumphed at the Under-20 World Cup last year, part of the Chelsea team who lifted two Uefa Youth League titles and is among a select group of teenagers to have won three FA Youth Cups. Yet first-team level presents a fresh set of challenges. “It’s a lot different to academy football,” he says. “Every point matters. But fighting for those points in front of fans is the best feeling ever.”

Although Chelsea’s close ties with Vitesse will naturally lead some to assume Clarke-Salter had little say in joining the Dutch club, the 21-year-old insists it was “completely my choice”. He met Steven Gerrard, Rangers’ manager, at the Toulon tournament in the summer with a view to going to Ibrox and several Championship clubs were interested but Clarke-Salter liked the thought of playing in the Eredivisie, where Mason Mount excelled on loan from Chelsea last season.

“A lot of young English players at the moment have gone abroad,” says Clarke-Salter, who has started every league fixture for Vitesse and is playing with more and more confidence. “I think it’s the regular game time that is important to us. That’s the main thing – playing games can open up so many opportunities. Mason is an example of that. He didn’t play much for the first couple of months at Vitesse, then all of a sudden he ripped the league apart.”

Listening to Clarke-Salter it is clear he has had to grow up fast on and off the pitch. He is one of six children – the youngest is 10 – and his responsibilities extend beyond being an older sibling. “My mum and dad separated when I was about 11. So I’ve been a father figure for my little brothers and sisters and tried to be like a role model for them, supporting them and hopefully giving them a better childhood,” Clarke-Salter says. “I’m trying to be a positive influence; that’s one of my aims really, to be there for them.”

Succeeding at Chelsea has focused his mind in that respect. He joined the club he grew up supporting when he was nine and his determination to make the grade shone through from an early age. Academy staff at Chelsea still smile at the way Clarke-Salter would knock on their door again and again. “I just always wanted to try to improve,” he says. “So I was asking questions, like: ‘How can I do better?’ I never wanted to waste a training session. I always wanted to try to be at the top and progress with the older age groups, like some other players were doing.”

Although a cruciate ligament injury stalled Clarke-Salter’s progress before he signed as a scholar, he went on to make his Premier League debut for Chelsea as an 18-year-old in a 4-0 win at Villa Park in 2016, and the smile when that occasion is mentioned says everything. “I came on for Pedro, a World Cup winner, which was a bit surreal,” he says. “I remember I was looking around playing with players like [Cesc] Fàbregas and [Alexandre] Pato, who I used to play with on the PlayStation when I was young. It was a crazy feeling, the sort of thing you dream of doing.”

Thoughts of playing again for Chelsea can wait. At the moment it is all about getting a full season behind him at Vitesse, who are fifth in the Eredivisie, retaining his place in Aidy Boothroyd’s England Under-21 squad, which is something that means so much to him, and taking the positives from a couple of tricky experiences. “I feel like I’ve learned to be a man,” Clarke-Salter says, “and I think that’s helping me now, because I’m confident and playing well.”

(The Guardian)



In-Form Atletico Madrid Looks to End Its Champions League Slump against City Rival Real Madrid

Atletico Madrid's head coach Diego Simeone holds a press conference after the training session of the team at Majadahonda Sports City, Madrid, Spain, 03 March 2025. (EPA)
Atletico Madrid's head coach Diego Simeone holds a press conference after the training session of the team at Majadahonda Sports City, Madrid, Spain, 03 March 2025. (EPA)
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In-Form Atletico Madrid Looks to End Its Champions League Slump against City Rival Real Madrid

Atletico Madrid's head coach Diego Simeone holds a press conference after the training session of the team at Majadahonda Sports City, Madrid, Spain, 03 March 2025. (EPA)
Atletico Madrid's head coach Diego Simeone holds a press conference after the training session of the team at Majadahonda Sports City, Madrid, Spain, 03 March 2025. (EPA)

The Madrid derby takes center stage in the round of 16 of the Champions League, with Atletico Madrid in a commanding position to try to finally get the best of rival Real Madrid in the European competition.

Madrid, the record 15-time European champion, has been a thorn for Atletico in the Champions League over the years, beating the city rival in two finals and eliminating it from the competition the other two times they faced off in the knockout rounds.

But this Atletico arrives for Tuesday's first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium playing some of its best soccer since coach Diego Simeone took over more than a decade ago, and showing the confidence that it can take on the long-time rival head-on.

The round of 16 will begin this week to cap the inaugural season of a new Champions League format that featured a league phase and a playoff round.

The other last-16 matchups will include the local rivalry of German clubs Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen, and powerhouses Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool going against each other.

Atletico Madrid enters the match against Madrid in good form and enjoying one of its best seasons under Simeone. The team is ahead of its rival in the Spanish league standings, and is only one point behind leader Barcelona.

Atletico hasn’t lost any of its matches this season against either Madrid or Barcelona. In the Spanish league, it beat the Catalan club 2-1 in Barcelona and drew 1-1 in both games it played against Madrid. Atletico hasn’t lost to Madrid in four consecutive matches, having eliminated the city rival in the round of 16 of the Copa del Rey last season.

“It’s a match with a lot of respect, against a great rival, who respects us in the same way,” Simeone said Monday. “For the city of Madrid it is spectacular that the two teams face each other and, for Spain, having a team in the quarterfinals is going to be fantastic.”

Simeone’s team finished fifth in the league phase of the Champions League, while Madrid was only 11th and had to play extra playoff games against Manchester City.

The last time Atletico faced Madrid in the Champions League, it was eliminated in the semifinals in 2017. It also lost to Madrid in the final both in 2014 and 2016, and in the 2015 quarterfinals.

Overall, Atletico has won only three of its 10 meetings against Madrid in UEFA competitions, with five losses and two draws.

“The derby is always a special match,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said. “They are always very even and very competitive matches, and it's going to be like that again tomorrow (Tuesday). Atletico is having a very good season.”

Madrid is coming off a loss at Real Betis in the Spanish league, while Atletico won 1-0 against Athletic Bilbao.

PSG vs. Liverpool

Premier League leader Liverpool finished the league phase in first place but there was little reward as it will have to take on France powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 16.

PSG struggled in the league phase, finishing in 15th place, but picked up momentum in the playoffs by routing fellow French club Brest 3-0 in the first leg and 7-0 in the return game at home, when seven different players scored.

Liverpool won seven of its eight Champions League matches this season, with the lone defeat coming at PSV Eindhoven in the final matchday, when it had little to lose.

Benfica vs. Barcelona

An in-form Barcelona, which had the second-best campaign in the league phase, will face a familiar foe in Benfica.

The two teams met in the league phase, with Barcelona winning a 5-4 thriller in Lisbon. Benfica stunned Barcelona 3-0 at home in the group stage in 2021-22, and held the Spanish powerhouse to a 0-0 away draw in results that helped keep the five-time champion from advancing to the knockout stage at the time.

PSV vs. Arsenal

PSV Eindhoven brought one of the surprises of the league phase with its 3-2 win over Liverpool, and then it got past Juventus with an extra-time victory in the playoffs.

It will now another face another Premier League team in top form: An Arsenal squad that is second in the Premier behind Liverpool and that finished third in the league phase of the Champions League.

Bayern Munich vs. Bayer Leverkusen

The all-German encounter will feature a Leverkusen side that finished sixth in the league phase and a Bayern team that needed a stoppage-time goal by Alphonso Davies to get through the playoffs against Celtic.

Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen trails Bayern by eight points in the Bundesliga, but did not concede any attempts on target when the two played a 0-0 draw last month.

Other matchups Last year's runner-up, Borussia Dortmund will take on a Lille side that thrived in the league phase, finishing seventh after a campaign that included wins over both Madrid and Atletico Madrid.

Aston Villa also was a league-phase surprise, losing only once to finish eighth and set up the round-of-16 matchup against a Club Brugge squad that defeated Villa 1-0 at home in November. Brugge eliminated Atalanta in the playoffs.

Inter Milan conceded only once — in a 1-0 loss at Leverkusen — en route to a fourth-place finish in the league phase. It will face a Feyenoord team that will have Robin van Persie as its third coach in the Champions League this season.