Massimiliano Allegri's future as AC Milan coach hangs in the balance as his side visit relegated Siena on the last day of the season on Sunday, still needing a win to clinch third place in Serie A and a berth in the Champions League playoff round.

Allegri's players have voiced their support for the coach, who has overseen an impressive revival in the second half of the season with only one Serie A defeat since the winter break.

The phlegmatic Allegri, who won the Serie A title in his first season at Milan and led them to second place last term, had to cope with a firesale of players in the

David Beckham was the first footballer to become a true global marketing phenomenon.

Though he captained England, he was world famous and became a household name across the entire planet.

We asked our European offices for their reaction to the news that Goldenballs has retired - surveying the correspondents on two questions.

First, what they see as Beckham's defining moment.

And second, whether his ability as a player matched the hype around this footballing superstar.

For English football fans, the answers are fairly simple: his greatest moment was undeniably the free kick against Greece in 2001

Reda Maher at the Amsterdam ArenA - on Twitter @Reda_Eurosport

As last acts go, Chelsea's Europa League final win over Benfica was pretty dramatic.

Redemption for Fernando Torres after his general woes at the club, redemption for Branislav Ivanovic after he missed the Champions League final win in Munich, and a last-gasp vindication for the departing Rafael Benitez, who has once again showed himself to be a master of the cup final and gone some way to erasing that iffy spell at Inter Milan.

It wasn’t quite a smash-and-grab affair, but Benfica defied the form and statistics to dominate the ball

Werder Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf (Reuters)

Werder Bremen have sacked the closest thing German football has to Sir Alex Ferguson – their coach Thomas Schaaf.

While Ferguson has spent 26 years at Old Trafford Schaff's has been at Bremen for an amazing 41 years – although only the last 14 of those as a manager.

Schaaf truly is a one-club man, playing for the club as a youth before joining the professional ranks in 1978. The defender was assistant manager while still a player, retiring in 1995.

He took over as the manager of the second team that same year, before being given the permanent job in 1999.

Werder won the double under his

Jorge Jesus cuts an animated, almost rakish figure as he patrols the touchline for Benfica, and nothing we have seen so far this season hints that the flamboyant tactician will be anything other than strained during Wednesday’s Europa League final against Chelsea.

Benfica have the illustrious history, both of free-flowing attacking football and of sustained European success, although their continental presence has diminished almost in tandem with Chelsea’s rise.

The perceived wisdom is that the Portuguese giants are a dangerous attacking force who can cause Chelsea’s occasionally flaky defence

Milan's Kevin Prince Boateng and Mario Balotelli

A couple of years ago, Milan's yellow-tied chief executive Adriano Galliani lamented what had become of Serie A. "It's like with theatres and restaurants," he told the pink pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport. "There are beautiful theatres and ugly ones, luxury restaurants and pizzerias."

That comment of his came to mind once again when reading the columns of one of Italy's great sportswriters, Gianni Mura, in La Repubblica on Monday morning. "Ask for the bill, get up and leave," he wrote. The plate he'd been served the night before, billed on the menu as a feast of football between Milan and

Galatasaray striker Didier Drogba hit back at a Fenerbahce fan who waved a banana towards him and team mate Emmanuel Eboue during the weekend's league encounter by highlighting some home truths about racism.

Ivory Coast players Eboue and Drogba, who was instrumental in Chelsea's run to the Champions League title last season, were heckled during Sunday's 2-1 league win by Fenerbahce in the high-octane encounter.

A Fenerbahce fan was stabbed to death and more than 100 fans were detained following Turkey's most popular derby.

Drogba, whose Galatasaray team have already secured the Turkish

Wayne Rooney, Manchester United

Once the golden boy of England and Manchester United, Wayne Rooney has undoubtedly reached something of a crossroads in his career.

Booed by his own fans as England endured a miserable World Cup in 2010, and booed again as United took to the streets of Manchester on Monday to celebrate winning this season's Premier League crown.

Without question, he remains a first choice for Roy Hodgson when it comes to leading the line with the national team, but that surely says more about the paucity of talent that England can call upon, as his recent goal scoring record for the three Lions is not what