Football: Swazi women's team win 33-0 A Swazi women football team's ambitious target of scoring 150 goals this season inched closer at the weekend after walloping a rival team 33-0 - a rate of one goal nearly every three minutes.
November 07, 2008
Obama is a soccer fan. West Ham invite Obama to watch a game at Upton Park. Apparently, he watched a Hammers game in 2003 while visiting his half-sister in London (article doesn't say if it was live, home, away or on the telly). Obama's older daughter plays on a soccer team. Change we can believe in.
November 01, 2008
Collina Speaks! to the NY Times no less If I respect only a few referees, Pierluigi Collina is first among all. Though he claims no dissatisfaction at the 45 years old retirement rule, the man who stood out among the stars at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups is going strong and gives the Times a glimpse into his thinking.
October 25, 2008
Tottenham Hotspur Clean House, Dump Coach Juande Ramos Spurs, with just two points after nine matches, have fired coach Juande Ramos, assistant coaches Gus Poyet and Marcos Alvarez, and sporting director Damien Comolli. No Premiership team has started this poorly and avoided relegation in 10 years.
October 03, 2008
The comedy club of Newcastle Utd F.C Continues to have us all rolling in the aisles. When he was at Wimbledon, Joe Kinnear, Newcastles caretaker manager used to come across as quite avuncular and jovial, as soon as he turned up at Newcastle though, he looked old, sad, lost and bewildered. Time (a full week) in the job seems to have taken its toll, if this transcript of a press conference is anything to go by. You need to read right until the end for the full belly laugh.
October 02, 2008
Spanish Soccer Player To Play For Free Next Season Joseba Etxeberria of Athletic Bilbao has agreed to a one-year deal that will see him get paid exactly $0 for the 2009-10 season. The veteran has described the move as a gesture of good will towards the team and its fans. Team President Fernando Garca Macua has described the deal has unprecedented in Spain's Liga Primera.
September 22, 2008
Nigerian businessmen bid for Newcastle A Nigerian consortium wants to become the first African owners of an EPL team. It is unclear if their bid was sent by email. Or if it required the opening of a local bank account.
September 21, 2008
"Now that you, the American taxpayer, more or less own insurance giant AIG, it turns out that you, the American taxpayer, are also the principal sponsor of Manchester United, thanks to a four-year, $100 million sponsorship deal signed in 2006. So this got me curious: how is our soccer football team doing?"
September 01, 2008
Manchester City make it the Big Five. The final day of the EPL's season-opener transfer window turns out to be a historic day for the blue side of Manchester. read more
August 11, 2008
Gullit and Lalas gone from the Galaxy. Too much is given much is expected...
August 09, 2008
Close season is almost over The Community Shield is in 36 hours, the EPL opens in another week. Who made the most of the transfer window? Will the Top 4 do anything but play musical chairs? Scolari has come to Chelsea, kept Lampard and Drogba (so far) and wants Robinho. SAF has not lost Lady Boy and not bought Berbatov. Arsenal bought teen heartthrob Aaron Ramsey and Samir Nasri. Liverpool got Keane, Dossena, Degen and Ngog. read more
July 31, 2008
FootballFilter 2.0 The people behind FootballFilter have re-thought the concept and came up with an aggregator format (similar to popurls.com) which "categorizes new[s] sources into things such as tabloids, broadsheets, magazines, broadcasters, international, [and] blogs." According to the developers, the idea behind the new FootballFilter is to "centralise all the best football sources into one place to save time and make the most of your time on the internet." [via MetaFilter Projects]
July 23, 2008
US Soccer Fan's Bill of Rights (and Responsibilities)
July 17, 2008
Rob Green: 21 days that changed my life. This summer West Ham's goalkeeper did without the traditional footballer's holiday and went instead to Africa to work with a charity that helps the truly disadvantaged and uses football to get its message across. Here Rob Green describes an experience that was both shattering and ultimately uplifting.
July 14, 2008
Drunk referee shown the red card. (video link)
June 29, 2008
Best soccer/football goal celebrations, 1 and 2. YouTube warning There's some very entertaining clips involved. I hope y'all enjoy them.
June 25, 2008
The ultimate soccer pick-up game this evening (5:30) in Manhattan. Steve Nash putting an all-star group together for a pick-up soccer game for charity.
Remi Gaillard, soccer prankster (video) In celebration of Euro 2008, public prankster ... Rmi Gaillard made the following video of himself using the urban landscape as a soccer pitch. He scores goals into an occupied ambulance, trash cans, a trash truck, a police station entrance, a second storey window, a drive thru window, a fountain, a monument, a lighting structure, a manhole (heh), a pizza vendor truck, all with victims in attendance.
June 23, 2008
Paul Ince is Blackburn's new manager and first black English manager in EPL. Frenchman Jean Tigana with Fulham and (Dutch/Surinamese) Ruud Gullit with Chelsea and Newcastle are the only other two black managers to have managed in the Premier League. Ince will be officially presented as Blackburn's manager on Tuesday.
June 12, 2008
An incredible collection of photos from yesterday's Turkey vs. Switzerland rain-soaked Euro 2008 match, courtesy of Alan Taylor's phenomenal photoblog at the Boston Globe.
June 11, 2008
Scolari is new Chelsea coach, effective July 1. Looks like Avram Grant was a stopgap until they found a big name. Now they've found one in the current Portugal coach (who also won something called the World Cup as Brazil's coach in 2002), who's doing quite well at the Euro 2008 championship right now.
June 05, 2008
Kicking It: The Movie (QuickTime). [via coudal] In the summer of 2006, while the football world's attention was focused on Germany, thousands of players around the globe were training hard and competing to be part of ... The Homeless World Cup. ... 500 homeless players from 48 nations would ultimately be selected to represent their country in Cape Town, South Africacoming from such disparate parts of the world as war torn Afghanistan, the slums of Kenya, the drug rehab clinics of Dublin, Ireland, the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, the overflowing public shelters of Madrid, Spain, and the unforgiving city of St. Petersburg, Russia ... The film follows seven players ... as they confront the daily challenges of life on the streets, battle drug and alcohol addiction, and fight for the right to be recognized as human beings. ... From shattering misconceptions about the homeless to seeing people living at the edge of society discover that they also can be winners, the film shows in a real and powerful way that sports can and does change lives. This completes my soccer trifecta for today. Amen.
16 nations vie for Euro 2008 title beginning June 7. Czech Republic, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Greece, Russia, Spain, Spain, Sweden. Who's your pick to win it? Who will be the surprise team? Where can we watch live in the US for free at home (or can we)? Get the ball rolling inside.
Mark Hughes is new Manchester City manager. The former Manchester United star and Blackburn Rovers manager takes over from Sven-Goran Eriksson. The article also mentions that Hughes was non-committal on the impending purchases of Brazilians Ronaldinho and Jo. The next Manchester derby should be a rousing affair, with Hughes going up against old boss Alex Ferguson. Meanwhile, with Hughes' move, Chelsea loses yet another candidate to replace the departed Avram Grant. And Blackburn appear to be in no hurry to fill Hughes' spot, with candidates such as Sam Allardyce (late of Newcastle and Bolton) lined up.
June 03, 2008
Mourinho to Inter Milan, targets Chelsea trio. The Special One lands at Inter, and speculation is he will go after Essien, Drogba and Lampard.