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National Teams In The News:
 2006 Beach Soccer World Cup Champions, Brasil! |
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 2006 African Cup of Nations Champions, Egypt!
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2005 Confederations Cup Champions, Brasil! |
 2004 Athens Women's Gold Medal Champions, USA! |
 2004 Athens Men's Gold Medal Champions, Argentina! |
 2004 Asian Cup of Nations Champions, Japan!
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2004 Copa América Champions, Brasil! |
 Euro 2004 Cup Champions, Greece! |
Flag graphics courtesy of
and copyrighted by World Flag Database.Archived Stories And News Items:
Soccer America's 35 Most Influential People in American Soccer: A very
interesting article with summaries of the top echelon in North American soccer
circles.
MLS Relaxes Its Salary Cap: The Beckham Rule: "Under the new rule approved
by team owners, clubs will have the ability to go above the current two
million-dollar per team salary cap to acquire a "designated player." Each team
will receive one "designated player" spot on its roster, and while they can be
traded among teams no team will be able to have more than two such players. MLS
will be responsible for up to 400,000 dollars of the player's salary, and the
team will pay the rest."
Giorgio Chinaglia Discusses His Radio Show and the State of Soccer in North
America and Europe: Giorgio has no hair on his tongue, as we say in Italian.
;-) One of the best players to ever grace North America with the Cosmos.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter Apologizes to Australian Fans: First, he didn't
hand the trophy to Fabio Cannavaro after Italy defeated France in the final.
Then he and his friends at FIFA gave Marco Materazzi a two-game suspension for
being the recipient of Zidane's vicious head butt. Then he said it was a tragedy
to decide the final by penalty kicks. Now he tells Australians that Italy didn't
deserve to beat them. Yes, there is a tragedy here. FIFA needs to stop targeting one team (Italy) for abuse. Who has
four stars on their shirts, Herr Blatter?
US Soccer Youth Development. An excellent article by Mike Woitalla of Soccer
America. Candid and intriguing commentary by Kevin Payne of DC United. ''I
personally think that [American players] are very poor technically,'' Payne
says. ''Almost universally our players' first touch isn't what it needs to be.
Their ability to shoot the ball isn't where it should be... All of those things
come a little bit from being over-coached in terms of achieving success for
their teams and they end up not as sound in terms of playing individually.''
The MLS Salary Cap. A very informative article by Ives Galarcep that
explains how North American clubs can exceed the $1.7 million dollar team salary
cap.
Andriy Shevchenko: The Making of Sheva. An excerpt from his new
autobiography.
Champions League Payouts: It pays to qualify. "A total
minimum amount of €4.4m per club is guaranteed for the group stage. A club could
receive, at best, up to €22.7m, not counting the market pool share and gate
receipts." See what Juventus is losing this year?
Marco Matererazzi Reveals What Really Happened With Zinedine Zidane: Unusual
candor and diplomacy offered by "Matrix." If only others had as much common
sense. His suspension for 2 games was ridiculous. Using that as a standard,
every person who has ever played soccer at any level would be sanctioned. ;-)
Champions League Draw: Chelsea and Barca renew their fierce rivalry in the
group stages. The games begin on 12 September.
Randy Turner, owner of the Cleveland Browns, takes over Aston Villa. He
becomes the second American to have controlling interest in an English
Premiership team.
Soccer Team Valuations by Forbes Magazine: Real Madrid and Manchester United
lead the way. Both clubs are valued at over a billion dollars, and had revenues
of $334 and 298 million, respectively, during 2004-2005.
Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos: For
awhile, soccer was not on the distant periphery of the North American sporting
horizon. The Cosmos were one of the best club sides in the world during the late
70s to early 80s.
World Cup 2006 Final Had Unprecedented Viewership in North America: 12
million on ABC, along with 5 million on Univision. Over the course of the 64-game tournament, Univision drew an estimated
50 million viewers to its three US networks (Telefutura, Telemundo, and
Univision), and 21 million were non-Hispanic, according to Nielsen
figures. Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at
Syracuse University, said on Monday: "It's surprising. This is a country that is
not all that friendly even to subtitles. But somehow they found the Univision
coverage so much better that they could overlook the fact that it was in a
different language." Muy bien, Univision. :-)
ESPN Drops The Ball On WC 2006 Commentary: Fortunately, we can watch
Univision in North America. Please read this intriguing article by the Wall Street Journal.
The Best Penalty Kick Takers in World Cup History: You don't want to meet
Germany in a shoot-out.
Soccerballworld.com: Anything you ever wanted to know about the black and
white ball. Or its other various hues.
"Socceranto:
Birth of a Language." An intriguing new book by Ignacio van Gelderen. "The
beginning of an ongoing effort to unite the world under one soccer language. The
book uses six languages and slang to create universal vocabulary that will
enable fans to understand each other."
Look Out For The Secret Signals: A very interesting article inside the world
of top level referees.
Steven Gerrard Leads Liverpool to their 7th FA Cup: Another come from behind
victory fueled by one of the most determined players of the modern era.
Italian Football Mired By Another Big Scandal: Juventus, AC Milan, Lazio,
and Fiorentina are under investigation, along with the former Juventus Director
General, Luciano Moggi. Among many prominent referees, and the Italian number
one keeper, Gigi Buffon. Serious accusations of match fixing, betting, and
assignment of referees.
A Star Is Made: A very interesting article by the authors of Freakonomics,
Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt.
The American MLS Releases Its 2006 Salary List: Some might say it violates
privacy and good taste. Especially after one sees the wide disparity among
individual teams. But we live in a North American culture of full-disclosure. I feel that
salaries should be confidential. On or off the pitch. ;-)
France Football's Top 20 Highest Earning Soccer Players: Ronaldinho leads
the list, and has tripled his total earnings during 2005.
AS Roma Sets
The Serie A Consecutive Wins Record: And they made history against their
most bitter rivals, SS Lazio.
The Richest Clubs In The World by Deloitte
Top Ten Highest Paid Soccer Players by Forbes Magazine
Ten Years After
the Bosman Ruling: Jean-Marc Bosman gave free agency to players, and created
multi-national European teams. Ironically, Bosman never benefited from the
ruling that changed the balance of power in European football.
Legendary Clockwork Orange coach,
Rinus
Michels, dies at the age of 77. He added "total football" to the
soccer lexicon, along with some of the most entertaining Dutch teams.
Hernan Crespo of AC Milan set a record by scoring a goal
for his fifth different team in Champions League play. Previously, he scored for
Parma, Lazio, Inter Milan, and Chelsea.
Ali Daei set a modern day record with his 100th goal for Iran. No other player
has ever scored 100 goals at the national team level.
Racism
rears its ugly head in two separate incidences in Spain targeting English
players.
The
offside law may be changed. UEFA is trying to convince FIFA to make a
change.
Arsenal
sets the English Premier League unbeaten record at 43 games with a convincing
win over Blackburn.
David Beckham plans to open youth soccer academies in London and Los
Angeles.
Zinedine
Zidane retires from the French National Team. In a brilliant ten year
career, he won the World Cup, along with the European Nations Cup. (In late
2005, he changed his mind and returned.)
MLS
sends it stars to Europe as the Americans gain further respect in notable foreign
leagues.
A referee shoots and
kills a coach in South Africa who objected to one of his calls.
UEFA's All-Star Team for Euro 2004.
Greece wins Euro
2004 in stunning fashion.
Unknown Once Caldas of Colombia upsets Boca Juniors of Argentina to win the
2004 Copa Libertadores, which is the South American Champions League Cup.
Swiss referee Urs Meier receives police protection after death threats.
Was the Denmark v.
Sweden game fixed, or just a 2-2 coincidence? Here, the conspiracy theory, along with
the betting odds, are discussed.
Congratulations to South Africa for their
successful bid for World Cup 2010!
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