Currently Soccerlens runs the following columns: football headlines, football videos, help football, off the record and football transfer news & rumours. In addition, we regularly post match reports, feature articles (must read) and site news in this section.
Don’t expect the goals to fly in when the Group A fixtures get underway at the European Championships this summer. Czech Republic had an outstanding record in qualifying, conceding only five goals in 12 matches, while Portugal and Turkey allowed only 10 and 11 respectively - less than one per match - which suggests Switzerland could find it tough to progress on home turf.
Written by Betfair. Leave a response
We had an e-mail at Soccerlens this morning from a distraught football official who feels that he has been unfairly castigated by fans, managers, players, pundits, his family, his friends, people in the street, total strangers, his pets, the media, the unions, the employers, his colleagues and anyone who knows the slightest thing about fairness, efficiency or football.
The man is very down and he needs our help.
Dear Soccerlens,
I am writing to you in despair. I have seen the help you have given others and you are the only people I can now turn to. Before I start, I would like to ask you how much you pay your excellent writer Graham Fisher. I’m sure it isn’t enough.
I have officiated at two games of football this season involving my favourites, the champions Manchester United. In both of these games I have performed admirably and made some excellent and crucial decisions. Despite the brilliance of my performance, everybody else in the world seems to think I have got it wrong. How can I have got it wrong if United have won the league?
Written by Graham Fisher. Leave a response
Highlights from the final day of the 07/08 Premier League season:
Written by goalcentre.com. Leave a response
Today’s transfer roundup won’t be too long, because I’m being generous. I’m sure you all have much better things to do than to sit and read for an extended period of time…right?
Written by Eddie Griffin. One comment
Saying goodbye to the football season is very much like giving birth to a ginger child: after nine months of optimism, hope and anguish, you’re left with a genuine feeling of disappointment.
The final day is often emotional. Who could forget Arsenal pipping Liverpool to the title in 1989? Well sadly, my old man. In fact, if you see a small befuddled pensioner roaming the streets, you’ll be better off avoiding football trivia altogether; senility is no picnic.
Written by Gerry McDonnell. 25 comments
Real Madrid celebrated their 31st Liga in style by thumping rivals Barcelona 4-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu. This will have to go down as the most one-sided clasico since Ronaldinho destroyed Madrid’s defence in November 2005. How times have changed since then. Ronaldinho is only in the news now for his off the field antics, while Madrid have formed a solid compact unit that has won La Liga at a canter.
The Barcelona players suffered the shame of having to applaud their rivals onto the pitch, but by the end of the night this humiliation was nothing compared to what they experienced over 90 minutes. from the beginning Diarra, Sneijder and Gago ruled the midfield and even Leo Messi was kept completely out of the game as Barça’s midfield players struggled to connect with the forwards.
Written by Nic Aldam. 4 comments
Today’s transfer roundup starts with transfer-related news, but not a big rumor. Instead, I give two thumbs-up to Real Madrid’s Wesley Sneijder for looking out for his brother’s best interests, as he stepped in to prevent Real from making an offer to former club Ajax for his brother Rodney, a promising youth team player.
Written by Eddie Griffin. Leave a response
So, what’s going on in the world of transfer rumors today? As always, chime in and chip in with opinions - and with rumors!
Written by Eddie Griffin. 2 comments
The article uses last available financial disclosures of the club as at 30th June, 2007 (download document (PDF) here). The words “current/currently” reflect opinion/fact with the same timeline in backdrop. All figures are in million pounds.
The author is a financial analyst.
It has been some time that people have been talking about a financial crisis in-the-making at Old Trafford. There are also those who insist we are already seeing one. The team, however, is doing extremely well on the pitch. That suggests, at least from a financial point of view (perhaps not conclusively though), that players are happy with their wages. After all, the club spent 74m on wages and salaries in 2006-07 (majority of which must have gone to players).
Written by Azar. 18 comments
The North East of England is often described as a ‘football hotbed’ – an area that is widely accepted to be rich in the culture, tradition and passion of the beautiful game. Three big clubs, hundreds of thousands of loyal supporters and a breeding ground for talent through the eras, there can’t be many parts of the world that top Tyneside, Wearside and the Tees on the hotbed thermometer ?
Well of course there are. Bobby Charlton, Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne apart, how many world class players has the ‘hotbed’ produced ? And how many trophies have their teams won on a national or international stage ?
I know it’s not all about glory and home grown talent, but I can make a case for ten diverse areas on this planet all being bigger hotbeds than the North East (population: 2,515,442):
Written by Betfair. 13 comments
Today’s transfer roundup starts up as the last one did, so Arsenal fans, feel free to jump a couple of paragraphs.
Written by Eddie Griffin. 15 comments
There could be tough times ahead for Luca Toni. The Bayern Munich striker, just recently crowned Bundesliga champion and currently leading the scoring charts with 21 goals, may soon be confronted with an unsurpassable obstacle… of the robotic kind. Its name is Goalias (or GoalIAS if you prefer), and it’s the first robot-goalkepeer capable of defending a regular-sized football goal.
Written by Marco Pantanella. 8 comments
This year’s playoff semi-finals for the Conference were as unexpected as they were exciting, and there wasn’t even a hint of a penalty shoot-out and Exeter City and Cambridge United make their respective preparations for Wembley in just under a fortnight’s time.
The games always looked too close to call with Torquay slight favourites to progress from one game but in indifferent form while Cambridge were assumed to be too strong for a mercurial Burton side who, on their day, have the run of any team in the Conference.
Written by Gary Andrews. Leave a response
Guess who’s back? That’s right, me and the transfer roundup.
The season’s winding down and the rumors are heating up, so you’ll be seeing me in this space regularly.
Anyway, on to the good stuff!
Written by Eddie Griffin. 13 comments
Sunday was a momentous day in the English Championship with the teams going up, getting in the play-offs, going down and staying up, changing constantly through ninety breathless, tension filled minutes.
As a Watford fan I was right in there. Looking for other scores as our plan to keep things tight at Blackpool went horribly awry, like so many of our plans over the past few months, going one-nil down after just two minutes.
Written by Graham Fisher. 5 comments
Congratulations to Real Madrid for winning their 31st Spanish league title. It’s been a funny old season in Spain so perhaps it was appropriate that Madrid should come from behind and score twice in the last five minutes when they were down to ten men to win 1-2 at Osasuna. Villarreal are looking good for second place after a 2-0 victory over Getafe, while Barcelona who seem to be in a serious crisis surprised everyone by walloping Valencia 6-0. Some might be more surprised by the fact that Thierry Henry played well and scored twice!
Written by Nic Aldam. 2 comments
Montgomery Town FC goalie Steve Goodwin scores a wonder-goal from the edge of his own penalty area. Fabulous, one in a billion strike (and goes straight in unlike Paul Robinson’s punt that bounced once in front of Ben Foster before going in) and proof that football is about taking your chances (if the opposition keeper had caught that ball, it would have been classified as a waste of a free kick).
The upside? Goodwin and Montgomery Town get some fame (thanks to a local politician). The downside? Goodwin ruins everything with his goal celebration (what, no sliding, no fist pumping, no ripping your shirt off?), which just goes on to show that it’s crowds and TV that bring out the real entertainers in us.
Source: Faniq.com
Written by Ahmed Bilal. 2 comments
Looking through the Soccerlens postbag this week we found a letter from a man much in the news at the moment. He has written for our help as he feels he is simply misunderstood:
Dear Soccerlens,
I have been reading your website for some time in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the game of football. I must say I find the writing of Graham Fisher to be particularly enlightening.
I need your help with a very difficult problem. I have made a sound decision based on my extensive knowledge of the game but it appears that most other people think I am wrong. I am disappointed to discover that in England people are allowed to disagree with me. In the past I would have had them….never mind, they’ve proved nothing!
People say my knowledge of football is lacking but I can assure you that I have followed Manchester for many years. I was surprised when I saw us play for the first time and we were wearing blue shirts and not the famous red ones, and I also found that we no longer played at Old Stratford, which was disappointing.
Written by Graham Fisher. 6 comments
Three weeks ago, at the end of the 3-2 match lost to Juventus (Matchday 33) Milan manager Carlo Ancelotti had declared: “Our objective for the rest of the season, in order to qualify for Champions League, will be to win all of our next 5 matches“. With the important fixture vs. Inter in the Rossoneri’s calendar, this was much easier said than done… but what do you know? AC Milan might just have achieved their objective.
To quote Gazzetta, some people had already nicknamed this title ‘The Scudetto of Hardships’ (more or less a translation of Lo Scudetto della fatica), and that may be why Inter continue to make things harder for them. 2 years and 18 days since their last derby victory, AC Milan have reclaimed the “Derby della Madonnina” and made a key step towards Champions League qualification. Indeed with the concurrent loss of Fiorentina at Cagliari, the Rossoneri now find themselves in 4th spot with a 1-point advantage over La Viola. In other words: their destiny is entirely in their own hands.
As for Inter well… it will take nothing short of a Roman miracle for the Nerazzurri to lose their grip on the Scudetto (on account of their head-to-head record with AS Roma, a win to Siena next week will effectively seal the deal for Roberto Mancini’s team), but today’s loss is certainly very sour. Is it a coincidence that when Filippo Inzaghi scores on Inter (today was the 4th time it happened), Il Diavolo always ends up victorious?
.
Read the rest of this entry »
Written by Marco Pantanella. 5 comments
Image courtesy of the Chicago Fire and Major League Soccer.
Last year, Major League Soccer welcomed David Beckham amidst significant mainstream media coverage in North America. Another player who joined the growing league in 2007, although with less fanfare, was a legend of Mexican football: Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo. Many believe that he had much more of an impact than Beckham’s injury-plagued campaign.
He began a stellar career with his childhood side, Club América, of Mexico City. Since 1995, he has represented his country at two World Cups, along with several other prestigious international competitions. Until 2007, with the exception of two years in Spain, Cuauhtémoc had spent his entire professional career in the Mexican Football League.
Written by Steve Amoia. Leave a response
The World’s Most Influential People in 2008 - Time 100.
I’m sure one can find many flaws with this list - as opinions go, everyone has one and we all think ours smells of roses. Fair enough, and I’m sure the editorial team at TIME magazine did their due diligence when compiling this list.
But having said that, and keeping in mind that this list was compiled not through public opinion but through the filter of what some people think matters most in the world, who put Kaka on this list?
Written by Ahmed Bilal. 21 comments
SoccerNews.com is a soccer news website featuring the latest football news from around the world (a broader perspective than you’d find on most news sites) as well as live scores, league tables and more stats.
Have a look, browse around and be sure to drop a comment here to tell them what you think and how they can improve (feedback is always good).
SoccerNews.com are also looking for quality guest bloggers - I’ll discuss this in more detail next week but if anyone is interested, drop me a note along with some writing samples.
Written by Ahmed Bilal. Leave a response
All Premier League highlights from Saturday’s matches:
Written by goalcentre.com. Leave a response
Earlier this week Sir Alex Ferguson made an off-the-cuff remark which directly compromised the integrity of Premier League managers and the very institution of football that we, as fans, put their faith in.
He was answering a question about Eriksson’s predicament at Manchester City, and he said:
Written by Ahmed Bilal. 6 comments
Uefa’s Under-17 Championships have revealed many a burgeoning young talent to a wider audience in the last six years. It is the stage where Wayne Rooney (2002), Cesc Fabregas (2004), Nuri Sahin (2005), Toni Kroos (2006) and Bojan Krkic (2007) strutted their stuff and won the ‘Golden Boy’ award.
You have to wonder what happened to David Rodriguez after his 2003 performance, such is the mark of quality that goes with the recognition of being the best player on show. But who are this year’s likely lads ? Who cares which nation takes the trophy, we all want to know where the next generation of star names are going to come from!
From what I hear, he could come from an area of Liverpool called West Derby, via Madrid and Argentina and go by the name Gerry Brown (local translation), but we will have to wait and see. I’ve picked out eight names to keep an eye on for the duration of the event - May 4-16 in Antalya, Turkey.
Written by Betfair. 13 comments
Last year, with Tottenham’s season winding to a close and Jol already looking towards strengthening the squad in the summer, I suggested that Tottenham go for age and experience in midfield to compensate for the lack of composure (spine) that they’ve shown in the middle for the last couple of seasons.
That day the person I had in mind was the German international Torsten Frings, but a better player has, if rumours are to be believed, put himself on the market by saying:
“I don’t want to speak because I don’t want to inflict my personal problems on the group because our aim is fourth spot.
Afterwards there will be time to talk about my things. Right now we have an important objective, fourth place.
I would like to have the possibility to play in the Premier League. It’s a dream I’ve always had and have never realised.
I think I have the right characteristics to play in that championship.”
Gennaro Gattuso, AC Milan midfielder.
Now if you remember correctly, every summer we hear Gattuso being linked with a switch to the Premier League. It’s happened the last two summers with United being linked with him (and every time United go out and buy a defensive midfielder, just not Gattuso), and Ferguson himself has declared his interested in the player in the past.
And ordinarily, if Gattuso was to come to the Premier League you’d expect the big four to snap him up, but at least three of the big four (Chelsea (Mikel, Essien) Manchester United (Carrick, Hargreaves) and Liverpool (Alonso, Mascherano)) have enough players in that area and / or are going British anyway.
That leaves Arsenal, and while Gattuso would break Wenger’s piggy bank he would also be the ideal replacement for Flamini if the Frenchman chooses to leave Arsenal - in fact he’d be a better influence on the young Arsenal team with his experience and would add a real combativeness to the Arsenal side.
Other clubs (Villa if they lose Barry) are likely to be interested as well but when it comes down to big transfers it’s a matter of Champions League football and deep pockets and while Arsenal can offer the former, Tottenham have the pockets to at least attract Milan’s attention, and after that it’s the ‘promise of the Champions League’ and the promise of the Ramos revolution at White Hart Lane.
Arsenal v Spurs for Gattuso? Sounds a bit far-fetched, but it could be something to look forward to this summer, especially if Milan fail to qualify for the Champions League.
Written by Ahmed Bilal. 7 comments
Arsenal fans seem to put a lot of faith in their young Spanish midfielder, and with good reason - Fabregas has often displayed a coolness of temperament ever since breaking on the scene for Arsenal that is rarely seen in footballers, regardless of age or experience. Arsenal fans know how lucky they are to have Cesc, but perhaps even his manager doesn’t know what the protege is actually capable of.
Apparently, after destroying his agent’s office to get himself a TV show, the Arsenal star has now taken the next step in creating his public image - and put himself on fire.
Yup. Fab actually has gasoline poured over him - quite a lot of fun, if you ask me. Here’s the video:
If they did that to Gallas I’m not sure the fire extinguishers would have been out so quickly though…
Written by Ahmed Bilal. 5 comments
The move to Liverpool will tick several boxes for the Aston Villa captain: he gets to make more money (in a short career that’s always a consideration), he gets to play Champions League football and he gets to dream about the Premier League title as opposed to Champions League qualification. It’s a lifestyle upgrade, and although it won’t matter as much (I’m sure Barry has friends at Villa too) Steven Gerrard is being touted as another reason for Barry to leave Villa for Pool.
And then there is his candidacy for a midfield berth with the England national team. He is not my favourite footballer mainly because he has pushed Michael Carrick down the pecking order but the man’s game is more complete than Carrick’s and his versatility and ability to influence a game gives him an edge.
Written by Ahmed Bilal. 4 comments
Highlights from the midweek Champions League semifinals:
Written by goalcentre.com. 2 comments
Tubby Brazilian Ronaldo may be one of the greatest players to ever grace a football pitch, but he’s definitely a poor role model. The AC Milan man let himself down when he invited three members of the late-night entertainment industry back to a motel. It wasn’t just the fact that they turned out to be ladyboys; he shamefully offered to pay them for doing nothing. If I pay a builder to construct a conservatory, and he brings along a few superfluous tools, I’d expect him to keep his head down and finish the job.
This sorry tale was not the only case of mistaken identity this week; Rio Ferdinand kicked a female Chelsea steward after mistaking her for a wall. It sounds like a tall story, but I once kicked the wife by accident; I thought she was her mother.
Written by Gerry McDonnell. 4 comments
