Soccer Fan Club

Surely this is going to keep the football field fair and clean. I guess, from now onwards players would be afraid of involving themselves in any kind of argument on the ground. And try to show their skills to win the match and spectators heart too.

Yeh, I am talking about the League Cup Final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff between Chelsea and Arsenal. It was played on 25th February 2007. And there was only few minutes left to final whistle. Chelsea was leading by 2-1. But suddenly an argument between Chelsea’s Jon Obi Mikel and Arsenal captain Kolo Toure, caused an bitter end of the match.

On Tuesday the FA’s disciplinary commission clearly stated that they viewed the incident as “serious, unacceptable and damaging to the image of the game.” So, both the clubs have been slapped with a 100,000-pound fine each for the behavior of players and backroom staff during the match.

After an entertaining clash between Manchester United vs. a star studded Europe XI side, ManU came out trumps to defeat the Euro XI (4-3). Certainly the 74,343 crowd enjoyed the exciting match at Old Trafford on Tuesday that raised £1.25m for charity but they also missed the likes of Ronaldinho, Maldini and the original Ronaldo.

Manchester United is ready to fight with the star-studded Europe XI today at Old Trafford to celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of the European Union. Match will start from 1930 GMT.

Zidane was also invited to join Europe XI squad along with Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Steven Gerrard, and Marco Materazzi but Zidane refused to join the squad.
Former England star David Beckham was earlier named to face his former club but is currently out with a knee injury.

List of the full squad of European XI :

Goalkeepers: Oliver Kahn (Bayern Munich/GER), Gregory Coupet (Lyon/FRA), Iker Casillas (Real Madrid/ESP).

Defenders: Paolo Maldini (AC Milan/ITA), Jamie Carragher (Liverpool/ENG), Eric Abidal (Lyon/FRA), Lilian Thuram (Barcelona/ESP), Carles Puyol (Barcelona/ESP), Marco Materazzi (Inter Milan/ITA), Fabio Grosso (Inter Milan/ITA), Gianluca Zambrotta (Barcelona/ESP).

Midfielders: Steven Gerrard (Liverpool/ENG), Juninho (Lyon/FRA), Florent Malouda (Lyon/FRA), Luis Miguel (Valencia/ESP), Gennaro Gattuso (AC Milan/ITA), Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan/ITA).

Strikers: Ronaldinho (Barcelona/ESP), Ronaldo (AC Milan/ITA), Alessandro Mancini (AS Roma/ITA), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter Milan/ITA), Henrik Larsson (Helsingborg/SWE).

The Arsenal captain and France Striker, Thiery Henry will not be playing in rest of the matches of this season because of injuries. He was already suffering from a foot injury but hurt his groin and stomach muscles during Arsenal’s match against Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League. He will miss three qualifying games for Euro 2008 as well.

Henry scored 27 goals in the Premiership last season and was voted player of the year in England. He has 12 goals this season.

But fans do not loose your heart as Henry has vouched to get back to full fitness soon.