Soccer Fan Club

AC Milan’s kaka, 25 year old has been officially announced as the outstanding footballer of 2007 and this was confirmed through his wining the FIFA Player of the Year award on Monday to add to his European Footballer of the Year honour.

He played his first World Cup for World’s Dream Team - Brazil when he was just 20 years old. With him Brazil won the title for the 5th time as well. Kaka is the highest paid soccer player in Italy. You would find him on the field wearing the classic number 10 mantle amongst soccer greats such as Pele, Diego Maradona, Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane.

Yeh there is nothing in the world which is impossible. If you are determined then there is no one who can stop you to reach your goal. In the year 1969, Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) presented a special gold medal for former Brazilian soccerstar Pele, who was the 1st and foremost player to reach 1000 goals in his career. And today history repeats again, Romario, 41 year-old, reached the 1,000 goals-mark in his soccer career. And the CBF awarded exactly the same medal to him. “The Federation is honoured to be able to pay homage to a player of such importance as Romario, a player of vital importance in the history of Brazilian football” said CBF President Teixeira. Alongwith the medal, Romario also received a special jersey with the number 1,000 stamped on the back.

Alan Ball 61, died of a heart attack yesterday. In the World Cup 1966, he was the youngest player from the England side. They won the cup by defeating West Germany 4-2 at Wembley.

Ball was part of Everton’s 1970 league championship-winning side and also played in the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico.

He used to play in midfielder position and was found very industrious at his position. He began his career at Blackpool and before moving to Everton in August 1966 for a British record transfer fee of £110,000. Eighteen months later, Ball was sold to Arsenal for £220,000. He spent five years at Arsenal before joining Southampton where he had two spells, interrupted by a brief period in North American soccer, before finishing his playing career at Bristol Rovers in 1983.

He scored eight international goals.

Ball then went in to management, taking charge of Portsmouth (twice), Manchester City, Southampton, Blackpool, Stoke City and Exeter. But his managerial career was significantly less successful than his time as a player.

Ball was awarded an MBE in 2000 for his services to football.

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.

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.

On Sunday’s Serie-A match between Inter Milan vs. Sampdoris, a same incident was repeated!!!! This happened in the last World Cup Final too. You guys must be remembering Zidane’s headbutt. Yes it has happened again! But this time the villain is Sampdoria’s Gennaro Delvecchio. Delvecchio was sent off after just 7 mins. into the game.

“My reaction was instinctive and all I wanted to do was protect my keeper,” Materazzi said who lay on the ground after being hit.
“I went over to say to him ‘What do you think you’re doing’?. He then pushed me and I didn’t go down. Then he head butted me and I fell to the ground. He hurt my lip”.

“I admit it when I make a mistake, but on this occasion I didn’t do anything wrong.”

A small message to Mr. M. Materazzi - Sorry for the incident, but I would suggest you to use some sort of mask in the upcoming matches. And the reason you know very well!!

Argentina forward Javier Saviola is to be rewarded for his midweek hat-trick by being offered a new Barcelona contract. Saviola struck three times as Barca knocked Alaves out of the Spanish Cup with a 3-2 victory (5-2 on aggregate) at the Nou Camp on Tuesday. Saviola has scored eight goals in just 11 games this season despite starting only three times, with five of his goals coming in his two cup starts. Read more…………

Spanish giants Real Madrid have made a bid for on-fire Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo. Read more……..

The draw gives Manchester United an eight-point lead at the top of the standings, but with one more game played than Chelsea. Man United has 44 points, followed by Chelsea with 36. Arsenal has 26 points.

Chelsea dominated the fast-paced game. Andriy Shevchenko’s curling shot in the 15th minute was saved by Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann and Michael Ballack’s long-range shot missed the far post a few minutes later. Soon after Lampard again hit the post but his weaker follow-up shot was caught by Lehmann.

Chelsea defender Ashley Cole was shown a yellow card for a tackle on Hleb midway through the first half.

Just before halftime, Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas cleared a shot by Essien off the line with Lehmann on the ground. Essien also headed the ball over the bar.

Arsenal’s best first-half chances were from Robin van Persie, who sent one shot wide and had another caught by Hilario.

Early in the 2^nd half Lampard’s free kick was headed over by Didier Drogba. Also Van Persie headed over and Emmanuel Adebayor sent a long-range shot wide while Fabregas put a tame shot straight to the arms of Hilario.

In 65^th min. Lehmann and Drogba were both shown yellow cards after the Arsenal goalkeeper pushed the Chelsea forward in the back and he fell.

But in 78^th min. Arsenal’s Mathieu Flamini received a pass from Alexander Hleb. And convert it into goal and put the arsenal ahead. But in 84th-minute Michael Essien leveled with an incredible long-range shot that went in off the inside of the post.

But during injury time there was a chance to lead. Essien hit the crossbar from right in front of goal, and Lampard then hit the post.

Zinedine Zidane made it clear that he had no plans to become a coach anytime soon. He said this during a recent visit to Dhaka (Bangladesh), on the invitation of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus – the founder of Grameen Bank.

“It does not interest me now. I believe I can use my talents in other ways,” Zidane said after opening a non-profit factory producing nutritious yogurt for the lower class people. He added that he would be happy to do something for children.

Zidane was quite amazed to see people yelling out his name in a place like Bangladesh.

The young talents of Bangladesh were fortunate enough to get some tips from the star. “Even with talent, success comes from a lot of hard work,” Zidane told a gathering.

Zizou said that he was quite optimistic about the future of Asian soccer. This once in a lifetime meeting would certainly inspire youngsters to become stars in the near future.