Soccer Fan Club

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.

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.

Well guys, the earlier post was about the latest head butt scene from a Serie-A match. Now lets take a glimpse of the actual Zidane head butt from World Cup’06, shown in different angles by different communities of the world. And oops, the victim is the same Marco Materazzi!!

Spectators’ view:

Frenchs’ view:

Italians’ view:

Americans’ view:

Gosshhh Press!!! Just boasted the fact as usual:

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…………

Yeh, tricks are the most important part of soccer. Soccer lovers would love to spend any amount to watch his/her favorite player in action. And I have started this to share this unforgettable and memorable moment with you forever. I am really thankful to “youtube.com” and “video.google.com”, because of whom this post was possible.

Video may take sometime to load, so please have patience.

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