Europe’s supreme football governing body is considering a change in its own organized annual leagues, especially in Europa League. Accordingly, as per the latest updates, UEFA is planning to demolish Europa League altogether along with expending the number of teams participate in Champions League from 32 to 64. It is like vanishing one league at the cost of another. Actually, the format and rank of Europa League has always been criticized by football fraternity, perhaps, top soccer clubs do not even want to send their first rated teams to this league, and if such a merger takes place, there’ll be approximately 64 clubs who would participate in new Champions League’s format. The final decision is expected to be taken by UEFA in 2014, though it looks certain now, coz UEFA president Michel Platini has already said it in an interview given to a French newspaper Ouest-France where he said, “There is an ongoing debate to determine what form the European competitions will take between 2015 … [Read more...]
Lionel Messi tops AP rankings
The top AP Global Soccer ranking’s player of the week is Lionel Messi, an expected name in the soccer fraternity, and his club Barcelona is ranked as number 1 soccer club according to The Associated Press’ panel of 20 global soccer journalists. Messi earned 183 points out of 200 maximum; he shifted last week’s winner Paris Saint-Germain’s striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic to second spot this week; he had 124 points this week. Besides, Messi and Ibrahimovic, another Barcelona player Andres Iniesta got 119 points placing him on the third spot for the week. Another milestone for Messi is in the making as he only shorts three goals to beat all-time great Gerd Mueller's record of 85 goals in a calendar year. Messi missed last week’s top position coz Ibrahimovic scored four goals for Sweden against England, but this week; there was no competition for the finest soccer starlet in contemporary football. Barcelona is also comfortable at its top position with its 176 points. It leads second position … [Read more...]
Luiz Adriano banned for an unfair goal
Ukrainian forward and Brazilian native Luiz Adriano has been banned for one match after he found guilty of using unethical ways to score a goal against Nordsjaelland in Champions League on Tuesday in Denmark. UEFA classified this goal as in violation of ‘principals of the conducts’ and barred him from the field. Moreover, a disciplinary case is also opened against him that is expected to be decided by next Tuesday. The controversy started when play was halted coz of an injury caused to a Nordsjaelland player, and in between, Adriano made everyone surprised when he collected Willian's kick intended to home goalkeeper, and shot into the empty net. Referee did not find any violation to the rules with that goal hence allowed it as a legal one, but it made Nordsjaelland’s fans furious, and they started hooting Adriano. Later, Shakhtar won that match with a huge 5-2 margin, but the dark point of this match remained that ‘unethical’ goal fired with a bad intention. Nicolai Stokholm, … [Read more...]
Armadillo Mascot gets a new name: Fuleco
Brazilians are too sensitive when it comes to soccer or anything related to it, that is why when Brazilian FA and FIFA twined together to choose a name for Armadillo Mascot and asked Brazilians to select a name from three given options, it was treated as a forced democratic way to seek the fans’ opinions. Whether anyone liked it or not, Brazilian FA and FIFA offered three names to fans to choose from; the names were: Fuleco, Zuzeco, and Amijubi, and as per majority of votes, Fuleco has been chosen as the name of Armadillo Mascot for 2014 world cup. Fuleco received 48% of total votes casted by Brazilians; other names got 31% and 21% respectively. There was another poll being run by various news channels, which say majority of Brazilian were not in liking of any of these three names, perhaps, they wanted to be given an opportunity to offer their own names. But according to FIFA, the word: Fuleco “seamlessly represents the way in which the FIFA World Cup can combine the two to encourage … [Read more...]
Chicago Fire’s Cory Gibbs ends his successful 12 years career
If a star player, who is on the threshold of his retirement, got injured and could not recover even after his repeated attempts, what is the best option left for him? A proud retirement! Yes, this is what is done by Chicago Fire’s defender Cory Gibbs who has attained the age of 32 years and torn his meniscus in a practice session last year on April 4, it was initially taken as one of his routine injuries, coz he suffered many injuries throughout his career, but later, when he undergone through a surgery six days later, it became skeptical for the starlet to return back on the field. That injury ousted him from rest of the last season, and in current season too, he could not play coz of the same injury, so at last; he decided to put a dot on his twelve-year career with proud and dignity. It was also his doctor’s advice to get retired from professional football for his own sake. Regardless of his much regards among US national team’s players, he could not prolong his career to the … [Read more...]
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