Archive for the ‘Soccer New’ Category

Arsenal’s captain and Spanish midfielder Francesc Fabregas has denied reports that he has agreed to join Catalan giants Barcelona at the end of the current season. These reports which emanated out of Spain had suggested that Fabregas had reached a verbal agreement with the Barcelona officials regarding the move. But Fabregas came out in public after Arsenal’s win against Liverpool to clear the air. He said that he was fully committed to Arsenal and his main focus was to help Arsenal mount a serious challenge to the Barclays Premier League title. To quote Fabregas, he said, “They have denied it, I have denied it. I just want to focus on Arsenal.”

But comments made by Cesc’s father have added to the confusion. Fabregas Sr. admitted that his son would be open to a move to Camp Nou at the end of the season. Arsene Wenger though has been caught in the crossfire. He came out trying his best to douse the fire by saying ‘nothing plus nothing is nothing’.

Cesc Fabregas was a part of the Barcelona youth system and scored at an alarming rate for a midfielder. He moved to Arsenal in September 2003 sensing that his participation at Barcelona would be limited. With the emotional attachment towards the Catalan club, a move to the Nou Camp can never be ruled out.

Ballon d’Or awards which also known as The Golden Ball is referred to the European Footballer of the Year award. 96 journalists from all around the world will pick their top 5 players from a shortlist of 30 players which performed brilliantly over the last 12 months, which 5 points will be awarded to their first choice, 4 points to their second choice and so on.

Lionel Messi break the highest score since the inception of the award by scoring 473 points from a possible of 480 points. It meant that at least 89 of the journalists picked Lionel Messi as their first choice to win the award. The winning margin between winner L.Messi and runner-up C.Ronaldo is 240, the highest points gap aparts the top 2 place in history too. 2nd runner-up Xabi scored 170, 63 points behind C.Ronaldo.

On a years without World Cup and European Championships, the players from European Champion League winning club will have slight advantage ahead the rest. Just like the previous 2 years where the Ballon d’Or goes to the player from Champion League winning club, C.Ronaldo from Manchester United in 08/09 and Kaka from AC Milan in 07/08.

Other than winning European Champion League, Barcelona also completed a treble, by winning both Spanish La Liga and Copa del Rey. Barcelona became the first team in Spanish history to win three competitions in the same season. This see why3 players out of the top 4 came from Barcelona, with 4th place go to Andre Iniesta(149) and 5th place go to former Barcelona Striker Samuel Eto’o(75) who also part of the Champion League winning team, bagged 30 goals in Spanish La Liga for Barcelona last season before moving to Inter Milan as part of a trade of Ibrahimovic deal.

Lionel Messi is the first Argentinam to win the prestigious Ballon d’Or award. Messi, 22, is the sixth Barcelona player to take the award following Luis Suárez(1960), Johan Cruyff(1973, 1974), Hristo Stoichkov(1994), Rivaldo(1999) and Ronaldinho(2005) picked up the awards. Previously, Lionel Messi received second runner-up in 2007, then runner-up in 2008, and goes 1 better again this year to win the award.

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Lionel Messi has improved tremendously after manager Josep Guardiola take charged in Nou Camp in the beginning of 08/09 season. A clear example will be Barcelona vs Man Utd in the Champion League semi-final in 07/08 season where Messi was completely being shut down and eventually Barcelona lost 1-0 to Man Utd. Last season, we saw a repeat of Barcelona vs Man Utd again, but its was the Champion League final this time round, and Messi went on to score the 2nd goal for Barcelona to win 2-0 against Man Utd.

The 4 pots for the World Cup draw has been approved by FIFA Organising Committee today. The draw of each country destination will take place in South Africa, Cape Town, at 7pm local time on 4th Dec 09. The seeded pots consists of host nation and the top 7 Fifa ranking nation base on Oct 09 data, which see currents rank 5th Portugal and rank 7th France miss out the seeding. 2nd pots team consists country from Asia, North, Central America and the Caribbean and Oceania. 3rd pots team consists country from Africa and South America while 4th pots team consists country of all the qualified european nation which are not in the seeded pots.

Seeded Pots – South Africa, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England
2nd Pots – Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Honduras, Mexico, USA and New Zealand
3rd Pots – Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay
4th Pots – Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland

South Africa, as host country  automatically being part of the seeded side and will be in Group A. Country from the rest of the pots will be praying hard to be in the same groups with them. Group of death will most likely be the group where Portugal and France in, unless South Africa is with either of the 2 country.

Chance of Draw
Lowest Fifa Ranking group – South Africa, North Korea, Paraguay and Slovakia
Highest Fifa Ranking group – Spain, USA, Cameroon and Portugal
Most Easy group - South Africa, New Zealand, Paraguay and Slovenia.
Group of Death – Spain, USA, Ivory Coast and France

Rule of Draw
No 2 nation from the same region will be in the same group other than Europe.
- Brazil and Argentina cannot be in same group with Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay
- South Africa cannot be in same group with Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria