SoccerBlogs

Euro 2012 Final news: Del Bosque to drop Fabregas in favour of designated striker - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

The last day of Euro 2012 is here, with the exciting prospect of the final between Spain and Italy to be played in Kiev tonight. The sides played out a 1-1 draw in the group stages three weeks ago, and meet again in differing circumstances.

Morning all,

inevitably, now that the Euro dust has settled, the lack of real news means focus turns on the Arsenal story that's easy to write about: Robin van Persie. If you're short on copy, you can pretty much just make something up and it'll sound feasible.

So if a newspaper says Arsene Wenger is planning to talk to van Persie, well, it's entirely reasonable because of course he is.

Arsenal loanee and scorer in their 3-0 victory over Wolves, Yossi Benayoun has spoken out about his feelings for both Arsenal and Chelsea for the first time since his cross-city move last August.

That Benayoun would join Chelsea's city rival's Arsenal came as a surprise to many, however, for the 31 year old, his decision was as a result of the freedom Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich granted him.

Steven Gerrard has returned to melwood and will undergo fitness tests ahead of Liverpool's Crunch encounter against Arsenal at Anfield on Saturday. The Liverpool skipper was substituted after just 33 minutes of yesterday evening's friendly at Wembley, which the Three Lions eventually lost 3-2, and it is believed it was just as a precautionary measure due to a tight right hamstring.

Like other ‘80s phenomena including the video recorder and the ZX81, George Graham is now almost viewed almost with a degree of scorn by a modern generation of Arsenal fans. But just as we shouldn't forget the impact the video market and Clive Sinclair's opening stab at bringing computers into our homes have had on our lives, the same applies to George's managerial tenure at Highbury.

Not according to Di Matteo. The Chelsea boss is still very confident of finishing in a top four spot despite their loss to City last night. This was the first defeat for Di Matteo and one that could potentially kill the massive momentum his side has gathered in their past 4 games.

Chelsea now find themselves five points behind 4th place Tottenham Hotspurs who saw Arsenal leap frog them into third place after their 1-1 draw with Stoke City.

A Premier League fixture against Manchester United this Sunday is not a very welcoming sight for Wolves fans who find their club at the tail end of the table with only a handful of matches left until the season ends.

Moreover, things get worse for club and fans as a storm is brewing within the club's hierarchy over the handling of Mick McCarthy's sacking and the battle to pick his ultimate successor.

Earlier this morning US Central Time, I made a comment on Twitter whilst watching the Man Utd vs West Brom game from Old Trafford that sometimes proves to be prophetic or makes you look like a complete ass. United were precariously poised at a 1-0 lead whilst Man City were still at a 0-0 deadlock in Wales.

We may not have taken any golds yet at London 2012 but both the men and women's GB football teams have quietly gone about their business and are in good shape to progress to the last 8.

MEN

A shock win for Senegal over Uruguay means Stuart Pearce's men sit top of their group with one fixture to come against the South Americans tomorrow in Cardiff.

"The fixtures and where we are in the table doesn't lie - we're not as good as we used to be.

The real power rankings should be released anon, but for now it's time to get our crunch on again, ranking teams by what the stats say they're doing, not by stupid standards like how much they're actually winning. But seriously, this is actually a good time of the season to compare the two. Now that we're just over halfway, you'll find more elements of human bias creeping into most power rankings.

By Alan Duffy

Zlatan Ibrahimovic gave the watching crowd a parting gift of a stunning volley against a mediocre French side on Tuesday night. The goal, which came on 54 minutes, was fair reward from a decent performance from the already eliminated Swedes who went on to win the game 2-0, courtesy of Seb Larsson's late strike.

It's hard not to love Antonio Cassano when his number 1 speciality includes cracking jokes during the most inappropriate of situations. He is a character that the Italian Azzurri would definitely welcome amidst all the controversy in recent weeks, especially as they prepare for their crunch Euro 2012 opener against Spain on Sunday.

You'd have expected Barcelona to fly back immediately following their Champions League match against Milan on Wednesday. Instead, Pep and his army chose to stay in the city and conduct yesterday's training at 'Interello', also known as Inter Milan's training ground.

Champions League action resumes tomorrow with some very interesting fixtures. Real Madrid travel to Nicosia to play surprise package APOEL while Bayern Munich will be in France for a crunch fixture against Olympique Marseille.

Madrid who are one of the favourites to make it through to the final, have a rather easy fixture against Cypriot side APOEL.

Juventus snatched a late equaliser to remain unbeaten in all competitions this season and earn a place in the final of the Coppa Italia after defeat AC Milan 4-3 on aggregate.

Juve took the lead through club legend Alessandro Del Piero in the 28th minute before second half goals from Djamel Mesbah and Maxi Lopes made it 2-1 on the night and 3-3 on aggregate with just 9 minutes left to play.

Today marks an important day in the Olympics Women's Football competition as the semi-finals are slated to be played out between the USA and Canada (what a rivalry!) and France and Japan. In a recent interview Canada's Sophie Schmidt admitted she knew deep down that they would beat Great Britain to advance to the semis of the tournament.

Morning all, welcome to Friday. Last night I dreamt that I won a contract to paint the stadium but the club's insistence that it be painted with Tippex made it a very fiddly and time-consuming job indeed. It was taking ages, and I wasn't allowed to hire anyone to help me.

Anyway, on with early team news ahead of tomorrow's crunch game against John Terry's Philandering Flock, and the manager has confirmed Mikel Arteta's absence but says the injury is just a 'bad sprain' and nothing more serious than that.