[caption id="attachment_4818" align="alignleft" width="718" caption="Every boy's dream."][/caption]

It was on the 10th of January, 2012, a day that will forever linger in the national memory of this proud, peninsular Mediterranean nation, the Italian under-17 national team won the famed and highly sought after Valentin Granatkin memorial trophy, trouncing the previous champions Finland with a definitive 4-0 that has proved to the world the true might of our oft-ridiculed boys in blue.

H/T to The Front Men
Trinidad and Tobago has named their training squad in preparations for the Olympic qualifying coming up in March. Sporting KC defender, Daneil Cyrus has been named to the TnT squad that is currently training in Port of Spain in Trinidad. The team is preparing to be in Group B of Olympic qualifying with Honduras, Panama, and Mexico in Los Angeles which begins on March 22nd.

Capello lines up Scandi friendly on England getaway

Norway and Finland have been mooted to prepare for Sweden at Euro 2012

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-12-29 22:32:56 from: The Mirror

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Fulham's game against FC Twente on Thursday night is attracting plenty of attention from fellow Premier League sides Liverpool and Newcastle who are keen to watch Luuk de Jong in action.
The Twente striker is a long term target for Newcastle and in recent weeks has also been linked with Liverpool after starting the season in superb form in Holland.

2011 was a season to remember for HJK. Not only did ‘Klubi' won their third consecutive title and the Finnish Cup (overall their 24th league championship and 11th cup victory), but they did this in a swashbuckling fashion. The Helsinki team finished the season with a 24-point lead to second-place Inter and scored a whopping 86 goals in 33 matches while conceding only 23.

Liverpool are the latest club to be linked with a move for in-demand midfielder Kevin Strootman who has been attracting interest from a number of European clubs are starring for PSV Eindhoven.
The 21-year-old only joined the Dutch club in the summer after coming through the youth system at Sparta Rotterdam and has so far impressed both for his club and for his country with some assured displays for Holland.

It's been an eventful week for Liverpool defender Daniel Agger! He's publicly labelled his Anfield team-mates 'headless chickens'; questioned the commitment of hitherto unnamed members of the Liverpool squad; helped Denmark qualify for Euro 2012; been questioned by the police after going on a 'drunken riot' with Nicklas Bendtener, and to top it all off, he scored a fine goal against Finland.

There are a few infractions which earn automatic, walk-off-the-pitch-before-the-referee-even-reaches-for-his-pocket red cards. Pretty high up that list is the studs-on-face move. Somehow, Riku Riski of the Finland's u21 squad seems baffled by this decision, despite his 'tackle' making Nigel de Jong seems the posterchild for innocent stud placement.

Denmark and Sweden meet again on Friday night in an International Friendly Match, the two Scandinavian rivals met last time in late 09′ for the World Cup South Africa 10′ Qualifiers, in a decider to see who will qualify out of the group. Denmark came out victorious that night, with Bendtner squaring it to Jakob Poulsen, who hit a hard low powerful shot past the keeper from 20 yards, Which saw them qualify.

What a game! What a colossal group effort! We won and in dramatic fashion against the second ranked team in the world! Where do I start this post?

This is one of those few times in life where it feels so good to be wrong. I tipped 2-1 to the Netherlands before the game started and to be honest after such weak showings against Hungary, San Marino, and Finland I think I was justified in doing so.

So after a terrible game in Finland where we were lucky enough to escape with three points, its time to move on to the last official game of the Euro 2012 qualifiers. Oh, sure, there is still a play-off coming up, but there is one last chance that we might just be able to avoid that and wouldn´t that be nice?

Bolton Wanderers defender Gary Cahill earned his sixth cap when he lined up for England's Euro 2012 qualifier against Montenegro last night. While England only needed a draw to secure their place in the finals that was all they got. 2-2 was the final score — England's overall performance was enough but disappointing.

Oranje beat Moldova after a difficult game ( 1-0). It was the 17th win in a row for Van Marwijk and as a result Oranje will be a group leader at the draw on December 2 for the upcoming European Championship.

The Dutch team secured qualification in Finland last month but [read more]

Euro 2012 qualifying: Finland - Sweden at 12pm and Czech Republic - Spain at 3pm. Costa Rica plays Brazil at 10pm. Primera on Galavision: U.A.G. - Monterrey at 9pm. All Times Eastern

It has been a highly eventful start to the autumn for HJK. First, maintaining their devastating form in the league, the Helsinki club all but secured the Veikkausliiga title already in August. Then, ‘Klubi' gave Schalke a proper run for their money in the Europa League play-offs, beating the Germans 2-0 at home until imploding in the second half of the away leg as the hosts ran rampage with a 6-1 victory.

I might as well start with the bad news because there is plenty of it at the moment. We are currently tied at 18 points with Hungary for the second place in group E and while Hungary have only one game left (and that is Finland at home), we have two to go and one of them is Finland away and the other is the Netherlands at home.

Stewart Downing was in fine form as England beat Wales 1-0 at Wembley to put themselves on the brink of qualification for Euro 2012.
The Liverpool winger capped a lively display by setting up Ashley Young's 35th minute winner.
Meanwhile, Anfield teammate Andy Carroll was introduced as a late substitute for the Three Lions.

The United States plays Belgium at 2:#0pm on ESPN. Argentina - Nigeria is at 9:30am on ESPN Deportes. EURO 2012 qualifying on ESPN Deportes: Finland - Holland at 1pm, Romania - France at 2:30pm, and Spain - Liechtenstein at 5pm. Fox Soccer has England - Wales at 2:30pm. All Times Eastern

On this coming Friday, the second of September, the Swedish National Football Team has a date with destiny. Over a period of ninety minutes, interrupted only by a 15 minute half-time break, our to be or not to be at next years European Championship will be decided. We will be meeting a very game and up for the fight Hungary who also have to win to have any real chance of making it to the summer party.

It was a night to remember at the Sonera Stadium last Thursday as HJK recorded a historical victory with a battling performance over the German giants Schalke in the Europa League play-off first leg. Teemu Pukki scored two fantastic goals to cap a magnificent team performance by the home side which put the Finns on the threshold of the group stages of the competition.

It is a tedious cliché that Finnish football is small-time and insignificant, but it is unfortunately also kinda true. Precarious finances and a disinterested public make the professional game here seem lower profile than, say, crown green bowls in the UK, or cricket in the United States.

That is a little stark.

Jan Schlaudraff had one of those games. He used to have a couple of those at Alemannia Aachen too. They earned him a call up to the national team and a premature transfer to Bayern Munich. From there it all went downhill for a couple of seasons, all the way to the point where Hannover desperately wanted to get rid of their top earner.

Nearly all the Americans in Finland have suffered through slumps recently, with Daniel Stevens and Etchu Tabe hoping to kickstart their upward movement towards safety this weekend.

Porto have said that they have received a bid from Atletico Madrid for their Colombia striker Radamel Falcao and Portugal midfielder Ruben Micael.

"We announce that we have received an offer from Atletico Madrid to sign Radamel Falcao and Ruben Micael, and this is being considered by the club," Porto said in a statement.

HJK entertain Schalke tomorrow in the play-off round of the Europa League. Despite the undeniable fact that HJK are marching towards the Veikkausliiga title, the home tie against the German giants is an event that eclipses their whole season (unless they make it into the Europa League group phase of course).

Writing a blog about football means having to admit that you are wrong more often than not. In this latest instance, it was my idea about whom Hamren was going to select for the friendly against the Ukraine tomorrow. I was wrong about Mellberg (vacation), Ibrahimovic (vacation), Martin Olsson (who knows why?

There was a real sense of expectation in the air at the Sonera Stadium last Wednesday as HJK took on Dinamo Zagreb in the first leg of the Champions League third round. Few HJK fans may have pinned their hopes on actual UCL qualification, but many regarded the home team having at least a solid chance of beating the Croatian champions in the two-legged tie.

The qualifying draw for World Cup 2014 was held in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. I think England has to be the biggest beneficiary of the draw as they avoided Europe's top teams. England have been placed in Group H against Montenegro, Ukraine, Poland, Moldova and San Marino. The toughest group is probably Group I where Spain, France, Belarus, Georgia and Finland will battle it out.

The draw was held today in Brazil.
Groups A - H have 6 teams each. Group I only has 5 teams.
Round robin home and away.
The 9 group winners will move on to the World Cup
The runners up in Groups A - H will be paired for a home and away series to determine the 4 other teams to go to the World Cup.

The SPANISH FOOTBALL NATIONAL TEAM, the current FIFA World Champions, has been drawn in Group I for the upcoming preliminary European WORLD CUP 2014 qualifiers. The news is that in their Group they will find themselves with a strong competitor & historical rival FRANCE. The other European Nations that make up Group I are BELARUS , GEORGIA & FINLAND.

HJK made Champions League history trashing Bangor City 13-0 on aggregate in the second round of the competition. Both the second leg 10-0 victory at home and aggregate result are the biggest goal-fests ever celebrated in the Champions League. The result is a remarkable achievement in its own right, especially by a team from Finland, but, in truth, Bangor never represented a real test for HJK.

Anderlecht has confirmed their interest in signing Liverpool's Milan Jovanovic - if they can agree personal terms with the Serbian forward.
"We're currently negotiating with Jovanovic, but we couldn't achieve an agreement (yet)," a spokesman for the Belgian side told BBC Sport.
"We're very much interested and the player would like to come.

HJK entertain Inter tonight in one of the most highly anticipated matches of the current campaign. Inter, second in the table, chase the hosts by seven points with a game in hand, so if the Turku team manage a victory in Helsinki all the talk of handing the Veikkausliiga trophy to HJK may just turn out to be premature.

Fifa World Cup 2014 Final / Finland Vs Spain Tm on totta Suomi on tosi kova maa kyl se pse World cuppi From: sam10332 Views: 0 0 ratings Time: 03:27 More in Sports

The fix is in Wham! Several match-fixing crises right on top of each other tell us that there are still serious problems with the bona fides of the professional game. Even more disturbing is the fact that the scandals have been spread across different regions and continents. Finland Top-flight club Tampere is under investigation for [.

By Tony Attwood Arsenal have signed 19-year-old Finland Under-21 defender Carl Jenkinson from Charlton. He is 6ft 1in tall, which apparently now matters, is right-footed, and can play for England if he really wants to (he was born in England). He played for Charlton for the first time last December, and played in eight games [.

Today is the Swedish National Day, which is some sort of recently invented holiday supposed to be similar to an independence day. In all reality it is just another holiday that most people still don't know how to celebrate: should we be patriotic or is it not good to be too nationalistic? I am not here to provide the answers unfortunately, but happy Swedish National Day anyway!

While there will be plenty of international soccer to occupy you over the weekend, there's also a handful of important European Championship qualifiers taking place on Friday.

Germany-Austria and Belgium-Turkey are two Group A qualifiers that could potentially change the way the group's table looks going forward.

Zlatan Ibrahimović, Sweden

The UEFA European Championship continues this weekend with a full slate of games, many of which can be seen on ESPN3.com. The tournament continues the second half of the Group stage, made up of 9 groups with 5 to 6 teams each who play a home-and-away series.

The defending World Champion Spanish squad leads Group I but will not play since they are in the US to play the US Men's National team in a Friendly.

Just a day after he returned from Portugal, where he led the U-18 MNT to two draws against the Netherlands and Finland, and a narrow loss to Portugal at the Lisbon International Tournament, Mike Matkovich chatted with ussoccer.com about the trip. He also touched on this group of '93s making the transition to the next cycle of the U-20s and what's coming up between now and the the Milk Cup in July.