Be honest, you'd forgotten entirely about the Under 17 World Cup and that's if you were aware of its running in the first place. We'll also accept admissions from those who confused it with the Under-20 World Cup (Lite) in Egypt won late last month by Ghana.

But it happened, and Switzerland yes, Switzerland took home the trophy, their first of any kind in FIFA territory, from Lagos against what had to be the heavily favored and exceedingly overaged hometown Nigerians.

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TORONTO - Soccer, Futbol, Football - whatever you'd like to call it - is a global game that bridges gaps between people, and unifies them around something so passionate, that they can forget their troubles or quarrels if only for 90 minutes. It is 'the world's sport' and its reach reigns through every country, in every continent. Click to continue reading...

Jogaram pelo Mundial Sub-17, na cidade de Lagos, no Teslim Balogun Stadium, com uma temperatura de 32º C, as seleções do Brasil (1º no ranking da FIFA) e a seleção do México (18º no ranking da FIFA).
Antes desse jogo, as 2 seleções jogaram:
Copa do Mundo: 3 jogos, 3 vitórias do Brasil, 11 gols do Brasil e 00 gols do México
Copa das Confederações: 3 jogos, 1 vitória do Brasil, 2 vitórias do México, 06 gols do Brasil e 07 gols do México. Click to continue reading...

I love a World Cup (any World Cup) for the rare opportunity of putting whole imagined nations on public display. Though the main event in South Africa is still eight months away, one junior version (U-20) just finished in Egypt and another (U-17) is just about to begin in Nigeria.

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One final friendly loss for our team before our first Europa League match against Vaslui.

Below is the video of our goal, scored by Leonardo although it deflected of a number of players.

A 3-1 loss at this point really isn't the most encouraging result but it must be pointed out that the squad playing today was largely a B-Team.

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The big finale of the 2009 Torneo Clausura has seen its first act played out with a late winner for visitors Lanús in Tucumán and a victory for the hosts in La Plata which see Gimnasia La Plata secure a relegation playoff spot ahead of San Martín de Tucumán, who go straight down to B [...] Click to continue reading...

I thought I would higlight an interview done recently by my friend Kartik Krishnaiyer over at Major League Soccer Talk. Kartik interivewed Misha Sher, a name I really wasn't very familiar with but some Minnesotan's who have been involved with the game for a while may know.

Misha moved from the Ukraine to Minnesota back in the early 90's playing youth soccer here and spending time on Minneosta ODP teams.

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I thought I would highlight an interview done recently by my friend Kartik Krishnaiyer over at Major League Soccer Talk. Kartik interviewed Misha Sher, a name some Minnesotan's may be familiar with. Misha moved from the Ukraine to Minnesota back in the early 90's playing youth soccer here and spending time on Minnesota ODP teams.

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AEK's poor away form, as many fans feared, has continued with little improvement. AEK drew away with Levadeiakos who currently sit in 11th position with 13 points. Despite hitting the post three times throughout the match neither Djebbour or Blanco could score. AEK were handed a chance to salvage the three points in extra time after [. Click to continue reading...

AEK ended their second friendly of the weekend with a 3-0 win. Panagiotis Lagos, Ismael Blanco, and Panagiotis Zorbas scored. AEK next weekend play PAOK in Thessaloniki. Click to continue reading...

We lined up like this: Blanco Edinho -Scocco Rikka Pilatsikas Basinas Juanfran -Ramos-Silva Krygiakos Majstorovisc Saja Lagos went in for Edinho in the 65th, Kafes went in for Pilatsikas in the 87th, and Alexopolous went in for Scocco in the 90th. Donis knows what he is doing. The 4-3-3 worked well for us. Click to continue reading...

AEK finished their final friendly with a victory after going down 0-1 in the first half. The starting lineupfor AEK's final game before the critical match against Omonia included Jurgen Macho and Edinho, both of whom have not played with team for quite a while now. The game overall was a definate imprpovement over past games, [. Click to continue reading...

One of Newcastle fans' favorite players Obafemi Martins has thanked the Toon Army for their support following the death of his mother last month. Oba Martins - Newcastle fans make him happy The 23 year-old Nigerian striker returned home after his mother, Alhaja Martins, tragically passed away in Lagos on July 23rd, which was a terrible shock [. Click to continue reading...

AEK ended their second friendly of the preseason against German Second Division team Greuther Furth in a 2-2 draw. AEK went down early on in the first minute and by the end of the scond half they were down 0-2. Two goals however, in the 83rd and 85th minutes of the game allowed AEK to catch [...] Click to continue reading...

PAO is currently tied 0-0 with Aris in the 38th minute. A draw for Aris against PAO and a win for AEK against PAO this wednesday at home for AEK will be enough to ensure that AEK finish first in the Playoffs and can therefore qualify for Champions League. The squad for AEK's away match against [...] Click to continue reading...

It was painful to watch this game earlier tonight. A month ago, if I saw 4-0 it would bring a smile to my face but now it forces me to turn my back. We played a very pathetic game today. Our offence was much better than it was when we played PAO however, our defence [...] Click to continue reading...

The squad the Nikos Kostenoglou will be taking with him is rather similar to the usual. Lyberopoulos, Rivaldo, Edinho, Kone, Macho, Lagos, Kafes, Morretto, Arruabarena, Blanco, Geraldo Alves, Pavlis, Toszer, Pappas, Julio Cesar, Bourbos, Kallon, Pliatsikas, Dellas, Ensaliwa, Edson Silva Ramos. I am pleased to also see Kapetanos included in the squad for the game tonight. Click to continue reading...

How many days late with this am I? I guess just two. We played Xanthi Wednesday, lined up like this: Kallon Blanco Rivaldo Lagos Edinho Kafes Bourbos Pliatsikas Papastathopoulos Dellas Macho And though we didn't completely dominate the entire match, we played a better brand of football overall. Click to continue reading...

Well, the game is underway and we lined up like this: Moreto Nsaliwa Dellas Papastathopoulos Arruabarrena Zikos Kafes Ramos -Rivaldo Lagos Kallon Which is pretty close to what I predicted in my preview piece yesterday except Kostenoglou has gone with two defensive mids and one striker where I would have put one defensive mid and two strikers. Click to continue reading...

After a weekend off due to a freak snow storm, AEK travels to Spain tomorrow to play the second leg of our UEFA Cup fixture against Getafe. Getafe's Cosmin Contra is predicting a win for his side. AEK, for their part, will be playing just their second match under caretaker manager Nikos Kostenoglou, a former AEK player and, until [. Click to continue reading...

Well, we are a full week into AEK Athens FC A.F. (After Ferrer) and still no replacement in sight. Persistent rumors link us to Angelos Anastasiadis and, even less believably, Didier Deschamps. It looks to me though that Nikos Kostenoglou, former AEK player, former Ferrer assistant, will continue in the capacity of caretaker manager for the [. Click to continue reading...

Greece beat Finland2-1. UEFA has the report. AEK's new call-ups, Lagos and Papastathopoulos, played both friendlies this week, which is a good sign for them. They are also being credited as two of the best players on the pitch in yesterday's game. Also, the USA drew 2-2with Mexico. I watched the game, but I'm not going [. Click to continue reading...

The Greek National Team plays today in a friendly against Czech Republic to be played in Cyprus. King Otto's squad includes five new call-ups from the U-21 team, including AEK's own Sokratis Papastathopoulos: Rehhagel has promoted five rookies from the under-21 squad (Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Lazaros Christodoulopoulos, Christos Melissis, Avraam Papadopoulos and Grigorios Makos) but he will [. Click to continue reading...

We dropped three more points, this time against Panionios. Â First, let's get the discussion of the refereeing out of the way. Â Was the referee crap? Â You betcha. Â Was he paid off? Â He must have been. Â In the first half, Rivaldo was unmistakenly fouled inisde the box. Â In teh second half, Lyberopoulos was clearly tripped right [. Click to continue reading...

Remember that ball-winning, holding midfielder I said we needed to pick up this transfer window? Well, we already have him. Nice to meet you Mr. Nsaliwa. Where ya been? Nsaliwa was in rare form today. He read plays well, anticipated where the ball was going, dispossessed Atromitos in the midfield repeatedly, and broke free of tackles [. Click to continue reading...