What might have been for Michael Owen - originally posted on Soccerlens.com
The announcement, made back in March, that Michael Owen will be hanging up his boots at the end of this season ultimately came as little surprise to anybody.
The decision was an expected one, but in many respects his retirement at just 33 years of age will be an ignominious conclusion for a player once seemingly destined for the upper echelons of the game; it will be a quiet, almost sheepish exit compared to the grand fanfare he could have once expected.
Sky and ITV share rights for Euro 2016 & 2018 World Cup qualifiers - originally posted on Soccerlens.com
UEFA has awarded Sky Sports the rights to provide coverage of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, together with all other UEFA member associations between the year 2014 through to 2017.
The Champions Leagues were dominated by teams from Germany, Spain, and Mexico; Baby Kim is saber rattling; and the Iron Lady is gone, time for a throwback edition of your Friday goals.
Steven Gerrard is proving his doubters wrong - originally posted on Soccerlens.com
Only one midfielder or striker has played every minute of Premier League league football this season: Steven Gerrard.
The Liverpool and England skipper, one of the finest English players of all time, was written off by many last season as a has-been who was on his final legs.
Bolton Wanderers midfielder Stuart Holden could soon feature in the national team according to USA manager Jurgen Klinsmann. The midfielder last made a competitive appearance for the national team back in 2010. He suffered a broken leg while playing for the national team and he has been on the road to recovery since then.
The U.S. coaching staff will be deployed in four different countries this weekend scouting U.S. players as part of the constant evaluation process of the player pool. Here's how it's shaping up: U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann heads to Seattle on Saturday as the Sounders host New England.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed that midfielder Jack Wilshere has been taking painkillers to get through matches. The injury prone England international is set for furhter surgery on his troublesome ankle at the end of the season. We reported that Alex Oxlade Chamberlain had let that particular cat out of the bag last month.
After casting their collective mind back to the 2010 tournament in South Africa and recalling just how fondly people took to the vuvuzela's incessant moronic honk, World Cup 2014 hosts Brazil have come up with their very own infernal instrument with which they hope to drive football fans around the world totally and utterly insane.
As Brazil starts to ramp up towards next summer's World Cup, Neymar's stock will continue to rise. The perfect indication that the Samba Boys' star is very much the man of the moment is that he has been made into a comic book character. Cartoonist and comic book artist Mauricio de Sousa is behind the [.
Brazil's problems continue south of the equator in their preparedness for this summer's Confederations Cup and next summer's World Cup. After the recent revelation that only 3 of the 6 stadiums are ready for this summer's tournament, more bad news has come out of Brazil where two fans were shot dead near one of the stadiums which will be used for the Confederations Cup.
Brazil and AC Milan star Robinho (Wikimedia Commons)
AC Milan midfielder Robinho is not ruling out the possibility of leaving the club when his contract is up as reports of interest from Flamingo have begun to surface.
Robinho joined AC Milan from Manchester City in 2010 has enjoyed a decent bit of success in his time in Serie A.
Yet again, Brazil is behind schedule. This time, Valcke stated that Brazil has no room to maneuver for the WC 2014 if it can't have all the stadiums done by December 2013. That's ONE FULL YEAR past when they promised they'd have them done, and eight months past the four month extension they got (which they agreed to then said was too soon when they realized April 31st was actually 2013, not
Since 2010, fans of Major League Soccer have become very accustomed to advertisements for Continental Tire during telecasts of MLS matches on national networks. There have been multiple reports that the North Carolina based company has re-signed a multi-year deal with MLS to remain as the league's official sponsor in the tire category.
If Arthur Blank has anything to say about it, he will get a MLS team in Atlanta at some point in the near future.
According to the Atlanta Business Journal, a deal is done for a new $1 billion Falcons stadium that could also house a soccer team when it opens in 2017. Plans are to build the retractable-roof stadium to accommodate a MLS team, as well as host major soccer events such as the FIFA World Cup.
The U.S. Under-20 Men's National Team is facing a tough task at this summer's Under-20 World Cup, but that challenge could get much easier if John Anthony Brooks is in a U.S. uniform.
U.S. Under-20 national team head coach Tab Ramos told ESPN recently that Brooks is leaning toward playing for the United States, and that he could play with the team at the Toulon Tournament later this month, an event that will serve as the U.
The FIFA Under-20 World Cup begins on June 21, but United States U-20 coach Tab Ramos and his staff are already hard at work finding the 23 players they believe will bring home the title.
Ramos and the U-20′s recently wrapped up a training camp on April 28, culminating with a 6-2 friendly match victory over Cal FC, but now the side turns their focus to the Toulon Tournament in France, which runs from May 28-June 8.
With their double-wide fat seats and prostitutes being given state-funded English lessons, it's fair to say that Brazil are doing a bang-up job getting their affairs in order for the 2014 World Cup that's, of course, if you choose to ignore the fact that none of the budget-blasting stadiums are actually ready yet.
The Maracana re-opened yesterday with a "Friendsof Bebeto vs Friends of Ronaldo" charity game laid on especially for the workers who have been toiling away on it over the past three years, in which the latter Brazilian striker rolled back the years (and the flab) to score with a rinky dinky elastico-type thing in an 8-5 win for his side.
This is the kit that Bolivia's national team wore at the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay...
That's right. Bolivia turned up to the first ever World Cup in Uruguay in a specially made strip that paid homage to their hosts and dear South American neighbours with a lovely bespoke message spelled out across the teams' chests.
I think we all remember the most annoying aspect of the 2010 World Cup, the infuriating sound of 1,000 vuvuzela's being blown which sounded like an infinite number of wasps reacting to being forcibly penetrated. Well, in their infinite lack of wisdom, the organisers of the 2014 World Cup have decided to create their own [.
Throughout the 2010 World Cup in South Africa there were calls to ban the vuvuzela, primarily because of the ear drum-persecuting drone that they insist upon. Now there's an even more pressing reason to cork the plastic horns one has been used to assault a match official! The sour note happened in the first [.
Sunil Gulati is ready to hit the ground running once he starts his position as a member of the 25-person FIFA Executive Committee this May.
Speaking to reporters in a conference call on Monday, the U.S. Soccer president commented on everything from transparency in FIFA to a potential World Cup in the United States.
One issue that had plagued the Gold Cup in the past is that countries have stacked their rosters with back-up players in the year that the winners did not qualify for the Confederations Cup.
Not anymore!!
CONCACAF announced on Friday that the winners of the 2013 Gold Cup will play the winners of the 2105 Gold Cup in a single-game playoff for a place in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup.
USA U-17 National Team coach Richie Williams talks about his squad as the team looks to qualify for the World Cup at the CONCACAF Championship. Read More
It didn't matter that none of the stadiums might be ready, because the Brazilian police had at least confirmed that their brave lads would be kept snuggly and dry during the torrential rain that would inevitably occur throughout World Cup 2014. After all, the tournament would be taking place during the wet months of.
Playing tiki-taka with the interwebs Self-styled 'Bad Mourinho' strikes back. 300 Brazilian prostitutes have signed up for English lessons ahead of next summer's World Cup [Global Post] Sir Alex Ferguson will aim to sign "one or two" new Manchester United players this summer [Guardian] Fernando Torres flashes his bits around [101GG] Mauricio Pochettino says he [.
With NBC Sports Network announcing their Premier League coverage plans for next season, the end is near for FOX Soccer.
Next season will see the UEFA Champions League, Europa League, CONCACAF Champion's League and the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup tournaments shown on the new FOX Sports 1.
To mark the 15th anniversary of their revolutionary 1998 design, Nike have produced a special limited edition run of 1,998 individually-numbered pairs of new, re-engineered Mercurial Vapor R9s in an homage to the original boots worn by'El Fenomeno' himself at France '98.
There are some excellent scribes who write about Argentine Soccer. Sam Kelly. Dan Colasimone. Ed Malyon. Most of them live in Buenos Aires, whereas my own tenure there was an all too brief six months (several years ago). However, there's just one problem: none of the aforementioned writers are pricks.
(This entry is formulated based on the media release issued by 3x Pte Ltd, the organizers of the mentioned event with images depicted in this entry provided via the event's official Facebook Page, unless credited)
Falcao is expected to be in town next month (credit: event's FB page)
It is an initiative by the Singapore Olympic Foundation (SOF) to raise fund to help financially challenged kids with good sporting potentials to fulfill their dreams that will see La Liga powerhouses Atlético Madrid in town next month to showcase some of those Spanish flairs that captivated football fans around the world, ever since the fever pitch hit a high worldwide when Spain won the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
England captain Steven Gerrard admits the prospect of failing to qualify for next year's World Cup is "daunting". England sit two points behind Group H leaders Montenegro after drawing in Podgorica last month and face the prospect of a two-legged play-off should they not overhaul that deficit before the end of the campaign.
Only three of six stadiums are ready for the 2013 Confederations Cup, scheduled for Brazil this summer.
"Not all operational arrangements will be 100 percent" for the Confederations Cup, FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke wrote on FIFA's website. "The deadline for the FIFA World Cup stadiums delivery stands firm as December 2013.
The year was 1981 and England had just lost 2-1 to Norway in a World Cup qualifier in Oslo. Step forward veteran Norwegian commentatorBjørge Lillelien, who duly etched his name into footballing folklore by flying into a jubilant rant in broken English at the final whistle.
Is time up for the Ivory Coast's Golden Generation?
By Peter Sharland
In England, there is a general acceptance that we recently experienced a golden generation of talented footballers that never produced on the world stage.
Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas, Thierry Henry and Alex Song will be playing in a friendly game this summer in Chicago to raise money for charity.
Dubbed "Messi & Friends," the exhibition match is being organized by Messi and will feature 36 world stars.
"This event will feature the world's greatest players in a festival of soccer, the most popular sport on the planet," said Sergio Codino, vice president of Numero 5 LLC, the match's organiser.
