November 8th, 2009 | By:
Jan
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1 Comments
Thirteen years ago a football coach with the appearance of a rocket science arrived at Highbury.
His name was Arsene Wenger, born in Duttlenheim, a little village in France. The English hadn't heard of the man. "Arsene Who?", was the headline of the Evening Standard. This newspaper bet on the signing
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November 7th, 2009 | By:
Bannon
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1 CommentsWell, its been a roller-coaster this year for our Zhovto-Blakytni, with a lot of close calls...
In a tough Group 6, we held for a couple dramatic ties against Croatia and posted a narrow away loss to England – in both the shark-infested waters of Zagreb and Wembley stadium. Belarussian
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Julian
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25 CommentsI'm getting incredibly tired of reading articles and having to sift through the enormous anti-Italian sentiment to find actual content. This happens all the time on British websites, and the latest culprit is WhoAteAllthePies.
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Jan
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39 Comments
Team manager Bert van Marwijk confirmed he uses a shadow list for potential Oranje players at last Friday's press conference in Zeist. The coach refused to publish the list, though. "It wouldn't do anyone any good to publish that list. It's not a fixed list either, so then I'd have
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Harun
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1 CommentsWhen Said Husejinović first emerged in the Bosnian premijer liga for FK Sloboda Tuzla, he was touted by some as the best homegrown Bosnian prospect since the end of the war. The talented Zvorničanin had plenty of pace, great technique and a good shot from long-range. In terms of physical predisposition and natural talent, he was far more hyped as a 19-year-old playing in the Bosnian domestic league than Edin Džeko or just about anyone else in recent memory. When Werder Bremen came calling, many were optimistic that he would be the first premijer liga talent to make it in a direct transfer to a big club.
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Nick
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0 CommentsSo what does it take to be nominated to play for the German national team? Well you have to be a German citizen of course and identify strongly with Germany for sure, but are there secrets to being consistently nominated or to get that crucial first nomination? Recently Aaron Hunt,
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Nick
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2 Comments
For the friendly matches against Chile (Köln) and the Ivory Coast (Gelsenkirchen) Löw has nominated the England prospect Aaron Hunt, the mercurial Thomas Müller, the Bundesliga topscorer Stefan Kießling, and of course the ever present Thomas Hitzlsperger.
Overall this is a good selection, but one wonders why a player like
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Jan
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14 CommentsI don't think we'll win the Champions League this season. I'm sorry to break the news to you.
But we're not doing too shabby in the Europa League and you have to start somewhere...
Dembele tries...
AZ Alkmaar is a club and a team in trouble. Replacing Van Gaal by Ronald Koeman
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Eugene
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1 CommentsYou know what I hate? Stupid, ill-informed, disrespectful comments about any team when it's unfounded, especially a team who was one of five to go through their qualifying group unbeaten. Rant over.
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November 6th, 2009 | By:
Inara
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11 CommentsFrance's do-or-die match against Ireland is just around the corner, with the first match taking place on November 14th in Ireland and the second taking place on the 18th at the Stade de France (boo...). I don't know about you guys, but I'll be praying extra hard that France don't screw up against a tough Irish team. Or else Raymond & Friends will be watching the World Cup just like the rest of us - from their living room couches.
Unsurprisingly, there aren't any big surprises in the squad. Aly "The Teeth" Cissokho gets his first call-up, but it was somewhat expected in light of Gaël Clichy's injury. Loïc Remy gets the nod in favor of Bafetimbi Gomis, but again, that's not really surprising because Les Bleus are currently short on wide players. Yoann Gourcuff and Sidney Govou return after missing out on the last qualifiers due to injury.
More notable are the absences. The biggest one is Patrick Vieira, who hasn't been playing regularly at his club and has also been struggling on and off with injuries. Though his recent performances were positive, Domenech didn't think it was enough to justify his inclusion in the squad (Vieira is not happy about that, btw). Franck Ribery is still out due to a knee injury, and despite Samir Nasri recently making his comeback for Arsenal after a long injury layoff, he was left out as well.
Totally unrelated, but here is an interesting fact I discovered the other day: Sidney Govou has scored 10 goals for France in 42 appearances. Compare that to Nicolas Anelka, who's scored 13 goals in 61 appearances. Three less goals with 20 less appearances - and I'm sure Anelka has had more starts as well. It's weird to think about Govou in a productive light, isn't it?
Full list after the jump.
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When you look at the list of nations bidding to host World Cups 2018 and 2022, it's very very easy to dismiss Indonesia. The nine other bids all have either superior football traditions or superior infrastructure or superior financial muscle. Or in most cases all three. There's also the question of ... 
Norwegian former professional footballer Bjorn Heidenstrom is on a mission. A mission to make the world's biggest football shirt.
As coaching goes, Fabio Capello and Diego Maradona could not be more different. In short one is brilliant, the other is not. However, they do have quite a few similarities:
Bit of controversy in European World Cup qualifying, with the powers that be pulling what looks like a commercially motivated bait and switch with the playoffs.
As you may have read by now, USA forward Charlie Davies was involved in a one car accident early Tuesday morning in Virginia. Ashley Roberta was also in the car, and lost her life in the accident. Davies' injuries are not considered life threatening, but he had emergency surgery to repair a ... 
The World Cup 2010 picture is getting clearer and clearer. Right now 19 of the 32 available spots are booked. Qualified teams are: South Africa, Japan, Australia, S. Korea, Netherlands, N. Korea, Brazil, Ghana, England, Spain, Paraguay, Cote d'Ivoire, Germany, Denmark, Serbia, Italy, Chile, Mexico, USA.
