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David Beckham likely to miss World Cup

March 15, 2010

A torn left Achilles tendon is more than likely going to rule David Beckham out of the England squad for the World Cup finals to be held in South Africa in June.

Beckham was not challenged when he suffered the injury during AC Milan’s match against Chievo.

The 34-year-old is the most capped English player and he will travel to Finland on Monday to undergo specialist surgery.

If Beckham were to play in South Africa it would be his fourth World Cup finals appearance.

Back in 2006 Beckham also suffered an Achilles injury during England’s World Cup quarter-final defeat against Portugal. On that occasion he recovered to play eight weeks later. This injury is reported to be worse than that occasion.


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Socceroos Earn Asian Cup Berth

March 8, 2010

Football photoLast Wednesday in Brisbane the Socceroos defeated Indonesia 1-0 to secure a place in the 2011 Asian Cup to be played in Qatar. Just a draw was needed to advance.

Australia dominated the match however looking at the score you would not have known. The only goal came in the 42nd minute when Mark Milligan met a Luke Wilkshire cross with his shoulder which hit the post. He then scrambled to hammer the ball into the net from a tight angle.

The Australian team squad included only three overseas based players.

The other team to advance to the finals from group B was Kuwait who ended their qualifying campaign with a draw against Oman.

The full list of qualified teams is below.

Direct bye to the Finals
AFC Asian Cup 2007: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Korea Republic
AFC Challenge Cup 2008: India
AFC Challenge Cup 2010: DPR Korea
AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011™ hosts: Qatar

Eligible through qualifying
Group A: Japan, Bahrain
Group B: Australia, Kuwait
Group C: UAE, Uzbekistan
Group D: Syria, China PR
Group E: IR Iran, Jordan

The finals take place January 7-29, 2011.

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Mark Schwarzer First Australian Named EPL Player of the Month

March 7, 2010

soccer ball imageAustralia’s Mark Schwarzer has been named Barclays Player of the month for February after his outstanding play that month.

Schwarzer the Socceroos keeper plays for Fulham in the English Premier League. He is the first Australian to be awarded the honor and the first Fulham player to receive the award since Louis Saha in August 2001.

In February the 37-year-old Australian let in just one goal from five matches and that came in a 2-1 win over Birmingham. Fulham had three wins and two draws in February and for this the manager was also rewarded.

Roy Hodgson was awarded manager of the month. His team sit in tenth position on the English Premier League table and are one of the form teams at the moment.

“I’m still a little bit shocked to have won the award. “I think it’s been a tremendous achievement from everybody at the club over the last five to six weeks.” Schwarzer said.

For Schwarzer he will be looking to help Fulham continue their good form however the big goal this year is to help Australia out of group play at the 2010 World Cup soccer finals to be held in June over in South Africa.

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Kewell Injury Concern

January 29, 2010

Socceroo star Harry Kewell has returned to Sydney for tests on his troublesome groin. He currently plays for the Turkish club side Galatasaray and has scored 27 goals from 62 games with the club.

As this is a World Cup year and the finals are less than six months away Kewell wants to make sure he is over his problems as soon as possible. There is talk that he could be out as long as until May, or be back as early as mid-February.

“He is seeing a variety of specialists, as Harry usually does, and he will be guided by their medical opinion,” Kewell’s agent Bernie Mandic told SBS. “We should know by Monday what the prognosis is.”

Lucas Neill recently joined Kewell at Galatasaray after making a move from English Premier League club Everton.

All Socceroo fans will be hoping for a speedy solution to Kewells latest injury woes. Who knows what might have happened if a fit Kewell was available for that match against Italy in the 2006 World Cup. No point thinking about as we all know how that one turned out.

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Liverpool Out of FA Cup

January 14, 2010

Photo of soccer ball on grassIt is not often that you see both Manchester United and Liverpool out of the FA Cup in the third round. That is what has happened after Reading defeated Liverpool at Anfield after an extra time goal gave Reading a 2-1 victory.

This followed Man Uniteds earlier 1-0 loss to Leeds United at Old Trafford.

Liverpool had taken the lead after a 45th minute own goal  when Reading’s Ryan Bertrand deflected Steven Gerrard’s cross into his own net.

Liverpool looked to have done enough to advance before a foul in the box sent Gylfi Sigurdsson’s 90th to the spot. He knocked it past the keeper to level the match. The penalty was awarded after Benayoun was adjudged to have brought down Long in the area

Extra time was played and it was a stooping header by substitute Shane Long that added further misery to a so far forgettable season for Liverpool fans.

Liverpool had a few chances to level however Benayoun wasted his opportunity and Ngog and Kuyt also saw their efforts on goal go unrewarded.

The only bright spot on the night was the news that Liverpool has secured the free transfer signing of Argentine star Maxi Rodriguez.

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was forced out of the game at halftime after feeling a twinge in his hamstring.

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EPL Scores – Man Utd Go Down, Liverpool Slump Continues

December 20, 2009

The big names crashed in the latest EPL action. Manchester United were upset by Fulham as they went down 3-0.

Just last season Liverpool were pushing for the Premier League title. This season they are a shadow of that team and their slump continued as they lost to bottom team Portsmouth 2-0.

In other matches Arsenal moved into third position after a 3-0 win over Hull City, Manchester City defeated Sunderland 4-3 in a match that was the last for Mark Hughes as manager. He got the sack after his teams recent poor form. Incoming manager Roberto Mancini watched from the stands.

Tottenham defeated Blackburn Rovers 2-0 and Aston Villa consolidated a top four spot with a 1-0 win over Stoke City.

Just before Christmas we now see Chelsea holding a three-point lead ahead of Manchester United. Chelsea on 40 points has a game in hand. Arsenal are five points back on 35 as are Aston Villa. Liverpool is eight points out of a Champions League position as they struggle in seventh spot on the EPL ladder.

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FIFA 2010 World Cup Draw Completed

December 5, 2009

The football fans of the world were earlier today treated to an entertaining event as part of the final draw for the 2010 World Cup. The fans were not watching just to be entertained, they were keen to see what group their nation would fall into.

First out of pot one which contained the seeded nations including the hosts, was in fact the host nation of South Africa. That placed them in group A. The other seeded teams were Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain. Each of those countries were selected from pot one to fill position one in each group.

As the draw continued it was Argentina who headed group B, England group C, Germany group D, Netherlands group E, Italy group F, Brazil group G and Spain filled group H.

This process continued as teams were selected from pot two. Mexico were the lucky ones who found their way into group A along with South Africa.

For me as an Australian I had to wait to find that the Socceroos would be in group D along with Germany, Ghana and Serbia.

English fans should be happy as their team has a somewhat easy group and will face USA, Algeria and Slovenia in group C.

A vote on FIFA.com to select the most difficult group shows that group G which contains Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast and Portugal is the toughest. 48.68 per cent picked that. Group A was voted next hardest then group D. the easiest is considered to be group F which contains defending champion Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia.

Now we just have to sit back and wait 187 days and the World Cup action will kick-off with a match between host country South Africa and Mexico.

You can view all the World Cup groups at the FIFA.com site

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UEFA Champions League – Liverpool Win Not Enough

November 24, 2009

Liverpool scored early in their UEFA Champions League group match against Debreceni VSC in Budapest. The goal came through David Ngog after just four minutes. Liverpool held onto the 1-0 advantage until the end of the match. Unfortunately for them a 1-0 win for ACF Fiorentina against Olympique Lyonnais ended the run of the five-time European champions.

Liverpool will now have to settle for the UEFA Europa League round of 32 action instead of going for glory in the knock-out stage of the Champions League. Olympique Lyonnais and ACF Fiorentina advance from group E.

In other matches Barcelona moved to the top of their group after a 2-0 win over Inter Milan. In the other group F match Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Kyiv played out a 0-0 draw.

Arsenal consolidated top spot in group H with a 2-0 win over Standared Liege while Olympiacos and Alkmaar played out a scoreless draw.

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FIFA World Cup – and then there were 32

November 19, 2009

Soccer ballWednesday November 18, 2009 marked the last day that spots were up for grabs at the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals to be held in June in South Africa.

On this night we saw four spots from the Europe zone claimed along with one from Africa and the playoff between the CONCACAF and South American zone teams.

The teams that booked their spots for the finals were Algeria, Greece, France, Portugal, Slovenia and Uruguay.

Uruguay grabbed the final spot in the 32 team finals. They had to fight off Costa Rica who not long ago were leading the CONCACAF zone. The score in the deciding match was 1-1 giving Uruguay a 2-1 aggregate. Uruguay know how it feels to fall at the final hurdle after bowing out in a penalty shoot-out to Australia four years ago.

In Europe it was Greece who advanced from their play-off with Ukraine. Both teams failed to score int he first leg in Athens and it was a single goal from Dimitris Salpingidis that sent Greece to South Africa. It will be the second appearance in the FIFA World Cup finals for Greece and the first time in 16-years. Greece were of course the 2004 European Champions.

Guus Hiddink  was not able to get Russia to the finals after they took a 2-1 home win into the second leg. Russia will be left to think what might have been if they kept a clean sheet in Moscow. They conceded a late goal to give Slovenia a crucial away goal. The return match in Slovenia saw the home team get the advantage when Zlatko Dedic scored just before the break. The 1-0 win sent Slovenia through on the away goals rule.

France were very lucky to advance at the expense of Ireland. France had beaten there opponents 1-0 in Ireland and suffered an early setback when Robbie Keane levelled the tie with a 32nd minute goal. The match then went into extra time and it was a controversial goal from Wiliam Gallas that sent the former champions through to South Africa.

France skipper Thierry Henry handled the ball before crossing to Gallas for the winning goal. The Irish protests were waved away by match referee, Martin Hansson. Television replays left fans around the world in no doubt that it was a blatant handball. I wonder how Henry will feel about the incident in years to come.

Portugal completed their mission to reach South Africa with a second 1-0 result over Bosnia.

In the African play-off it was Algeria who advanced past Egypt after a 1-0 win. Antar Yahya scored the winner in the 39th minute. The play-off was played in nuetral Khartoum, Sudan as after group play both teams were deadlocked on points and goal for and against.

The full list of qualified teams is as follows:

ASIA – Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea
AFRICA – Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, South Africa (host)
EUROPE – Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland
NORTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN – Honduras, Mexico, United States
OCEANIA – New Zealand
SOUTH AMERICA – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay

The all important draw for the FIFA 2010 World Cup finals will take place at 7pm local time on December 4 in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Socceroos Fight Hard for Away Win

November 14, 2009

In Asian Cup qualifying the Sooceroos played a man down for 75 minutes and were a goal down after 17 minutes. Things went bad for the Socceroos in Oman when a clumsy challenge by Rhys Williams gave away a penalty and saw him red carded.

The penalty that followed was at first saved by Mark Schwarzer but Khalifa Ayil followed up the save to poke home for a goal.

Luke Wilkshire pulled back a goal when he scored in the 43rd minute and then the come back was complete when Brett Emerton got on the end of a cross to drill the ball into the back of the net in the 82nd minute.

The away win sees Australia now at the top of the group with two matches to play. They are three clear of third placed Oman and one ahead of Kuwait who defeated Indonesia 2-1. The Socceroos play their next match against Kuwait in Kuwait City on January 6.

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