Inter have signed Brazilian youngster Kerlon most known for his “seal dribble” where he bounces the ball on his head while running. He’s been at Chievo but hasn’t had the best start in Serie A after a lot of injuries. He’s 21 and joins on a three year contract. Not sure if it’s a signing to get too excited about as he’s unproven and will have a tough time with all the other strikers at Inter.

As for Deco and Carvalho, Chelsea are still asking a lot for the Duo and Moratti isn’t keen. They’re both getting on a bit but are still two signings that Inter could really do with. A creative midfielder and an experienced centre back. This is all Real Madrid’s fault really. Their 200 million plus spending spree has inflated prices to at least twice the realistic amount as they play real life pro evolution soccer master league (on the easiest setting too). This sort of spending can’t be sustainable right?

In an otherwise uninteresting match to decide 3rd place at the 2009 confederations cup. South Africa upset Spain who then upset South Africa who then upset Spain once again.

You could be forgiven for falling asleep watching this match as both sides seemed drained or uninterested for the most part. But on 73 minutes, South Africa shocked the champions of Europe by grabing the opening goal and sent the crowd into ecstasy. The time rolled on and it looked like Spain would return home disgraced. Then came on Guiza. The Fenerbache man turned the match on it’s head within one minute of play. He levelled the score and in the next 60 seconds scored an audacious goal which was more than likely actually a misplaced cross. No matter, the euro champs had the lead with minutes left and the crowd began to empty.

What happened next was just as shocking. South Africa were awarded a free kick about 25-30 yards out on the 93rd minute. The last play of the game possibly. Mphela stepped up and hit a sweet drive that Casillas couldn’t deal with. Bam. 2-2. Extra time. Hope those deserters held on to their ticket stubs. Serves them right really.

In the end an extra time free kick from Alonso squirmed its way through to make it 3-2 as the Bafana hopeful had to settle for 4th place. Not the most convincing win by any stretch of the imagination but a result that Spain will have to settle for. I don’t have any highlights yet so instead, watch this funny goal kick fail.

Cristiano Ronaldo links up with Jeremy Lynch (a professional freestyler who was at Arsenal until age 14) for a short bit on Rio Ferdinands online magazine, #5. He’s certainly able to keep up with Jeremy with his fancy feet that will now be in action for Madrid. It seems Rio is missing the winger already and has started dressing like him to ease his hurt. I wonder what will happen to the special bond they share and if the long distance relationship will work.

Cristiano ronaldo getting a kiss from Rio

Anyways, it’s a pretty good magazine, even though it’s mostly ads for Nike and several other companies. The price is right though! (free). Check out the freestylin’ below.

I’m sure everyone tuned in last to view another run of the mill group stage game for Brazil in the Confederation Cup being held in South Africa. On paper the top of South America’s qualification group for the world cup next year should have had no problems dealing with a team struggling at the bottom of Africa’s group. What occurred however was a display of attacking football with Egypt controlling large periods of the match and looking more dangerous in attack to the five time world cup winners.

The match started well enough for Brazil, Kaka’ grabbing an early goal with a fine display of close quarter control in the area. However Egypt hit back soon after through the energetic Zidan to level the score. A well weighted cross that Zidan headed in was all too easy after lethargic defending by Brazil. Luis Fabiano retook the lead soon after from a set piece. Elano dropping the ball on his head, allowing the striker to flick it neatly into the bottom left corner. Another set piece, this time from the corner let Elano set up Juan for the third and the game looked done and dusted.

However, Brazil showed the danger of underestimating your opponents and within a minute in the second half, Egypt had again leveled the score. First Shawky powered in a well-placed shot from the edge of the area, before Zidan equalised only seconds after. Amazing stuff to send the crowd wild, and some even to tears. Brazil were shell-shocked and even though they started to get back into the match, they were making far more mistakes with bad passes and failed attacks while Egypt continued to show them how to play, Brazilian-style.

Finally the fairy tale ended for Egypt when their sub handled the ball on the goal-line to deny Lucio’s shot (on his bicep). After some confusion the referee pulled out the red card and pointed to the spot. Kaka’ stepped up to slot the ball into the bottom right, just inches beyond the goal-keepers grasp. This goal came at 90 minutes and even with four minutes stoppage time, Egypt couldn’t level again. Well done Egypt, you played the beautiful game and showed the greats how to play. Check out the amazing highlights below.

Yesterday the first two games of the Confederations Cup were played. The first being a mostly stale nil-all draw between the hosts and the Asian champions, Iraq. The real action was in the second game between the European champions Spain and the best of Oceania since Australia joined the Asian region, minnows New Zealand. This game was a demonstration of the huge gap between the best of the old world and a nation on the very outskirts of the world game, without any decent league of their own (having to settle for a team in Australia’s A-league).

It didn’t take Spain long to demonstrate this either, scoring four of their five goals in less than 25 minutes. Torres made history by grabbing the quickest hat-trick in the Spanish national team’s history, just needing a period of 11 minutes between the first and the third goal. Cesc was also on the scoresheet and finally Villa had a gift for the fifth goal in the second half by which time they’d taken their foot off the gas to cruise it on home.

Enjoy the goal highlights below.

The deal has been pretty much finalised and at the end of the month he’ll join up with Kaka’ for Galacticos part 2. The amount agreed on? 80 million pounds! A new transfer record, surpassing the 56 million pounds Real agreed on for Kaka’ but a few days ago. He’s been busy partying with Paris Hilton and so only heard about it from his people while in LA.

So Manchester United (much like AC Milan) will have a good amount of money coming in to beef up their teams and there’s still a great deal of speculation about Ribery moving to Manchester United to replace the winger. At the very least we’re going to see an interesting Real Madrid this season.

Well the deal is done. After a lot of speculation and rumours, Kaka’ has signed for Real Madrid with a record transfer fee of about 58 million pounds. The new world record eclipses the previous one, also held by Real Madrid for when they purchased Zidane from Juve back in 2001. It could’ve been much higher if he’d joined Man City in the middle of the season (around the 100 million pound mark!) but he says that the fans kept him in Milan for the rest of the season.

Apparently Milan’s economic troubles and Real’s vision is what made Kaka’ move which is fair enough. Milan did miss out on Champion’s League action last season and even though they should be back in the action this season, I doubt they’ll be that competitive. The money should help them rebuild a little with Leonardo taking the hot seat after Ancelotti made tracks for Chelsea.

I think Real is looking at Galatico’s part two now that Perez is back and it seems he’s up to the same thing. High-priced, talented attackers such as Kaka’s, Ronaldo, Ribery, etc. but little regard for the defence or holding midfielder role. We’ll have to see if they’ve learnt from their mistakes and are able to somehow build a balanced team like Barca have at the moment.

Kaka’ was in action for the world cup 2010 qualifiers and made the score sheet as Brazil brushed aside Uruguay 4-0. See below for highlights.

If you’ve read some of my other posts about mercurial vapors, you’ll know that I’m still very fond of my white mercurial vapor IIIs and chuck them on from time to time. About 6 months ago I got some chewing gum stuck on one of the boots and I figured it would just come off eventually just from wearing them during training/matches. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case so I had to find a way to get it off myself.

The usual cleaning regime of a bit of hand soap and a soft toothbrush wasn’t doing it. Turns out the best way to get it off was using one of my car cleaning products from AutoGlym. The stuff you want is “Intensive Tar Remover” although I’m sure other companies make similar products. Just make sure it’s good quality stuff that is non-abrasive and fairly gentle too.

The problem with gum is it’s oil-based, sticky when warm and clings like mud on a stick. So using soapy water won’t do it, but the good thing about car products is they have to be gentle on paintwork so any solvents shouldn’t affect the MV synthetic either. Certainly did the trick for me and really well. About 10-15 seconds with a bit of soaked cloth took almost all of the gum off as the photo’s show. Now I just need to find a way to get the marks from other boots off! Let me know if you’re got any good boot cleaning tips and tricks.

nike mercurial vapor III with gum before removal

nike mercurial vapor III after gum removed

Inter celebrated their 17th Scudetto and the 4th one in a row in front of a packed home crowd with a 3-0 drubbing of Siena. Goals came from Cambiasso, Balotelli and Ibrahimovic. Inter actually became champions the night before when Udinese defeated AC Milan 2-1 and the boys didn’t wait to kick off the party that very night. There was little Mourinho could say so he let them have their fun but it’s clear they had enough left in the tank for the match the next day and the celebrations afterwards.

Now let’s look to next season with Mourinho already stating that radical changes are needed to challenge for the Champions League. He said that the Serie forced him to adapt and change the one system that he’s used his whole career. He’s looking to change the less influencial players as the team is too reliant on a few and this can be seen when they’re absent. E.g. Ibrahimovic, Cambiasso, Julio Cesar, etc.

The special one is looking for a couple of midfielders, a defender and a striker. Fair enough given that Adriano is gone now (bye bye Emporer) and others are out of contract although personally I think the defence needs a little more attention. I.e. a strong centre back pairing and a good left-back too. Quaresma returns from his loan spell at Chelsea and Mourinho is expecting that he returns with a very different attitude. Let’s hope so as it’s about time he realised his potential!

Figo announced his retirement so there’s a huge need for a creative midfielder as he goes off to chase another dream, learning to surf. All the best, the game has lost another legend, check out a Figo compilation below. Ibrahimovic may leave too if you believe the rumours although this wouldn’t be the worse thing for the team. Even though he is the top scorer and does some amazing things, he is still a big game flop. Inter need a more decisive and clinical striker. There’s talk of Adebayor ending up playing with one of the teams in Milan but who knows. Two very important prospects seem to be Diego Milito and Thiago Motta from Genoa.

Best of Figo.

Inter vs Siena highlights.

Getin2thegame posted a video recently showing Ronaldo meeting Huge Jackman during his tour of Brazil and they both swapped shirts. Huge got a special Corinthians top with “X” on the back while Ronaldo got a promo x-men origins shirt. Check the video out below.