World Soccer News And Opinion

Liverpool's Steven Gerrard is recovering well

2011-08-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

Steven Gerrard missed majority of the last season,
suffering with a groin injury

Liverpool's manager Kenny Dalglish is excited about recovery progress from the groin injury of the midfielder Steven Gerrard. However Dalglish is not in a rush to play Steven Gerrard and he is not expected to be back on the field and in a starting lineup before September.

"Steven won't be too far away. All the tests that have come back are far better than what was anticipated so we're delighted with that for him", Dalglish said at the press conference.

"He's had some really positive news and we'll just wait for the progress to continue. But the date that has been mentioned hasn't been changed."

Although Steven Gerrard will be needed on the field, Liverpool's manager will allow the midfielder to completely recover from the injury.

Watch video of Kenny Dalglish on Steven Gerrard's groin operation & Liverpool's hopes for the new season:

Juventus announced the signing of Montenegro forward Mirko Vucinic

2011-08-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

The 27-year-old Montenegro forward Mirko Vucinic signed a €13.1 million, 3 year deal with Juventus. Vucinic is to be transferred from Roma and will take his starter position as the 5th Juventus signing this year, which already includes such players as Stephan Lichsteinerfrom from Lazio, Andrea Pirlo from AC Milan, Arturo Vidal from Bayer Leverkusen and Reto Ziegler from of Sampdoria.

Juventus is hoping to erase the bad memories of the uneventful 2010-2011 Italian Seria A season with some help from newcomers, such as Mirko Vucinic. However, no satisfaction for those who wanted to see Vucinic in a Roma uniform this year.

Seria A club Juventus announced the signing of
Montenegro forward Mirko Vucinic

"Juventus have done well to take Vucinic, he's a great signing," Savicevic, Former AC Milan forward and current Montenegro Football Federation president, said in his interview.

"And now that he's matured this transfer will allow him to take a definite step up in quality.

"He could have gone to Chelsea or Manchester United because Mirko has the ability to play in big clubs and he deserves it.

"Football goes in cycles, as happened with Milan. After some tough seasons Juventus should get back to being one of the best."

Alexis Sanchez signs a 5 year deal with Barcelona

2011-07-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

Barcelona confirmed that 22-year old Alexis Sanchez is in fact joining the Catalonian club and will be transferred from the Italian Seria A. Udinesse Calcio released the Chilean striker on Thursday.

Alexis Sanchez celebrating a goal for Chile in
Copa America Argentina 2011

Barcelona was able to steal the deal away for €26 million, from such teams as Manchester City and Chelsea who had their eyes on Sanchez.

The fact that Barcelona signed a 5 year contract with Alexis Sanchez, shows the club's strong commitment to develop the young striker into a star player and implement his enormous talent.

Considering his out of the ordinary performance at Copa America Argentina 2011, Sanchez should make a strong addition to the Barcelona's attacking game.

Alexis Sanchez appearing for Chile international team

Uruguay beats Paraguay 3-0 in Copa América 2011 Final

2011-07-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

Some 60,000 fans gathered in Montevideo, Uruguay to celebrate the country's Copa America 2011 champion squad return home. It's been a long wait since Uruguay last won the Copa in 1995 and now the title belongs to Uruguay again.

Luis Suarez celebrates his goal against
Paraguay in Copa America 2011 final

Uruguay displayed top level game in the first half, as star forward Luis Suarez opened a score on 12' after a pass by Diego Perez. Overall much stronger and with higher possession percentage, Uruguay scored the second goal on the 42', when Arevalo Rios stole the ball from the Paraguay defender and gave a precise pass to Diego Forlán, who took a shot and placed a ball in the net of Justo Villar.

In response to Uruguay's total domination in a first half, Paraguay answered with an attack by Haedo, who hit the crossbar of Uruguay's Fernando Muslera. However, to the disappointment of Paraguay fans, that was not enough to save the game, as Diego Farlan delivered a final blow on the 90', scoring a goal, which ended Paraguay's dream of Copa America 2011 championship title.

"My grandfather won it, my father won it, and now I have also done it," Diego Forlán said in Monumental stadium after the win over Paraguay. “Three generations have won this trophy,” he said. “The name of Forlán will stay in history.”

Diego Forlán goes down in history of Copa America
as a third generation player to participate and win
the the tournament

Luis Suarez was chosen as the best player of the tournament.

Undefeated, Uruguay won the 2011 Copa America for the 15th time in the history of this oldest international championship on the planet.

Watch Copa America Argentina 2011 Final Uruguay v Paraguay highlights video:

Argentina is out of Copa América 2011 with Carlos Tevez's miss on penealty shootout 5-4

2011-07-20T12:05:00.001-07:00

Carlos Tevez after missing a disappointing penalty shot.
Uruguay will move on to face Peru in the semi-finals

Uruguay ended Argentina’s quest for the semi-final, as the game came to the penalty shootout, with Carlos Tevez's penalty miss becoming decisive factor in the quarter-final match. The game proved to be an exciting encounter of such old rivals and did not disappoint football fans.

After an exhausting round of regular time and additional time, the match came to a stand-still and penalty shootout became the only option to decide who is going to play in a semi-final game. Penalties came to 5-4, when Carlos Tevez missed a shot, sending his team out of the Copa America 2011.

Gonzalo Higuain equalized on the 17’, which canceled out the earlier goal by Diego Perez of Uruguay. Red card to Javier Maschrano and amazing goaltending by Uruguay’s Fernando Muslera caused the game to go into additional time and eventually to penalty shootout. Uruguay will now face Peru in the semi-finals, who beat Columbia 2-0.

Watch Copa America Argentina 2011: Uruguay v Argentina highlights video:

Copa América 2011: Uruguay, Mexico 1 - 0

2011-07-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

July 12, 2011, La Plata, Argentina
Mexico international fans were stunned by the loss to Uruguay on Tuesday at La Plata. The game presented a significant challenge for Mexico, while Uruguay's Luis Suarez and Diego Forlan pressed relentlessly on the Mexican defense.

Alvaro Pereira scores a goal against Mexico in a Group C match

A goal scored at 14' when Diego Forlán's shot slipped out of the grip of the Mexican goalkeeper Michel and Alvaro Pereira, who was standing nearby, pushed the ball into the net. Alternatively there were not too many chances created by the Mexican side and only Giovani dos Santos provided with few opportunities to even the score but failed to capitalize on them.

Diego Forlán and the rest of the Uruguay's squad
will face Argentina in a quarter-final

Mexico was knocked out from Group C and was sent packing home to face the embarrassment at Copa América 2011 without a single win and with a loss to Uruguay in addition to a scandal with suspensions involving nearly half of the team in the early stages of competition.
Uruguay will move on to quarter-finals to face the host Argentina, which is promising to be a very exciting derby.

Ronaldinho hopeful to jump start with Flamengo

2011-07-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

Rio Flamengo fans came out by thousands to greet the signing of the world-class Brazilian striker Ronaldinho, who has agreed to transfer to Flamengo from AC Milan.

However there are those, who are not so optimistic about the transfer.

"Ronaldinho is close to being an ex-player," sports daily Lance! wrote.

"The club has entered into despair, a result of the team's awful campaign last year. The amount of money involved is unrealistic for Brazilian soccer. And it gets worse. The club has made the investment without knowing if he really wants to play, given that recently he's been seen more on the dance floor than on the pitch."

Ronaldinho's first appearance for Flamengo 2011

No doubt that Ronaldinho has not shown his top form since 2006 World Cup, while showing mediocre results in AC Milan, but the football player of such magnitude with a right team and under right circumstances could ignite his career and boost Flamengo in the race for the Brazilian Championship.

Copa América 2011: Paraguay, Ecuador draw 0 - 0

2011-07-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

Paraguay tied 0 – 0 with Ecuador in the first round of Copa America’s 2011 Group B in the Argentine city of Santa Fe. "Today was a very complicated game, we wanted to win, tried to score the goal but could not, now let's see how it’s going to be”, Nelson Haedo said in his interview after a very tough match with Ecuador.

Paraguay began the match with advantage in the opening stages but failed to maintain the momentum. Ecuador's attackers did not deliver and the match ended in draw 0 - 0.

Copa América 2011: Brazil 0 - Venezuela 0

2011-07-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

Copa America Argenita 2011 edition is turning out to be full of surprises as Venezuela drew inspiration from such teams as Costa Rica, who put up a good fight against a definite favorite in their group. Brazil kept relentless pressure from the beginning of the match, while Venezuela made more then few mistakes on defense.

However Venezuela's Juan Arango had a chance to put the ball in the net of the opponent but Brazilian defenders were relieved when the ball curved away from the goal. From Brazil's side the chance came as Dani Alvez picked out Alexandre Pato who missed the net hitting the crossbar.

Lionel Messi not too impressed with Argentina's 1-1 draw with Bolivia

2011-07-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

Lionel Messi was not impressed with a goal by Edivaldo Rojas, who shocked Argentina’s defense with stunnig goal and opened the score in Group A opener of Copa America 2011 tournament.

In his interview Messi said, "They surprised us with a shitty goal and we drew level thanks to Kun [Aguero]. But we are upset because we didn't achieve our goal.” "We did some things well, but we have to keep growing and improving."

Sergio Batista, who replaced Diego Maradona was not happy as Messi, Tevez and Lavezzi failed to ignite Argentina's attacks and Bolivians should be proud of the game that they played. However the host nation was able to score an equalizer to pull a draw after Sergio Aguero delivered an excruciating goal off of a chest pass from Nicolas Burdisso.

YouTube streaming Copa America 2011 Live - Tournament starts July 1st

2011-07-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

Copa America Argentina 2011 is finally here and great news for the fans of this wonderful South American football tournament is that YouTube will begin broadcasting it live on their channel.

Now you can watch all Copa America Argentina 2011 matches inducing all the group stage matches, knock-out stage matches, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Third-place match and certainly the Final match from Estadio Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti, Buenos Aires!

Watch Copa America 2011 live on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/CopaAmerica

Full list of times, fixtures and results is available on ESPN Soccernet.

Mexican striker Pedroza joins Tottenham

2011-06-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

Mexican striker Antonio Pedroza is set to join Tottenham. Young 20-year-old striker, who was born in England was recently transferred from Jaguares.

Pedroza expressed his joy over being invited to English Premier League: " I am very happy and satisfied having played for an important team like Jaguares. Now I have the chance to make a dream come true to play in Europe."

Antonio Pedroza will likely receive under £1million and he will become the first signing for the Spurs during this summer transfer window as his contract with the Jaguares has expired.

Villa's Ashley Young to transfer to Manchester United

2011-06-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Now that the summer transfer window is officially open, it is most certain that the exceptionally talented English international Ashley Young will make his move to Old Trafford. Young will become a second addition to the Red Devils along with Phil Jones who made a move to Manchester United from Blackburn Rovers.

While in Aston Villa Ashley Young has made 193 appearances and scored 39 goals for the Birmingham club. Young admitted that he will miss the stadium and great fans of Aston Villa but as he said it " the opportunity to come and play for one of the biggest clubs in the world is one I couldn't turn down."

Watch video: Interview with Ashley Young (Manchester United)

EPL 2011: Arsenal rejects Barcelona's offer for Cesc Fabregas' transfer

2011-06-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

Barcelona may look forward to revising original £27 million offer for transfer of Cesc Fabregas to the Catalonian club and is aiming to offer £31 million, while the Gunners stated that the price tag is no less than £45 million for the Spanish striker.

On the other hand Arsen Wenger might be tempted to let Fabregas go to Barcelona, considering that the Spanish striker did not live up to the expectations of the manager or the fans in 2010/2011 EPL season. Releasing Fabregas might free up some money to be able to purchase new players such as Ricardo Alvarez and Gervinho.

No question that these are tough times for the fans of Arsenal as the future of key players such as Fabregas and Nasri, who might be transferred to Manchester City FC, still remains cloudy. However with talents such as Andrei Arshavin and Robin van Persie the Gunners have showed resilience and toughness regardless of losses on the bench in past and are aiming to have a strong season in English Premiere League.