Soccer Blog

What was the result of Real Madrid vs Shamrock Rovers?

2009-07-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Today we had the debut of Cristiano Ronaldo playing with Real Madrid in Ireland. The match was against a very unknown Irish team: Shamrock Rovers.

The final result was 1-0. Real Madrid won the game, but it was close to finish with a tie. The only goal was scored at minute 87. The Irish team was only 3 minutes away of getting a surprising result.

The only goal was scored by Karim Benzema, the new french player of Real Madrid. Benzema played all 2nd half, he came into the game in substitution of Raul.

The whole world was waiting this game in order to witness the debut of this new Real Madrid, and especially the debut of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka.

As for Cristiano Ronaldo, he did play the 1st half of the match. However, Kaka didn´t. I guess Kaka was not ready for a debut, we will have to wait a future game in order to watch Kaka in action.

Cristiano Ronaldo only played the first 45 minutes, I guess it was not enough time in order to have a good conclusion about his performance. He was very participative though, his presence was notorious, and he played a good game in a general way, but he is still to show his real category in future games.

Gold Cup: ready for the semifinals

2009-07-20T18:29:00.001-07:00

We are ready to watch the semifinal matches of the Gold Cup. The only four teams that remain in the competition are the favorite teams in Concacaf, it is not a surprise: USA, Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras.

We're looking forward to see 2 very interesting matches for the semifinals next thursday. USA vs Honduras, Mexico vs Costa Rica.

USA is by far the favorite team to win the competition, so far we have seen very good performance in USA team, even though they are not using their regular players, they are using substitute players but they still are a very good team.

Let´s remember that in the 1st round of this competition, USA and Honduras already played and USA defeated Honduras 2-0. This thursday in the semifinal we're going to have some type of revenge game, Honduras has a new opportunity to play against USA.

We're anticipating a very tough game for both teams, it´s not going to be easy. USA is the favorite team to win the match as we said before, but Honduras will be a very complicated rival

In the other match we will have Mexico vs Costa Rica. Both teams won their quarterfinal games in a very easy way. Mexico beat Haiti 4-0, Costa Rica beat Guadeloupe 5-1.

This is a very complicated match, and both teams are even, there is not a clear favorite. Anyone can win, it´s complicated really to guess who will win.

For both games, my forecast is that USA and Costa Rica will advance to the final game. Honduras and Mexico will have to wait for a future opportunity to win the Gold Cup.

That´s what I think, I could be wrong but let´s wait thursday and we will know if I´m right or not.

Lucio will join Inter Milan

2009-07-16T09:39:00.001-07:00

The international brazilian soccer player Lucio, who currently plays with Bayern Munich in Germany, will get a new contract with Inter Milan in the next few days. He will sign a 3 years contract with his new team in Italy.

Inter Milan announced that they will pay Bayern Munich about 10 million Euros for the transfer of Lucio, who is 31 years old. He is at the peak of his soccer career, he is a mature player, and still has a few years of great things to show.

We all know Lucio is a great player, which is one of the reasons why he is the Captain of Brazil national team, that´s an honor reserved only for the best, and Lucio is one of the best.

We all remember Lucio for his great performance in the recent Confederations Cup when Brazil won the Cup in the final game against US team. That final game was very tough for Brazil, they had to overcome a partial victory 2-0 from US team, and Brazil finally won 3-2.

Do you remember who scored the 3rd and winning goal for Brazil?. I´m sure you do, that winning goal was scored by Lucio.

I'm sure Lucio will have a great season with Inter Milan, he will be able to show his category in a team where the objective is to win every competition they have. Inter Milan is one of the best teams in the world, there´s no doubt about it.

Estudiantes wins Libertadores Cup

2009-07-16T09:12:00.001-07:00

Estudiantes de La Plata from Argentina is the new champion of Libertadores Cup. They had a great victory against Cruzeiro in their own stadium in Belo Horizonte.

Not only it was a great victory, but Estudiantes also had to come from behind in the match. Cruzeiro scored the first goal, but later in the game Estudiantes came back and scored two goals. The final result was 2-1.

The 1st half was very tight, none of the teams could score a goal, the result at halftime was 0-0, and everybody was expecting a thrilling 2nd half, and it was very exciting indeed.

The first goal of Cruzeiro (Henrique, 51 min) put things very complicated for Estudiantes. Cruzeiro fans in the stadium went crazy with that goal, and it looked very difficult for Estudiantes to do something about it.

But Estudiantes was able to level things up very quickly with a goal five minutes later (Gastón Fernandez, 56 min). The match turned out to be very interesting from that moment. The tie 1-1 was a very uncertain result for both teams. Anything could happen.

Later in the 2nd half Estudiantes scored the 2nd goal (Mauro Boselli, 72 min), and about 4000 Argentinian fans who attended the game went crazy.

From that moment, there were about 20 minutes left in the game. Cruzeiro tried to score and they came close, but Estudiantes was able to keep the victory which was very dramatic.

This is the 4th time in their history that Estudiantes is able to win the Libertadores Cup. They've got the Cup 3 times in a row about 40 years ago. That was back in 1968, 1969 & 1970. They had to wait 39 years in order to win the Cup again with this victory against Cruzeiro.

With this victory, Estudiantes has also made it to the Soccer Teams World Championship to be celebrated in December 2009 in Dubai. They will have to compete against other great teams, including Barcelona FC. We will be looking forward to this competition. We will see if Estudiantes is able to beat Barcelona, it´s going to be very interesting.

Good for Estudiantes, it was an amazing victory. They came from behind in the game in Belo Horizonte, the home of Cruzeiro, and we all know that Cruzeiro is almost unbeatable in their own stadium.

David Villa to Barcelona FC?

2009-07-15T14:49:00.001-07:00

David Villa, the international spanish soccer player, is being mentioned as a possibility for moving to Barcelona FC. However, his current team, Valencia FC, has set a minimum price for him.

Do you know what is the minimum price for Villa? I´m sure you know we´re talking about a few millions, but how many millions is that?

Well, that minimum price is "only" 50 million Euros, and that is the minimum. Barcelona knows about this minimum price, but they are trying to negotiate with Valencia FC anyway.

David Villa used to be a possibility for joining Real Madrid over the last few weeks, but we all know that Real Madrid has already signed Karim Benzema who plays in the same position of Villa. The interest Real Madrid had in Villa has to wait for some time in the future.

This is a good opportunity for Barcelona if they really want Villa on their team, they don´t have the competition from Real Madrid anymore.

But Barcelona FC is not going to invest giant amounts of money for new players. They know David Villa is a player that they would want in their team, but they also said that they can't afford to pay more than they consider as a fair amount.

Joan Laporta, Barcelona FC president, said that they are interested in David Villa, they really want him on their team, but only if they get a fair price from Valencia FC. I guess Laporta doesn´t think 50 million Euros is a fair amount.

How much is a fair amount according to Barcelona?. We really don´t know, but it must be quite a lot of money anyway.

If David Villa finally joins Barcelona, even if Valencia doesn´t get the 50 million, I´m sure they would get something very close to that amount, that´s for sure.

Cruzeiro vs Estudiantes for Libertadores Cup

2009-07-15T14:21:00.001-07:00

Today is the day we will have a new champion of the Libertadores Cup. The final match will be played tonight in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Last week in Buenos Aires we had the 1st game of this final series, the result was a draw 0-0. In theory, Cruzeiro is the favorite team to win the Libertadores Cup because they will play as host team in this final and definite game.

Cruzeiro is a very tough rival when playing in Belo Horizonte. If Estudiantes wants to win the Cup they will have to beat Cruzeiro in their own stadium. The pressure will be very strong for both teams, but Cruzeiro has the advantage of having fans in the stadium on their favor.

If the result is a tie, no matter how many goals, they will have to define the championship with penalty kicks.

I guess Estudiantes will be trying to reach the penalty kicks definition as part of their strategy, and they will probably are going to play most of the game in their defense.

On the other hand, Cruzeiro will have to push a lot of pressure on Estudiantes defense. Cruzeiro should play in an offensive manner, trying to get fans into the game as much as possible.

Every time there is a game between Argentina and Brazil teams, there is a lot of competition. These type of games have the tendency to be very rough, very difficult.

The referee is going to have a very tough challenge tonight in order to keep things under control. Let´s hope everything goes well, and red cards won´t be shown.

This is going to be a very interesting game. There is no tomorrow for both teams, everything is going to be defined today.

Getting ready for the World Football Challenge

2009-07-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

We're getting ready for a very interesting soccer competition to be held in the USA in the next few days. This is a friendly tournament, where we will have the participation of four very popular soccer teams. The name of this competition is World Football Challenge. By the way, for the folks in USA, it is really a soccer competition, not a football competition.

The teams to participate in this competition are the following:

1. Chelsea (England)
2. AC Milan (Italy)
3. Inter Milan (Italy)
4. America (Mexico)

As you can see, 3 of these teams are definitely among the best soccer teams in the world. The only team I wouldn´t consider to be one of the best in the world is America from Mexico, which is one of the most popular soccer teams in Mexico, and has traditionally been one of the best in Mexico, but not in the last few seasons. America has had very bad performances lately in the Mexican League.

However, America is always a very popular soccer team, and it's always a very difficult rival for any other team. I think America will be up to the circumstances in this competition, let's hope they can play good games against the European teams.

As for the other 3 teams, Chelsea, AC Milan, Inter Milan, what can we say?. They are on top of the european soccer teams, and of top of the world as well.

We will be able to see some of the most known soccer players in the world. We will be able to watch players like the following:

- Frank Lampard and John Terry with Chelsea
- Ronaldinho, Pato, Gatusso, Pirlo with AC Milan
- Ibrahimovic, Julio Cesar, Zanetti with Inter Milan

They are only a few of the great players to be participating in this competition, which will begin this coming weekend.

The games are going to be played in several cities in USA. Let´s take a very quick look at the competition calendar:

Sunday, July 19th (4 pm, PST)
America vs Inter Milan
Stanford Stadium, Palo Alto, California

Tuesday, July 21st (8 pm, PST)
Chelsea vs Inter Milan
Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California

Wednesday, July 22nd (7 pm, EST)
AC Milan vs America
Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia

Friday, July 24th (8 pm, EST)
AC Milan vs Chelsea
M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, July 26th (5 pm, EST)
AC Milan vs Inter Milan
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

Sunday, July 26th (6 pm, CST)
Chelsea vs America
Cowboys Stadium, Arlington, Texas

As you can see, a very interesting series of games. I´m sure soccer fans in USA will be very happy to watch live some of the best soccer teams in the world, playing in America.

If you are a soccer fan, and have the chance to attend some of these games, I would suggest you do. This is something you can't afford to miss. It could be a one time in a life opportunity to witness live these famous teams in action.

Manchester United has closed all transfers

2009-07-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

Manchester United is not going to transfer any more players this season, neither they will hire new players. Sir Alex Ferguson said that they are complete by now, he has the players he needs in order to play next season.

A lot of rumors in the last few days about Samuel Eto'o joining Manchester United, but that was only a rumor because the operation finally didn´t go through. In a previous post on this blog we talked about that possibility, but we also said that it was also a possibility of not happening. I guess Eto'o will have to stay in Barcelona FC after all.

Manchester United lost Cristiano Ronaldo, they lost Tevez as well. However, they've got some new players in order to replace the ones that left, but replacing players like Ronaldo and Tevez is not easy. At the end of the day Manchester United will miss both players, but whan can they do about it?. Now it´s too late for complaining. Sir Alex Ferguson has no other choice but to go forward with the team he has right now.

I´m not sure what's going to be the future of Manchester United, they are a very good team and they will do fine. Not sure if they will win the championships they used to win, it´s going to be very hard for them.

Let´s remember that they got some new players though, I guess the most known of them is Michael Owen. He had the peak of his career several years ago. Even though he is a great player, I´m not sure how well he will do it with Manchester United this coming season.

Michael Owen will wear the shirt Cristiano Ronaldo used to wear with Manchester United, and that is shirt number 7. That will put a lot of pressure on Owen, several thousands or millions of eyes will be watching him. It´s going to be very hard for him, for Sir Ferguson, and for the team as well.

Manchester United has always been a model of teamwork, even though they´ve had great players in the past, one of their best characteristics is not depending on one or two players, they´ve depended on their teamwork.

Sooner or later they will go again to the top of the soccer world, it will be a matter of time. I hope their fans will have enough patience with their team in the next few seasons.

Beckham is back with LA Galaxy

2009-07-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

David Beckham is finally back in the USA, and he is ready to join LA Galaxy soccer team as soon as possible. After a long time outside of USA, he is finally back.

The question is...... is the Galaxy organization happy with the return of David Beckham?. Well, this could be a matter of discussion, some people may be happy and some people may not.

LA Galaxy owners are probably happy with Beckham's return. He is a large investment they made a couple of years ago, and they are yet to get some earnings out of that investment.

So far Beckham has played only two seasons with LA Galaxy since he joined the team back in 2007. The main idea of the investment they made with Beckham probably was to have some competitions to be won, everybody expected that LA Galaxy was supposed to be the favorite team to win the MLS tournament.

But LA Galaxy team has come too short, they didn´t make it to the finals in those two seasons. The overall performance of the team, and Beckham´s performance as well, has not been necessarily the best.

We have to admit that promotional items related to Beckham have had a lot of success. Several thousands of T-Shirts, tickets and related stuff have been sold quite a lot.

Marketing and promotion has not fallen short. A lot of endorsement deals, a lot of show business topics. As for this part of the story, so far so good.

But if we go directly to the performance of the team in the field, and the results, so far LA Galaxy has got nothing at all. That´s something yet to obtain.

Another thing we should ask ourselves is if Beckham's teammates in LA Galaxy are happy or not with his return. We could ask Landon Donovan what he thinks about it. Donovan said a few days ago that he and several teammates are not necessarily happy with Beckham's return.

Donovan even said that he is questioning a lot Beckham´s professional behavior. That´s a very strong statement. Beckham is angry about Donovan's statement, he said he will talk with Donovan as soon as he can in order to clear things out. I guess a lot of things will come out of those talks, and it´s a sure thing we will have a lot of material to discuss in the next few days.

It seems some people didn´t like too much the idea of Beckham playing for AC Milan the last few months. That is something to consider, if Beckham´s team is LA Galaxy, why he didn´t want to come back?

It looks like LA Galaxy needs to beg Beckham in order to get him back to LA. I think there is no need to beg anybody, if Beckham doesn´t want to play in LA Galaxy again, they should let him go and forget about him.

The environment around Beckham´s return is not a healthy environment. I don´t think he will have a good season with LA Galaxy with all these discussions around him.

Tevez will stay in Manchester

2009-07-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

Carlos Tevez, the Argentina soccer superstar will finally stay in Manchester, he won´t have to move to another city or country, he will be able to play next season in England, as he has been doing the last couple of seasons.

Now, there is a minor detail on his stay in Manchester that we all should be aware of. He will be playing with a new team, and that is Manchester City. He won´t be playing with Manchester United anymore. As we all know, he has been playing with Manchester United for some time now, but it seems he was not very happy with Sir Alex Ferguson.

Tevez said several times that he felt Mr. Ferguson didn´t use his services as a regular player in Manchester United, he only was able to play a few minutes each game. He was being used as substitute player, and he feels that his category is not for being a substitute player, he could play in any team in the world as regular player.

It seems Mr. Ferguson didn´t like too much that interpretation from Tevez, and he considered it was better for everybody that Tevez would move to another team. And it definitely was better for Tevez and for Manchester United as well. It seems everybody is happy about Tevez leaving the team.

Manchester City has announced that Tevez is officially their new player. Tevez even got through medical examination already, and he did well. He will join his new teammates very soon in their training sessions.

It´s going to be very convenient for Tevez this move, he won´t have to go anywhere else but stay in Manchester, the same city he´s been living.

I guess Tevez will have more chances to play in Manchester City than the chances he had with Manchester United. It´s going to be a very good opportunity for him to show his category, he will get to play as regular player in every game.

Good for Tevez, he´s got a good deal, he will get to play in England, where the category of soccer is top of the world.

Samuel Eto'o future in England?

2009-07-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

There is the possibility Samuel Eto'o is to be transfered to England. In the last few days there were some negotiations between Barcelona FC and Manchester City, the transfer was almost ready but all of a sudden it's over, Eto'o is not going to Manchester City anymore.

However, there is another team in England very interested in Samuel Eto'o, and this other team is a very prestigious team. Do you know what team this is?

Well, this team is also from Manchester, and it is Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson, coach of Manchester United, has said he is very interested in Samuel Eto'o, since he is trying to reinforce the offensive section of his team.

Manchester United is negotiating the possible transfer of Samuel Eto'o, this is something to be decided in the next few days. It would be very interesting to see Eto'o playing with a team like Manchester United.

The characteristics of Samuel Eto'o as a soccer player, I mean, he is fast, very smart, very strong, and he is a top scorer, he has all the features of a great player, and Manchester United could use a player like Eto'o.

However, let´s be cautious about this transfer. In the last few days there have been a lot of rumors about transfers in Europe for many players, and this possible transfer of Samuel Eto'o could end in nothing.

Samuel Eto'o has said that he would move to another team only if the conditions are good enough for him, not only the amount of money but the category of his new team as well.

Manchester United is for sure a category team for any soccer player in the world, any soccer player would want to play with Manchester United, and Samuel Eto'o is one of those players, there is no doubt about it.

If Eto'o can´t get the contract with Manchester United, I guess he will have to play one more season with Barcelona FC, I believe he has 1 year left in his current contract, and after the contract is finished he will have enough chances to move to another team, or try to get a new and better deal with Barcelona FC.

Javier Aguirre was suspended 3 games

2009-07-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

Javier Aguirre, coach of Mexico soccer national team, was suspended by Concacaf for 3 games, after review of the strange play he was involved last week on the game against Panama in the Gold Cup.

We all remember this strange play, strange because it is not very usual that a coach attacks a player in the middle of a game.

We all witnesed when Javier Aguirre just kicked a panamanian player, all of a sudden and without any provocation.

Javier Aguirre has accepted that he just lost his mind, he can´t explain not even to himself why he reacted that way. There is no logical reason for doing something like that. It is not acceptable when a player into the field kicks another player, but it can be explained that sometimes these things happen as product of the game, two players may be trying to fight for a ball and a kick is always part of a play.

But in the case of Javier Aguirre, he was not playing, he was in the bench, and all of a sudden lost his mind and kicked a player.

Mexican fans and journalists have been talking a lot about this incident, they all agree that perhaps Javier Aguirre is having a lot of pressure from the media in Mexico because of the poor performance Mexico is having in the last few games, especially in the World Cup qualifyings. They say that Aguirre couldn´t stand anymore the pressure and he just exploded, he just went nuts!

As part of the punishment he received a suspension of 3 games, he won´t be able to be present in the bench and he will have to watch the games from the stands.

I think that the suspension of 3 games is very minor if we consider the attack he made to another player, without any reason. He could have been suspended for 6 months or something similar, but I guess Concacaf board was not very strong in their opinion against this attack.

I guess Javier Aguirre has been very lucky with this punishment. It is not a very good precedent that a coach has only 3 games suspension if he attacks another player in the middle of a game.

Luis Fabiano to AC Milan or Manchester City?

2009-07-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

During the last few days there have been a lot of rumors about the transfer of the brazilian soccer star Luis Fabiano to either AC Milan (Italy) or Manchester City (England).

Luis Fabiano is currently a player of Sevilla FC in Spain, and he had a lot of exposure to the whole world in the recent Fifa Confederations Cup, where he had a great performance with Brazil national team and got the Cup.

Luis Fabiano is a great player, and he is very effective when we're talking about getting goals done, he is a remarkable forward. In the final game of the Confederations Cup, he scored 2 goals that were key to get the victory for Brazil.

Let´s remember that in the final game against USA, Brazil was below 0-2 when Luis Fabiano appeared into the scene and scored the first 2 goals for Brazil for obtaining the partial tie 2-2. Later in the game Brazil scored the 3rd goal and won the Cup.

I really think Luis Fabiano will not play much more time with Sevilla FC. There is a lot of interest from other European teams to get Luis Fabiano, and Sevilla won´t be able to keep up with those offerings.

There are two offers that are known to be official offerings, one of them is from AC Milan, and the other one is from Manchester City.

As we all know, Manchester City has a lot of money available for contracting new players for their team. However, for some reason some of the soccer stars who have received offers from Manchester City have not accepted.

We still remember the offer for Kaka a few months ago from Manchester City, it was a gigantic economic offer, but Kaka didn´t accept it.

Luis Fabiano will have to think a lot about the offers he has, perhaps the offer from Manchester City is a bigger offer compared with AC Milan offer, but Luis Fabiano also has to think about the future of his career. With AC Milan he would have a more promising future.

We all know that AC Milan is one of the great soccer teams in the world. Not the same situation with Manchester City.

If we think again about Kaka, if he had accepted the offering from Manchester City a few months ago, Kaka wouldn´t be right now with Real Madrid, I guess Kaka made a very smart move.

Maybe Luis Fabiano will think the same way Kaka did, and he will finally make a move the AC Milan. That´s what I think will happen.

I'm sure Luis Fabiano would have a great season with AC Milan, and the exposure he will get will surely be a lot more exposure compared with Manchester City.

Gold Cup: 1st round is over

2009-07-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Today we had the last matches corresponding to the 1st round in Concacaf Soccer Gold Cup. All games have been played in all 3 groups, and we already have the 8 finalist teams to play the 2nd round.

The last games were played this weekend, and the results were the following:

USA 2, Haiti 2
Honduras 4, Grenada 0
Panama 4, Nicaragua 0
Mexico 2, Guadalupe 0

The final standings were the following: (teams marked with * are the ones to play the 2nd round)

Group A
1. Canada (7 points) *
2. Costa Rica (4 points) *
3. Jamaica (3 points)
4. El Salvador (3 points)

Group B
1. USA (7 points) *
2. Honduras (6 points) *
3. Haiti (4 points) *
4. Grenada (0 points)

Group C
1. Mexico (7 points) *
2. Guadalupe (6 points) *
3. Panama (4 points) *
4. Nicaragua (0 points)

The 8 teams remaining into the competition are to play the quarterfinals next weekend, the matches will be the following:

1. Honduras vs Canada
2. USA vs Panama
3. Costa Rica vs Guadalupe
4. Mexico vs Haiti

In the next few days we will be talking a little bit more about these matches, all of them are going to be very interesting.

Gold Cup: USA vs Haiti

2009-07-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

Today we will have the final two games in Group B of Concacaf Gold Cup. US team will play against Haiti, and Honduras will play against Grenada.

As for now, US team is in 1st place of Group B with 6 points, they are already into the 2nd round of the competition. This final game against Haiti will be a rutinary game for them. They can use that game to make some training in order to be ready for the 2nd round. US team is not forced to win agains Haiti, the result won´t matter.

On the other hand, Haiti has the need to win in order to keep their chances for qualify into the 2nd round. Haiti has 3 points after they defeated Grenada a couple of days ago.

A draw wouldn´t be that bad for Haiti, if they get a draw against USA, Haiti would get 4 points and that would be enough to qualify into the 2nd round, because with a draw the worst scenario for them would be to finish in 3rd place in this group.

We have to consider that Jamaica is 3rd place in Group A with 3 points, so Haiti with 4 points would be in better position than Jamaica, and that would be enough to qualify. Let´s remember that a team in 3rd place still has a chance to qualify provided that they have more points than the 3rd place in other groups.

Even though USA doesn´t need to win this particular game, I believe they are a much better team compared with Haiti, and they will beat Haiti for sure.

The game will be played tonight in Boston, and US team should confirm they are the favorite team to win not only this group B, but they are the favorite team to win the Gold Cup as well.

Gold Cup: Canada on top of Group A

2009-07-11T09:11:00.001-07:00

All games of group A in the Concacaf Gold Cup have been played. This group included Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Jamaica. After all games were played, Canada finished 1st in the group with 7 points.

The 2nd place is for Costa Rica, with 4 points. Third place is for Jamaica with 3 points, and 4th place is for El Salvador with 3 points as well. I guess only a few people thought that Canada would finish in 1st place, most people thought that Costa Rica was the favorite.

The reason for Jamaica having the 3rd place instead of El Salvador is because of a rule in the competition that states that if 2 teams are tied in points, the criteria for defining who goes first is the direct result between those 2 teams.

As we already know, Jamaica had a victory 1-0 over El Salvador, that's why Jamaica is on 3rd place. Canada and Costa Rica played and the final result was a draw 2-2.

Canada and Costa Rica are already into the 2nd round of the competition. Jamaica still has to wait for the final results on Group B and Group C, and they hope to grab one spot into the 2nd round if they finish as one of the best 3rd places.

Let´s remember that we have 3 groups in the competition, 4 teams in each group. The top 2 teams in each group qualify into the 2nd round, that makes a total of 6 teams. The remaining 2 teams who will also qualify are going to be picked between the teams that finished in 3rd place en each group, that is 2 out of 3 teams.

Jamaica is one of those teams. The reamining 2 teams are going to be defined between today and tomorrow with the games to be played in Group B and Group C.

After we have all 3 third places, the best 2 of them will qualify into the 2nd round. The criteria for defining who will be the best 2 of them will be the amount of points. Jamaica has 3 points, so they have to wait to see what happens with the other groups.

Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid?

2009-07-10T19:47:00.001-07:00

It seems Real Madrid is still trying to get a few more star soccer players into the team. In the last few days there have been some rumors about the interest Real Madrid has in Xabi Alonso, the spanish star who currently plays with Liverpool in England.

Real Madrid has spent a lot of money in the last few weeks with the contracting of Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Benzema, Albiol.

Xabi Alonso is a very well known spanish player who plays in Liverpool since 2004. Liverpool sources have said several times in the past that Xabi Alonso is not to be transfered anywhere in the world, no way. He still has 3 more years in his current contract with Liverpool, and they are not thinking about transfering him.

But the truth is that in this soccer world, everything is possible. Manchester United said the same thing about Cristiano Ronaldo, and after a lot of rumors Cristiano Ronaldo finally joined Real Madrid. If Cristiano Ronaldo did, any other player in the world would do the same thing.

Some people say that Liverpool is considering a transfer for Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid for the amount of about 100 million dollars. This amount is something possible for a team like Real Madrid. This is like pocket money for them.

We will have to be listening to the news about this possible transfer in the next few days or weeks.

Just after almost everybody thought that Real Madrid was over for now with the contracting of additional soccer stars, this one will be a new novel. Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid could be a matter of time.

After this new interest of Real Madrid, I guess one thing is out of the question: Real Madrid bank account seems to have no limits!

Soccer World Cup 2018 in Spain & Portugal?

2009-07-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Spain and Portugal are going to present a formal request to Fifa in order to be considered for hosting the Soccer World Cup in 2018. If the request is accepted, both countries will have a lot of chances for getting that World Cup.

Let´s remember that in 2002, the World Cup was organized and hosted by Japan and Korea, so this Spain & Portugal partnership wouldn´t be the first one in the World Cup history.

Spain and Portugal have all necessary infrastructure for organizing a succesful World Cup. Both countries have a lot of modern stadiums, and they also have all necessary communications, hotels, airports, transportation, TV facilities. They would be able to organize the World Cup next year 2010 if necessary.

For Spain this would be their 2nd chance to celebrate a World Cup in their history, let´s remember they hosted 1982 World Cup.

For Portugal, this would be the 1st time. They have organized other important competitions in the past. We still remember the Eurocup a few years ago, which was a complete success.

Let´s wait then for Fifa to decide if World Cup 2018 will be trusted to Spain & Portugal. It´s also possible that if Fifa skips this 2018 World Cup request, this probably would push the request for 2022 World Cup.

There is enough time to analyze this request. Spain and Portugal will have to wait some time for Fifa to decide. Let´s wait then.

Gold Cup: Mexico 1, Panama 1

2009-07-10T11:46:00.000-07:00

Mexico could not win against Panama in the Gold Cup, the final result was 1-1. Mexico was supposed to have a victory over Panama. Mexico scored the 1st goal early in the 1st half, and up until that moment everything was going well for Mexico.

After the 1st goal, many people thought that Mexico would score more goals and would have an easy victory over Panama, but that didn´t happen.

Panama scored their goal also in the 1st half. After this, the game became very difficult for both teams, and it also became very rough, there were a lot of discussions, a lot of kicks from both teams, some sort of fightings.

The referee had a very difficult time all over the game in order to keep things under control, he had to show 2 red cards in the 1st half, one for a Panamanian player and the other one for a Mexican player. Both teams finished the 1st half with 10 players each.

The 2nd half was more complicated for the referee, a lot of rough plays from both teams, a lot of kicks. At some point it seemed that there was going to be a general fight between both teams. Things didn´t look well at all.

There was a very strange play late in the 2nd half, a Panamanian player had control over the ball very near to the Mexican bench, and all of a sudden the Mexican coach, Javier Aguirre, kicked that Panamanian player. I couldn´t believe that, I don´t know what happened to Javier Aguirre, he just attacked the Panamanian player!

The panamanian player reacted very bad to that kick, he pushed Javier Aguirre in the chest, and it seemed that a fight was starting. All mexican players in the bench and assistants reacted against the panamanian player.

A general fight was starting between both teams, that was really incredible. The referee showed a red card to Javier Aguirre, and showed a red card to the Panamanian player as well.

What happened to Javier Aguirre? Why did he attack the panamanian player that way?. This was a very critical moment into the game. About 10 minutes were lost in the waiting for the game to resume.

After this incident, Panama had only 9 players into the field, against 10 mexican players. The last 10 minutes were played, and the final score was 1-1.

Fans into the stadium were very angry, most of them were mexican fans. They throwed a lot of things into the field, some of them were intending to hit some players and the refereee as well.

Considering the factors around this game, somehow the result was not that bad for Panama. As for Mexico, I don´t think people in Mexico will be very happy about their national team, they couldn´t beat Panama.

Libertadores Cup: Estudiantes 0, Cruzeiro 0

2009-07-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

The first leg of the finals of Libertadores Cup was played in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The contenders are Estudiantes de La Plata from Argentina, and Cruzeiro from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The final result was 0-0.

This draw is a very complicated result for both teams. However, the score seems to be in favor of Cruzeiro, since the game was played in Buenos Aires and Estudiantes was the host team.

In soccer a draw is almost always a good result for the visitor team. In this case Cruzeiro seems to be the favorite team to win the Libertadores Cup because the final and definite game will be played in their own field in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

It´s not going to be easy for Cruzeiro though, Estudiantes is a very complicated team, and a surprise in Belo Horizonte is possible. We have to wait the final game next week to see what happens.

Anything can happen in that final match next week. My guess is that Cruzeiro will finally win because they will be the host team, that is the main factor that could make the difference.

Both teams are very strong, there is not a clear favorite in this final series of Libertadores Cup 2009.

Estudiantes missed the chance to take advantage of the host condition in this first game, and that could be the reason for not winning the Libertadores Cup this year. They are clearly not happy with the 0-0 result. On the other hand, Cruzeiro is very happy with the result, that´s out of the question.

Gold Cup: USA beat Honduras 2-1

2009-07-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

As we anticipated in a previous post, US soccer team defeated Honduras in the Gold Cup match played in Washington D.C. The final result was 2-0.

We also anticipated that this was going to be a very complicated game for US team, because Honduras is not an easy rival. And it was a complicated game, it was not until minute 30 of the 2nd half that US team could score the first goal. It was a great play, and the goal was scored by Santino Quaranta.

There were only 15 minutes left in the game, and a draw 0-0 was the potential result. But US team could score the first goal, and only 4 minutes later they scored the 2nd and definite goal. That was on minute 34. This second goal was scored by Brian Ching. I watched closely that play, and it seems to be a goal made with the shoulder rather than the head. It was a pretty strange shot.

After the 2nd goal, we can say the game was over, even though there were 11 minutes left to finish the game. Honduras had no chance to get even in the game after the 2nd goal.

I believe the result was fair, US team was a better team on this particular match, they had control on the ball most of the time.

After this result, US team has 6 points, and they have already qualified for the next round. They still have one game remaining in the group against Haiti in a couple of days, but the result is not very important for them because they are already in the 2nd round, no matter what will happen in that game against Haiti.

Haiti won its game against Grenada, and Haiti now has 3 points, they are tied with Honduras in 2nd place in this group.

I believe US team continues to be the favorite team to win this competition, even though they are not using their regular players, most of the players in this tournament are substitute players. But they continue to be a very strong team.

When is Real Madrid next game?

2009-07-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

Soccer fans all over the world are wondering when it's the next game of Real Madrid, the game where we will be able to see in action the new superstars playing together in the same team: Cristiano Ronaldo & Kaka.

Well, the answer is July 20th, that is 12 days from today. And do you know where this game will be played and who will Real Madrid be playing against? Would you like to know?. Continue reading if you do.

The answer may be pretty difficult to figure out for many people, because this game will be played against a not very known team. That team is Shamrock Rovers. Have you ever heard about this team?

Many people probably don´t know where this team is from. Well, let me tell you that this is a soccer team from Ireland, and this game will be played in Dublin, on July 20th as we said before.

It will be a friendly game, but it won´t be a regular friendly game because the whole world is looking forward to the official presentation of Real Madrid with Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka in the field, playing together.

I guess this friendly game will be the most watched friendly game in soccer history, I´m sure millions of soccer fans will be watching on TV.

I will be one of those soccer fans, we will be waiting July 20th in order to have a feeling of what we can expect from Real Madrid in the next few months. It will be a presentation game, but it will be very important.

We will have a taste of this new era for Real Madrid, we will start to see if those millions of dollars were worthy investments. At least from a marketing point of view, the investments seem to be very good. From a soccer performance, we have to wait a little bit, it´s to soon to know.

Onyewu joins AC Milan

2009-07-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

This is great news for US soccer team, Onyewu was hired by one of the best teams in the world which is AC Milan. He will play in Italy next season with a legendary team, a team that has the objective to win every competition they play.

I believe Onyewu had a great exposure in the Confederations Cup a few weeks ago. He is one of the best defenders in the world, and has had a consistent performance all over his career. The whole world could witness this in the Confederations Cup.

His new contract with AC Milan is for 3 years, up until 2012. I wish Onyewu good luck on his new team, it´s going to be a very big challenge for him, he will have to demonstrate why he is considered one of the best defenders in soccer as we said before.

Onyewu is 27 years old, I believe he is at the peak of his career right at this moment, it´s the best time to make a move like this. He has several years ahead, at least 5 or 6 years of top performance. It´s a great opportunity for him, and he has to take advantage of this.

Let´s hope he has a good season with AC Milan, he will have a lot of competition from many other great soccer players. But a good player like him has enough talent and skills to do well in Italy.

US vs Honduras today in soccer Gold Cup

2009-07-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

Today it's a very interesting day in the Gold Cup, we will have a very good match between USA and Honduras. It´s going to be a very hard match for both teams.

US team is the favorite to win this game I guess, they are the host team in the competition. However, let´s remember that Honduras is a very dificult team, it´s not going to be that easy for US team to beat Honduras.

Only a few weeks ago both teams played as part of the qualifyings for the World Cup, that was a very though game for US, Honduras scored the 1st goal in that game, but US team finally won 2-1.

In the game they will play today, none of the teams will use their main players, they are trying to use many alternate players in this competition in order to give them the opportunity to show their skills, and hopefully some of these players will get the chance to participate in the next few matches for the World Cup qualifyings.

The game will be played in Washington tonight, and I'm sure the stadium will be crowded by many fans, cheering for USA and cheering for Honduras as well. Thousands of honduran fans will attend this game to give their support to their Honduras national team.

Costa Rica defeated Jamaica 1-0

2009-07-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

Costa Rica is back on track in the competition of the Gold Cup 2009, with a win over Jamaica 1-0. The game was very complicated for Costa Rica, Jamaica was not an easy rival, but the important thing for Costa Rica is the result.

Let´s remember that Costa Rica didn´t have a good opening in the Gold Cup a few days ago, they were defeated by El Salvador, and that was a surprising result. Several fans really thought that Costa Rica had no hopes for coming back into the competition.

Costa Rica was forced to win against Jamaica in order to stay alive in the competition, even a draw would have been a very bad result for Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is a team to watch in this competition, along with Mexico and US are the favorite teams to win the Gold Cup.

Costa Rica is using all its players, they have taken very seriously this competition. The same situation with Mexico, they are decided to win the Gold Cup. From my personal point of view, US team is the favorite team to win this competition, even though they are not using all of the main players, but they´re still the favorite team.

Let´s watch Costa Rica in the remaining games, it´s a very serious candidate to win this tournament. Almost everybody thought that Costa Rica didn´t have many chances left after losing against El Salvador a few days ago, but they´re still very much alive and kicking!