World Cup Corner

Holland Under-21s sliced open their inept Serbian counterparts to register a 4-1 win, thus retaining the European U-21 Championship crown. Played in front of a 20,000 boisterous crowd, and watched by millions more worldwide, the Dutch have shown that they current possess the best and brightest young guns in Europe.

Maceo Rigters picked up the golden boot for Holland by scoring his fourth goal of the tournament. Sadly for 10 men Serbia, the damage had already been inflicted by Otman Bakkal and Ryan Babel.

Along with Rigters, Royston Drenthe and Ryan Babel are currently heavily linked with big summer transfer moves. Drenthe (player of the tournament) in particular has caught the eye of Newcastle’s new manager Sam Allardyce, so a move the Premiership seems inevitable.

One of the most watched teams this year was England, with several quality players such as Nigel Reo-Coker of West Ham, Steven Taylor and James Milner of Newcastle and Leroy Lita of Reading managed to keep up that old English tradition. Failing in the knockout stages to penalties. Along with the Dutch, I was expecting England to go all the way.

But the glory and prestige has stayed with the Netherlands. Who can be very proud of this young bunch of future stars. Those boys are a bit special!

When it comes to European nations and international football the UEFA European Football Championships is the most important. This championship occurs every four years and has been going on since 1960. Today this tournament is one of the world’s most prestigious however it has changed significantly since its beginning.
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This coming week brings the semi final action of the UEFA Champions League. If you are a big fan of the English Premiership, (which incidentally is the highest watched league in the world) then you`ll know the chances of an English club lifting the coveted European Cup is 3 out of 4.

Liverpool vs Chelsea
Liverpool winners in 2005, hold the slight advantage for me. While they cannot boast the star studded line of Shevchenko, Ballack, Lampard and Robben, they have a master tactician in Rafa Benitez. For my money, Rafa is probably one of the best when it comes to European games. He has the ability to spot and change a game midway. This is not to say that Mourinho is tactically inferior to Benitez. Afterall, he did win the Champions League with FC Porto on a shoestring budget, and the UEFA cup the year before. But, I feel that Mourinho has been spoilt by the riches of Abramovich, and is now over reliant on his players. Not to mention his supposed strained relationship with Roman.

Manchester United vs AC Milan
Here’s to hoping Man Utd gets played off the park. Enough said…. After dropping precious league points to Middlesborough over the weekend, it seems like their Premiership league hopes are in the balance as well. To be honest, I don’t know who I`d want the Premiership crown to go to. Manure or Chel$ki. I have an equal dislike for both teams.

All in all, AC Milan do have the spine for a Champions League winning team. With Kaka, Gattuso and Pirlo pulling the strings from midfield, It would seem that they`ll ahve too much for Man Utd, who is going through a bit of an injury crisis at the moment. But stranger things have happened…. Remember Man Utd’s amazing treble of 1999?

MLS has passed a new rule that will allow its teams to sign a limited number of international world-class players to join MLS. The Designated Player Rule (previously known as the Beckham Rule) will allow each of the league’s 13 teams to sign one player whose salary is not limited in any way by the league’s $1.9-million-per-team salary cap.

Under the new rule, each Designated Player will count for $400,000 against a team’s salary cap. All of the player’s salary beyond $400,000 will be paid for by the team owners. Each team will be allowed to have two Designated Players but the second Designated Player will have a cap of only $325,000.

England fans are looking for The Maksimir Mole that lives under the Stadium in Zagreb. The Maksimir Mole was found guilty of raising molehills responsible for the second goal when Gary Neville’s back pass to Robinson rolled into the unguarded net.

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Did you know you can watch UEFA Champions League online via ESPN? For $9.95 per game ESPN will stream every single game in this year’s Champions League on the Internet.

The downside is that the online streams are only available to users in the United States and Latin America.

According to a study for sponsors Mastercard this season’s UEFA Champions League winner could earn up to 100 million euros on top of prize money and tournament gate receipts. Increased sponsorship, extra television revenue, higher attendances and inflated player values look set to swell the victorious club’s coffers long after they lift the trophy in Athens on May 23.

The 100 million euros figure does not include cash awarded to the winners by UEFA. The European governing body says the successful club could receive as much as 40 million euros in prize money, including television revenue but not gate receipts.

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Croatia trio Bosko Balaban, Ivica Olic and Dario Srna have been expelled from their Euro 2008 qualifying squad and fined ($5,232 each) after leaving the team’s training camp to go partying in a nightclub. They were kicked out of the squad by manager Slaven Bilic after discovering the players were not in their camp in Slovenia.

Although we will now be short of seven players, we are travelling to Moscow without these three.

The same problems had Sweden’s coach Lars Lagerback who has sent home three players from the squad to face Liechtenstein. Striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, defender Olof Mellberg and midfielder Christian Wilhelmsson have all been asked to leave the training camp in Gothenburg, where the team are preparing for this week’s Euro 2008 qualifier, after staying out late on Sunday evening.

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On Wednesday comes the FIFA World Cup final rematch between France and Italy. The French will clearly have a score to settle at the Stade de France, scene of their own World Cup triumph in 1998, when they face Italy’s world champions just two months after their disappointing contest in Berlin.

France will go into the game after a convincing 3-0 victory in Georgia on Saturday when Italy, by contrast, need to pick themselves up after a surprise 1-1 draw with Lithuania in Naples.

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Don’t forget about the 52 teams that are after the Henri Delaunay trophy. After three games last month, EURO 2008 qualifying gets up to full speed on Saturday and Wednesday.

For the first time since the expansion to a 16 team finals in 1996, there will be no play offs. All 50 teams in the seven groups will try to finish in the top two to join hosts Switzerland and Austria in the finals.