World Cup Corner

Italy’s history in the World Cup was a long, arduous journey marked with long stretches of success, and even longer stretches of defeats. Theirs is a portfolio that started out quite splendidly and ended in a so much lesser status. However, despite their recent fruitless attempts to win the Cup, they still hold the succeeding place as the third most successful teams in the history of the World Cup, following right behind Brazil and Germany. Let’s look closely at Italy’s journey through the Cup.
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A country need not have a continually successful run in the Football World Cup to lay claim to a few worthwhile pages in its illustrious history. The US, in particular, puts in a significantly rich and colorful contribution to the memoirs of the World Cup, in spite of all the “happy fun-ball” jokes poked at them and the “99% of the country doesn’t watch” remarks often made. From a bungling shameful embarrassment in 1998, to rowdy and surprising incredulity in 1930, to an encouragingly victorious stint in 1950, and finally to a necessarily ambitious and heroic endeavor in 2002, the US has indeed eked out its own special place in World Cup History.
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Walter Winterbottom, a former coach to England, once said that an African team would win the World Cup by 2000. Even Pele, one of soccer’s greatest players ever, seconded that opinion. Although Winterbottom predicted this it did not come true. However, Cameroon did come pretty close in 1990.

There were certainly opportunities for an African team to take it all the way In 1982 Algeria seemed like it might go all the way before being cheated by Austria and West Germany. Then in 1986 Morocco was really showing progress and many were wondering if this was it However, it was not until Cameroon in 1990 that the world began to believe that Winterbottom’s prediction might actually come true. It did not but Cameroon really did have a shot.
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As the 1980s approached big changes occurred. This time the format was changed to include eight finalists. Of these eight four groups were formed. The winner of each group then went on to the finals until an overall winner was obvious. West Germany showed up again to show the world they were serious footballers and they managed to dominate the European tournament once again by beating Belgium in the final game.
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For all you North American football… I mean soccer fans… this summer marks a major tournament to be played in Canada. 600,000 tickets have already been presold. In fact, by all current calculations, The U-20 finals will become the single biggest sporting event in the history of Canada.

“The hunger for tickets and growing anticipation truly demonstrates the love of the beautiful game in Canada,” said FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter. “Canadians know they are in for a treat this summer and that nothing but spectacular football will be on display when the world’s top youngsters battle for the crown of becoming world champion.”

Who are some of the young bright stars to look out for? I for one, will play close attention to David Edgar of Canada. Simply because he plays for my favorite team, Newcastle United. He`s play a few games this year for the Magpies, and has struck me as being a very raw, but intelligent and composed defender. The South American powerhouses of Argentina and Brazil will no doubt produce some future world class players, some of which are held in high regard at the moment. For example, Lucas of Brazil. This year he inspired Gremio to the Copa Libertadores qualification on their return to the Brazilian top flight, , awarded the Brazillian league’s top performer award, became the youngest ever recipient of Placar Magazine’s Golden Ball and earned a call-up to the senior squad. Not bad for a 20 year old. Lucas is hailed as a player of exceptional potential in Brazil and a near future move to Europe is his most probable destination.

Rules of world cup soccer are much the same as they are for football with a few exceptions. We will start with telling you about the playing field for the games. The playing field can be a minimum of a hundred yards and a maximum of a hundred and thirty with the width of the field from 50 to 100 yards. Markings are on the ends are “goal lines”, sidelines and a half way line on each of the fields. On the ends of each field are penalty and goal areas. There is a goal post on each end, which measures 8 yards by 8 feet high with a net behind it.
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In 2006, the World Cup Soccer competition was held in Germany. There were 32 qualified teams, which represented six continents along with six past winners.
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World Cup soccer was the brainchild of the president of the World Football federation in 1926. Therefore, if it were not for Jules Rimet there would not be world cup soccer. He pushed to get everything organized and fought for nondiscrimination because of amateur or professional status. These things would not matter to this league. It took him and a few others 5 years to get everything together and to get it finalized by the board. Then on May 26th, 1928, the World Cup was born. Five of the European countries were picked to be the host, Uruguay was chosen. This was because of their outstanding Olympic record.
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World Cup soccer was the brainchild of the president of the World Football federation in 1926. Therefore, if it were not for Jules Rimet there would not be world cup soccer. He pushed to get everything organized and fought for nondiscrimination because of amateur or professional status. These things would not matter to this league. It took him and a few others 5 years to get everything together and to get it finalized by the board. Then on May 26th, 1928, the World Cup was born. Five of the European countries were picked to be the host, Uruguay was chosen. This was because of their outstanding Olympic record.
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Didier Drogba of Chelsea and Ivory coast has been named the 2006 African Footballer of the Year on Thursday, beating out Samuel Eto’o of Barcelona, who would have won his 4th consecutive award.

Drogba, 28, is a first time winner and was captain of Ivory Coast when they reached the African Nations Cup final but lost out on penalties to Egypt. The Ivorians also participated in the 2006 World Cup tournament, where they made a good showing of themselves.

Full List of African Nations Awards:
African Footballer of the Year: Didier Drogba (Chelsea and Ivory Coast)
Team of the Year: Ghana
Club of the Year: Al Ahli (Egypt)
Coach of the Year: Manuel Jose (Al Ahli, Egypt)
Young African Player of the Year: Taye Taiwo (Olympique Marseille and Nigeria)
African club competition Player of the Year: Mohamed Aboutrika (Al Ahli, Egypt)
Women’s Footballer of the Year: Cynthia Uwak (Nigeria).