Thursday, March 4, 2010

World Cup 2010 Blog: “Classic World Cup Commercials: Nike’s The Wall.” plus 3 more

World Cup 2010 Blog: “Classic World Cup Commercials: Nike’s The Wall.” plus 3 more

Link to World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010

Classic World Cup Commercials: Nike’s The Wall.

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 04:10 AM PST

It’s very rare that I remember things from the…err…single digits. They were heady, heady times, and quite frankly I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. Nike either had difficulties remembering things in the early-90’s as well or simply didn’t care that neither England nor French qualified for USA ‘94.

But given some of the commercials of the time, this one was positively brilliant.

And apparently this was the first of its kind (one would assume ‘in the US’) as a football-specific commercial. And here I was just thinking it was cool for buildings to kick it to each other.


Guus Hiddink: Football’s Town Bicycle.

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 01:40 AM PST

PA-7289656Forget John Terry, Vanessa Perroncel and Ashley Cole’s little – or big – black book, Guus Hiddink is blowing their whoring ways out of the European water. He’s never quite been a one-club man – frequent flier miles between Sydney and Eindhoven tell enough of a story – but Guus is entering into unchartered territories with his latest contract.

I mean country.

Russia remain one of the biggest disappointments not to make it to South Africa, seemingly a foregone conclusion when they tapped the country’s oil reserves to bring in Guus four years back. Despite negotiations to bring him back, Guus decided to jump Russian vessel to join up with Euro 2008’s other big surprise, Turkey’s cardiac kids.

Despite World Cup failure, his Russian contract is up on June 30, thus he still has to go through the motions as Russian gaffer. His hand waving tenure ended yesterday with a 1-1 draw in Hungary.

As with most coaching contracts during World Cup years, it will begin on August 1st, giving him the month of July to finally nail those hard-to-tan spots, lie about drinking too many umbrella beverages and not pay his taxes.

Or he could just piggyback another team which actually qualified, such as the Ivory Coast, to the World Cup. Sure, that sounds splendid.


Ivory Coach football association (FIF) president Jacques Anouma told BBC Sport: “Guus is one of the people we have contacted about becoming coach.

“Probably in the middle of next week something will be concluded.”

Guus is being coy on the matter:

The 63-year-old told reporters in Holland: “I have some matters to resolve before I reach my decision.”

Those ‘matters’ to be resolved involve euros: namely the amount it will take to buy out his Russian contract so he can get busy with Didier Drogba & Co. – again – rather than glad-handing politicos in Moscow during the spring.

This should have a familiar ring to it, as Hiddink coached PSV & Australia simultaneously a few years back as well as Chelsea & Russia, both under the same Big Boss, just last year.

If all goes as planned, Guus will lead the Ivory Coast when he should technically be Russia’s coach, whilst Turkey is waiting on the porch heart aflutter, eyes scanning the road for his headlights, ignoring the fact that Guus is getting a quickie in the car on the way home.

JT & Cashley may the posterboys for the unfaithful footballer, but they’re the picture of monogamy next to Guus. The man’s simply insatiable.


International Friendlies Wrap

Posted: 03 Mar 2010 08:40 PM PST

SOCCER-EUROPE/SCOTLAND

(Kris Boyd: International. Goal scorer. Houdini.)

Whilst club coaches, directors and medical staffs were tearing their hair out in fright over the deadly fatinjury bug which can be caught during midweek international friendlies sandwiched between domestic weekends, we were afforded with some decent(ish) football. Much of it was designed to gel squads, burst personnel bubbles and flirt with tactics which would drive the media into a frenzy.

The first may have happened; the second probably happened; the third definitely happened (when doesn’t it?).

Though the results of friendlies are largely meaningless, one slightly worrisome stat did emerge from Wednesday: the record in games between a World Cup team and one that didn’t qualify.

4-1-5.

Greece, Slovakia, Ghana, Honduras & Denmark all fell to “lesser teams”. Not quite how you want to prepare for the World Cup.

Meanwhile, there were a number of other curious results:

- Ivory Coast lost to South Korea 2-0, and did so without a manager. Presumably it was Drogba barking directives from the pitch, and that’s never going to end well.

- Algeria lost 3-0 to Serbia in Algiers; The Desert Foxes then blamed it on Coffi Codjia.

- Germany lost – in Munich! – to a team coached by Diego freakin Maradona.

- South Africa drew 1-1 in Jo’burg with Namibia, ranked 113. For most of these teams, the games mean positively nothing. They however, after the tumult the footballing portion of the team has endured, might want to step it up.

The full results of World Cup teams:

friendlies

* – New Zealand v Mexico is being played late.

Other, less-concerned with the World Cup team results.

Cherry-picked highlights:

Yossi Benayoun performs something out of a late-90’s Jackie Chan movie: it starts out in a flash of brilliant technique, then something happens, but you don’t know quite what, and Jackie winds up on the other side of the scrum unscathed before scoring a goal. Or speaking in poorly dubbed Engrish.

Peter Crouch weighs in on the FIFA-offside debate:

Rene Adler repays the mountains of support and praise heaped upon him before the game, not to mention the No.1 jersey.

Oh.

Nigel De Jong arrives fashionably late to Stuart Holden’s lower leg.

Niko Krancjar shows us simple is better – though not quite as good as going to the World Cup.

Guirane NDaw hits a free kick that looks menacing even in slo-mo.

And finally, it’s okay to laugh (via The Guardian’s minute-by-minute):

40 min: Defoe’s turn to head over. He then scampers into the box and El Hadari saves well. “From Tyldesley’s commentary: ‘And Egypt are passing it around in triangles – or should I say pyramids?!’. No Clive, you shouldn’t. For so many reasons I can’t be bothered to list,” says Bill Chilton. “What odds ‘Egypt are Niles better than England’ and ‘They sphinx it’s all over’ before full-time?” Sphinx it’s all over. Ha! Oh.

[Vids via 101 Great Goals]


List of World Cup 2010 Teams in International Friendly Action Today

Posted: 03 Mar 2010 09:13 AM PST

soccer-world (1)Lots of friendly international football action today. For most (maybe all) World Cup 2010 teams, this isn’t just a chance to show off the new jerseys they’ll be wearing in South Africa, it’s also the last game of football before the provisional World Cup squads are named in May, followed by the final World Cup squad/roster deadline on June 10th. So there’s plenty to play for, especially for individual players.

Some big games too, featuring plenty of World Cup 2010 teams going head to head: Germany vs Argentina anyone? France vs Spain? Bring it on.

England vs Egypt should be interesting too, just to see what sort of reaction John Terry gets.

Here is a list of all international fixtures involving World Cup qualified teams:

World Cup 2010 teams are in bold.

Happened yesterday:
Ireland vs BrazilMatch report on Brazil WCB.

Already kicked off/finished at time of typing:
Australia vs Indonesia
Japan vs Bahrain
Cote d’Ivoire vs South Korea
Greece vs Senegal
Slovakia vs Norway
Bosnia & Herzegovina vs Ghana
Nigeria vs D.R. Congo

Today’s remaining games, with kick off times:
Algeria vs Serbia (7:15pm local, 1:15pm US Eastern)
Athletic Bilbao vs Paraguay (7:15pm / 1:15)
South Africa vs Namibia (8:30pm / 1:30pm)
Turkey vs Honduras (9pm / 2pm)
Switzerland vs Uruguay (8:15pm / 2:15pm)
Austria vs Denmark (8:30pm / 2:30pm)
Slovenia vs Qatar (8:45pm / 2:45pm)
Netherlands vs USA (8:45pm / 2:45pm) LiveBlog
Germany vs Argentina (8:45pm / 2:45pm)
Italy vs Cameroon (8:50pm / 2:50pm)
England vs Egypt (8pm / 3pm)
France vs Spain (9pm / 3pm) LiveBlog
Portugal vs China (8:45pm / 3:45pm) LiveBlog
Mexico vs New Zealand (11pm / 8pm) LiveBlog

Chile had been scheduled to play both North Korea and Costa Rica, but those games have been cancelled due to the earthquake.

A little more information about those LiveBlogs. I’m reliably informed that:
Sarah will be covering France vs Spain on France WCB.
Jen will be typing away during Netherlands vs USA on USA WCB.
Luis will be keeping track of Portugal vs China on Portugal WCB.
Andrea and Al will be LiveBlogging Mexico vs New Zealand on Mexico WCB.

Please feel free to leave any prediction for and reactions to today’s games in the comments.


No salary cap means new rules for NFL free-agent market

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MAMUDU,

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