May 29, 2011

Football World has rendered itself to the feet of FC BARCELONA Argentine forward LIONEL MESSI. Spanish Football press & media have dedicated covers & pages to the player as he once again put in a brilliant performance & goal to help FC Barcelona win 3 - 1 Manchester United in the Champions League Final.

The “magician” yesterday placed himself in the Olympus of the Football Gods: Di Stefano, Pele, Cruyff & Maradona, leaving his stamp without any doubt that he is the “Best Player in World Football” & heading towards the “ALL-TIME” status. The man is only 23 years of age & none of the above mentioned “Football Gods” had so many titles as Messi has at his age. The only title missing that would put LIONEL MESSI in the solitary position of the “Greatest ever Football Player in History” would be a World Cup Championship title with Argentina, & that is a real possiblity  in the next coming 12 years.

LIONEL MESSI with the Champions League 2011 Trophy

Here is the impressive list of Club, Team & Individual Titles that LIONEL MESSI has already with only 23 years of age:

FC Barcelona
Spanish Football League - La Liga: 5 2004–05, 2005–06, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2010–11
Copa del Rey - Spanish Cup: 1 2008–09
Supercopa Spain : 4 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010
UEFA Champions League: 3 2005–06, 2008–09, 2010–11
UEFA Super Cup: 1 2009
FIFA Club World Cup: 1 2009


Argentina
FIFA U-20 World Cup: 1 2005
Olympic Gold Medal: 1 2008


Individual
FIFA Ballon d’Or: 1 2010
Ballon d’Or: 1 2009
FIFA World Player of the Year: 1 2009
FIFA Team of the Year: 3 2008, 2009, 2010
U-21 European Footballer of the Year: 1 2007
Spanish Football League - La Liga Player of the Year: 2 2009, 2010
Spanish Football League - La Liga top goalscorer: 1 2010
Copa del Rey - Spanish Cup top goalscorer: 1 2011
Spanish Football League - La Liga Foreign Player of the Year: 3 2007, 2009, 2010
Spanish Football League - La Liga Ibero-American Player of the Year: 3 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011
European Golden Shoe: 1 2010
UEFA Champions League top goalscorer: 3 2009, 2010, 2011
UEFA Champions League Player of the Year: 1 2009
UEFA Champions League Forward of the Year: 1 2009
UEFA Champions League Final Man of the Match: 1 2011
UEFA Champions League Final Fans’ Man of the Match: 1 2009
UEFA Team of the Year: 3 2008, 2009, 2010
Footballer of the Year of Argentina: 5   2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

But there is more:

FIFPro World Player of the Year: 2 2009, 2010
FIFPro World Young Player of the Year: 3 2006, 2007, 2008
FIFPro Special Young Player of the Year: 2 2007, 2008
FIFPro World XI: 4 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
FIFA U-20 World Cup Player of the Tournament: 1 2005
FIFA U-20 World Cup top goalscorer: 1 2005
Copa América Young Player of the Tournament: 1 2007
World Soccer Player of the Year: 1 2009
World Soccer Young Player of the Year: 3 2006, 2007, 2008
FIFA Club World Cup Golden Ball: 1 2009
ESM Team of the Year: 4 2005–06, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2009–10
Marca Leyenda: 1 2009
Tuttosport Golden Boy: 1 2005
UEFA best goal of the year: 1 2007

Lionel Messi : courtesy of Reuters

The above list will without any doubt get longer & longer in the coming years.

Look up from an oppressive Mexico City traffic jam and you see the baby face of Javier ”Chicharito” Hernandez smiling down from a giant billboard. Look ahead and his image beams from an ad on a bakery truck.

Though he lives and plays more than 5,000 miles away for English club Manchester United, the 22-year-old whose nickname means ”Little Pea” is everywhere in his home country at a time when Mexico is in dire need of a hero.

It’s not just because Chicharito has enjoyed a stunning debut season with the English powerhouse, scoring 20 goals and winning a fan vote as player of the season after his 6 million pound ($9.8 million) move from Guadalajara’s Las Chivas.

It’s not even that he could be one of United’s key players in Saturday’s Champions League final at Wembley against favored Barcelona.

Rather, his gleeful celebration after every goal, with arms outstretched and mouth agape - as if even he is astonished by his talent - is the perfect antidote to daily reports of shootouts, kidnappings and mass graves in a country racked by drug violence that has killed more than 35,000 people since late 2006.

For Mexico, Chicharito’s success is about much more than football.

”He’s the only thing Mexicans believe in right now,” writer and cultural commentator Guadalupe Loaeza said. ”We don’t believe the government, the institutions, the political parties. But through months and months of this crisis, Chicharito has brought us good news in front of the whole world.”

He has numerous fan blogs, including the official ”Locos por El Chicharito,” and several songs, in English and Spanish, dedicated to him.

The match against Barcelona and its Argentine striker Lionel Messi - considered the best player in the world - is expected to draw record TV viewers in Mexico and be a bonanza for local bars and restaurants.

Mexico’s Televisa network has postponed a broadcast of Mexico’s beloved national team playing Ecuador in a friendly at the same time in Seattle, Washington. Chicharito and United get top billing with the match being shown on live on a giant screen on the esplanade outside Mexico’s 100,000-seat Aztec Stadium.

The Mexico-Ecuador match will be shown on delay after Chicharito has had his day.

Javier Ahedo, general manager of a Chili’s restaurant in central Mexico City, says because of Chicharito, Manchester United has been drawing crowds all season.

”This place fills for every game, and even though other teams like Barcelona are playing in the same hour, the people want to see Chicharito,” he said. ”It’s crazy.”

Hernandez hails from Guadalajara and a football dynasty. His grandfather, Tomas Balcazar, played on a Mexico World Cup team, as did his father, also named Javier Hernandez, whose nickname ”Chicharo,” or ”The Pea,” led to the star’s moniker.

He is hardly Mexico’s first international sport star to lift the country in a time of crisis. Rookie Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela wowed the baseball world in the 1980s during a Mexican peso crash. Hugo Sanchez, probably Mexico’s most successful footballer up to now, helped Mexicans forget the financial ups downs of the 1990s with his record-breaking career with Real Madrid.

Still, while many Mexican players have flourished in European leagues, they have mostly done so in Spain or Italy, places not too far removed from home culturally or linguistically.

Chicharito is an unprecedented success story in England where other Latin American players have struggled with the chilly, damp climate and food, not to mention the quicker, more physical play that overpowers Latin-style finesse and technical skill.

He is helped by the fact that his family moved with him to Manchester, where he tells interviewers he still gets his mother’s homemade tortillas.

In his first season he scored 20 goals in various tournaments, tying the Mexican record for a striker making a European debut. He could be the first Mexican to win the Champions League in his first season and only the second to do so behind Rafael Marquez, who won the title playing for Barcelona.

Chicharito’s carefully guarded image, which draws millions in endorsements, is clean and outgoing. So far he seems without the ego of many top players, and his commercials feature kids. He smiles as much in his encounters with the public as in his photos and graciously signs autographs, drawing accolades at least for now from all corners: journalists to image consultants to everyday folk.

”He’s my idol, even though he’s from the Chivas,” said Rene Ocampo, a 38-year-old salesman who roots for rival club Pumas. ”He makes us feel better as Mexicans.”

May 9, 2011      USA - Major League Soccer Update

New York, Los Angeles and Real Salt Lake came into the season considered the best teams in MLS and have done the work to prove those prognostications true, but with playmaker Javier Morales set to miss four months or more with a broken leg, RSL suddenly finds itself facing a stiff test to keep up with the big spenders from opposite coasts (after starting the season looking like a team ready to run away with the league).

The Galaxy and Red Bulls treated MLS fans to an entertaining and high-quality game on Saturday, arguably the best 90 minutes of soccer contested in MLS this season. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering the talent on display and the veteran coaches steering both clubs. Each team showed the technical quality and star power that makes them the current leaders in each conference (though LA’s lead atop the West has as much to do with RSL only playing six games to the Galaxy’s 10).

Morales’ injury changes things considerably for RSL, a team that looked like a good bet to win a Supporters’ Shield. Real Salt Lake still boasts talent all over the field and still has good depth, but there is no denying that losing Morales will cost RSL points in the standings and gives a slight edge to the Red Bulls and Galaxy as the season progresses.

Neither New York nor Los Angeles will complain, not with the looming CONCACAF Gold Cup set to cost each of team multiple key players. The Red Bulls are especially vulnerable, with as many as five starters (and Juan Agudelo) potentially getting Gold Cup call-ups. The Galaxy stands to lose Landon Donovan and Donovan Ricketts and could potentially lose Omar Gonzalez as well.

That’s what made the coming weeks so vital to RSL. While the CONCACAF Champions League finalists are also set to lose Gold Cup players (Alvaro Saborio and Will Johnson), Real Salt Lake was poised to really take advantage of its depth and the presence of Morales’s playmaking to pull away from New York and Los Angeles in the race for the Supporters’ Shield.

Now, RSL must regroup and turn to veteran Andy Williams to lead the way. The problem with relying on Williams too much is that he’s 33 and can’t handle the same workload that Morales could handle. With Morales in place, Jason Kreis could pick his spots to rest Williams and use a mix of Williams and Ned Grabavoy. Now, Kreis will turn to young midfielder Collen Warner or veteran Arturo Alvarez to pick up the slack. Alvarez is the more well-known commodity, but Warner has the talent to emerge as an impact player and potentially a regular starter.

RSL will be hoping to fair better without Morales than it did against Chivas USA, when a second-half goal from Will Johnson was all Real Salt Lake could muster despite having a two-man advantage for more than 45 minutes. While Chivas USA deserves some credit for holding off the home team, Real Salt Lake really should have done better with such an advantage.

The Red Bulls and Galaxy can both come away from their match with confidence despite settling for a tie. The Galaxy responded well to an early goal allowed and took the game to New York in the second half, while the Red Bulls did very well to leave Home Depot Center with a point despite the absence of standout midfielder Teemu Tainio. Overall, both teams looked sharp and more than capable of taking advantage of RSL’s loss of Morales.

Real Salt Lake isn’t going to budge from being a Top Three team, not with its stingy defense, standout goalkeeper Nick Rimando, and a host of other attacking pieces in place, but losing Morales very well could keep RSL from running away with the league the way it could have.

If Saturday’s Galaxy-Red Bulls match was any indication, the race for the Supporters Shield and the battle between the three top teams in MLS is going to be fun to watch and tightly contested, all season long.

Mondaini facing stiff penalty

Chivas USA striker Marcos Mondaini’s leg-breaking tackle on Javier Morales was different than Brian Mullan’s bone-breaking tackle on Steve Zakuani. For one, he wasn’t responding to a bad call and clearly responding emotionally. He didn’t seem to be going in with malice or a hot head. No, Mondaini’s tackle looked more like a clumsy and poorly-executed attempt at a tackle, the kind you would expect a forward to fail at delivering.

While all this may be so, Mondaini still faces the prospects of a lengthy suspension. When MLS slapped Mullan with a 10-game suspension, the message was clear and new precedent set. If you deliver an ugly tackle, and injure someone badly, you will pay. Mondaini apparently missed that message when he lunged at Morales from behind and collapsed Morales’ ankle from behind.

Now what? Mondaini can’t possibly escape with fewer than 6 games or so, but the fact that the Mullan precedent happened so recently makes you wonder if the MLS Disciplinary Committee won’t punish Mondaini even further to try and remind players to cut out the bad tackles. Another 10-game suspension wouldn’t be out of line, and a 12-game ban wouldn’t be all that surprising.

What should MLS do? A year ago the tackle might have merited a three-to-five game ban. In this new era of trying to protect players and eliminate ugly soccer, MLS needs to hit Mondaini with a 10-12 game suspension, or the message it tried to send with Mullan’s suspension will be completely wasted.

MLS Player of the Week

After a surprising and rather inexplicable stint on the bench for D.C. United, reigning MLS Rookie of the Year Andy Najar was finally unleashed by head coach Ben Olsen and responded with a pair of outstanding performances.

Najar helped set up both goals in D.C. United’s 2-1 victory against Seattle last Wednesday and was D.C.’s best player in a 0-0 tie vs. FC Dallas (that would have been a D.C. victory if not for an outstanding performance from Dallas goalkeeper Kevin Hartman).

Najar’s quickness and sharp passing helped get United’s attack going against Seattle and his efforts helped him edge out Toronto FC’s Joao Plata and D.C. striker Charlie Davies for this week’s honor.

MLS Rookie of the Week

Toronto FC midfielder Joao Plata isn’t a rookie by MLS definition (because he played professionally for a season in Ecuador), but we’ll give the 2011 fourth-round draft pick the nod anyway for a stellar performance in helping Toronto FC beat Houston, 2-1.

Plata blasted home a penalty kick and delivered a killer assist in TFC’s victory and is looking more and more like a real threat capable of playing consistent minutes. He slipped far in the MLS Draft because of concerns about his size (he’s 5-foot-5), but Plata is putting those fears to rest.

As far as players actually eligible for MLS Rookie of the Year, rookie defenders A.J. Soares (New England) and Jalil Anibaba (Chicago Fire) performed well in helping their teams post shutouts in scoreless ties on Saturday.

MLS Team of the Week

While no team ran away with the week, D.C. United gets the nod here for its mid-week victory against Seattle and a draw against FC Dallas where D.C. controlled the match. The inclusion of Andy Najar made all the difference, but more importantly the struggling D.C. defense managed to allow just one goal over 180 minutes to recover from a recent awful run.

Ives Galarcep is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com covering Major League Soccer and the U.S. national team.

By Claudio Reyna

A player can always improve his fitness by working out hard. He can comprehend certain tactics by studying the game. But how far he goes will be determined mainly by how well he has mastered ball skills. Those are acquired by playing, day after day, year after year.

A player who really wants to excel will spend as much time as possible playing small-sided games when he has playmates, and juggling and kicking against the wall when he’s on his own.

I spent a lot of time hitting the ball against the side of the house when I was a growing up. If my mother complained about the noise, I’d hop down the retaining wall at the end of our property to the office-building parking lot.

I’d use that wall — hitting the ball with both feet, seeing how long I could return the wall’s passes without losing control. I found out later that so many pros spent lots of their childhood doing that.

Dennis Bergkamp, the great Dutch striker who scored and set up hundreds of goals for Ajax Amsterdam, Arsenal, and the Dutch national team, said that when he was a youth player at Ajax, they had little three-foot-high walls. He would knock the ball against the walls for hours. Every time he hit the ball, he’d know whether it was a good touch or a bad touch. He’d do it over and over, trying to establish a rhythm.

Whenever I saw Bergkamp slotting a perfectly placed ball past a goalkeeper or making a precise pass, I thought of him practicing against the wall.

Kicking against the wall is an excellent way to work on improving your weaker foot. You can back up and practice shots on goal, or move close to the wall and work on passing, because where there’s a wall, there’s a teammate.

You can practice trapping and work on your first touch by controlling the ball before you kick it, or hit it back first time.

Passing the ball against a wall from close distance takes timing and coordination. Hit the ball faster, and you’ve got to react faster and get a rhythm going. It almost feels like you’re dancing.

Practicing the correct striking of the ball over and over helps it become second nature. It has to be, because in a game a player doesn’t have time to think about his form or approach. Under pressure, everything is more difficult. Mastering technique while playing on your own is the first step to being able to do it right in a game.

(Excerpted from “More Than Goals: The Journey from Backyard Games to World Cup Competition” by Claudio Reyna, courtesy of Human Kinetics.)

(Claudio Reyna was named the U.S. Soccer Federations’s Youth Technical Director in April 2010.

With just two days to go, the anticipation for the world’s biggest game, El Clasico, couldn’t be higher. After both sides, FC Barcelona & Real Madrid have defeated their respective opponents (Shakhtar Donetsk & Tottenham Hotspurs) in the knock-out stages of the UEFA Champions League, Saturday’s match will be the first of four Clasico’s within the span of 18 days.

The exit of Shakhtar Donetsk and Tottenham Hotspurs means that not only will the UEFA Champions League semi-final be an all-Spanish affair, but two mouth-watering Clasico encounters over two legs in their battle for European supremacy.

One Clasico creates a media-frenzy; now imagine four within a couple of weeks. Furthermore, these Clasico’s have a direct impact on all three competitions (La Liga, the Copa del Rey & the Champions League).

The Merengue head into Saturday’s La Liga clash with an eight-point deficit against their eternal rivals, FC Barcelona. Neither a draw nor defeat is an acceptable result if Real Madrid is to end the Blaugrana’s stranglehold on the Primera Division.

Having witnessed FC Barcelona accumulating the treble just two years ago, the Spanish capital club is just as motivated as any side to match this achievement.

Nevertheless, FC Barcelona own treble hopes are still very much alive. And although the Blaugrana have to travel to the most hostile of environments, the Santiago Bernabeu, they presumably hold the psychological advantage over their archrivals, having won all their encounters since Pep Guardiola’s appointment.

In Jose Mourinho, however, Pep Guardiola & FC Barcelona will have to face one the finest managers, some even go as far and champion the self-proclaimed “Special One” the greatest manager of them all.

Since this year is almost devoid of major football tournaments bar the Copa America, the Clasico’s and the UEFA Champions League final can be considered THE highlights of 2011.

Let’s find out what the Barca Blaugranes team (Arron Duckling, Bostjan Cernensek, Gabriel Roberts, Paul Udani, Shehryar Khan & I) think of the upcoming Clash of the Titans.

With just two days to go, the anticipation for the world’s biggest game, El Clasico, couldn’t be higher. After both sides, FC Barcelona & Real Madrid have defeated their respective opponents (Shakhtar Donetsk & Tottenham Hotspurs) in the knock-out stages of the UEFA Champions League, Saturday’s match will be the first of four Clasico’s within the span of 18 days.

The exit of Shakhtar Donetsk and Tottenham Hotspurs means that not only will the UEFA Champions League semi-final be an all-Spanish affair, but two mouth-watering Clasico encounters over two legs in their battle for European supremacy.

One Clasico creates a media-frenzy; now imagine four within a couple of weeks. Furthermore, these Clasico’s have a direct impact on all three competitions (La Liga, the Copa del Rey & the Champions League).

The Merengue head into Saturday’s La Liga clash with an eight-point deficit against their eternal rivals, FC Barcelona. Neither a draw nor defeat is an acceptable result if Real Madrid is to end the Blaugrana’s stranglehold on the Primera Division.

Having witnessed FC Barcelona accumulating the treble just two years ago, the Spanish capital club is just as motivated as any side to match this achievement.

Nevertheless, FC Barcelona own treble hopes are still very much alive. And although the Blaugrana have to travel to the most hostile of environments, the Santiago Bernabeu, they presumably hold the psychological advantage over their archrivals, having won all their encounters since Pep Guardiola’s appointment.

In Jose Mourinho, however, Pep Guardiola & FC Barcelona will have to face one the finest managers, some even go as far and champion the self-proclaimed “Special One” the greatest manager of them all.

Since this year is almost devoid of major football tournaments bar the Copa America, the Clasico’s and the UEFA Champions League final can be considered THE highlights of 2011.

Let’s find out what the Barca Blaugranes team (Arron Duckling, Bostjan Cernensek, Gabriel Roberts, Paul Udani, Shehryar Khan & I) think of the upcoming Clash of the Titans.

Say soccer and you have the entire crowd staring at you! Such, is the phenomenal magic of one of the most craved international games. After all! The excitement and enthusiasm which is endowed by soccer cannot be attained by any other game. No other sports can compete with it, in terms of adventure, target audience and no doubt, thrill. The ninety minutes of soccer are truly irreversible. In addition to the piling tension, the next move and the wanted goals, soccer proves to me more enthralling than car races. The entire mounting tension revolves around just one item, i.e. the soccer ball.
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