Category: Section 2 Around the Net

The Scottish Premier League has signed a new four-year deal with Setanta Sports worth $250 million, over twice the amount of the current deal, due to expire in 2010. The extent of the game’s coverage will remain the same, with 60 games per season screened live across the UK and Ireland.   It marks “the […]

With the Euros over, the UK sports media can now indulge in its favorite summer pastime of inventing, stoking or speculating upon the transfer market, an activity that’s no longer the exclusive domain of the country’s notoriously truth-shy tabloid press. In Tuesday’s “quality” papers, writes Josh Widdicombe, “you will find news of 20-plus transfers, only […]

In Monday’s newsletter we wrote about FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s back-up plan should South Africa be unable to host the 2010 World Cup. This week UEFA boss Michel Platini heads to Poland and Ukraine to see how they are shaping up to co-host the next European Championships in four years time, amid continued speculation that […]

Former assistant coach takes over the Ticos from Hernan Medford, sacked last week.

Wondering who Buducnost Podgorica will play in the first round of qualifying for the UEFA Champions league? The draw took place Tuesday.

As if that’s not excitement enough, it’s Shakhtyor Karagandy against Debreceni VCS in the CL’s sister competition, the UEFA Cup.

During and after every major international soccer tournament, the same facile clichés are peddled about the sport being a great unifier of people. And with ethnically fractured Spain taking the Euro 2008 title on Sunday, there has been plenty of talk about soccer having brought the divided country together under one flag. But as the […]

One of Major League Soccer’s selling points is its unpredictability, but the L.A. Galaxy are taking that point to new extremes, writes Nick Green. Not only does it feature the league’s most potent attack and its most porous defense, but it’s impossible to tell if a player performing well one minute will even bother showing […]

There’s barely a soccer journalist alive who doesn’t think that Spain deserved to win the European Championship Sunday, its first title for 44 years. The Spanish won the final with a moment of brilliance that epitomized their “flair, panache and style,” writes Sam Wallace. Fernando Torres’ sweet winning goal “was the moment when their brightest […]

Paul Wilson’s only quibble with Euro 2008 is that too few people saw the games live because of the relatively small capacity of all but two of the stadiums. But the tournament should be remembered not just for the entertaining games and some unexpected results, but also for “an uncommonly low number of referee’s whistles.” […]

Sunday’s game between D.C. United and the L.A. Galaxy promised rich entertainment thanks to the array of storied offensive talent on display. Not only that, writes Pat Walsh, it was going to feature United’s Zach Wells and L.A.’s Steve Cronin, “the worst two goalkeepers in MLS.”   But the weekend’s highest scoring Major League Soccer […]

FIFA President Sepp Blatter admitted Sunday that he has a “Plan B” should South Africa be unable to host the 2010 World Cup, “but it will only be used if a disaster makes holding the tournament impossible there.”   Speaking in Vienna before the Euro 2008 final, Blatter said he would be “negligent as president […]

The Columbus Crew’s veteran Argentine midfielder, Guillermo Barros Schelotto, has shown many fine touches since arriving in MLS last year. He’s also not been slow to express his exasperation at the shortcomings of some of the players around him.   Saturday was a case in point. According to Shawn Mitchell, the first-half efforts of Nigerian […]

Spain’s 28-year-old Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernandez won the Euro 2008 Player of the Tournament award. The 23-man ‘best of Euro 2008’ roster includes nine players from champions Spain.

Europe’s soccer governing body says it will decide in September if Poland and the Ukraine are fit to host Euro 2012.

“Yet another cameo of utterly bewitching football” from Spanish substitute Cesc Fabregas was the key to Spain’s 3-0 European Championship semifinal win over Russia, writes James Lawton. After all the pre-game talk of Russia’s canny Dutch coach Guus Hiddink and his midfield conjurer Andrei Arshavin, “Spain struck out for the destiny that they always believed […]

The uncertainty over the true capabilities of the German team has dogged them throughout the tournament, and will follow it into Sunday’s final against Spain. Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann embodies this insecurity as much as any other German player — against Portugal in the quarterfinal he looked to be in the world-class form that won him […]

The next Homeless World Cup takes place in Melbourne in December, but tryouts for the U.S. team take place in Washington, D.C., this weekend, reports Mike Wise. He caught up with some of the 100 hopefuls vying for a spot on the eight-man roster that will travel to Australia later this year.   That includes […]

Soccer’s conspiracy theorists love to claim that their team lost a World Cup only because a particular game was fixed in favor of an opponent, usually the host nation. The 1978 competition, hosted and won by Argentina at a time when the country was ruled by military dictatorship, usually attracts the most attention in such […]

Draw for the fourth phase of Asian World Cup qualifications puts North and South Korea in the same group again.

Jack Bell analyzes the swift return of the man who took Italy to the 2006 World Cup title.

Bob Kimball talks to TV analyst Andy Gray, taking a three-week working break in Bristol, Conn.

The English Football Association announced Friday that it will ban competitive soccer leagues for under-8s from next season in order to help improve skills and technique among young English players. FA officials said “the pressure to win leagues was more often for the satisfaction of parents and coaches than the children,” writes Anil Dawar. The […]

The media consensus is that brave Turkey outplayed Germany in Wednesday’s European Championships semifinal, and that the Germans were lucky to come away with the 3-2 win. Paul Doyle writes effusively that Turkey eschewed the tactics of sitting deep and playing long, as they did against the Czech Republic, and instead “sought to dominate every […]

Most soccer fans will remember the Germany-Turkey game not just for its high entertainment, but also because the international TV audience lost pictures of the game three times for a total of 18 minutes during the second half, missing two goals in the process. For older U.S. viewers it must have been like watching in […]