Football (or ‘Soccer’ as it is known in North America) is by far the world’s most popular sport with around 600 million people tuning in to watch the World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain in July of this year. Many star players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Manchester United’s very own Wayne Rooney are household names and are some of the most recognised faces in the sporting world.

Our friend’s at Infographiclabs have put together a visual representation of the most successful clubs in Europe along with a brief history of the World Cup and governing body FIFA.

Tags:   fifa · infographic · visual · world cup

In my clumsiness again I seem to have missed a memo. Apparently Manchester City now rank among the big clubs, at least according to the words of Mark hughes:

I’m not surprised David feels a bit aggrieved with the situation, you always are when a big club is trying to sign one of your best players.

We already analyzed Mark Hughes’ behaviour in the past but things seem to become worse and worse every day.

You don’t become a big club because of your spending power, but because of your results!.

According to Sparky’s logic, who seems to have another Code of Conduct than every other manager and will continue his chase to sign Joleon Lescott from Everton, there have been many big clubs in recent years, but he forgets where these clubs have ended. Continue reading »

Tags:   Manchester City · Mark Hughes · Truth

Manchester United 4 – Manchester City 3
Scorers
Manchester United: Rooney (2), Fletcher (48, 80), Owen (90+5)
Manchester City: Barry (16), Bellamy (52, 90)

What better could a United fan ask for.The match was on the minute ref blew the whistle.For the first time  team selection was perfect. Defense looked better in shape and mid-field just required as to be aggressive.
Continue reading »

Tags:   Derby · Manchester City

Yesterday’s game was a hard fought battle and in the first half Stoke City certainly tried to prove that they are better than what can be called ‘there are 6 or 7 teams who do not deserve to be in the Premier League’ and kept the game open for the first half hour.

But the experience and pure class of ManUtd resulted in another deserved win for the Red Devils, one which brings us to the top of the table for the first time in the 2009-2010 season.

And if we love to call Cantona ‘King Eric’, Ryan Giggs yesterday once more proved that he deserves to be called Emperor Ryan. Again he outperformed the illustrous and already forgotten Portuguese player who once used to tumble run up and down our pitch. Way to impress and show who are the Kings of England!

Before I write about the main problem we are facing this season, here’s some pictures of yesterday’s game.

After the jump there’s some smug pictures as well and let’s see if you can find an oddity in one of those. Continue reading »

Tags:   Dimitar Berbatov · John O'Shea · Match Pictures · Smug · Stoke City

The wonder boy from Portugal has been voted as 9th most influential man of 2008 in an online roll released on Tuesday that asked men to decide who most impacted the way they behave,buy and think

The survey conducted by Askmen lifestyle website,ranked Cristiano Ronaldo as 9th most influential man in US beating the Republican Party Candidate,Mc CainthThe number one spot was held by BarrackObama  while Steve Jobs followed him behind.

The poll was conducted on basis of 200,000 voted from readers of website whose average age is 27-28 years.

Tags:   Ronaldo

After my busy week around with my work,United too will be getting busy with Ronaldo’s arrival back at Old Trafford.

Its said that he’s coming to finalize his decisions regarding his career at Real and he should now be let moved out.
According to Telegraph,the reported sum of 68 millions pounds will be offered for Winger by Real in favor of his service.Which will also catalyze the deal of Robinho at Chelsea and Berbatov at United.For many reasons,all this is going to change a lot of things regarding the transfers and signings for players in footballing world.
There were days when players feared from Club owners and managers regarding their footballing careers and decisions.But things are now moving fast.The footy geniuses are bending the rules and taking possibilities to their favors.I mean take a look at any transfer for last 5 years that has been forced by managers.Exactly none but u can find 100′s where a player wants to move out of his team when he wants.
I mean has their been times that clubs missed paying their players.Or has their been times that sponsors didn’t provide him shoes.Whats a purpose of a contract if its not made to fulfillment.And there we are,FIFA prez consolidating these money hungry people as modern age slaves or how about modern age blackmailers…

Right now lets talk about Ronaldo as i can’t get any better example than any.He was brought at United when he was a boy.A raw talent which didn’t have any direction.Hardworking at United and also from United staff pushed him from a kid to a player.All those years they kept him pushing to limits till this boy turned to a man.And now when he knows that playing for him isn’t everything he is trying new things and wants to move out of club for fatter cheques.

Is their any point in having a 5 year contract ???

By tomorrow things are getting finalized between United and Ronaldo lets see what results are we getting from the meeting .

Tags:   player transactions

Cristiano Ronaldo may have had a bit of a troubled relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson by the end of his last season for Manchester United because of his very vocal desire to leave the team but now that he is with Real Madrid, the Portuguese winger has come out to say that he misses being with the Red Devils.

Ronaldo was transferred to Real after an unprecedented £80million fee this summer. But even though he misses life at Old Trafford he still maintains that he made the right choice in going to Real Madrid.

Ronaldo has also dismissed comments that Manchester United has been struggling without him this season. He said that even though the team has lost the last two games they are still the second placers in the league.

I think that it’s very sportsmanly of Ronaldo to say such things about his old club. We’ve often seen players who transfer to a new team lambasting his former teammates and the manager just to justify why they had to transfer in the first place. Ronaldo has proven that you can transfer without having to show any kind of animosity to your former teammates. Yes, he may be seen as a little bit of a brat by most fans but he’s shown that he can also be a stand-up guy.

Tags:   Manchester united · Real Madrid · Ronaldo

I do not know anymore where I found this picture or what the frack Paul Scholes and Pienaar do/did but funny it is. Apparently Pienaar just had received a yellow for a foul on Scholes.

Captions in the comments.

Tags:   Captions · Paul Scholes · Pics

Although other than the compulsory smug for a ManUtd fan, I tend not to look at other clubs unless it is to admire their managers and consistency of players. I am for example a big fan of Steve Bruce and Roberto Martinez and even think that although lately more embarrassing for his own legacy than anything else, Sparky could become a good manager.

Today though I have to make an exception. Make and exception and have a look at the England Manager, Fabio Capello. First of all though I must say that I am not English but have spent the last five years of my life in England until I recently moved to a sunny Southern-European isle. Of course I did support the English national eleven during my time there and as every fan of a nice game my heart always suffered watching this thing dished to us fans, this almost catanaccio alike game brought to us by Capello. But while I may at times admire the Italian style of the game, mainly for the strategical zonal game which is played in the Serie A, as a true ManUtd fan I would rather lose 5-4 than go home with 0-0. I will take a 0-1 win though, especially if fought out in true ManUtd style and we have more than 20 shots on goal as usually, playing defences of 6-9 players is not that easy. But I digress. Continue reading »

Tags:   Beckham · Fabio Capello

So I was wrong and we signed another player, Portuguese 20-year young striker Bébé from Vitória de Guimarães. While the deal still is subject to a medical the interesting news here is not that we signed another player, for an undisclosed sum, but what is really going on at Old Trafford.

Left and right Ihear that we haven’t improved our squad since both CR7 and Cryboy left but the truth is that SAF is working at something much more interesting and exciting: he’s reshaping the squad and slowly preparing a new squad, a squad ready to replace the still active legends Red Neville, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs. Not only does the young Portuguese follow in an lacklustre line of bad hair-dos or is another prodigy coming from Portugal, more so he is another young talent we recruited in the last two years. Although for now we will place a question mark after the transfer until both clubs confirm this, especially because Bébé doesn’t have any stats on his Vitória de Guimarães player profile.

What really matters though is that Alex Ferguson will probably continue to stay at OT for several more years, helping the new squad taking shape and once more enjoying the good ol’ adagio you don’t win anything with kids. I bet Wenger’s fuming inside to see what happens at OT and to realise once more the Scot while outwit him and do what the Gunners haven’t done for years now: win silverware, more so win silverware with youngsters.

Our line up of most used youngsters now reads like this: The Twins, De Laet, Cleverley, Gibson, Kiko, Obertan, Possebon, Diouf, Hernandez and we could arguably add Nani, Johnny Evans and Anderson to this list, just as well as Welbeck.

Tags:   Bébé · Transfers