Diego Maradona Back In Football, To Manage Dubai Club

Diego Maradona Back In Football, To Manage Dubai Club
The worst part about Argentina ’s loss in the World Cup quarterfinals was it meant the end of Diego Maradona. Argentina went out, Maradona wasn’t brought back to manage the team and one of the greatest players to ever play, but more importantly one of the great characters in professional sports, was out of the limelight. Not anymore though. Maradona is back, kind of. The Argentinean has been …

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Maradona back on bench

Maradona back on bench
Diego Maradona, who was suspended for two months by Fifa, returns to the bench for the first time in a friendly against Costa Rica.

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Maradona back at helm after two-month suspension

Maradona back at helm after two-month suspension
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -Diego Maradona is back as Argentina’s football coach, ending a two-month suspension imposed by FIFA following a profanity-filled rant after his team qualified for the World Cup against Uruguay.

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ZZ Is Back on Top.: An article from: Soccer Digest

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This digital document is an article from Soccer Digest, published by Century Publishing on November 1, 2001. The length of the article is 1937 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: ZZ Is Back on Top.(Zinedine Zi… More >>

ZZ Is Back on Top.: An article from: Soccer Digest

Soccer Kicks Back

Soccer has to be one of the original sports games every played by people. I can just imagine cave dwellers kicking around the old soccer ball. Or maybe it was a soccer rock? A soccer coconut perhaps? It’s got to be one of the simplest form of sports play imaginable. I mean, really, I kick the ball this way and you try to kick the ball that way. Whether the ball (coconut?) goes more this way or more that way determines the winner. While it may be easy for me to imagine soccer being kicked around by a bunch of caveman sports enthusiasts, the earliest official record of soccer by played was in China about 3000 years ago. Wow, that’s like 750 World Cups, if anyone was keeping track.

Ultimate Soccer Header

Soccer is also kind of bizarre, in that it’s one of the few sports I can think of where you use your head for more than just strategizing. You actually can use your head to make contact with the ball. Imagine trying that in football (American) or hockey for that matter. Nothing link deflecting a slap shot with the forehead for a game winning goal. Stitches don’t hurt that much. Those soccer guys are kinda funny that way. But the ultimate head shot in soccer was a little more bizarre. Gruesome actually. Apparently in more medieval times, the head of a defeated Dannish prince was used as the ball by early day soccer hooligans in the east of England. Yuck. Think I’d be shopping for some new soccer shoes after that match. It’s a wonder soccer ever caught on with the Danes after a defeat like that one.

Soccer Wars

As with many games these days, soccer had it’s origins on the battlefield. Rival towns would play soccer against each other, with little or no rules, and massive sized teams. Violent, bloody games, with hundreds of people kicking, punching, tripping in an attempt to win the soccer match. Sounds kind of like today, except today, that sounds like a more apt description of the fans instead of the players. You think it’s tough being a soccer referee today, imagine a few hundred years ago. At least today, they keep the fans and referees separated. As time went on, and the local authorities realized that banning soccer wasn’t going to work, more civilized soccer fans brought rules and order to the game of soccer. Not everyone agreed, and there were some splinter groups that went off and formed derivatives of the game. Rugby was one.

Soccer As Civilized Play

So today we have the modern game of soccer that we even allow our children to play. A far reach from the early beginnings of the sport. Perhaps an analogy can be drawn between soccer and many new forms of expression. In the beginning, things can be a bloody mess, but a few thousand years of civility and anything can be reduced to child’s play.

The Galacticos Era is Back

It’s been a while since the Spanish soccer club Real Madrid was regarded as the team of the Galacticos. The term Los Galacticos was coined in the early 2000’s due to the fact that club president Florentino Perez went on a spending spree, promising to bring in the greatest soccer players all over the world. This included Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Ronaldo, and David Beckham. At first the acquisitions were used as a combination of a marketing ploy and significantly increasing the club’s talent. The world renowned players such as Zidane, Ronaldo and Beckham generated millions, if not billions in marketing and merchandising sales for the club. Also, the fusion of these remarkable talents made the team win in several soccer competitions including two league titles and one UEFA Champions League Title.

Years later, however, the team ceased to perform at the expected high level due to too much egos and saturation of talent. Players relied heavily on individual talent rather than team synergy, which led to club’s slow and painful demise. Eventually Florentino Perez was out as president, and the team never went back to what it was during the Galacticos Era. Or so we thought. Fast-forward to the summer of 2009—Florentino Perez has been re-elected as Real Madrid’s president and the man wasted no time as he immediately pledged a second coming, a new breed of Los Galacticos.

Kaka

Without a shadow of a doubt, Kaka is one of the smartest, fastest and most reliable soccer players in the world. He plays as a forward or a midfielder for AC Milan and the Brazil national team. Regarded as a living legend by many, Kaka singlehandedly brought his team AC Milan to win the much coveted UEFA Champion’s League title in 2007. Also in the same year, Kaka was the recipient of the FIFA World Player of The Year Award, the most prestigious award any soccer player can get in his lifetime. A consistent goal scorer and brilliant play-maker, Kaka has been the target of all elite European Football clubs for many years now.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Playing as a winger for Manchester United and the Portugal national team, the man is arguably the best player in the world today. At a tender age of 24, Cristiano Ronaldo has achieved a lot in his soccer career. He helped his club win several trophies including two English Premier League Titles and one UEFA Champions League title. Since 2006, Cristiano Ronaldo has been included in the top three candidates for the FIFA World Player of the Year Award, and he finally came home with the prestigious honor on 2009.

Why they matter

Re-elected president Perez recently made a very bold claim that he would take Kaka from AC Milan and sign him to Real Madrid for a six-year contract. Many did not believe him, saying that Kaka would never leave the Italian club. On June 8, 2009, however, Perez delivered on that promise. Real Madrid reportedly paid $92 million for the Brazilian phenomenon. Three days later, Manchester United accepted a whopping $131 million offer for Cristiano Ronaldo. This means that by the end of the summer and as the 2009-2010 season kicks in, the two most celebrated soccer players in the world will wear the same jersey and play beautiful soccer together. Soon we will all be witnesses to the new Los Galacticos; the greatest team to ever play in the pitch. GP

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Viola brings crown back to FSHA

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