EURO 2012: The Final (Portugal v Russia)

July 1, 2012

EURO 2012

EURO 2012 comes to a close today: will the trophy head west to Portugal, carried aloft by the brilliance of Cristiano Ronaldo, or will Russia prove the surprise of 2012, taking the cup east behind a seemingly unstoppable Roman Pavlyuchenko?

Less than a minute in, an answer was given: a crisp one-two between João Moutinho and Hugo Almeidaresulted in the big man from Werder Bremen sliding the ball across a diving Igor Akinfeev and into the net. The fans were still on their feet from the opening kick and the Portuguese were ahead!

Akinfeev quickly recovered, providing two fantastic saves in the next twenty minutes, one from Almeida and a second from a curling, dipping shot from Ronaldo.

Just after thirty minutes, the Russian captain, Rubin’s Alexandr Anyukov, chipped a ball from the right wing very neatly into Pavlyuchenko’s path and when Rui Patrício was too slow to react, we had an hour left to play and a tied game.

It would stay that way through halftime with Akinfeev again the reason: Almeida was stopped on a nearly point-blank header with a magnificent leap from Russia’s number one goalkeeper.

Ten minutes into the second half, Moutinho would put the side from western Europe into the lead with a shot from twenty-five yards out, a powerful strike that took a slight deflection off Denis Kolodin before finding the back of the net.

Vladimir Bystrov appeared to tie the game with twenty minutes remaining, but his shot was for naught when the assistant referee’s flag was raised for offsides and when, just a few minutes later, Cristiano Ronaldo took his customer stance above a free kick, his weight shifting easily back and forth between his legs as he stared at Akinfeev, twenty-four yards away, the stadium buzzed with anticipation.

Ronaldo’s kick was destined for legend, curving around the wall and never appearing to rise above a yard from the ground from when it left his foot to when it spun against the back of the net.

Ronaldo was mobbed instantly by his teammates, and the image of him, lifted off the ground in Pepe’s strong embrace, one arm clenched in glory, a scream of joy written on his face, seems destined to grace the cover of FIFA 13 later this fall.

EURO 2012 Final
Portugal v Russia, Stadion Slaski
Portugal 3 (Hugo Almeida 1, João Moutinho 56, Cristiano Ronaldo 75) – Russia 1 (Roman Pavlyuchenko 31)
MoM: Ronaldo (8.3)
Attendance: 47,202. Referee: Antonio Salvador.

CHILE

While the match in Poland held the world’s attention, it was not the only match of the day: in Montevideo, Chile and Uruguay would play in South American qualifying for Brazil 2014.

Chile fought hard and Claudio Bravo in their goal provided a masterclass between the pipes, but Uruguay—who look to be the third best side on the continent behind Brazil and Argentina—just boasted too much talent in the end, emerging with a two goal victory behind strikes from Luis Suárez and Diego Forlán.

World Cup Qualifiers (South America)
Uruguay v Chile, Estadio Centenario
Uruguay 2 (Luis Suárez 48, Diego Forlán 61) – Chile 0
MoM: Claudio Bravo (8.8) Uruguayan Best: Juan Ángel Albín (8.0)
Attendance: 54,284. Referee: José Torres.

Season Review 2011/12: England

May 28, 2012

PREMIER LEAGUE
It was, simply, Manchester United’s year and neither a slight bobble at the end of their efforts nor a late charge from Chelsea could prevent the Red Devils from hoisting the trophy at the end of the season, finishing with thirty wins and ninety-three points. Everton and Manchester City will join those two teams in next year’s Champions League, while Wigan, Ipswich, and Hull will all spend the 2012/13 season in the Coca Cola Championship.
United’s Carlo Ancelotti was the Manager of the Year, finishing well ahead of Chelsea’s Danyil Oranje and Everton’s David Moyes.

Robin van Persie

Top Goalscorer: 21, Robin van Persie (Arsenal)
Top Rated Player: 7.52, Rafael (Manchester United)

Injuries, age, and increased competition for playing time left last year’s leader in both categories, Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, playing a solid, if unspectacular, role in his Premier League swan song before heading to Toulouse over the summer. Van Persie’s total does raise the question if the age of the thirty goal campaign has passed: you have to reach back to Cristiano Ronaldo’s 31 in 2007-8 to find a tally that high.

Drogba passed the English Footballer of the Year to his teammate, Fernando Torres, trailed by Steven Gerrard and Antonio Valencia while the Players’ Player of the Year was awarded to Anderson, with his Manchester United teammate Wayne Rooney coming in third behind Chelsea’s Frank Lampard. The same clubs dominated the Young Player of the Year, with Chelsea’s young French striker, Ishak Belfodil, edging out the twin Red Devils, Rafael and Fábio.

Unsurprisingly, the Select XI was a blue and red affair, with Chelsea’s Petr Cech, United’s Jonny Evans and Nemanja Vidic, Everton’s Cristián Zapata, and Liverpool’s Luis Suárez joining Rafael, Anderson, Gerrard, Torres, and van Persie, with Tottenham’s Aaron Lennon being the only player clad in white to gain the honor.

COCA-COLA CHAMPIONSHIP

Moments after Sunderland’s Fraizer Campbell had tied the game, QPR’s Alejandro Faurlin gave his side the lead and, thirty minutes later, the coveted final promotion spot into England’s top flight. QPR joins regular season champion West Brom and surprise Nottingham Forest in the move up while Watford, Norwich, and Barnsley will all be moving down.

Fraizer Campbell

Top Goalscorer: 25, Fraizer Campbell (Sunderland)
Top Rated Player: 7.86, Jonas Olsson (West Brom)

Simon Church, last year’s top goalscorer, put in another good season with Reading, as did veteran Scottish defender Stephen Crainey with Blackpool, both of which held their ground in the CCC. Roberto de Matteo of West Brom was the Manager of the Year. With last year’s winner, Paul Ince, currently at Liverpool, could a jump to a more prestigious side be in order for de Matteo as well?

COCA-COLA LEAGUE ONE

Notts County, Peterborough, and playoff surprise Coventry achieved promotion, with Rotherham, Stockport, Luton, and Wycombe finishing at the foot of the table.

Top Goalscorer: 33, Lee Novak (Brighton)
Top Rated Player: 7.84, Danny Fox (Notts Co)

Last year’s leading scorer, Paul Hayes of Norwich City, had a fine year, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Canaries flying, so Hayes will return to CCL1 next season. Coventry defender Stephen Carr retired after last year’s top notch performance.

COCA-COLA LEAGUE TWO

The joys of promotion will be felt by Northampton, Walsall, Bristol Rovers, and Chesterfield, while Yeovil and Mansfield will ply their trade in the Blue Square Premier next season.

Top Goalscorer: 25, Joël Thomas (Crewe)
Top Rated Player: 7.95, Gareth Roberts (Northampton)

Port Vale’s James Lawrie turned in another great year with the twenty-one year old finishing a single goal behind Thomas. Last year’s best player, nineteen year old Mark O’Brien, was purchased by Tottenham and then spent a good season one league up for Plymouth.

December, 2011: Monthly Awards

Saint George’s dominance of the Ethiopian Premiere League is reflected in the monthly awards, where Mesfin Ayenew, Kennedy Dube, George Mapfumo, Mulalem Regassa, Fitsum Kebede, Andrew Sinkala (twice), Meseret Desta, Zerihun Boda, and Alula Germa were all named to the Team of the Week. Despite that, two players from Adama City—Deneke Alimirah and Berhane Alemseged—led Dube in the Player of the Month selection (Alemseged edged Dube in the Young Player of the Month as well).

In London, Michael Essien and Ishak Belfodil were both named to the Team of the Week, an honor Fernando Torres earned twice. For the first time all season, no Manchester United player was named in the Young Player of the Month voting with Chelsea’s Michael Larsen and Mamadou Sakho finishing behind Newcastle’s young Hungarian defender, Tamás Kádár.

• Curtis Davies was selected the Premier League Player of the Month, trailed by Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard and Luis Suárez. Davies’s selection meant December was the second consecutive month an Aston Villa player took the award.
• QPR boasted both the Player of the Month and the Young Player of the Month for the Coca-Cola Championship, with the versatile Charlie Lee winning the senior honors and Sergiy Kryvtsov taking the youth award.

The annual rewards will be announced throughout the month of January, 2012.

2010/11 Season Review: Top European Goalscorers

All players in top European leagues who scored twenty or more league goals.

35 Oscar Cardoza (Benfica)

27 Rade Veljovic (Roda JC)

26 Alan (NAC Breda), Karim Benzema (Real Madrid), Guillaume Hoarau (PSG)

25 Cheick Diabaté (Girondins), Didier Drogba (Chelsea), Mevlüt Erdinç (PSG), Gonzalo Higuaín (Real Madrid)

24 Diego Forlán (Atlético Madrid)

23 Fernando Llorente (Atlético), Bogden Milic (ADO Den Haag), Ola Toivonen (PSV)

22 Nicolas Anelka (OM)

21 Baba (CS Marítimo), Steven Fletcher (Fulham), André-Pierre Gignac (Toulouse), Nicklas Pedersen (FC Groningen), Roberto Soldado (Getafe), Luis Suárez (AFC Ajax), Björn Vleminckx (NEC Nijmegen)

20 Marouane Chamakh (Girondins), Mounir El Hamdaoui (AZ Alkmaar), Hulk (Porto), Jacob Mulenga (FC Utrecht), Peter Odemwingie (Toulouse), Francesco Tavano (FC Schalke 04)

2010/11 Season Review: Holland

May 16, 2011

Eredivisie

The top of the Eredivisie is once again quite static: defending champion Ajax won the league, this time by five points over perennial runner-up PSV, followed by FC Twente. The end of season drama was, instead, at the bottom of the table where a victory on the final day by NEC allowed them to escape relegation and losses by all three of the clubs beneath them (Volendam, Heracles, and Vitesse) ensured those three would be part of the relegation playoffs. In the end, it was Vitesse and Heracles who would be demoted to the Jupiler League while Volendam—who were new to the Eredivisie this year—manage to extend their stay there.

Top Goalscorer: 27. Rade Veljovic (Roda JC)
Top Rated Player: 7.65. Giuliano (AZ Alkmar)

Last year, Ajax’s Luis Suárez and sc Heerenveen’s Paulo Henrique led the league with 22 goals each. Both players had good seasons, leading their teams in goals scored with 21 and 16 respectively. Feyenoord’s Jon Dahl Tomasson, last year’s best player in the Eredivisie, retired at the end of the season.

Jupiler League

SC Cambuur won the league, and they are joined in promotion by the fifth place team, FC Den Bosch, who successfully navigated the Dutch playoffs to join the Eredivisie next year. A single team, Helmond Sport, will move to the lower levels of Dutch football.

Top Goalscorer: 22. Erik Quekel (SC Cambuur)
Top Rated Player: 7.71. Paul Beekmans (SC Cambuur)

Last year’s leading goalscorers in the Jupiler League took divergent paths in their careers: young Género Zeefuik returned to PSV from FC Dordrecht and scored a dozen goals in the Eredivisie while pressing for more playing time. Go Ahead Eagles’ Koen van der Biezen, on the other hand, continued to toil away in the second league, scoring 17 goals on the season. Last year’s top rated player, goalkeeper Remko Pasveer, moved to the top division and found it tough going, allowing more than a goal per game while splitting time with Brazilian Vanderlei between the sticks for FC Groningen.

2010 World Awards Review

Madrid was the center of the football world in 2010, with Real Madrid’s Kaká edging teammate Cristiano Ronaldo for the Footballer of the Year award, with cross-town rivals Atletico Madrid’s Sergio Agüero finishing third. With Ronaldo and Agüero both still relative youngsters, the quality of football in Madrid seems assured for years to come.

Agüero also finished third in the Player of the Year voting, behind two players from Spain’s other marquee team, Barcelona. The award was won by Swedish veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic, with brilliant playmaker Andrés Iniesta finishing second.

It should come as no surprise that players from those three teams dominated the World Team of the Year, with Gerard Piqué, Xavi, and Lionel Messi from Barcelona; Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos from Real Madrid, and Angel Di María and Maxi Rodríguez from Atletico Madrid joining their teammates. Also named to the team of the world’s best were Philipp Lahm (FC Bayern), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Pepe Reina and Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Edin Dzeko and Didier Drogba (Chelsea); and Genoa’s Domenico Criscito.

Ibrahimovic was also the European Footballer of the Year. Other positional awards for European players were, in order of finish:

• Goalkeeper of the Year. Casillas, Petr Cech (Chelsea), Reina (Liverpool).
• Defender of the Year. Chiellini, Piqué, Dmytro Chygrynsky (Barcelona)
• Midfielder of the Year. Di María, Iniesta, Rodríguez.
• Striker of the Year. Ibrahimovic, Agüero, Drogba.

The European Golden Boot was captured by Roberto Soldado of Getafe, who managed 30 in 26 appearances. He was followed by Wayne Rooney of Manchester United and Emmanuel Adebayor of Manchester City, each with 26 strikes in European competitions in 2010.

In a move that defied most logic, Messi was named the Under 23 Player of the year, ahead of Di María and Agüero. As we move towards the true youth of the world, Real Madrid’s $46 Million purchase Dentinho was the Under 21 Player of the year, followed by Bayern’s Toni Kroos and Inter’s Mario Balotelli; Kroos won the Under 20 award, followed by Balotelli and Santos’ Neymar, who won the Under 19 award, followed by FC Bayern’s David Alaba and Zaragoza’s Kevin.

FIFA also announced its various age limited teams of emerging superstars (starting eleven are listed in bold):

• Under 23 World Team of the Year. Agüero, Sergio Asenjo (At. Madrid), César Azpilicueta (At. Madrid), Karim Benzema (R. Madrid), Dentinho (R. Madrid), Di María, Gonzalo Higuaín (R. Madrid), Kroos, Robert Lewandowski (Stoke), Marcelo (R. Madrid), Messi, David Ospina (OGC Nice), Piqué, Guillermo Salinas (Benfica), Daniel Schwaab (Leverkusen), Luis Suárez (Ajax), Axel Witsel (Standard), Mauro Zárate (Lazio).
• Under 20 World Team of the Year. Bojan (Barcelona), Dodô (Corinthians), Dudu (Cruzeiro), Salvador Flores (Pumas UNAM), Peter Gulásci (MTK), Eden Hazard (Liverpool), Kroos, Maicon (Fluminese), Nicolas N’Koulou (AS Monaco FC), Neymar, Sotiris Ninis (Panathinaikos), Kyrylo Petrov (FC Timişoara), Carlo Alfredo Piatti (FAR Rabat), Rafael (Man Utd), Diego Renan (Cruzeiro), Salinas, Walid Tounsi (ES Tunis), Danny Welbeck (Man Utd).
• Under 18 World Team of the Year. Chase Carroll (DC United), Coutinho (Inter), Dodô, Dudu, Flores, Michele Gori (Leverkusen), Valeriy Korotkevich (PSV), Mathias Kühn (Leverkusen), Iker Muniain (Athletic), Neymar, Minas Pagonis (Panathinaikos), Piatti, Gabriel Ramos (Mallorca), Fatjon Rroshi (KF Tirana), Serge Simo (Köln), Patrick Stolz (Köln), Tounsi, Andrew Winstanley (Dundee Utd).

World Footballer of the Year for 2010, Real Madrid's Kaká.

Young superstar, At. Madrid's Sergio Agüero.

DC United's Chase Carroll, the most hyped of the USA's Generation Next.

2009/2010 European Goalscorers

All players in top European leagues who scored twenty or more league goals.

30 Roberto Soldado (Getafe)

27 Mevlüt Erdinç (Paris Saint-Germain)

26 Emmanuel Adebayor (Manchester City), Oscar Cardozo (Benfica), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

24 Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Barcelona)

23 Ismaël Bangoura (Stade Rennais FC), Robbie Keane (Tottenham), Claudio Pizarro (Werder Bremen), Mirko Vucinic (AS Roma)

22 André-Pierre Gignac (Toulouse FC), Paulo Henrique (sc Heerenveen), Liédson (Sporting CP), Hélder Postiga (Sporting CP), Luis Suárez (AFC Ajax)

21 Mamadou Bagayoko (OGC Nice), Cheick Diabaté (AS Nancy Lorraine), Lisandro López (Olympique Lyonnais), Milan Purovic (Sporting CP), Miguel Sabah (RC Lens)

20 Amauri (Juventus), Yannick Djaló (Sporting CP), Edin Dzeko (VfL Wolfsburg), Javier Saviola (Benfica)

Getafe's Roberto Soldado, the highest league goalscorer in Europe.

Mevlüt Erdinç of Paris Saint-Germain