November 27th will be a special day to buy what you need. The Black friday after thanksgiving is a great opportunity to buy online clothes and sport apparel. Here some special deals from Amazon:
Books:
1. The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw: The Story of Robin Friday, a guy born in 1952 in Acton who spent his teenage years as one of the promising young players of England, but that never reached the success for lack of discipline and terrible injuries. At 21 he began playing football at anything approaching professional standard with Walthamstow in the Isthmian League…
2. My Soccer Book (perfect for young boys and girls): Soccer it’s fun! Let’s play! A very easy guide to teach young boys and girls how to learn Soccer by Gail Gibbons (“A Master of Children’s non-fiction”).
3. How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. “I suck at Soccer” that’s how the author of this book introduces it. Franklin Foer provides an explanation on how soccer distinguishes societes and cultures in all their aspects: one over all, the Globalization.
If you need to buy a Christmas gift for someone who likes soccer, check my list
Videogames, Pro Evolution Soccer: Konami announces the forthcoming update of the PES 2010 rosters. The update consists of the adjustment of team’s rosters to the last minute transfer markets deals and for statistics of some players. Moreover there will be four new teams in the Champions League: Fiorentina, Lyion, Atletico de Madrid and Olympiakos.
However, to access to this update from PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace you need to install the last update released few days ago by Konami that gets ready the game to accept new changes. Hence, for the players who hadn’t updated the game yet, the update will be two.
Konami also announces that, from the next year, another roster update will be released in relation to the January 2010 transfer market (this will probably happen in February). We expect also to have another update before the New Year’s Eve.
This update will be released as patch for the PC game version (also in this case you need to install the first PES 2010 patch released few days ago).
Transfer Market: in around a month (January 2010) the serie A transfer market is going to open for the winter session.
January 2010 is also the date from which the teams can sign the free agents for the next season (from June 2010), buying them for free, without paaying anything to their team.
Several players are going to be free agent, and some of them are very interesting: like Goran Pandev (Lazio) followed by Inter and Juventus, and Patrick Vieira (Inter). The list this year is very long and interesting.
Here is the list of 2010 football Free Agents in Serie A:
2010 World Cup South Africa: only a draw for Italy and Netherland in the first of the two friendly matches pre-World Cup 2010.
Italy – Netherland: in Pescara, the Coach Lippi line up the “Azzurri” with a 4-2-3-1. Antonio Candreva debùt for the first time in the national team. Together with him the comeback of Raffaele Palladino from Genoa. In the first half the match is substantially balanced: Netherland plays well with the ball and control the game, but Italy is fast in breakaway. Netherland has the best occasion of the first half: Kuyt shoot with the right foot and the ball goes very close to the goal. Palladino (who didn’t have a good start) answer to Kuyt with no success. In the second half Italy is more aggressive. Camoranesi, Rossi and Pazzini have good chances, and the last one scores, but with the hand, and the referee revokes the goal. The match finishes 0-0, a good match for both the teams.
Italy is going to meet Sweden next wednesday in Cesena.
2010 World Cup: tonight Italy will meet Netherland in Pescara for the first of the two friendly matches that start the official training for the South Africa World Cup. Marcello Lippi, for this match, selected two players that will make their debut in the national team (Biondini and Candreva) and some "old" entries. The TM's idea is to work on a group of 35 players for the next months and choose among them the team for the World cup. In the tonight match varsus Netherland, a hard opponent, Lippi is going to line up Candreva and Palladino, in a classic 4-3-3 scheme. In the Netherland, Sneijder (from Inter) seems to be chosen by Van Marwijk to play since from the beginning. Italy – Netherland line-up:
Netherland: Stekelenburg, Heitinga, Boulahrouz, de Jong, van Bronckhorst, Van Bommel, Van der Vaart, Kuyt, Snejider, Robben, Van Persie. Bench: Vorm, Velthuizen, Mathijsen, Braafheid, van der Wiel, Giovanni, Khalid, de Zeeuw, Schaars, Afellay, Engelaar, Huntelaar, Elia, Babel.
However we should not forget the play-off that will assign the qualification to 4 teams in Europe. Tonight 4 matches are going to be played:
Republic of Ireland – France: 0 – 1
Portugal – Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1 – 0
Greece – Ukraine: 0 – 0
Russia – Slovenia: 2 – 1
In the other divisions:Asia and Oceania: New Zealand beated Barhain and gained the access to the World Cup. North and South America: play-off between Costa Rica and Uruguay.
Christmas is coming, it’s time for christmas’ gifts. If you are planning to buy a gift to someone who likes, or is obsessed by soccer, there are a lot of things you can choose. We made a list of the best gift related to soccer in the market. The top of them are definitely the videogames: FIFA10 of PES 2010 for PS3, XboX 360, PSP, Wii are the most appreciated gifts. However there are some classic clothes that you can choose to buy.
Here’s a list of the top soccer gifts for Christmas:
1. FIFA 10: is the top seller among soccer videogames. The 2010 version of the game has been released few weeks ago. However if the beneficiary of the gift didn’t buy it yet FIFA or PES, then this is the right choice. Buy FIFA Soccer 10 for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, Wii
3. Messi #10 Barcelona Jersey: this is the most popular jersey of the year. Messi is going to be the European Footballer of the Year (Golden Ball) and Barcelona is actually the best team of the World.
4. Italy, USA, England Soccer Jersey: the World Cup is coming. On June 2010 the best national soccer teams are going to meet in South Africa for the final phase of the World Cup. (Click on the Jerseys to buy them)
World Cup History: the 1994 USA World Cup has been one of the most suffered edition of the football tournament for Italy and Italians. The team coached by Arrigo Sacchi alternated great victories to bad performances.
Despiting the final result (Italy lost versus Brasil at the penalties in the final) the italians, and not only them, will always remember the great emotions of the games won at the last second, the great goals of Roberto Baggio and, unfortunately, the last penalty missed by the same Baggio.
Italy-Nigeria 2-1: on July, 5th 1994 Italy and Nigeria met in Foxboro Stadium (Boston) to play the Round of 16 of the USA World Cup. Nigeria won the Group D, together with Bulgaria, eliminating the Argentina of Maradona. The opponent, Italy, finished the Group matches at the second place, where all the four teams had 4 point, and the scores made the difference.
It seems that Italy can play better than it did in the Group matches, but the start versus Nigeria is the same as before: after only 25 minutes Emmanuel Amunike scores for Nigeria. This goal is a terrible error of Italian defenders.
The public has to wait 50 minutes for the second emotion: at the 75th minute Gianfranco Zola, who substitutes Giuseppe Signori, has been sent off. A strange decision of the referee and the end of the hope for most of the italians.
However, when the fate of the Italian team seems decided, at the minute 88 Roberto Baggio scores one of the most memorables goals of his career. Supporters are in delirium: Italy received another chance. The match goes to the extra-time.
After 10 minutes of the extra time, something incredible happened: penalty for Italy. Again Baggio is the one who has to score. The result is well-known: Baggio saved this match and gave a new hope to the supporters. Here is the video of the highlights with the italian (historical) commentator Bruno Pizzul.
Italy – Nigeria line-up: Italy: Luca MARCHEGIANI, Antonio BENARRIVO, Alessandro COSTACURTA, Paolo MALDINI, Roberto MUSSI, Roberto BAGGIO, Demetrio ALBERTINI, Nicola BERTI (45′), Roberto DONADONI, Daniele MASSARO,Giuseppe SIGNORI (65′). Bench: Gianluca PAGLIUCA, Luca BUCCI, Luigi APOLLONI, Franco BARESI, Lorenzo MINOTTI, Mauro TASSOTTI, Dino BAGGIO (45′), Antonio CONTE, Alberigo EVANI,Pierluigi CASIRAGHI, Gianfranco ZOLA (65′). Coach: Arrigo SACCHI. Nigeria: Peter RUFAI, Augustine EGUAVOEN, Uche OKECHUKWU, Chidi NWANU, Finidi GEORGE, Rasheed YEKINI, Jay Jay OKOCHA, Emmanuel AMUNIKE (57′), Daniel AMOKACHI (35′), Sunday OLISEH, Michael EMENALO. Bench: Alloy AGU, Wilfred AGBONAVBARE, Ben IROHA, Stephen KESHI, Thompson OLIHA (57′), Samson SIASIA, Emeka EZEOGU, Victor IKPEBA, Efan EKOKU, Uche OKAFOR, Mutiu ADEPOJU (35′). Coach: Clemens WESTERHOF.
