Did you ever wonder who the best free kick taker on the pitch is?
What is the first name in your mind? Probably most of you came up with David Beckham or Ronaldinho.
Both have an excellent technique for shooting a free kick.
But there are others who can do it as well. What about Alessandro del Piero, he netted a beautiful 2nd goal for Juventus in the last Champions League game against Real Madrid.
Or Andrea Pirlo, who likes to hit a free kick with the top of his toes By hitting the ball this way, the bal seems to stay dead in the air. As a keeper you practically can’t see which way the ball is going in this case as it can turn into any direction.
Or one of my favorites, Juninho is an absolute free kick specialist. In his last Champions League game he scored his 40th free kick goal since he’s playing at Olympicue Lyon. He isn’t afraid to take a free kick from anywhere on the field and scores from it also.
Here’s a video were Pirlo and Juninho are shooting some free kick’s
But the best free kick I’ve ever seen, isn’t from Beckham, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Pirlo or even Juninho. No, it’s from a Brazilian super defender who’s playing for Fenerbace right now, Roberto Carlos. The swing he gives the ball in this free kick is never seen before.
I’m sure I’m forgetting lots of other free kick takers here, but these are the few players I admire for their free kick capabilities.
Which free kick players do you admire?
Tags Midfielders • Goals • Brasil • England • France • Italy • Permalink
Italy’s Inter Milan coach, the flamboyant Portuguese trainer José Mourinho accidently (or not) slipped out his yearly wage to a reporter on last week’s Champions League press conference.
Before the match Inter Milan – Werder Bremen (ended up in a 1-1 draw), Mourinho dared a reporter to give him 11 names for Wednesday’s match without criticizing them afterwards.
The reporter told him he would do it, if he could get a share in Mourinho’s 9 Million Euro yearly wage at Inter.
Mourinho, who’s known to make bold pronunciations, answered him that he doesn’t earn 9 Million Euro for his coaching job, but 11 million Euro. He also added that if you also take the advertising income into account he’ll even earns up to 14 Million Euro a year at Inter.
Not bad for somebody that started out as a translator for Sir Bobby Robson at Sporting Lisboa in the early nineties. When Sir Bobby Robson left Sporting Lisboa to Coach Spain’s FC Barcelona, Mourinho followed him. When Sir Bobby Robson left Barcelona, Mourinho stayed and helped out the new head coach , Dutchman Louis Van Gaal.
Sir Bobby Robson once told he never saw anybody so passionate about soccer and anybody that reads the game as well than José Mourinho.
After training the FC Barcelona B squad for a couple of years, Mourinho got the opportunity to get back to his country of birth and coach Benfica in the year 2000. After only 9 league games in the Portuguese Championship he quit his coaching job at Benfica because the newly appointed president of Benfica got an eye on another head coach.
In January 2001 he started out as the new head coach of União de Leiria. At the end of the season they’ve ended up on the 5th place, the highest place in their club history.
One year later in January 2002, Mourinho was appointed to be the head coach of FC Porto. In his first year at Porto he finished 3rd. He even said he would make Porto Champions next season.
He kept word and lead FC Porto to the top of the leaderbord with 11 points in front of Benfica and he’d won the Portuguese Cup and the Uefa Cup final .
The next year he again won the Portuguese Competition and to top it all he managed to win the Uefa Champions League with a 3-0 win in a surprising final against AS Monaco.
After this he moved to Chelsea and most of us do know his story since then.
In his few years at Chelsea he has won 2 Premier League titles (‘04/’05 and ‘05/’06), 2 League Cup’s (‘04/’05 and ‘05/’06), the FA Cup in 2007 and the Community Shield in 2005. Only the big trophy in Europe didn’t come on this impressive list.
Now, in his first year at Inter, he has already won the Italian Supercup against AS Roma, beating them on penalties 6-5 after the game itself ended in a 2-2 draw.
Inter’s website has already published an announcement saying that Mourinho, who has a 2 year contract earns a lot less than the amounts that are being told.
My guess is that this is not completely true, I believe Mourinho 
Tags News • Trainers • England • Italy • Portugal • Champions League • Uefa Cup • Permalink
Today La Gazzetta dello Sport published a list of the biggest moneymakers in the Italian Serie A.
I’m cutting this list to the Top 5 money makers.
His yearly wage is around 5,5 million euros and to most of the fans he’s worth every penny because he can be genius at some times. For some kind of reason he knows where he has to be on the pitch in the crucial moments.
What can we say about Buffon other then he’s one of the best goalkeepers in the world for the last decade or so. He continuously plays at an extraordinary level without making too much mistakes.
It must be a joy for the defenders of the Juventus squad if you know that your goalkeeper is Gianluigi Buffon. Without a doubt he’s worth the 5,5 million euros a year.
Maybe next year Buffon will be rising in the biggest moneymaker list, not in Italy, but in the world’s list. Manchester City supposed to make a bid of 75 million euros for him and are looking forward to get him in their team.
It’s no surprise that Ronaldinho is appearing in this list, the only surprise I found was that he’s only ranked third with 6,5 million euros.
This is Ronaldinho’s first year in the Italian competition, but he won’t have any problems adjusting to the Italian play style. I only hope he can get back his form like 2 years back at Barcelona, what a season will AC Milan have then?
2nd player from AC Milan in the Top 5 is Kaka with 9 million euros. After long speculations on moving to Spain (Real Madrid or Barcelona), Kaka extended his contract with Milan until 2013. The World Soccer player of the year 2007 is starting his 6th season at AC Milan and his very keen on winning more trophies. The signing of fellow countryman Ronaldinho made sure that AC Milan has two of the best playmakers in the world and that in one team!
Number one in the list is Swedish international Zlatan Ibrahimovic with 11 million euros.
Ibrahimovic who came to Inter 2 years back after Juventus was banned to the Serie B, is known for his excellent technical skills and decision making plays.
You’ll never know what he’s going to do with the ball unless you’re too late.
So far he won 2 Dutch titles and one Cup with Ajax, 1 Serie A championship with Juventus, 2 Serie A Championships and 2 Super Cup’s with Inter.
Knowing his ability on the field and the other players from Inter, hopefully for him he can win a big prize in Europe this season.
In total the Italian teams are paying 768 million Euro this season on player wages. That’s 102 million more than last season. Both the teams from Milan (Inter and AC) are paying the most to their players, in total 120 million Euro each.
Looks like Manchester City is definitely working to build a magnificent squad.
After buying Vincent Kompany from Hamburg SV and Robinho from Real Madrid, they’re trying to get Christiano Ronaldo from rivals Manchester United.
They say if Ronaldo wants to play with the biggest team in the world he has to come to us. They’re willing to pay United 170 Million Euros for transferring him to their squad in January 2009.
Or are they trying to play with his mind in the meanwhile after losing their bid on Berbatov to Manchester United.
Another rumor is that they made a 75 Million Euro bid on goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon from Juventus.
Juventus will be very stupid if they deny the bid I think. But will Buffon be willing to make the move? He’s used to play in good weather conditions most of the time and England has even worse weather then Belgium 
We’ll surely hear more from it in the next couple of weeks. But one thing Is sure, on the next transfer period, there will be millions of euros exchanging between Manchester City and other teams.
Tags News • Transfers • Goalkeepers • England • Italy • Permalink
This is Honduras 2nd time they’ve qualified for the Olympic tournament, the first time was in Sydney in 2000. Back then they’ve ended third in the group stage. With one of the most talented generations since a long time, they hope to do better than in Sydney.
The squad:
1 Kevin HERNANDEZ
2 Quiarol ARZU
3 David MOLINA
4 Samuel CABALLERO
5 Erick NORALES
6 Oscar MORALES
7 Emil MARTINEZ
8 Rigoberto PADILLA
9 Carlos PAVON
10 Ramon NUNEZ
11 Luis RODAS
12 Jorge CLAROS
13 Hendry THOMAS
14 Jefferson BERNARDEZ
15 Luis LOPEZ
16 Marvin SANCHEZ
17 David ALVAREZ
18 Obed ENAMORADO
Jefferson Bernardez and Hendry Thomas are two of the best players in the team.
Tags Cameroon • Honduras • Italy • Korea republic • Olympic Soccer tournament • Permalink
In Athens 2004, they went through to the next round for the first time in their Olympic history, can they do this again?
I think it will be very hard if you see that they have to play Italy and Cameroon, who in my eyes will fight for the 1st and 2nd place of the group.
The squad:
1 JUNG Sung Ryong
2 SHIN Kwang Hoon
3 KIM Dong Jin
4 KANG Min Soo
5 KIM Chang Soo
6 KIM Jin Kyu
7 OH Jang Eun
8 KIM Jung Woo
9 SHIN Young Rok
10 PARK Chu Young
11 LEE Chung Yong
12 KI Sung Yueng
13 KIM Seung Yong
14 BAEK Ji Hoon
15 KIM Kun Hoan
16 CHO Young Cheol
17 LEE Keun Ho
18 SONG You Gual
Key players: Chu Young Park and Kim Jin Kyu.
Tags Cameroon • Honduras • Italy • Korea republic • Olympic Soccer tournament • Permalink
As a former Gold medal winner (Sydney ’00) Cameroon again qualified for this year Olympic Games.
Although they’ll have to play very well this time to achieve the same result. All the pressure seemed to be on the defenders as their attackers did very well in the qualifying stage. But as long as you score more goals then your opponent, there’s no problem
The squad:
1 Amour TIGNYEMB
2 Albert BANING
3 Antonio GHOMSI
4 Andre BIKEY
5 Alexandre SONG
6 Stephane MBIA
7 Marc MBOUA
8 Georges MANDJECK
9 Frank SONGOO
10 Christian BEKAMENGA
11 Gustave BEBBE
12 Paul BEBEY
13 Nicolas NKOULOU
14 Aurelien CHEDJOU
15 Serge NGAL
16 Joslain MAYEBI
17 Alain OLLE
18 Alexis ENAM
Arsenal’s Alexandre Song will be leading the midfield of the Lion Cubs. And if they score as well as in the qualifying stage, maybe a medal is possible?
Tags Cameroon • Honduras • Italy • Korea republic • Olympic Soccer tournament • Permalink
After defeating Portugal on penalties in the qualifying stage for this Olympic tournament, Italy are named as the outsiders for the Gold medal. In one of the best competitions of the world, the youth players will learn quickly what they have to do to make it to the top.
The squad:
1 Emiliano VIVIANO
2 Marco MOTTA
3 Paolo DE CEGLIE
4 Antonio NOCERINO
5 Luca CIGARINI
6 Domenico CRISCITO
7 Riccardo MONTOLIVO
8 Claudio MARCHISIO
9 Tommaso ROCCHI
10 Sebastian GIOVINCO
11 Giuseppe ROSSI
12 Daniele DESSENA
13 Andrea CODA
14 Robert ACQUAFRESCA
15 Salvatore BOCCHETTI
16 Lorenzo DE SILVESTRI
17 Ignazio ABATE
18 Andrea CONSIGLI
Players to keep an eye on are Claudio Marchisio and Giuseppe Rossi. Rossi, who play’s for Villareal is a joy to watch and he scores from every angle. I feel he’ll be one of the contenders for the golden boot of the tournament.
Tags Cameroon • Honduras • Italy • Korea republic • Olympic Soccer tournament • Permalink
Yesterday AC Milan proudly announced their newest aquisition for the 2008/2009 season in the Italian Serie A.
They signed Ronaldinho from Barcelona until June 30th 2011. Here he will meet his Brazilian teammates Kaka and Pato.
With this signing AC Milan already take an option for next seasons title in the Serie A and hopefully for them a good campaign in the Uefa Cup.
It’s believed AC Milan made a deal with Barcelona for around 8 million Euro.
Last week Barcelona also received an offer from Manchester City of 35 million Euro, so I doubt they’ve let him go for 8 million Euro to Milan.
Now we can only hope that Ronaldinho will find back his form he had before his leg injury that also placed him on Barcelona’s transfer list.
Tags Transfers • Attackers • Midfielders • Italy • Spain • Uefa Cup • Permalink
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