Archive for the ‘International Teams’ Category

Dutch Coach: My Main Madrid Players Need More Madrid Playing Time

Friday, February 6th, 2009

Netherlands National Football Team
Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk is starting to get ticked off that his two main players, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Rafael van der Vaart, are not getting enough playing time with their club, Real Madrid. He isn’t full on P.O. ‘ed yet, but he’s getting there.

van Marwijk should be concerned about Real’s health overall. While Huntelaar and van der Vaart are two of the better Real Madrid/Dutch players, Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder also play on both teams and provide valuable contributions. Real Madrid has turned into real breeding ground for Dutch football. Clarence Seerdoff did time at both squads as did Ruud van Nistelrooy until he quit the Dutch team last year. And newcomer Royston Drenthe currently plays the wing for los blancos with the hopes that he’ll someday play for his country.

I’ll just assume that Bert van Marwijk isn’t a Barcelona fan.

Courtesy Reuters.

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Obama Victory Pumps Up the National Kenyan Team for the 2010 World Cup

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

Cool article from The Punch In Nigeria.

Now that Kenya’s favorite son, Barack Obama, has been elected US President the national footie team there has been “energized” to bring it to all their World Cup competitors when it hits South Africa in 2010.

They’ll have to get past Ghana,Egypt, the Ivory Coast, and South Africa itself, and that’s if they get out their qualifying group stage and do better than Nigeria. They’re gonna need energy, a LOT of energy. Still, I wish them good luck

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Euro 2012 Stadium bosses in Poland quit

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

The two men in charge building the Warsaw football pitch have resigned due to an alleged conflict of interest having to do with their local government ties. Could be a coincidence but who knows. Story is here.

Sort of a follow-up to a post from yesterday.

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I just learned something new about football: DON’T MESS WITH UEFA

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

Along with my post yesterday about Angolan officials making sure that stadiums are ready for the 2010 ACON, I learned that punctual stadium construction is key when it comes to high-profile national or international competitions. This great article from Zerkalo Nedeli (a Russian term that loosely translates to “mirror of the world”) thoroughly lays out how there can be no screw-ups when such competitions happen on UEFA’s watch.

The 2012 Euro Cup will be jointly held in the Ukraine and Poland, for now at least. These countries are definitely not the poorest in Europe but in comparison to other countries on the continent, they’re not the most-developed. Because of this, UEFA has concerns that stadiums are on schedule to be ready to go when the tourney begins: they’re concerned about other things of course, but an abundant amount of proper pitches is at the top of the list. Factor in that most of UEFA’s budget for the next four years goes towards funding the 2010 competition, and you have a governing body that will watch you like a hawk and also has a Plan B folder somewhere if you drop the ball. And Plan B (along with Plan’s C and D) is mentioned early on in the piece.

This is a very detailed article…if you can’t read it now, bookmark it or read it at lunch.

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Chad and Sudan will play an ACON game

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

This game got canceled because of politics and is thankfully back on. To be played on September 10th, any chance that it’ll get televised anywhere? Probably not…gonna look for a live internet stream.

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Random News 8/5/08 (Rafael van der Vaart, Jose Mourinho, Best 11 African Players, LA Galaxy)

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

Hot with the bloggers yesterday was the news that Rafael van der Vaart left Hamburg for Real Madrid. This makes three Dutch Internationals to sign with the Spanish powerhouse (he joins Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wesley Sneijder). I expect a smooth transition into the team for Rafeal and am really to see how the team performs once Wesley recovers from his injury.

Past that, lots of cool stuff that I read on the blogs this morning:

As I stated yesterday, Inter Milan brought in Jose Mourinho to win the Champions League cup. Soccer Lens poses the question as to whether or not it’s possible. (Courtesy Soccer Lens)

Khalid Shakran over at Bleacher Report picked his Best 11 based on African players currently playing in Europe. I agree with it for the most part although I would reconsider switching the striker setup and put Dider Droba on the bench and Emmauel Adebayor start. Yes, I am a Chelsea fan and truthfully, it was Drogba that made me a Chelsea supporter after his performance in the ‘07 FA Cup, but the truth is that Adebayor had the better 07/08 season in the EPL.

Soccer by Ives pointed me to a GREAT story on SI.com covering the current drama happening with the LA Galaxy. Between losing their last six consecutive games, Landon Donavan wanting to play in England (See you at Fulham, buddy) and going all-in on David Beckham and not winning as much as expected, things are pretty rotten in the state of California.

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Ruud van Nistelrooy calls is quits from the Holland team

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Too bad…I thought that they had a GREAT showing in Euro ‘08 because of Ruudy.  He’s going to put is focus on Real Madrid, which I’m personally happy about.

Setanta reports here.

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