Posts Tagged ‘Brazil’
Friday, June 26th, 2009
Five days have passed since Italy’s whopping 3-0 defeat at the hands of Brazil, a match which put an an end to Lippi’s South African countryside scouting (one year before the big tournament) and sent the Azzurri home among general shrugs of indifference, frowned eyebrows, and sincere worries in the ranks of Italian supporters.
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Confederations Cup… Confederations schmuck
Something should be established right from the get-go in this article, and that is one has to take the FIFA Confederations Cup for its true value: a tournament of prestige, played to fill the gap between Euro and World Cup Summers and to make a certain FIFA mogul (whose name starts with S and ends with …epp Blatter) happy. Happy at proclaiming his love for the beautiful game, the continued globalization of football, the athletic clashing of cultures, and blah blah blah. All that is great for sports unity, but in terms of true football competition no one (certainly not the big teams) takes this tournament seriously. Certainly not to the extent of a Euro tournament, a Copa America, or the master of them all: the FIFA World Cup.
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Tags: Alberto Gilardino, Azzurri, Brazil, Fabio Cannavaro, FIFA Confederations Cup, Gianluca Zambrotta, Italy, Luca Toni, Marcello Lippi, South Africa, South Africa 2010, World Cup 2010
Posted in Azzurri, World Cup 2010 | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
It was a match between football titans, two giants in the history of the beautiful game and one of the most high-profile sporting rivalries of the past century. Between themselves Brazil and Italy represented 9 World Cup titles combined: as the two most succesful national teams in history faced off at the Emirates Stadium Tuesday, one can easily guess this was a match neither of them wanted to lose.
Well, based on the starting line-ups one team more than the other perhaps, and inevitably that is the team that ended up winning.
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Tags: Brazil, Carlos Dunga, Elano, International Friendly, Italy, Marcello Lippi, Robinho
Posted in Azzurri, International Competitions | Comments Off
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
The mother of all games, or as Lippi and Falcao tagged it, the ‘Derby of the World‘. As yet another week of international friendlies begins, fans everywhere will be eagerly anticipating some of the highest quality international football action in the year. I mean just think about it: Argentina vs. France and Spain vs. England all in the same week?
The most anticipated game of them all of course, will be Tuesday’s fixture at the Emirates Stadium of London, Brazil vs. Italy. These two teams have not faced each other since 1997 (a friendly tournament encounter to prepare for the France ’98 world cup) but boy do they have some serious history together. Who here doesn’t remember the 1970 and 1994 World Cup finals? Of course, we Italians would rather forget those and prefer to remember 1982′s 3-2 win with Paolo Rossi’s hat-trick. So far, previous encounters puth both teams on equal records: 12 matches, five wins a side and only two draws (including 1994′s 0-0 tie which lead to Brazil’s penalty-shootout victory).
For a cute trip down memory lane visit Francesco’s post over at the Italy Offside. In the meantime, let’s preview this epic showdown set to take place on Tuesday.
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Tags: Adriano Leite Ribeiro, Amauri, Brazil, Carlos Dunga, Italy, Julio Cesar, Marcello Lippi
Posted in Azzurri, International Competitions | 1 Comment »
Saturday, January 31st, 2009
Football is one of the greatest things in the world but it’s not perfect. It used to be perfect. Before money and television and the Bosman ruling and Baby Bentleys and roastings and tattoos and takeovers and no standing and agents and prawn sandwiches and rotation.
English newspaper The Times takes a stab at the “50 Worst Things about Modern Football”, or soccer as they call it North America. They also add “it could have been 500″.
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Tags: Added time, Autobiographies, Brazil, Champions League, Chelsea, Club Shops, Craig Bellamy, Electronic pitchside advertisement boards, FA Cup, Fans who complain when games are called off, Fat Bloke in Row P, Football, Formations, Fourth official, Gloves, Goal celebration music, Hi-Tech Dugouts, Injuries, Internet Message Boards, ITV, Joey Barton, Kaká, Kick-off Times, Let me Entertain You, Manager's programme column, Manchester City, Match of the day, Media training, Motorway service stations, Mutual Consent, New stadium, Official club websites, Official statements, Opinions, Points deductions, Premier League, Radio Phone-in shows, Referee's assistants, Robbie Williams, Rotation, Sky Sports News, Soccer, Squad Numbers, Statistics, Superagents, Takeovers, Tattoos, Technical Areas, Television, The Times, Trainline.com, Transfer Windows, Undisclosed transfer fees, Wembley Stadium
Posted in English Premiership, Player Profiles, UEFA Champions League, World News | 15 Comments »
Monday, October 20th, 2008
For the fourth time in FIFA Futsal World Cup history, Brazil conquered the gold medal on home turf Sunday morning. It was a match which all pundits anticipated to be a clash of the titans, with reigning World & European champions Spain providing a very worthy opponent for the Auriverde.
It the end, only a penalty shootout could settle a tied 2-2 score after extra time, during which substitute goalkeeper Franklin (stepping on precisely for that purpose) made two key saves on the Spanish shooters. After their gold in the Netherlands (1989), Hong Kong (1992), and Spain (1996), Brazil can chalk up a fourth title on the big Futsal chalkboard.
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Tags: Alvaro, Brazil, FIFA Futsal World Cup, Futsal, José Venancio Lopez, Marquinho, Paulo De Oliveira, Spain, Torras, Vinicius
Posted in Futsal, International Competitions | Comments Off
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