The Champions League Final at Wembley this year will be an all German affair. At the start of the competition this is something that very few expected; the Bundesliga after all is continually overlooked in discussions of the best leagues in the world. Here are eight reasons why you should pay the Bundesliga more attention than you already do.
Philippe Coutinho is looking like an inspired signing for Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool, having bamboozled a number of Premier League defences since his arrival from Inter in January. He is one of fifty-one Brazilians to have appeared in the Premier League in total, with fourteen of those remaining active. Scroll down for an exhaustive look at the rest of the Brazilians in the Premier League!
With the amount of money in football nowadays, many take it all too seriously. They forget that it is after all just a game. Not Luis Suarez. It’s questionable (and granted more than a little unlikely) that he chose to bite his opponent Branislav Ivanovic’s arm in yesterday’s match in a bid to get a few laughs. In response to yesterday’s incident we’ve compiled a top ten of football’s funny moments.
It’s that time of the season where outpourings of emotion are ten a penny and indeed, Alan Pardew and Papiss Cisse themselves were particularly exuberant in their revelry against Fulham just a week ago! It’s not just those in the north east who know how to celebrate though… here are the best football celebrations of all time!
Everyone who’s anyone has Twitter nowadays. In the world of sport it’s given fans a unique opportunity to interact with players, one like no other in history, but it seems both fans and players alike are still adjusting to it. In this article Oddslife gives you the lowdown on who to follow in the footballing world; controversy, humour, philosophy – you name it, there’s a player who tweets it.
Whilst it continues to delight by churning out names of cult ‘heroes’ long forgotten from the decade that brought us Google, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, this article sets about picking a few gems and finding out where are they now.
It’s fair to say that I’m not a big Paolo Di Canio fan. I dislike his ostentatious manner. I thought the way he humiliated Swindon goalkeeper Wes Foderingham was extremely unnecessary and his departure from the Wiltshire club appeared totally bizarre, at least to the slightly uninformed observer. If I was Ellis Short I cannot say I would have been rushing to appoint Di Canio and I think they are worse off with the enigmatic Italian at the helm than they were with Martin O’ Neill.
Undoubtedly the most bitter of London football rivalries the clash has taken on a more significant note in the past few seasons with the rise of Tottenham Hotspur and accompanying fall of Arsenal. As it stands four points now separate the two clubs with Spurs occupying fourth and Arsenal in fifth, albeit with a game in hand.
There’s undoubtedly a fair amount of subjectivity when considering which football kits are the best, but here are a few of the current numbers that ought to tickle your fancy. The more daring manufacturers tend to traverse a difficult line between fashion faux pas and magnificence, so hopefully these ten lean towards the latter.
In light of Carl Ikeme’s incredibly unfortunate injury this week (for those who don’t know, the Wolves goalkeeper injured himself punching a tactics board at half time, still angry at Dave Davis’ calamitous own goal in which he was culpable) we’ve compiled a list of the funniest football injuries ever. Get ready for sheer stupidity and embarrassment!
We take a look at the ins and outs of Rio’s England recall and discuss whether it’s really such a good idea. 81 caps, a lot of injuries, a lot of controversy, a lot of tweeting in the last couple of years and certainly a lot of eulogising from the red half of Manchester. But is Roy doing the right thing in handing the 34-year-old another shot at international football?
Whilst he may have preferred an alternative scenario to make his 1000th senior career performance, Ryan Giggs put in a typically strong and energetic performance in a game in which he was three years the senior of the next oldest player on the pitch; the referee. The Welshman recently signed a contract which will keep him at Old Trafford past his 40th birthday!
In the first instalment of a new Oddslife feature, we take a look at some of the weekend’s action from continental Europe. Hopefully readers of the round up each week will get a head start in the Oddslife predictor game with some extra knowledge of who the continent’s form teams are! Our European player of the week this time – Arjen Robben.
Liverpool vs Swansea is one of the biggest fixtures this week as the Reds look to bounce back from a difficult week. Can Brendan Rodgers lead his side to success against the Swans? Swansea may be worth a punt; especially as the Anfield club have failed to win in four outings since they pulverised a shell-shocked Norwich in mid January.
In a Euro-Centric footballing world, we take a look at how Brazilian domestic football is organised! It’s fair to say that Brazilian football is a pretty exciting place to be at the moment. A World Cup on home soil is less than five hundred days away, and golden boy Neymar has pledged his immediate future to the country.
The 2013 January transfer window came to a relatively quiet end last week, although Premiership clubs still managed to spend £130 million – a full £70 million increase on last year’s total outlay! Despite this, David Beckham’s move to PSG rightly stole the spotlight, as he agreed to donate his entire 5 month salary to a Parisian children’s charity.
What is the best strike partnership in world football? Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney? Mario Mandzukic and Thomas Muller? In an era where the front two is being phased out, we take a look at the possible options. Is there a dynamic duo that we’ve criminally missed? Leave us a comment or tweet us @Oddslife with your best strike partnerships!
£90 million pounds. That’s the base figure in additional earnings that clubs receive for promotion to the Premier League. And, according to Adam Bull of Deloitte, this figure is set to increase with the league having secured a £3 billion deal for TV rights from 2013/14. This will mean even the club that finish bottom will receive over £60 million.
The Suarez handball against Mansfield has polarised pundits, and as the forward isn’t exactly the most loved player away from Merseyside it has proven a rather easy stick to beat him with. Here’s a clip of it, but surely the Suarez handball wasn’t as bad as these?
Reading have it all to do. Despite already climbing to the dizzying heights of nineteenth, they were bottom of the pile at Christmas and as the curse indicates, that means bidding the Premiership adieu at the end of the season.
It’s that time of the year where awards are thrown out with reckless abandon and the nitty gritty of league football is swapped for a glitzy ceremony in Switzerland. Among the prizes handed out on the 7th of January will be the much coveted Ballon d’or award, awards for the coach of the year, women’s player of the year, the fair play award and more. So first off, the big one:
Forget Christmas. The footballing festive period begins in January as managers throughout the country search for that missing link; a proven goalscorer, an undiscovered gem or a midfield dynamo. Whoever he is and wherever he plays is irrelevant; if he can make a difference in the latter half of the season then it’ll overshadow any gift a manager or true fan could have hoped to receive.
You want a good team, but can’t be bothered to play endless amounts of games to afford just one or two decent players? Getting no luck in the gold pack lottery? This guide is for you. Be aware that there isn’t a sudden method to make you a millionaire, but here is a fairly concise guide on how you can be making thousand coin profits in absolutely no time.
For those of you fully immersed in the heat of the Fantasy Premier League battle, I have a January 2013 solution! Watch out for the African Cup of Nations, activate your transfer wildcard and get this cost effective crop of players on board! Despite their eye catching starts to this campaign, you can still afford this title winning squad!
On December 5th 2005 Harry Redknapp returned to Portsmouth tasked with saving the club from relegation to the Championship. At the time they were languishing in the relegation zone with just ten points from fifteen games. Despite this, he managed it, and in doing so cemented his place in the hearts and minds of Portsmouth fans for years to come.
Arsene Wenger’s mid-table Gunners take on the Europa League chasing Baggies! Okay, so we all expect Saturday’s hosts to overcome their recent dip in form, but they need to start picking up points soon. They will also have to make do without Lukas Podolski and Theo Walcott for this important clash. Can Long, Lukaku and co help spring a surprise? I doubt it.
Clubs are monitored over first two and then three year periods and are essentially expected to spend no more than they earn over that time-frame, with the first real analysis coming in 2013/14. It’s not meant to be an overt discouragement to clubs paying over inflated fees, but it certainly means teams have to watch their spending and make sufficient cash from TV money, commercial revenue, ticket sales etc. to cover expenditure.
Even at this relatively early stage of the season, it seems like the Manchester clubs are competing in a 2 horse race for the title. Rafa Benitez has struggled on his return to the Premier League, starting with 2 goalless draws, and Fernando Torres doesn’t look like finding form any time soon.
This time one year ago, Newcastle were one of two unbeaten teams in the Premier League and found themselves 3rd in the table. Fast forward one year and Alan Pardew’s team have just recorded their fourth straight loss and are suffering their worst form since relegation from the top flight in 2008/09.
It did not take long for clubs around the world to sit up and take notice when news filtered through that David Beckham is looking for one last challenge before retirement. Every club knows what signing Beckham means; they are not just acquiring a footballer, they’re also getting the brand that comes with him.
It’s too early to judge the ‘Benitez effect’ on Fernando Torres, but the Spaniard’s performance against Manchester City on Sunday did little to convince onlookers that a return to form is imminent. The 28-year-old was leaden footed, regularly beaten to the punch by Vincent Kompany and Matija Nastasic and had frighteningly little influence on the game.
This time last week, no one would have imagined that Roberto Di Matteo would be the first Premier League manager casualty of the season, but amazingly that’s what has happened and new interim Manager Rafa Benitez faces a tough first game as Chelsea welcome the champions to the Bridge.
With Di Matteo out and Rafa Benitez on his way to the Bridge, the Spaniard is set to become the tenth manager of the Abramovich era. The Spaniard famously won the Champions League with Liverpool in 2005 and will no doubt be under intense pressure to do the same for the Blues with immediate effect.
The media appear to need very little encouragement to sink the knife into Andre Villas-Boas, so after every difficult result or debatable team selection we get a press feeding frenzy. A cocktail of the Harry Redknapp love-in and a general mockery of AVB’s time at Chelsea create a seemingly potent mix to throw at the Portuguese boss, where other managers would surely escape ridicule.
England currently lie in second place in their World Cup Qualifying group, but given the quality of teams in the group, I think it’s fair to say we all expect them to qualify easily. In midweek we saw an inexperienced England side suffer at the hands of a certain Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and with Roy Hodgson handing 3 players debuts this week, the line up come 2014 is still anyone’s guess.
Key battles at the top and bottom of the Premier League take centre stage this weekend, with the North London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham and QPR vs Southampton the two stand out games of this weeks round of Premier League matches. Let us know what you think will happen in the Premier League this weekend!
Charlton look set to announce Paul Elliot as the new club chairman in the near future. Elliot is a former Addick who also played for Celtic and Chelsea. After retiring he became a leading equality campaigner and received an MBE for his work with young players and involvement with anti-racism.
Roy Hodgson rose one or two eyebrows on Sunday when he added Crystal Palace forward Wilfried Zaha to his 21-man squad ahead of Wednesday’s friendly with Sweden. The Daily Mail quickly reported with a hint of embellishment that Zaha saw himself only below Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the footballing hierarchy!.
The pressure is really starting to mount at the bottom of the table, and this week could see the first manager casualty of the year if there isn’t a drastic turnaround in fortunes for the likes of QPR and Southampton. Elsewhere we have 2 heavyweight clashes to look forward to as Liverpool travel to Stamford Bridge and Man City welcome Spurs.
The month of November always makes Premier League managers look over their shoulder in fear of facing the axe, and this year is no exception. Since the beginning of the Premier League in 1992, 21 managers have been sacked this month, the most of any other month. This year looks like it may prove more of the same!
The tide had turned. At least that was how observers painted the gains of Women’s Olympic football, in which Team GB saw off Brazil in front of 70,584! For a fleeting moment, gone was the derision, technical criticism and the pervading sexism that football was nothing but a man’s game.
The furore over last weekend’s games continues, but so does the football! After Manchester United’s controversial win at Stamford Bridge, they host Arsenal in Saturday’s early fixture. One to brace yourselves for, especially after the Gunners’ midweek exploits!
Following a goal-fest in this week’s Capital One Cup matches, the Premier League returns with some mouth-watering clashes on offer!! Get your predictions in on Oddslife!! Arsenal, who amazingly overturned a 4 goal deficit to win 7-5 against Reading on Tuesday, have the most daunting task of all as they travel to Old Trafford.
Luis Suarez was again the name on everybody’s lips after last weekends Premier League games, and again, it wasn’t necessarily for his brilliance on the ball. Suarez produced one of the moments of the season after scoring last Sunday as he ran to David Moyes before diving in front of him after hearing the Everton managers comments about him.
Remember this for the next time you find yourself involved in a debate on football trivia; there are currently seven clubs that, since the conception of the Premier League in 1992, have never been relegated. Hold tight with that answer though cos come May the number may have fallen to six.
After that completely incredible tennis score at the Madejski last night it’s time to have a look at some of the highest scoring and most farcical results in recent history. We’ll try and keep things as ridiculous and improbable as last night’s cup tie, so if you like goals, this is the place to be – unless you’re a Reading fan!
Huge excitement surrounds the Barclays Premier League this week, with some really eye catching fixtures on show. Sunday will bring 2 of this season’s most eagerly anticipated games so far, the Merseyside Derby as well as Man United’s visit to Stamford Bridge.
When watching Manchester United down the years, we have became accustomed to watching their wingers devastate defences. Beckham and Giggs, Ronaldo and Nani, Young and Valencia; all have played a part in successful title winning sides in a system that was seemingly ingrained into the clubs DNA.
Oddslife readers have been particularly interested in which players to sign on Fifa 13, but what about their style of play? Formations are the bread and butter of the game, in Ultimate Team particularly. A bad choice can turn your decent team into a poor one, while those pesky formation cards price some players out of the more popular systems.
Of the three footballing league teams from Glasgow, one were extremely unfortunate not to come away with a point against Barcelona at the Nou Camp on Tuesday night. In somewhat different circumstances the other two battled it out on Saturday to go top of the Scottish Third Division.
