Bayern Munich with 10 men only draw again and novice 1899 Hoffenheim won second match in a row and is leading the standings….read more

Hannover 96	0 - 0	Energie Cottbus
VfB Stuttgart	0 - 2	Bayer Leverkusen
Hamburg SV	2 - 1	Karlsruhe
Borussia Dortmund	1 - 1	Bayern Munich
Werder Bremen	1 - 1	Schalke 04
Hertha Berlin	1 - 1	Arminia Bielefeld
TSG Hoffenheim	1 - 0	Borussia M’gladbach
1. FC Köln	1 - 1	Eintracht Frankfurt
VfL Bochum	2 - 2	VfL Wolfsburg

Standings

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

The semi-final match between Argentina and Brazil was attended by the legendary player Diego Maradonna, who said that he never saw Brazil play this poorly. According to Maradonna Brazil didn’t have a chance to turn the match around, because their offense was nonexistence and Ronaldhino was a loner without support. He also criticized Brazil’s coach Dunga for being too cautious when fielding the squad for the match. Dunga’s coaching position is already under scrutiny and there is strong possibilities he may get fire.

Zenit St Petersburg’s striker Andrei Arshavin won’t be joining Premier League club Tottenham this season. According Zenit’s website, Tottenham didn’t meet their demands. Tottenham agreed on personal terms with Arshavin but the deal apparently fell through because of the high transfer fee.

Presently injured Bayern Munich striker Luca Toni should be available for Bundesliga match with Borussia Dortmund this weekend. Toni who joined Bayern last season and scored 24 goals in 31 matches, said recently that he is happy in Germany but wants to end his career in Seria A. In an interview for a German newspaper he said: “I think I will end my career in Italy. I am stuck on 99 goals in Italy and I would like to reach 100 in Serie A, but there is still a lot of time.”

Toronto FC midfielder Maurice Edu signed a five-year contract to join Glasgow Rangers in Scotland. The Rangers will pay MLS $5 million dollars in transfer fees but the deal is subject to getting a work permit for Edu. The 22-year-old Edu would join another American DaMarcus Beasley who is with the Rangers since 2007. Edu made his international debut for the United States in October 2007, making six starts.

Brazil and the USA will meet again in the final of the Women’s Olympic Soccer Tournament. The teams met three times in the last two and half months and the US won all three of them. That makes the 2004 Olympic champions a slight favorite to win. But according to Brazilian striker Cristiane, her team is ready for revenge. She said: Yes, everything is falling into place for that to happen. It seems like someone has written this story just for us.” The final will be televised at 9:00 am EST on the USA channel with the bronze-medal match on MSNBC at 6:00 am EST.

The Czech Republic returned to Wembley Wednesday for the first time since they lost to Germany at the Euro 2006. They faced England for the first time under the leadership of new coach Karel Rada.  The Czechs had more possessions in the opening minutes and Milan Baros opened the score in the 22nd minute. England upped the tempo, got more chances and Wes Brown headed one in from Beckham’s corner kick in the 45th minute. The Czech team started the second half with a bang taking the lead from Marek Jankulovski’s free kick in the 48th minute. Once again England had more goal scoring chances but couldn’t finish them. The Czech defense made a terrible mistake in extra time and Joe Cole’s goal gave the poorly playing host team a draw at last.

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Chelsea opened the Premier League season with a convincing 4-0 victory over Portsmouth. Joe Cole, Anelka, Lampard and new signing Deco were the scorers. Arsenal scored their first goal in the fourth minute by newcomer Nasri, but struggled to add more against newly promoted West Bromwich. Arsenal is still without Tomas Rosicky who should return next month, after a lengthy recovery from leg surgery. Another newcomer, Stoke City also lost, but third rookie team Hull City beat Fulham 2-1. The big surprise was Tottenham’s defeat by Middlesbrough and Manchester United could only come up with a draw with Newcastle. Liverpool struggled throughout the whole match with Sunderland and it was Torres who secured the three points for the team. The hero for Aston Villa fans has to be Agbonlahor who scored three goals within eight minutes in the second half. EPL standings…

Bundesliga got off to roaring start with a lot of goals and plenty of action. Newcomers Hoffenheim started their Bundesliga campaign with a historical away win over Energie Cottbus. Dortmund also scored an away win with a 3-2 victory over Leverkusen. It took only four minutes for Dortmund to score, but Bayer tied the match 17 minutes later. Dortmund scored two more and Leverkusen only managed one more goal with eight minutes to go. Schalke didn’t give much chance to Hannover and sent them home with a 3-0 loss. Wolfsburg had to work hard for their victory being one goal down in the first half. Second half saw an improved host team scoring two goals. Bayern Munich’s new coach Jurgen Klismann saw only a 2-2 tie with Hamburg SV and the newly promoted Borussia Monchengladbach lost to Stuttgart 1-3. Hertha Berlin outplayed Eintracht Frankfurt by a score of 2-0. Brazilian Raffael and Patrick Ebert scoring the goals. Bundesliga standings…

French Ligue 1 continue with round 2 with a majority of the matches being played on Saturday. Le Mans went home with an impressive 3-1 win over a sluggish Lille. Monaco managed to only draw with Nantes, Nice beat Nancy,  Saint-Etienne and FC Toulouse also won. Sunday’s match between Lorient and seven time champion Olympique Lyon saw a hard fought battle ending in a goalless draw. Meanwhile Grenoble won their second match in row and that propelled the team to the top of the standings. It was Nassim Akrour’s early goal that secured their 1-0 victory with Stade Rennais. The other Olympique, Marseille trashed Auxerre 4-0 and is slowly emerging as one of Lyon’s main opponents. Ligue 1 standings…

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Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson will have the services of striker Wayne Rooney for Sunday’s match with Newcastle. Rooney contracted a virus on the team’s trip to Africa last month, but is healthy and ready to play now. It was believed to be malaria according to some early reports, which was denied by the club. Ferguson now has at his disposal two strikers, but he will be without injured Cristiano Ronaldo.

There is a talk about Bruce Arena taking over LA Galaxy. He watched the match between Galaxy and Chivas and Thursday night with the club’s president and CEO Tim Leiweke. Galaxy parted early this week with coach Ruud Gullit and Cobi Jones filled in on an interim basis. Leiweke said, “I personally think he’s the best coach in the history of the league and we’d be lucky if we can get him here.” Arena’s last coaching job was with the NY Red Bulls were he resigned last November. The match ended in a 2-2 tie after Alan Gordon scored from a header in injury time.

The Olympic Soccer tournament continues Saturday with the quarter-finals and we should see a couple of interesting matches. 2004 Olympic champion Argentina will face a strong Dutch squad with names like Babel, Makaay or their leading scorer Gerald Sibon. Brazil against Cameroon will try to avenged their loss to this African team in the 2000 Sydney games. Cameroon knocked them out in the quarter-finals and went on to win the gold medal. In the other two matches Italy meets Belgium and Ivory Coast is facing Nigeria. Italy is a favorite in this match especially after Belgium’s biggest star Vincent Kompany left the Olympics for his Bundesliga team Hamburk SV.

Struggling Chelsea striker Claudio Pizarro was on loan to Werder Bremen, where he played in from 1999 to 2001. He than moved to Bayern Munich and in 2007 signed with Chelsea. But the 29-year-old Peruvian didn’t live-up to his reputation and became mostly a substitute during the last season. He appeared in 21 matches, scoring only two goals.

Major League Soccer expansion team the Seattle Sounders made their first big signing by getting Kasey Keller from Fulham. Keller was born in Washington state and started his soccer career with the Portland Timbers back in 1989. He played in England, Spain and Germany. Keller said: ‘When I started my career in Europe, I always said that I wanted to finish playing back at home in the US.” He represented the US in four World Cups, appearing 102 times for the national team.

After a US men’s team disappointing knock-out by Nigeria, the US Women’s team lived-up their potential and reached the semi-finals by beating Canada 2-1. The winning goal came in the 11th minute from Natasha Kai into the extra time.  The match was suspended for almost two hours because of lightning. The US team will now meet the underdog Japan who beat host country China. In the other semi-final match, tournament favorite Brazil will face Germany.

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The US Men’s Olympic soccer team is heading home after they lost to Nigeria on Wednesday by a score of 2-1. They were handicapped from the beginning after Michael Orozco got a red card for a needless elbow foul four minutes into the match. Not having Freddy Adu and Michael Bradley didn’t help either, but all the team needed was a tie. Nigeria opened the score in the 39th minute and added one more in the 79th minute. The US converted a penalty with two minutes to go in regular time. The Americans came close in the closing minutes but Nigeria, the 1996 Olympic champions managed to survive the late surge.

Frank Lampard has put speculations to an end about him leaving Chelsea. After 18 months of contract talks the 30-year-old signed a five-year extension and had this to say, “I feel for sure I’ve made 100% the right decision, for myself, for my family and for Chelsea Football Club.” Lampard was at one point linked with a move to Inter Milan and Barcelona.

Mario Balotelli who is considered to be one of the world’s best young talents, became an Italian citizen on Wednesday. His parents are Ghanaian immigrants, but he was adopted in 1990 by the Balotelli family. By Italian law he had to wait until he turned 18 to become an Italian citizen. He hopes that this will open door for him to the Italian national team. Nicknamed Super Mario, Balotelli joined Inter in 2007 making 11 appearances and scoring 3 goals.

Dynamo Kiev trashed their old rivals Spartak Moscow by a score of 4-1 at Spartak’s home field in Luzhniki Stadium. Spartak went ahead with a goal in the fourth minute, but Dynamo regained the rhythm and scored two goals before half-time. They added two more in the second-half and all but qualified for the Champions League. More results here…

Republic of Ireland coach, Trapattoni announced that Liverpool defender Steve Finnan has agreed to return to international soccer. Finnan was nominated for a friendly against Norway on August 20. The 32 year-old Finnan announced his retirement from international soccer early this year after appearing in 50 matches for the Republic of Ireland.

The Bundesliga kicks-off this weekend and its biggest signing is Bayern Munich new coach Jurgen Klinsmann who replaces Ottmar Hitzfeld. The opening match will pair old rivals Hamburg SV against Bayern Munich.

Bundesliga: Round one: August 15,16,17

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Another twist to Cristiano Ronaldo’s soap opera with Real Madrid. Spanish sport’s daily Marca reported that the player is not going back to Manchester. He wont be at the negotiations today instead letting his agent do the talking for him. All that despite the fact that Man Utd’s coach Ferguson had met with Ronaldo in Lisbon last month and claimed that Ronaldo would likely remain at United next season. Real Madrid is reportedly offering around $140 million dollars for Ronaldo.

Real Madrid’s midfielder Wesley Sneijder injured himself during a friendly match with Arsenal in London. Coach Bernd Schuster told Spanish newspaper Marca, “Sneijder is not right, and we’re all frightened by his injury. Sneijder’s  MRI scan Monday reveled ligament damage in his left knee. He will be out for three months and the good news is he doesn’t need surgery. The 24 year old Dutch international joined Real last year from Ajax Amsterdam.

Netherlands striker Ruud van Nistelrooy told Dutch national team coach Bert van Marwijk that he has retired from international soccer. The 32 year old said, “The combination of Real Madrid’s competition, cup and Champions League games on the one hand and the Netherlands team on the other, would be too heavy a burden for me.” In ten years he has been playing for the national team van Nistelrooy scored 33 goals in 64 matches.

Arsenal striker Eduardo thinks he will be back on the field by Christmas as he makes good progress recovering from a broken leg injury. He suffered a double compound fracture of the left leg in a tackle from Birmingham’s Martin Taylor early this year. The Brazilian-born 25-year-old Croatian international underwent a battery of tests and he hopes for an early return.

Real Madrid paid $20 million dollars for Dutch international midfielder Rafael van der Vaart from Hamburg. “Last night everything came together, and I am now moving to Real Madrid,” said van der Vaart. The 25-year-old Hamburg captain joined the German club in 2005, scoring 29 goals in 74 Bundesliga matches.

Man Utd coach Alex Ferguson told a press conference today that Wayne Rooney will miss the start of the EPL season due to a virus. Rooney and several other players became ill after the pre-season club’s trip  to Nigeria. According to the team it’s not malaria, just a bad virus Rooney caught in Nigeria. Without Nani, Aderson and Ronaldo  Man Utd is running out of strikers and the club may regret sitting on sidelines this transfer season.

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Bayern Munich started their Asian tour with a 4-2 win over Japanese club Urawa Red Diamonds. Miroslav Klose opened the scoring on a cross from midfielder Zé Roberto. But it was Lukas Podolski who stole the show by scoring a hat-trick. Several big stars are out injured and this was Podolski’s chance to shine and he did.

The Superliga which is a competition between the US and Mexican clubs reached an all time low on Wednesday night. The match between New England Revolution and Atlante saw 40 fouls, 11 yellow cards, 6 red cards, 4 of them after regulation time. Things got really nasty after the final whistle when  players from both teams attacked each other. The stadium security had to be called in to brake up the fights and separate both teams.

According to Spanish sports daily newspaper AS, Cristiano Ronaldo has not given up on his desire to move to Real Madrid. The player’s agent Victor Mendes had a message from Ronaldo to Real, “Keep calm, I’ll sort things out next week. I will go to Manchester and tell them I only want to play at Real Madrid and that the decision is non-negotiable.” At the same time Manchester United insists that there is no chance they will sell Ronaldo, not even for the reported $134 million dollars. The 23 year old Ronaldo signed a new contract in 2007 which keeps him in Man Utd till 2012. The saga goes on.

Russian Premier League club Samara beat Saturn 4-0 in a match where former Czech international Jan Koller set-up two goals. Koller came to Samara from Bundesliga club Nuremberg this June in a deal worth $1.57 million dollars. There he joined former Celtic Glasgow player Jiri Jarosik, also a Czech international. The 35 year old Koller who started his soccer career as a goalkeeper had his best years with Borussia Dortmund where he played in 137 matches scoring 59 goals.

Teams participating in Men’s Olympic Soccer tournament revealed today the official list of their squads. Thanks to FIFA’s order telling the clubs to let theirs players go to Olympics, we will see some of the best in the game. Pato, Ronaldhino, Riquelme, Babel, McBride, Kalou and Rossi are a few of the big stars.  Argentina is the 2002 defending champion beating Paraguay 1-0 and Carlos Tevez winning the Golden shoe by scoring 8 goals. The tournament will open in Shanghai on August 7 with Australia vs Serbia.

Tottenham paid close to $38 million dollars for Blackburn’s midfielder David Bentley. The 23 year old who started his career with Arsenal signed with Tottenham for six years. Bentley, who was called  the “new David Beckham” by England’s former manager Steve McClaren, said It means the world for him to join Tottenham. He is known for his impressive technique and crossing ability.

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Israel international Tal Ben Haim has joined Manchester City from Chelsea. The 26-year-old signed a four-year contract with City for an undisclosed fee. He said: ‘I spoke with my agent and even though we had some better offers I preferred to come here because I think it’s a good club with a lot of ambition. As I’ve said, we want to do better things here than over the last few years.”

FIFA could soon claim victory in dispute with major European clubs over releasing of their players for the Olympic soccer tournament. FIFA issued a statement which read: The single judge of the Players’ Status Committee, Slim Aloulou (Tunisia), decided today, 30 July 2008, that the release of players under the age of 23 for the Men’s Olympic Football Tournament Beijing 2008 is mandatory for all clubs. Previously, on 29 July 2008, the FIFA Emergency Committee also took a decision in the same sense.

Former US international striker Brian McBride signed with MLS team Chicago Fire until the end of the 2009 season. The 36 year old who is heading for Beijing Olympic soccer tournament as of one three over age players, played last for Fulham in Premier League. He joined Fulham in 2004 scoring 32 goals in 139 matches. He was often considered to be one of the best headers in the Premiership during his time there.

Bayern Munich midfielder Franck Ribery will have a metal screw removed from his left ankle on Friday. Ribery injured his ankle ligaments during this summer’s EURO 2008 tournament in a game against Italy. He is hoping to be fit by early or mid-September just like other big name stars Luca Toni, Franck Ribery, Tim Borowski who are all recovering from variety of injuries.

Dynamo Houston beat Mexican team Pachuca 2-0  to advance to the Superliga final. Houston had to wait for their first goal till the 77th minute when Bobby Boswell scored off a corner kick.  Corey Ashe added a goal in the 87th minute on final 2-0. In the “all American Final” Dynamo will face New England Revolution who defeated Atlante of Mexico by a score of 1-0 on Tuesday night. The final will be played on August 5th at Foxboro’s Gillette Stadium.

Champions League continues with the first leg of the second qualifying round and we saw a couple of unexpected results.

Tuesday July 29
FC Baku (Azerbaijan) 1 Partizan Belgrade (Serbia) 1
Brann Bergen (Norway) 1 Ventspils (Latvia) 0
Drogheda United (Ireland) 1 Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine) 2

Wednesday July 30

Anorthosis Famugusta (Cyprus) 3 Rapid Vienna (Austria) 0
IFK Gothenburg (Sweden) 1 Basel (Switzerland) 1
Tampere United (Finland) 1 Artmedia Bratislava (Slovakia) 3
AaB Aalborg (Denmark) 5 Modrica (Bosnia) 0
Domzale (Slovenia) 0 Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) 3
Anderlecht (Belgium) 1 BATE Borisov (Belarus) 2
Fenerbahce (Turkey) 2 MTK Hungaria (Hungary) 0
Beitar Jerusalem (Israel) 2 Wisla Krakow (Poland) 1
Rangers (Scotland) 0 Kaunas (Lithuania) 0
Panathinaikos (Greece) 3 Dinamo Tbilisi (Georgia) 0
Sheriff (Moldova) 0 Sparta Prague (Czech Republic) 1