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Slovak team Artmedia Petrzalka managed to tie 1-1 with Juventus at home but a team from Turin won the first match 4-0 and advanced to the first round of the Champions League. Petrzalka opened the score with a goal in the 13th minute by Fodrek but Juventus leveled the score 10 minutes later and controlled the rest of the match. Even better results came from Wisla Krakow who beat European giant Barcelona 1-0. But Wisla also lost their first match 4-0 and will now enter the UEFA Cup competition alongside Artmedia.

Chelsea is ready to offer $48 million dollars for Real Madrid’s Robinho. His agent Ribeiro said,”The deal is about to be reached.”  The 24 year-old Brazilian was booed by fans during a weekend match against Valencia and is now desperate to leave Real. Robinho joined Real from Santos in 2005, scoring 25 goals in 101 matches.

Andriy Shevchenko is back at Milan and will try to get a starting place on the team and win the Milan’s fans back. “The most difficult challenge now is to win over the people who were disappointed when I left. Now I’m back I’ll try my hardest, it’s all I know how to do,” said the 31 year-old striker. He first joined AC Milan back in 1999 and left for Chelsea after 7 years. Chelsea paid a then-record transfer fee of $25 million for him.  Shevchenko was in and out of the starting lineup because of injuries, never earning a permanent starting position.

Tottenham will sign a Russian player after all but instead of Andrei Arshavin they will get striker Roman Pavlyuchenko from Spartak Moscow. The 26-year-old was his country’s top scorer at the Euro 2008 with three goals. Pavlyuchenko has a very impressive scoring record in Spartak Moscow as well, scoring 75 goals in only 145 matches. He should be a good replacement for Berbatov who may leave Tottenham for Manchester United.

Former Liverpool, Aston Villa and Lyon player Milan Baros signed a three-year deal with Turkish champions Galatasaray Istanbul.The Czech international was the top scorer at the Euro 2004, having his best years with Liverpool winning the Champions League trophy in 2005. The 26 year-old Baros will team-up in Istanbul with former Anfield team-mate Harry Kewell and will try to rekindle his career.

The same Uzbekistan team who made $30 million dollars offer for Samuel Eto’o last month will sign Rivaldo from AEK Athens, according to the player. The 36-year-old midfielder said that Bunyodkor made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. “It has been a tough day. I had to make a very difficult decision. Something very positive has come up late in my career and I cannot turn it down,” said Rivaldo during a radio interview.

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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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US Women’s Olympic Soccer team trashed New Zealand 4-0 and qualified to the quarter-finals. Only 41 seconds into the match is when Heather O’Reilly scored the fastest goal in Women’s Olympic soccer history. Amy Rodriguez, Lindsay Tarpley and Angela Hucles added one goal each. The US finally  showed the confidence everyone expected from them after a surprising loss to Norway. In the quarter-finals they will face Canada, a team they beat four times this year alone.

Contrary to earlier reports that Former Chelsea coach Avram Grant was killed by a landing plane he is alive and well, says his spokesman. Grant who is in Namibia on charity work, was waiting on the tarmac with his family when a small plane crashed about 30 yards from them. The plane was completely destroyed but the pilot managed to survive. Grant was fired by Chelsea this May and is presently “retired from soccer”.

The opening of the EPL this weekend may see Dimitar Berbatov wearing a Manchester United jersey. According to unofficial reports, Tottenham Hotspur agreed on a $56 million dollar transfer fee for the 27 year-old Bulgarian striker. Berbatov has made no secret of his desire to join Manchester, but Tottenham’s initial asking price of $72 million dollars was too much even for Man Utd. This would be a boost to coach Ferguson’s plans to reinforce the striking line since key players are out with injuries.

Strikers Adrian Mutu and Alberto Gilardino scored one goal each in the win against Slavia Prague in this third qualifying tie of the Champions League on Tuesday. Slavia wasn’t much of a threat to Fiorentina and only a few fine saves by goalie Martin Vaniak prevented the Italian side from scoring more goals. Fiorentina is well on their way to group stage with this win, and will return to Champions League after eight years of absence.

Brazilian striker Robinho who showed interest in joining Chelsea, reportedly told his team Real Madrid if they double his salary to almost $8 million dollars then he would stay.  According to sports newspaper AS, Real is only prepared to offer $5.5 million dollars. Robinho wants to join Chelsea where his paisano Luiz Felipe Scolari is the coach. Real supposedly turned down a $37.5 million dollar offer from the Premier League club for the 24 year-old Brazilian star.

English Premier League season will start on Saturday August 16 with Arsenal hosting newly promoted West Bromwich Albion. The other promoted teams are Hull City and Stoke City.  Once again the US viewers will be able to watch the EPL matches on Fox Soccer Channel.

Socceroverload.com will post weekly TV schedules of the EPL matches.

Schedule of EPL’s week one

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Another high profile European club was dumped out of the Champions League competition. Belarus Club BATE Borisov overcame 10-man Anderlecht in 2-2 draw on Wednesday. Yesterday the Glagow Rangers, this year’s UEFA Cup finalist, were defeated by the weaker FBK Kaunas from Lithuania. Rapid Vienna met the same fate, losing to unknown Cypriot’s Anorthosis Famagusta on 4-3 aggregate. Champions League will continue with a third qualifying round from August 12 to 27. The 16 winners of the third qualifying round ties join a similar number of automatic entrants in the 32-team group stage.

US Women’s soccer team lost their opening match at the Olympic Games to Norway by a score of 2-0. Norway scored two quick goals in the first four minutes Wednesday and never lost control of the match. The U.S. team, without injured leading scorer Abby Wambach, was sluggish and out of sync. They have two more games to go, facing Japan and New Zealand. The U.S. men’s team will face Japan on Thursday and you can watch the match on MSNBC at 4:55 EST.

The latest news from Cristiano Ronaldo’s camp confirmed his pledge Wednesday to stay with Manchester United for the coming season. But Ronaldo expressed his desire to join Real Madrid in future. Ronaldo said. “For some time what I wanted was for Manchester to have agreed to my transfer to Madrid,”  “Saying otherwise I would be fooling myself and others.” Alex Ferguson blames the Spanish club for too aggressive approach to the matter.

Despite a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, upholding an appeal from top European clubs, Liverpool said that they have no intention of recalling their players from China.  Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano, Ryan Babel and Lucas Leiva are at the Olympic Games in Beijing to compete for their country. Rafa Benitez knows that taking them out of the tournament would probably make them upset and unhappy. It’s not known at this moment what other clubs will do.

FC Barcelona won an easy match on Wednesday night beating the NY Red Bulls 6-2 at a friendly in front of 38,152 fans at Giants Stadium. Barca coming out of Sunday’s 5-2 victory against Chivas de Guadalajara opened the scoring in the 17th minute from Hernandez. Eto’o added two goals and Rafael Alverz Marquez, Jeffren Suarez, Pedro scored one each. Seth Stammler and Jorge Rojas scored for the Red Bulls. Barca coach Josep Guardiola made 8 substitutions compared to 5 by New York coach Juan Carlos Osorio. It was the last friendly match for Barcelona on their North American tour.

The latest world soccer rankings published by FIFA on Wednesday showed Spain still holding top spot. Germany climbed from third into second changing places with Italy. Brazil meanwhile fell to number six, their lowest ranking in 15 years. Argentina is seventh, France twelfth and England fourteenth. USA occupied thirty first spot, second lowest ranking since being thirty fifth in 1997.

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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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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

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Semi retired Brazil international Cafu may be heading to Australia. The 38 year old Cafu is reported to have signed with Australian A-League club Golden Coast United. The club is looking for some big names and Cafu despite his age, should still be an asset to the Australian Club.

MLS expansion plans are heading north according to MLS’ commissioner Don Garber. Canadian cities Montreal and Vancouver look to be in the race for the next two expansion teams. Garber said “We think soccer can ultimately assume a place beside hockey as Canada’s national sport.”

Borussia Dortmund beat Bayern Munich 2-1 and retained their German Super Cup title. Dortmund’s Blaszczykowski opened the score in the first half and Hajnal added second goal a few minutes later. Bayern  added to the score making it 2-1 by a goal from Ekeci, but Borussia remained firmly in control through most of the match. It was the first defeat for Bayern Munich’s coach Jurgen Klinsmann after taking over the team on July 1st.

Chelsea’s coach Luiz Felipe Scolari insisted Frank Lampard is staying with the club despite lucrative offers from clubs like Inter Milan. Scolari said “Frank is staying with us. Finished.” Reports have it that Chelsea is offering Lampard $300,000 dollars a week in five year deal.

In preparation for next week’s Champions League match, Sparta Prague lost at home with French Ligue 1 team Rennes 2-0. Sparta started with their full squad including new signing Patrick Berger from Aston Villa and Bony Wilfried from Ivory Coast. Rennes opened the score in the 9th minute from a penalty kick by Leroy. Moreira added a second goal in the 60th minute after putting one over the goalie’s head.

Inter Milan’s new coach Jose Mourinho was booed by the team’s fans after he decided to hold training sessions behind the close door. Mourinho apologised to supporters and gave this explanation “Among the fans that come to transmit their support and affection to the team there are also coaches and scouts from other teams that may be our future rivals in the coming season.”

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It took Jose Mourinho only one day in his new job before he started the cleaning process at Inter Milan. His list of players that will be put up for sale includes Hernan Crespo, Dejan Stankovic, David Suazo, Adriano and Nicolas Burdisso. Muorinho is planning to use the money from the sale to do a couple of big signings, one of them is rumored to be Frank Lampard from Chelsea.

Most of the EURO 2008 matches are sold out and one way to get tickets is to bid for them on Ebay.com. The website has set up a special section where fans can bid on them. Asking prices vary anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars for single ticket to 12,500 dollars for package of four tickets for the finals.

Sven-Goran Eriksson is the seventh European to coach the Mexican national team. Just days after he was let go from Manchester City club, he got the vote of confidence from the Mexican Soccer Federation. Several of Mexico’s biggest stars were against his hiring, arguing they need someone who is familiar with Mexican soccer and who speaks their language.

FC Porto was banned by UEFA from competing in the Champions League next season. Porto was involved in the Portuguese Liga bribery scandal in 2004. Despite the fact that the club lost 6 points and was fined 15,ooo euros, they won the Liga’s title and qualified for Champions League.

The Italian national team suffered a blow before the start of the EURO 2008 after their captain Fabio Cannavaro injured his ankle during training practice. Cannavaro had successful surgery today, but is out of the EURO 2008 tournament. He will be replace by Fiorentina’s Alessandro Gamberini.

Mark Hughes became the new manager of Manchester City after his former club Blackburn agreed on a compensation package worth of 9.2 million dollars from Manchester. He will replace Sven-Goran Eriksson who was released by Manchester on Monday. The 44 year old Hughes who played for Barcelona, Man Utd and Bayern Munich among other clubs retired from playing in 2002 and became Blackburn’s manager in 2004.

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According to the Mexican Soccer Federation, Sven-Goran Eriksonn will be introduce as the new coach of the Mexican national team next week. He beat Portugal’s Luis Felipe Scolari for the job. Eriksonn is presently coaching Manchester City, but after poor second half of the Premier League season he fell out of the favor with team’s owner Thaksin Shinawatra.

The MLS team, Seattle Sounders FC didn’t have to look for their sponsorship too far from home. Today Microsoft and XBOX 360 announced they will be the team’s new sponsors for next five years. When the Sounders take on their first match they will wear jersey with XBOX 360 logo on it for which Microsoft payed the team 20 million dollars.

Czech international and AC Milan defender Marek Jankulovski became Czech Footballer of the Year on Wednesday. He finished ahead of Chelsea’s Petr Cech and Arsenal’s Tomas Rosicky. Jankulovski represented his country in 63 matches, scoring 10 goals.

UEFA is considering banning FC Porto from Champions League for the next season. The reason for that is Porto’s involvement in Portuguese Liga bribery scandal. In a similar case AC Milan was banned for the 2006/2007 Champions League but later had the ban overturned on appeal.

Lithuania received an official apology from the Czech Soccer Federation for playing Litvia’s national anthem instead of theirs before the match between the Czech Republic and Lithuania. The Czech Federation information director was fired and another official was fined because of the mishap.

The friendly match between USA and England saw the US being totally outplayed by the English team. The final score was 2-0, thanks to Steven Gerrard and John Terry goals. The US showed very little on Wednesday night and they are now 2-7, an all time record against England.

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Czech club Sparta Prague is showing interest in signing their former player Jan Koller. The 35 year old Czech International is presently playing for German Nuremberg which was relegated to the second division this season. Koller joined Nuremberg in January from AC Monaco, but scored only two goals and spent the end of the season as a substitute.

The fight for the top spot in Copa Libertadores will continue today with the semifinal match between Mexican America and Liga de Quito from Ecuador. On Wednesday in the other semifinal Boca Juniors will take on Fluminense. America upset Brazilian team Santos and Liga de Quito overcame one of the favorites, San Lorenzo of Argentina to reach the semifinals.

England’s coach Faboi Capello named John Terry the captain for the friendly match with the USA on Wednesday at Wembley. There were some questions about how well Terry has recovered mentally after missing a penalty kick in the Champions League final last week. Capello said this about his decision to make Terry the captain “It is very important to be a leader and John Terry is a leader.”

The three nation Kirin Cup tournament was won by Japan after they played to a scoreless draw with Paraguay on Tuesday. Paraguay also tied with the Ivory Coast 1-1, but Japan beat them by a score of 1-0 and that gave them the overall victory. The teams used the Kirin Cup as preparation for their World Cup qualifiers next month.

“FC Barcelona and Manchester United have reached agreement for the transfer of Gerard Pique to the Catalan club. Gerard 21, will sign a four year contract with Barcelona,” said the message you could read on Barcelona’s Web site Tuesday. Pique joined Manchester United four years ago from Barcelona. He played only 23 matches and with players like Nemanja Vidic or Rio Ferdinand he found increasingly difficult to break into the first team.

EURO 2008 starts on June 7 and as a part of a campaign against racism in soccer, the tickets for the Euro 2008 will carry Unite Against Racism message. FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe) and FIFA will promote race diversity in soccer during the tournament through different activities. An opening day reception by FARE will kick start all of these activities with the involvement of former soccer players, the European Commission and UEFA.

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Czech International and Fiorentina’s captain Tomas Ujfalusi is on his way to the Spanish Primera Liga. This would be his third European League after Czech Gambrinus Liga and German Bundesliga. He said that his dream is to play in many different countries and end his career in the American MLS.

Argentine club Fluminense reached the Copa Libertadores semi-finals on Wednesday after beating Sao Paulo 3-1. Fluminense striker Washington scored a pair of goals and Dodo added one. Fluminense is schedule to meet Boca Juniors, who have already won the Cup six times.

FC Dallas coach Steve Morrow was shown the door after a string of poor results recently. The “last drop” was Dallas’ loss to LA Galaxy at home by a score of 5-1. Morrow who is from Northern Ireland and played in Dallas for two years, took the team to the playoffs last year.

Manchester United won their third UEFA Champions League title by beating Chelsea on penalty kicks. The match ended 1-1 in regular time and overtime. Cristiano Ronaldo surprisingly missed his penalty kick, but so did Chelsea’s John Terry and Nicholas Anelka and that gave Manchester the victory.

Manchester City match with makeshift South China team was most likely the last for coach Sven Goran-Eriksson. Manchester lost this one 3-1 and was the team’s fourth loss in a row. Eriksson’s future with the club has been a subject of speculation for a several weeks now.

The 34 year old Ryan Giggs played his 759th match for Manchester United on Wednesday and broke Bobby Charlton’s all time appearance record. During his career with the club Giggs won an impressive 10 Premiership titles, 2 Champions League Cups and 4 FA C