Women’s Soccer:

US Women’s team overcame powerful Brazil by a close score of 1-0 and earned its third gold medal in four Games.

In a contest where both sides played rather cautiously, the USA was the lucky to get one in extra time.

The US were outplayed and overwhelmed for most of the night, but Carli Lloyd scored in the 96th minute to give the US the victory.

Brazilian coach Jorge Barcellos summarized his team’s misery: “We didn’t win a silver medal tonight; we lost a gold one.”

USA: Solo, Mitts, Rampone, Markgraf, Chalupny, Tarpley, Boxx, O’Reilly, Lloyd, Hucles, Rodriguez

Brazil: Barbara, Simone, Tania, Costa, Skarbo, Maycon, Daniela, Formiga, Ester, Marta, Cristiane

Mens Soccer:

Brazil beat Belgium 0-3 and won the bronze medal, little consolation for their loss to Argentina .

Diego opened the scoring in the 27th minute on a cross from Rafinha. Jo added one his own at the 45th minute and added a second goal in injury time.

Brazil was mostly in control, but Belgium had a few good chances of their own. Belgium’s Maarten Martens and Thomas Vermaelen came dangerously close to scoring, but could not convert.

Brazil once again came away empty in their quest for Olympic gold. They already have another bronze from Atlanta in 1996 and two silver medals from the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.

Ronaldinho said: “The bronze medal may not be important from the Brazilian’s point of view right now but in the future we will be proud.”

Brazil: Renan, Rafinha, Silva, Marcelo, Breno, Hernanes, Anderson, Ronaldhino, Ramires, Diego, Jo

Belgium: Bailly, De Roover, Vermaelen, Pocognoli, Simaeys, Haroun, Vertonghen, Martens, De Mul, Mirallas, Dembele

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.

Brazil routed Argentina 3-0 in last year’s Copa America but it was Argentina’s turn this time and they did it in style.

Sergio Aguero who hadn’t been heard from much so far this tournament, scored two second-half goals in seven minutes. His first goal in the 52nd minute was reminiscent of Maradona’s “hand of god” goal. I’m sure this will be highly debated by Brazilian fans, but to pointless abandon. Aguero’s second goal came seven minutes later from a 2 yard kick and to put the nail on the coffin, he also set up a 76th-minute penalty kick that was awarded to Argentina after a foul on him.

But it was Lionel Messi who stole the show. He created many scoring opportunities and set-up two of the goals.

Brazil looked a little disoriented throughout the match and lost two players at the end because of red cards. It didn’t help either the fact that Brazil’s star Ronaldhino wasn’t really a factor in the match. Pato came on the field as a substitute, but his goal was disallowed because of offside.

Argentina will once again face Nigeria in the final, a rematch of the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta.

Argentina:Romero, Garay, Monzon, Zabaleta, Pareja, Gago, Riquelme, Di Maria, Mascherano, Messi, Aguero

Brazil: Renan, Rafinha, Silva, Marcelo, Breno, Hernanes, Anderson, Leiva, Ronaldhino, Diego, Sobis

Nigeria ran over Belgium 4-1 in the other semi-final match at Shanghai’s International Stadium. The 1996 Olympic champions reached the finals for the first time in 12 years.

Nigeria opened the score in the 17th minute by Adefemi who stroked a deflected ball in from 12 yards. Then striker Chinedu Ogbuke Obasi scored twice in the second half and Chibuzor Okonkwo added the final goal in the 78th minute.

Belgium kept pace with the Nigerians in the first hour or so but fell apart at the end. The seventy-fifth minute substitute Laurent Ciman scored the lonely goal for Belgium.

The surprise of the tournament will meet with Brazil for the bronze medal match.

Nigeria: Vanzekin, Okonkwo, Apam, Adeleye, Olubayo, Kaita, Ajilore, Obasi Ogbuke, Obinna, Okoronkwo, Odemwingie

Belgium: Bailly, De Roover, Pocognoli, Simaeys, Haroun, Vertonghen, Martens, Vanden Borre, De Mul, Mirallas, Dembele

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

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.

Men’s soccer Olympic tournament finished on Wednesday with it’s group qualifying matches.

Cameroon, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Nigeria, Netherlands, Belgium and Ivory Coast all qualified to the quarter-finals.

US team came close to qualifying, needing only a tie, but with only ten men they were no match for the Nigerian team.

Brazil and Argentina won their groups without losing a point and remain the tournament favorites.

August 13 results

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

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

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

The US Men’s soccer team will need to draw or beat the very good Nigerian team to advance from their Group B. The US will have to do it without suspended Michael Bradley and  Freddy Adu. In the other Group B match the Netherlands will fight Japan for their chance to advance to the quarter-finals. The Dutch have to win to qualify, a rather surprising situation for them considering their strong squad.

The Community Shield match ended 0-0 in regular time, followed by a penalties shoot-out which went the Manchester United way. Portsmouth was  struggling and despite the striking duo of Defoe and Crouch they showed a disappointing performance. Coach Ferguson sent out a strong squad led by Gary Neville who finally saw some action after a lengthy recovery from an injury. Man Utd clearly missed their striker Ronaldo and Ferguson may have to come up with a solution to the team’s weakened strike force.

Brazil led by Ronaldhino showed no mercy and destroyed New Zealand by a score of 5-0. It took Brazil only four minutes to open the score from a header by Anderson.  Pato put in another one after the half-hour mark. Ronaldhino himself contributed two goals and Rafael Sobis added the fifth goal deep into extra time. Brazil leads Group C with six points from two matches without conceding a goal.

LA Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit and  president/general manager Alexi Lalas are out of a job as of Monday. According to Galaxy’s boss Tim Leiweke, the recent string of a seven-match win-less streak demanded action. Former Galaxy player Cobi Jones was named interim coach while the team looks for a new man to fill the post. LA Galaxy remains fourth in the Western Conference with 23 points.

Due to war conflict in Georgia UEFA decided to move the UEFA Cup match  between WIT Tbilisi and Austria Vienna to Rize in Turkey. War conflict between Russia and Georgia could also interfere with World Cup 2010 qualifier between Georgia and Republic of Ireland in September. Irish Soccer Federation asked FIFA to move the match away from the capital Tbilisi.

French Ligue 1 opened a new season over the weekend and Olympique Lyon looks like a title contender once again. Sunday’s comfortable 3-0 victory over Toulouse set them on track for a possible eight league title. Jean Makoun opened the scoring in the 12th minute from a free kick by Brazilian Juninho. Striker Karim Benzema added two goals in the second half.

Complete standings in Men’s Olympic soccer tournament after matches played on Sunday August 10.

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

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.

The Men’s Olympic soccer tournament starts on August 7, a day before Olympic games official opening. Sixteen teams from all continents will be competing for Olympic gold. Defending 2004 champion Argentina is once again  the favorite to win the gold .

For the tournament, each country will nominate 18 players, four other players have been included as possible replacements. 15 players must be born on or after 1 January 1985, plus 3 can be over-age players. The official lists of teams squads were revealed on Thursday and with names like Messi, Pato, Babel, Adu, Riquelme and Ronaldhino there will be plenty of quality matches

Five cities will host the tournament with the final on August 23 in Beijing. The NBC Olympic Soccer Channel, CNBC, Telemundo and MSNBC will show complete coverage of all 58 Men’s and Women’s matches from China.

Make sure to keep visiting Socceroverload.com for updated results from Men’s and Women’s Olympic soccer tournament.

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

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.

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

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

CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER

Brazil beat Singapore 3-0 in preparation for the Olympic Games.  Ronaldhino played the entire 90 minutes putting to rest questions about his physical readiness for the game. He set up the first goal and scored one of his own seven minutes later. Looks like AC Milan’s decision to sign him will pay off after all.

Manchester United has scaled down their pursuit of Berbatov mostly because of friction between Alex Ferguson and Tottenham. The team shifted their interest to Therry Henry but no word on that has come from  the player himself or Barcelona’s club. Coach Ferguson believes the Barcelona striker could do a similar job to Berbatov and for less money.

Liverpool confirmed the signing of Robbie Keane today for a four-year contract from Tottenham Hotspur FC for a fee of $38 million dollars. Keane said that this is a dream move for him after turning down the club 14 years ago. He joined Tottenham in 2002, scoring 107 goals in 197 matches.

Brazil defeated Italy by a score of 5-3 and won their third straight Beach Soccer World Cup title Sunday. Italy was already down 5-0 when a five-minute burst from their players Paolo Palmacci, Roberto Pasquali and Diego Maradona Jr. netted three goals.  In a third place thriller, Portugal overcame Spain 5-4.

Troubled Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton was released from jail on Monday. He served 74 days of a six-month sentence for assault. Newcastle coach Kevin Keegan said “I told him as long as from now on he did things right and started to rebuild the confidence of people around him, I would stick by him.”

Peruvian winger Nolberto Solano is considered a short-term deal in England while his agent tries to cut a deal with LA Galaxy of MLS. He was released by West Ham at the end of the 2007–08 season scoring 4 goals in 23matches. The 33-year-old Solano, who plays trumpet as a hobby, said he looks forward to going to the MLS and play with top players like David Beckham or Landon Donovan.