CZECHO’S SOCCER CORNER
The Olympic Soccer Tournament starts on August the 6th but we won’t see too many well known stars playing there. Their clubs are refusing to release their stars even though the players have been nominated by their countries and showed desire to go to the Olympics. The Club’s main argument bad timing because it interferes with the beginning of the European Soccer season and the possibilities of losing players to injuries.
A group called Camorra which is branch of the Napoli mafia tried to purchase Seria A club Lazio. Roma’s police arrested 10 people in an operation called “Broken Wings.” Among the people who were detained is Napoli businessman Giuseppe Diana known for his connections to Camorra. Lazio won the Serie A title back in 2000 but has been struggling the last few seasons.
Real Madrid’s captain and Spain’s all-time leading scorer, Raul, is hoping he will return to the national team under new coach Vicente del Bosque. Raul who fell out of favor with former Spain coach Luis Aragones, played his last international match back in September of 2006. Del Bosgue was Raul’s coach in Real Madrid and Raul has this to say about the new Spanish coach. “He’s a person who can bring forward the work of the past years.”
The collapse of real estate markets is worldwide, hitting all walks of life and soccer is one of them. Several clubs in the Spanish Primera Liga with primary investors coming from the construction business are debt ridden and unable to pay their players. Just recently Real Mallorca’s president Vicenc Grande had to sell his controlling interest, after his company Grupo Drac filed for bankruptcy. Because some clubs decided to go into administration, most likely players won’t get paid.
North American Superliga which is made out of four teams from the MLS and four from the Mexico’s Primera Division is set to play the semifinals on July 29 and 30. Defending MLS champ Houston Dynamo meets CF Pachuca in Houston on July 29. New England Revolution will face Atlante of Mexico in Foxboro stadium on July 30. The SuperLiga Final will be played on August 5. Last year’s winner was CF Pachuca who defeated Los Angeles Galaxy on penalty kicks at Carson, Calif.
At the Beach Soccer World Cup tournament, Argentina who already qualified for the quarter-finals beat Cameroon Tuesday by a score of 3-0. Brazil beat Mexico 7-1 and have gone unbeaten in their last 70 matches. In other two matches, Russia outplayed United Arab Emirates 5-0 and Spain trashed Japan 6-1. The defending champions Brazil, Spain and Russia completed the line-up for the quarter-finals joining France, Portugal, Uruguay and Italy. The tournament is being held in Marseille, France and the final will be played on July 27th.
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