Champions League Minimal score brings luck: 1-0 in semifinals decided once again Ozren Podnar reports... Do you plan to win the Champions League or the UEFA Cup? We suggest that you win by 1-0 on aggregate in the semifinals. This score was lucky for Manchester United (so lucky themselves in the finals against Chelsea), but also to Barcelona, Liverpool, Sevilla, Porto and Valencia. In the past seasons many clubs fulfilled their dream of lifting a European trophy after minimum wins in the semis. It worked for Liverpool no less than twice: after the aggregate 1-0 against Barcelona they beat Alaves in the 2001 UEFA Cup finals and four years later the story repeated itself against against Chelsea in the Champions League semifinals and Milan in the finals. The magical 1-0 against Deportivo did the trick for Porto in 2004 Champions League as they went on to defeat Monaco in the finals. In the same season, Valencia took the UEFA Cup after nailing Villarreal by a mere 1-0. That was not the end, because a 1-0 against Milan sufficed to Barcelona to reach the 2006 League finals and subsequently the trophy at the expense of Arsenal. The Gunners, incidentally, also reached the finals thanks to a 1-0 over Villarreal. Amazingly, even Sevilla collected their first UEFA Cup after a 1-0 aggregate against Schalke, and the only goal was scored by now late Antonio Puerta. The mystique of the minimal win continued this season, as Manchester United defeated Barcelona by 1-0 in the semis. It is no doubt curious that every final saw many more goals after the single goal in the 180 or 210 minutes, ranging from two in Valencia vs Marseille (2004) and Manchester vs Chelsea (2008) to nine in Liverpool vs Alavés (2001). Imagine that: Liverpool reached their last two winning finals with a total of two goals in 360 minutes only to score eight goals (plus penalties) in the finals themselves. Lucky, lucky 1-0 2001. UEFA Cup: Liverpool vs Barcelona 0-0 1-0 2004. Champions League: Porto - Deportivo 0-0 1-0 2004. UEFA Cup: Valencia - Villarreal 0-0 1-0 2005. Champions League: Liverpool – Chelsea 0-0 1-0 2006. Champions League: Barcelona - Milan 1-0 0-0 2006. UEFA Cup: Sevilla - Schalke 0-0 1-0 2008. Champions League: Man. Utd. - Barcelona 0-0 1-0 Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

World Soccer News for week of 05/19 Pompey celebrates 69 years later Portsmouth have finally won a piece of silverware thanks to the inspiration of their two Nigerians, Kanu and Utaka. A full 69 years after their first FA Cup the team coached by Harry Redknapp fulfilled the dreams of their fans by defeating Cardiff City at Wembley 1-0. The only goal was scored by Nwankwo Kanu, who took advantage of keeper Enckelman's blunder after John Utaka's cross. Pompey hardly showed their Premiership class against their Championship League rivals, but the result is what finally counts in Portsmouth and in...Croatia! The Croatian media devoted the FA Cup finals the same amount of space as to their own cup, which saw Dinamo Zagreb smash Hajduk Split by 3-0. The reason? Niko Kranjcar, of course. The 24-old midfielder has become the first Croat with the most prestigious national cup in the world, a distinction which is certain to increase his appeal among his compatriots. Inter "threepeat" the scudetto in high drama Internazionale have defended their Italian League title warding off a dangerous Roma assault in the last half hour of the competition. A 2-0 win at Parma guaranteed Inter's win regardless of what Roma did at Catania, at the same time condemning Parma to the Second Division. Both goals came from Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the 62nd and 78th minutes, snatching the title from Roma, who had laid their hands on the trophy when Mirko Vucinic brought them ahead after just eight minutes. In the end, after Zlatan's goals a demoralised Roma conceded the equaliser and the celebrations of Inter's fans in Parma, Milan and elsewhere could begin. The nerazzurri's joy after a third title in a row was doubled by the fact that their city rivals from AC Milan did not even make the Champions' League! The Italian representatives in the top club competition will be Inter, Roma, Juventus and Fiorentina, while Milan will take part in the UEFA Cup. The relegation of Parma, alongside Empoli and Livorno, on the other hand signalled the end of a famous 18-year spell of the former Parmalat's team in the top flight, during which period they won four European trophies and three Italian Cups. The bankruptcy of the gigantic dairy industry company finally ended up condemning a once glorious side to Serie B. Lyon's magnificent seven No team in the top European leagues can boast more than five consecutive League titles. Juventus and AC Torino have that in Italy, Real Madrid did the same, on two occasions, in Spain. Olympique Lyon on the other hand now have as many as seven French championships. Olympique Marseille also won the Championnat five times in a row, but their 1993 title was declared void by the FA for having fixed the match against Valenciennes. Lyon stretched their already record-breaking run on Saturday thanks to a 3-1 win at Auxerre, which was more than enough to keep them ahead of Bordeaux, who could only draw at struggling Lens. The 2-2 result saddened both teams, because it meant that the 1998 champions will have to play in the Second division exactly ten years after winning the League. They will be joined by Metz and Strasbourg, while Paris SG reached salvation owing to a good 2-1 win at Sochaux. Nantes on the other hand return to the top flight after just one season. Lens will certainly want to emulate them in the forthcoming campaign. Barcelona: 65 million for another trophyless season The era of rational business operations at Barcelona did not last for long. The disastrously extravagant era of the chairman Joan Gaspart, who spent hundreds of millions of euros on signings between 2000 and 2003 for zero titles, was interrupted by the first three years of Joan Laporta's mandate. Still, after the Champions League victory in 2006, the good old ways returned to Barcelona, which allowed Real Madrid to regain the pole position in Spanish soccer. Last summer Laporta's club signed players to the tune of 65 million euros and in return the team finished third, 18 points behind Madrid, while in the FA Cup and the Champions League the semifinals turned out to be an unsurmountable obstacle. Thierry Henry was brought from Arsenal for 24 million euros in order to be deployed in the wrong position on the left wing. Defenders Gaby Milito and Eric Abidal cost a mere 17 and 15 million euros respectively, while midfielder Touré Yayá's signing required nine million. On the other hand, this spring Barcelona saved 35 million euros in unpaid bonuses promised for the trophies the expensive players failed to win. The savings will no doubt be used in the next transfer window. How cleverly is another question. Dinamo Zagreb – a club that eats the coaches Incredible but true: Dinamo Zagreb have sacked or forced the resignation of no less than nine different trophy-winning coaches since 1996. Two of them were laid off twice, which means that there has been eleven departures of coaches immediately or soon after they led the team to one or more trophies! This must be the world record, but the fans are not at all amused. The last coach to go has been Zvonimir Soldo, who resigned minutes after his boys added the FA Cup to their 10th Croatian League title. Soldo, who had a supremely distinguished 10-year long spell at Stuttgart, refused to explain his reasons, but he did not need to. The fans and the media know that Soldo could not stand the attempts of the club's officials to interfere with his work, neither could he condone the continuous transfers of the club's best players. Midfielder Luka Modric's move to Tottenham for 21 million euros will soon be followed by Ognjen Vukojevic's transfer to Celtic and others. Since 1996, no amount of domestic success was able to keep a coach on the bench for more than 18 months. Among those who won stuff and then left were Zlatko Kranjcar (Niko's father) twice, Otto Baric, Ilija Loncarevic (twice), Marijan Vlak, Miroslav Blazevic, Nikola Jurcevic, Josip Kuze and Branko Ivankovic. Kranjcar and Baric, like Soldo, even won the double, while Ivankovic collected all three prizes – League, FA Cup and Supercup, winning 28 championship games in a row. He quit last January, fed up by insults directed at him by the club's power broker, Zdravko Mamic, over losing an utterly irrelevant indoor soccer game to Hajduk. However, Ivankovic is tipped to succeed Soldo as the quarrel with Mamic seems to be forgiven, if not forgotten. 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Champions League report Old acquaintances meet again The semifinal clashes in this season's Champions League have joined old foes who have run against one another many times in the European competitions. Manchester United and Barcelona have played seven games in the UEFA's competitions while Liverpool and Chelsea have met on six occasions, all of them in the last three years. United and Barcelona have a very evenly balanced score with two wins for each team and three draws. The Red Devils have been a bit more successful as they achieved a better score on two occasions, with one tie and one loss. Their first encounter took place in the Cup Winners' Cup quarterfinals in 1983/84, when United performed a sensational comeback against total favorites that Barcelona were at the time with Diego Maradona and Bernd Schuster in their ranks. The first leg on Camp Nou ended 2-0 for the Catalans, but a young Mark Hughes helped United towards an unlikely 3-0 at Old Trafford in the return match. After surviving infamous episodes at Barcelona and Bayern, Hughes returned to Manchester in 1988, in time to lead his old club to another unexpected triumph. With two goals the Welshman knocked down Cruyff's Barcelona in the 1991 Cup Winners' Cup finals. Hristo Stoichkov and Romário gave Barça a wonderful 4-0 win over United in the 1995 Champions League group stage, which ultimately cost the English side a place in the quarterfinals. Finally, in 1998/99 these two teams played two spectacular 3-3 draws in the group stage, but these scores favoured United, who went through together with Bayern, and in the end beat no other than Bayern in the finals at Camp Nou. In the previous three seasons Liverpool topped Chelsea twice in Champions Cup semifinals and between those matches other two encounters ended with goalless draws. Amazingly, in the six games only three goals were scored, two for Liverpool and one in Chelsea's favour. One of these goals, scored by Liverpool's Luis García in 2005, was in fact illegal, which makes the two teams' scoring output even more miserable. Quarterfinals 2007/08 Schalke vs Barcelona 0-1 0-1 Roma vs Manchester Utd. 0-2 0-1 Arsenal vs Liverpool 1-1 2-4 Fenerbahce vs Chelsea 2-1 0-2 Previous matches Manchester Utd. vs Barcelona 1st 2nd 1998/99 Champions League 3-3 3-3 1994/95 Champions League 0-4 2-2 1990/91 Cup Winners' Cup 2-1 1983/84 Cup Winners' Cup 0-2 3-0 Liverpool vs Chelsea 1st 2nd 2004/05 Champions League 0-0 1-0 2005/06 Champions League 0-0 0-0 2006/07 Champions League 0-1 1-0 4-1 (pen) Copyright Ozren Podnar and Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

Bernd Schuster, novi Realov trener Plavi anđeo - s rogovima Novi trener Real Madrida volio je šokirati. Činio je to često, u pozitivnom ili negativnom smislu, a prvi puta na Europskom prvenstvu 1980. u Italiji, kad je s 20 godina vrhunski dirigirao njemačkom igrom. Njegova je reprezentacija osvojila zlato nadjačavši Belgiju u finalu, on Srebrnu loptu France Footballa i transfer iz Kolna u Barcelonu, u kojoj je smjesta postao superstar. Međutim, stvari se nisu odvijale normalno, jer je u španjolskoj ligi djelovao Andoni Goikoetxea, stoper Athletica iz Bilbaa. U vrijeme kad se gruba igra tolerirala, Bask mu je potrgao ligamente koljena i odvojio ga od terena na šest mjeseci. Godinu kasnije, isti je igrač startom s leđa na sredini terena slomio gležanj Schusterovom suigraču Diegu Maradoni, no Maradona se oporavio u kraćem razdoblju – za samo tri mjeseca.

Phillip Cocu Kapetan koji ne stari Uobičajeno je da sportašima snaga opada s godinama, no Phillip Cocu ne spada u većinu. Nije on kao Romario da se šeće ispred kaznenog prostora štedeći energiju za onaj jedan završni sprint do gola, Cocu je igrač koji cijelo vrijeme sudjeluje u igri i to u solidnom prvenstvu kao što je nizozemsko. Točnije, činio je to do kraja netom završenog prvenstva, u kojemu je doveo PSV Eindhoven do trećeg uzastopnog naslova – postigavši presudan gol u zadnjem kolu. Takav je Cocu, s 36 i pol godina jednako dobar i rastrčan kao i prije 15, kad se za njega počelo čuti u Europi.

Having arrived in Japan only two days prior to kickoff, Barcelona was expected to be playing at only 70 percent or so--and possibly fade in the second half. It didn't happen. In spite of a 12-hour flight and a half day time difference, the Catalans put on a 90-minute display of the beautiful game, crushing Mexican champion Club America 4-0 at the venue for the 2002 World Cup Final . The scoreline could have been much worse. The Mexican side had but one real chance at goal all evening, when former Argentine forward Claudio Lopez flubbed a beautiful pass that left him alone in front of the Barcelona keeper early on. After that, it was all Barcelona.