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. Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football Betting

World Soccer News for the week of 04/11/08 Liverpool after "Croatian Cruyff", Luka Modric Dinamo Zagreb have received the first formal offer for their star midfielder Luka Modric. The offer came from five time European champions, Liverpool, according to leading Croatian daily, Vecernji list . The Croatian press recently published reports that Newcastle, Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal all expressed interest in the 22-year-old midfield schemer, but Liverpool seems to have made the first concrete move to seize Modric. The player carries a 23 million euros price tag, but Dinamo may be willing to offload him for a mere 20 million. Should the prospective buyers wait until the end of the European Championship, the price could rise in accordance to Modric's performance. The youngster bearing an uncanny physical resemblance to Johan Cruyff is a creative, goal-scoring midfielder who has won so far two League titles, one FA Cup and one Croatian supercup, and a third consecutive league championship is virtually secure, as well as a second successive place in the FA Cup finals. "I am truly honoured if it is true that Liverpool want me. I watched them break Arsenal. That was a magnificent game. Only the biggest teams can play so well against an opponent as strong as Arsenal," said Modric. Porto celebrate title, but is it too early? FC Porto have become the first team from a major European soccer league to have secured this season's title...unless the Portuguese FA strip them of six points as punishment for attempted corruption. Porto have already celebrated their third consecutive title after beating Estrela Amadora 6-0 last Sunday, but the celebrations could prove premature if the disciplinary procedure within the FA is finalized during the next couple of weeks. It seems that during the 2003/04 season Porto arranged for certain referees to direct two of their League games, which in the eyes of the FA constitutes an attempt at corruption. Maximum punishment for this is the subtraction of six points, but Porto are certain to clinch the title even without these points seeing that their advantage over Benfica and Sporting is so huge. The club's chairman Pinto da Costa on the other hand faces a two year suspension. Playing at high altitude could be fatal, say doctors The Brazilian side Flamengo of Rio de Janeiro claim to have collected evidence of the dangers of playing at high altitude. The red and blacks received a facsimile from a group of Bolivian and Mexican doctors who had concluded that playing high above sea level could prove fatal. The doctors reached this conclusion after studying the death of a 23-year-old soccer player last year during a game in the Bolivian mountain city of Potosí. The physicians performed all sorts of heart and blood tests on various players who had played at altitudes of above 2500 meters and determined that athletes indeed can die in such conditions. The Brazilian media claim the Bolivian authorities tried to prevent the publication of the said report since their country's FA is struggling to persuade FIFA to withdraw the ban on playing international matches above 2700 meters. Other countries involved in the struggle against FIFA are Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, while Brazil and Argentina largely support the ruling. According to the medical science, athletes should have to spend two weeks adapting to high altitude before playing a soccer match, which is impracticable due to the condensed playing schedule. Mijatovic tries to lure Cristiano Ronaldo to Madrid Real Madrid's sports director Predrag Mijatovic travelled to Manchester last week to discuss a possible transfer with Cristiano Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes. According to Spanish tv station Sexta, Real Madrid are prepared to play no less than 125 million euros for the magnificent Portuguese player, which is five million more than the Spaniards had previously offered. Last summer Manchester United were unwilling to accept 120 million euros, so it is unclear how five million more could make a difference. Still, Real Madrid hope Cristiano could be theirs for much less in two years time, when he would be able to invoke UEFA's controversial Webster ruling, allowing players over 23 to buy off their contract by simply paying the club their remaining wages. Getafe protests over favouritism towards Valencia Angel Torres, chairman of Madrid giant killers Getafe, is furious over the Spanish League's treatment of his team in view of the forthcoming Cup finals to be held on April 16th. What angers Torres is the fact that the League allowed Valencia to bring forward their League game against Rácing from next Sunday to Saturday. Curiously, the League also said it would allow Getafe to play against Zaragoza on Saturday, but that change of date would not mean anything to the Madrid team. In fact, it would complicate their life rather than make it easier. The reason is Getafe played their UEFA Cup quarterfinals second leg against Bayern on Thursday, so meeting Zaragoza on Saturday would be a terrible ordeal for them. "A solution would be fielding juniors against Zaragoza, but we are not going to do that in order not to hurt other clubs. Therefore we shall ask for the resignation of the League chairman José Luis Astiazaran," said Torres. Since Zaragoza is a relegation threatened team, Getafe vows to field a full team to guarantee the regularity of the competition. Copyright Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting