Innehållsförteckning för Apr-2018 från World Soccer

Common sense is absent at FIFA, which is blindly rushing ahead. It wants to be the revolutionary guard and it is taking a mighty gamble “It’s a fiasco. My worst moment as a coach” Zinedine Zidane, on Real Madrid's cup exit to Leganes The 2018 World Cup needs ABV: Anything But VAR They are all World Cup winners. They are all intelligent heroes of football. And they have another thing in common: they hate VAR. Listen to the voices of Ossie Ardiles, Gigi Buffon and Berti Vogts when you consider FIFA’s decision to introduce video assisted refereeing at the World Cup this summer. Ardiles has watched it in action and says: “VAR is making the best game in the world degenerate into a farce. It is just a mockery of…

“Everyone wants tickets for European games, but at home everyone wants us to lose”BATE’s Andrei Vashkevich As the snow melts and ice daggers crash down from the roofs of Minsk, football in Belarus is re-emerging. And amid the thaw, a change is occurring. Most countries that came from the break-up of the Soviet Union barely register at club level due to poorly funded leagues often plagued by corruption, but not Belarus. BATE Borisov made their Champions League group-stage debut in September 2008 at the Bernabeu, where they lost 2-0 but were not disgraced. Since then, four subsequent qualifications have brought Barcelona (twice), Milan, Bayern Munich, Roma and Porto to Belarus. “It’s funny,” reflects BATE secretary Andrei Vashkevich. “Everyone wants tickets for the European games and supports us, but at home…

A year ago the mood music soundtracking the National Women’s Soccer League was upbeat. Not only was the league entering its fifth season – a record for a professional women’s competition in the USA – but a ground-breaking threeyear TV deal had also been agreed. Even though the champion franchise, New York Western Flash, had moved 650 miles to become North Carolina Courage, the league appeared stable and there was excited talk of expansion. But that optimism has dissipated. Courage have been a great success, attracting promising crowds and winning last season’s regular campaign before losing to Portland Thorns in the play-off Final. A repeat of that match-up will kick off the second season’s live coverage by Lifetime TV which, after some teething problems, is well regarded. But this season…

Although the Dominican Republic’s first-ever CONCACAF Champions League entrants fell at the first hurdle, Cibao’s appearance in the competition was a success in itself. With the group stage removed and entrants cut from 24 teams to 16, Cibao were drawn against Mexico’s Guadalajara. They lost 2-0 at home to the 2017 Liga MX Clausura winners and 5-0 in the return, but the results were not a disgrace for a club that was only founded three years ago. Based in Santiago de los Caballeros, the country’s second-largest city, Cibao qualified by winning the 2017 Caribbean Club Championship – beating San Juan Jabloteh of Trinidad & Tobago 1-0 in May’s Final – but the seeds of that success were sown when FIFA commissioned research in 2014 to see if the island could…

While basketball, volleyball and handball games between Belgrade’s two big sporting institutions are ferociously intense in their own right, nothing matches the meeting of the clubs’ football teams. Although their home grounds sit less than 400metres apart in the Serbian capital, Red Star and Partizan are anything but close. Clashes between the pair are often marred by fan violence – and not always between those on opposing sides either, with fights known to break out between rival factions of the same club’s followers. Formed within five months of each other in 1945, Red Star were founded by the Serbian United Anti-Fascist Youth League and enjoyed a close relationship with the government’s interior ministry, while Partizan were set up by the Yugoslav People’s Army and named in honour of the Partisans…

“We are not going back, we will continue the fight for transparency and a better football” Greece’s deputy sports minister, Giorgos Vassiliadis, announces the suspension of the league following a gun protest by PAOK owner Ivan Savvidis Football’s lawmakers have approved the use of video refereeing – which means it will be in operation at the World Cup this summer. The decision by the International Football Association Board vindicated the opinion of FIFA president Gianni Infantino. For the past year, the he has been trumpeting his confidence in the application of VAR in Russia on the expected unanimous vote of approval from the annual general meeting of IFAB in Zurich. FIFA Council will formally approve the use of VAR at the World Cup when it meets in Colombia, and a…

USA bid fears complacency For runaway favourites, the USA and junior partners Canada and Mexico are making heavy weather of the 2026 World Cup bid which FIFA Congress will judge on June 13 in Moscow. No one questions the central tenets of the proposal: a multiplicity of fine stadia, all the essential transport links and infrastructure, more than adequate funding, plus guaranteed high visibility for as many sponsors as the world football federation and local organisers can round up. Yet it appears that the bid has been spooked by a sudden realisation that bid quality is not the be all and end all of a FIFA vote. United 2026 has fallen victim to the “C word” – complacency. Too much reliance has been placed on a sense that FIFA “owes”…

If England boycott the World Cup, so should everybody else And so to what might be termed the 64,000 dollar question. Should England, in the light of the horrific poisoning in Salisbury, be sending their team to the coming World Cup? The pressure is growing and we even have the editor of Germany’s most popular paper, Bild, demanding that both we and the Germans withdraw. It is a vexed and troubling question, but I suggest that there is a valid answer. That England should withdraw if everybody else does. Which, of course, they won’t. England plainly have the most valid reason for withdrawing since the atrocity took place on English soil. But were they to do so, what impact would it have if no other countries followed our example? After…

PROMISING START FOR NEVILLE Phil Neville enjoyed a dream debut as England manager, beating France 4-1 in the She Believes Cup, an invitational tournament in the US. England followed that up with a 2-2 draw against Germany, but were then beaten by the tournament-winning hosts. France recovered from losing to England to hold the USA and beat an out-of-sorts Germany 3-0. Two other 12-nation tournaments also took place. Spain won the Cyprus Cup, beating Italy 2-0 in the Final, but the Algarve Cup was shared between Sweden and Holland after heavy rain made the Final in Parchal unplayable. CITY HAT-TRICK DOWN UNDER Melbourne City won the third WLeague title of their three-year existence with a 2-0 victory over Sydney in the Grand Final, with Jess Fishlock of Wales and England’s…

“There comes a time when as much as you don’t like it, it’s time to stop playing football. That’s pretty much where I’m at” Michael Carrick faces up to retirement VARiations on a theme While the majority response to VAR has probably been favorable, there have been serious hiccups. It has proved a total flop in Australia, and it didn’t work well at the 2017 Confederations Cup. In Germany, Stuttgart fans rolled out banners demanding “Abolish Video Referees”, while the Brazilians have voted it down – probably for financial reasons – and England’s Alan Shearer has described it as “a shambles”. This had looked like a no-brainer; a sure way of banishing those horribly embarrassing moments when genuine goals were disallowed, fouls outside the area were called as penalty kicks…

The city of Florence came to a standstill to pay tribute to Davide Astori, the 31-yearold Fiorentina captain who died in his sleep at the team’s hotel in Udine, on the eve of a game against Udinese. A day of civic mourning was declared for the day of Astori’s funeral, when a crowd of 10,000 was in attendance outside the Basilica Santa Croce. A minute’s silence was held and businesses shut their doors across the city A few days later, at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, Fiorentina played their first game since Astori’s sudden passing. The first-team squad and coaching staff all wore replicas of his number 13 shirt – which has been retired by the club – as they warmed up before playing Benevento. During the game, with 13 minutes…

1 BATE BORISOV The winners of the last 12 titles have appointed Oleg Dulub to sustain that run. After a spell in Ukraine with Karpaty Lviv and Chornomorets Odessa, Dulub, who brought success to Krumkachy, is only BATE’s fifth coach in 22 years. 2 DINAMO BREST Well-supported club from near the Polish border who won the cup last year but fell at the first attempt in Europa League qualifying this term. 3 DINAMO MINSK Founded in 1927 and played in the Soviet Top League for 39 of its 54 seasons and winning the 1982 title. Were league runners-up last year. 4 DNEPR MOGILEV From eastern Belarus, champions in 1998 but relegated twice since. 5 GOMEL Founded in 1959 as Lokomotiv Gomel, they won the league in 2003 and ran Liverpool…

Thursday February 15 ENGLAND: Four West Bromwich Albion players are interviewed by police after they steal a taxi from outside a fast-food restaurant in Barcelona while on a training trip. GERMANY: Michy Batshuayi takes his tally to five goals in three games since joining Borussia Dortmund on loan from Chelsea as they come from behind to beat Atalanta 3-2 in the Europa League. ITALY: On a bad night in Europe for Serie A sides, Napoli lose 3-1 at home to RB Leipzig and Lazio go down 1-0 at Steaua. Milan, however, win 3-0 away to Ludogorets. SCOTLAND: Alex McLeish agrees to become manager of the national team for a second time. Friday February 16 ENGLAND: A former assistant to Jose Mourinho at Internazionale, Real Madrid and Chelsea, Jose Morais is…

For most of the last decade, talk at the start of each Chinese Super League season revolves around who will finish in second place behind Guangzhou Evergrande. But this year there is a genuine chance that someone can stop the Cantonese powerhouse from lifting the trophy for the eighth time in a row. Having kicked off a spending revolution, the rest of the CSL is finally catching up with Evergrande. Dominant ever since they were taken over by Chinese real estate group Evergrande in 2010, their route to success was straightforward: they signed the best foreign players and overseas coaching talent that was willing to come to China, and the best domestic players – which was crucial for a league that requires at least eight Chinese nationals on the pitch.…