ALL ABOUT SOCCER

Zinedine Yazid Zidane is the most remembered football player in the history of football. He was born on 23 June 1972 in Marseille, France. His parents were immigrants from Algeria. He began playing soccer on the streets of Marseille. He joined the junior team of US Saint-Henri, a local soccer club in Marseille. At the age of 14, he participated in the junior selection for the league championship, and caught the attention of the scout Jean Varraud from AS Cannes. He was called for a six week trial and successfully made the team and stayed in Cannes for four years to play at the professional level. Zidane played his first league match when he was seventeen years old, and scored his first goal on 8 February 1991.

Zidane wanted to live back in France and luckily got transferred to Girondins de Bordeaux for the 1992-93 seasons. He won the 1995 Intertoto Cup and Bordeaux were the runner up in the 1995 to 1996 UEFA Cup just in the four years with the club. He became a player who could play any midfield combinations. In 1996, signed with Juventus for £3 million. He again achieved many awards such as the 1996-1997 Scudetto and the Intercontinental Cup, but lost the UEFA Champions League 1997 final 1-3 to Borussia Dortmund. He scored seven goals in thirty two match appearances and helped Juventus win the Scudetto again the next season and make a second consecutive UEFA Champions League final.

Unfortunately, they lost to Real Madrid 1-0, and the Spanish manager saw the magic in Zidane and wanted him for sure. Juventus were the runner ups again in the 2000-2001 Champions League. In 2001, Zinedine Zidane joined Real Madrid for €73.5 million, which was the most expensive transfer fee in football history, and signed a four year contract with them. In 2002 UEFA Champions League final, Zidane scored the match winning goal in Madrid’s 2-1 win against Bayer Leverkusen, winning his first Champions League final.

Next season, Zidane was achieved the FIFA World Player of the Year award for the third time. He was voted by the fans as the UEFA fiftieth anniversary Golden Jubilee Poll, and also included in the FIFA 100 players in the history of football. Even though he scored his first ever hat-trick in a 4-2 win against Sevilla FC, Zidane’s final season of his final club ended with any trophy. On 7 May 2006, Zidane announced his plans to the media of soccer to retire after the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He played his last club match against Villarreal CF and scored in a 3-3 draw.

Zidane played the 2006 FFA World Cup quite well, and won the Golden Boots award for the tournament. France did not win the World Cup, but still were the runner ups for the final match against Italy. There was an incident during this final World Cup, where he head butted an Italian player Materazzi and got sent off with a red card during the second half of the extra time. That was the last international match of his life and he got sent off. France lost the match in the penalties. Moreover, Zinedine Yazid Zidane remains the all-star footballer and will never be forgotten.

The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18^th World Cup, the international football world tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 and took place in Germany. There were 198 teams from all over the world that took part in the cup qualification in September 2003. Thirty one teams qualified including with the hosting nation, Germany.

I was in Saudi Arabia at that time and the people over there were totally in to this event. This was also one of the most watched events in the history of television, with an estimated 26.29 billion viewers. At that time, I loved France. It had all the star players in it and also the best player Zidane, who retired after the World Cup, Henry, the top scorer in the Barclays Premier League at that time. It had the best attackers.

Germany had 12 stadiums throughout the country for the World Cup matches. The stadiums are; Olympiastadion, Signal Iduna Park, Allianz Arena, which was the stadium for Bayern München, a five star German team, Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion, Veltins-Arena, AOL Arena, Commerzbank-Arena, RheinEnergieStadion, AWD-Arena, Zentralstadion, Fritz-Walter-Stadion and EasyCredit-Stadion. All of the German stadiums satisfy the need for at least forty thousand seats.

The squads for the 2006 World Cup consisted of 23 players. Each participating national team had to confirm its 23-player squad by 15 May, 2006. There were five Pots in this tournament. These were Pot A, Pot B, Pot, C, Pot D and the special group which had only two teams, Serbia and Montenegro. Pot A had Argentina, Brazil, which had won the past five FIFA World Cups, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Spain. Pot B had Angola, Australia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Ghana, Paraguay, Togo and Tunisia. Pot C had Croatia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden and Ukraine. Pot D consisted of only seven teams. These were Costa Rica, Iran, Japan, Korea Republic, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago and United States. The last special pot had Serbia and Montenegro.

The thirty two teams were then divided into eight groups of four teams each. The fixture was round-robin of six games, where each team played a match against every other team in the same group. Teams were awarded three points for each win, one point for a draw and zero points for a defeat. The teams that come first and second in each group qualify for the next Round of 16. The teams other than the first and second in the round-robin are knocked out of the tournament.

The final match of the tournament was France against Italy. Italy won the final math and claimed the record of 4^th World Cup. During the final match there was an incident where Italian Defender Materazzi said something to the French Captain Zinedine Zidane, and Zidane head butted Materazzi and a small fight broke up between the French and the Italians. It resulted in a red card for Zidane and a yellow card for Materazzi. That was the last game for Zidane and also the most disappointing. He still believes that it was Materazzi’s fault and that he said something about Zidane’s family. This was the most enjoyable match for me in the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro is a Portuguese striker and Manchester United’s winger. Ronaldo was born on February 5, 1985 in Funchal-Madeira, Portugal. His second name, “Ronaldo,” was chosen by his father after the U.S president Ronald Reagan. He has an older brother, Hugo, and two older sisters, Elma and Liliana Cátia.

Ronaldo used to play in the streets in Portugal, as he told us in his interview, and his friends and family told him that he is a great footballer. They told him that he could also make his dream, to play in the world cup in a world class team, come true. At the age of eight, Ronaldo then played for an amateur team Andorinha. Later, in 1995, Ronaldo signed with the local club Nacional, and won the winning title. Impressed Sporting CP’s manager gave him a three day trial, and Ronaldo made the team.

Ronaldo joined the Sporting’s youth team, and was the first Sporting player to play for the under 16, 17, 18, B-team and the first team only in one season. At the age of 15, Ronaldo was diagnosed with racing heart, a condition where your heart beat rate goes really high or really low and often suffer from breathing problems. After the surgery, he began training the next day. Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier saw his title matches with Sporting and spotted Ronaldo, but later decided not to take him in the Liverpool team because he was too young and needed to develop his skills first.

In 2003, when Sporting defeated Manchester United 3-1, Manager Alex Ferguson saw Ronaldo’s skills and how he could grow his attributes as a footballer. Ferguson had to take Ronaldo. He signed with Manchester for £12.24 million and became United’s first ever Portuguese player. He requested the kit number 28 because he had the same number in Sporting, but Ferguson gave him number 7 instead. Manchester United’s most popular players, such as George Best, Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona, and David Beckham, used to wear the number seven.

His first appearance for United was against Bolton, when he came in the 60^th minute as a substitute. He scored his first goal for Manchester United with a free kick in a 3-0 win against Portsmouth on 1 November 2003. Until now, Ronaldo has won several awards including Portuguese Footballer of the Year: 2006–07, PFA Young Player of the Year: 2006–07, FWA Footballer of the Year·: 2006–07, 2007–08, Barclays Player of the Season: 2006–07, 2007–08, FIFA World Player of the Year: 2008 and lots of more similar awards. Ronaldo is my favourite player and my role model.

Ronaldo’s best 2 goals

The 2008 UEFA Champions League Final was a match to be remembered. It was held on Wednesday, 21 May 2008. The match was played in the Luzhniki Stadium, in Moscow, Russia. It was Manchester United vs. Chelsea; both teams are from the F.A English Premier League. Manchester United is from Manchester, and Chelsea is from London. Both teams showed excellent performance during the whole tournament.

Manchester United started the kick off in the first half. Chelsea did a great job putting hard pressure on the players and an excellent job in the defending. The possession during the first half was fifty five % for Manchester United and forty five % for Chelsea. Forty five minutes were over and both teams were given twenty minutes break.

Chelsea started the second half and Manchester United scored late in the second half. The whole crowd was cheering for The Red Devils and I was jumping from my seat in extreme happiness. But only after about twelve minutes, Chelsea scored an equalizing goal that tied the score to 1-1. This was the ecstatic moment for the London men. There was non-stop cheering and it was more like an extreme roller coaster ride.

They were given extra time because the score was tied 1-1 and we had to have only one winner. Both of the extra time halves didn’t change a digit on the score board. Now, it all came down to Penalty shootouts. I was sitting on the edge of my seat thrilled. Manchester United player Carlos Teves took the first kick and scored. Michael Balack was the first in Chelsea’s penalty line up. He shot the ball and it swung in the upper right corner and went in. Edwin Van Der Sar, Manchester United’s goalkeeper, almost caught it but it went too fast. M. Carrick took the next one and scored. Belletti from Chelsea evened the score by an amazing right swinging paced shot. Then, it was the star striker, Cristiano Ronaldo, from Manchester. He took a long run, stopped before shooting and then shot with tremendous power, but unfortunately Chelsea’s star keeper, Peter Check, saved the shot by diving with a sharp timing that he made a finger tip save and the ball went out. It was a crying moment for me, for the players, and for all of the Manchester fans.

Chelsea’s top scorer, Frank Lampard, made the score 3-2 by scoring an amazing penalty kick. English striker Owen Hargreaves tied it 3-3. Chelsea scored again making it 4-3. The Red Devils tied it again. Then the Chelsea’s defender and captain missed the shot far left and began crying. This was not a very good moment for the London people. Manchester scored the leading goal making it 5-4. Kalou scored an equalizing goal tying it 5-5. Manchester’s midfielder, Ryan Giggs, scored another goal for Manchester, and now the score was 6-5. If Chelsea missed this penalty, they lose. Campbell took the shot, and to my great surprise, Edwin Van Der Sar dived left to where he shot and caught the ball in his arms. Manchester United had won UEFA Champions League 2008. I think that this match was the best match in the history of soccer.

Manchester United is an English soccer club and its home stadium is in Trafford, Manchester in England. It is also one of the most popular soccer clubs in the world. This club became a member club of the F.A Premier League in 1992. They have played in the English soccer since 1938 except for the 1974-1975 season. They have remained top in the soccer history and almost the whole world knows of their achievements.

Their most recent achievement was to win the 2008-2009 UEFA Champions League. Manchester United has won up to 22 major cups since Alex Ferguson became manager in November 1986. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European cup, with a crushing 4-1 win against Benfica. They won another European cup in 1999. And in 2008, brought the third European cup home. In 2009, they tried for another European cup, but ended up in a 2-0 defeat against Barcelona in the Finals. The club is still known for its popularity. This club also has Cristiano Ronaldo, the best soccer player of 2009, in the starting eleven team.

Since the late 1990’s, Manchester United has been one of the world’s richest clubs and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport, with the value of about $1.8 billion. Man utd is also known as The Red Devils because of their team logo. The starting eleven players are ; Van der Sar, O’Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Anderson, Carrick, Giggs; Park, Ronaldo and Rooney. Man utd has always had star players in the squad and an English captain. Manchester’s current captain is Gary Neville and he has shown great team responsibility. It is also in Man United’s history that they had David Beckham in their squad who is also one of the best soccer player and he is currently playing for a Spanish club, AC Milan. The reason i started playing soccer was that it is my dream to play for the Manchester United starting team. I hope Manchester United gets even better and become the world’s best soccer club.

What is Freedom of Speech?

Freedom of Speech is the right introduced by John Peter Zenger. Freedom of Speech means to speak or share ideas freely without any limitations. There are many terms to this right. It has to be valid, which means that you can’t say anything other than the truth. You also can’t insult someone or some organization by saying rumors about them or there will be severe punishments. Freedom of Speech also allows a person to follow his or her religion freely and nobody should disrespect another religion. There are some countries that do not have Freedom of Speech as their right. I think there should be Freedom of Speech globally and respected by everyone.

How is it related to blogging?

I think that Freedom of Speech relates to blogging as we are allowed to publish anything and share new ideas with anyone as long as it is valid. Insulting someone or threatening someone by publishing something that is not true which affects the person, might lead to a severe punishment which may end his or her blogging. This can be called libel. Freedom of Speech is a great right which lets all of us share many different ideas about things and it lets us learn new things and teach things at the same time. I think it should not be misused because you would not want to have it taken away from you.