World Cup 2006 News

According to Brazil coach Parreira the injury of striker Ronaldo´s muscle in the right leg is not only a bad thing.

He can recover and line out in his best physical form for Brazil.

Well, that´s obviously true. If the healing process goes well Ronaldo may be in very good shape once the World Cup starts on June 9th. The coach of the defending champion therefore is more worried about for instance Ronaldinho because his club, Barcelona, is strongly relying on him in the spanish league and of course in the Champions League as well. But as they´re real pro´s they have to handle this and they will. I strongly believe that once they´re here in Germany everyone will enjoy watching those soccer-magicians.

Thumbs up on this great headline. Yesterday, 29 year-old german captain Michael Ballack confirmed that he´s having advanced talks with Chelsea London. He directly spoke with Chelsea Coach Jose Mourinho summing up that he´s having a “good feeling”. Ballack additionally hopes that contracts might be signed before the World Cup starts. This way speculation might not interfere with Germany´s tournament preparations.

And if Germany´s not playing very well at the World Cup Ballack would still have his contract safe and secure. Why not.

Technorati Tags: World Cup, World Cup Players

After being the youngest player 1998 in France Lee Dong-Gook wasn´t selected 2002. Coach Dick Advocaat named Dong-Gook one of his first picks for this year´s World Cup, but the South Korean star-striker requires surgery on his knee and therefore will be out for at least 6 months.

Ironically, Dong-Gook is going to Germany but only to get surgery treatments. How bad is this? Read more on that over at BBC UK.

Technorati Tags: World Cup, World Cup Players

The last team to join the World Cup has been finally announced - the referees. According to Sepp Blatter they´re the cream of the crop in the world.

The 33rd team at the World Cup - the 23 referees in Germany - are currently the best match officials in the world.

The referees are told to judge strictly against any kind of time-wasting, reckless-playing, shirt pulling and diving. I was just wondering who´s gonna rule the Final on July 9th? Any predictions? Read more

The world’s football governing body explains that Worldcupblog.org has allegedly violated the copyright and trademark regulations. Therefore Ms. Karen Fan explains how and why.

Such activity is likely to cause material damage and harm to FIFA and its sponsors or licensees.

I would like to offer a little support those poor bloggers. How excited can a fan get reading such lines. May be those geeks in Geneva sometimes forget that without the fans they´re nothing. We´ll see how this plays out.

Technorati Tags: World Cup, legal action

Did you know that there are actually 8 teams coming to this year´s World Cup without having participated ever before?

• Angola
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Togo
• Ghana
• Serbia and Montenegro
• Czech Republic
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Ukraine

Well for everyone who doesn´t already have a favorite team this list may contain a pick. It´s allways stunning seeing what no-names can do once they´re set in the big business. I just remind anyone that Greece won the European Soccer Championship 2004. Are we going to see something like that this year?

Technorati Tags: World Cup, World Cup History

Are you interested in knowing exactly how far the World Cup is away? This Max OS X Widget will tell you. Nice one.

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According to Sepp Blatter Brazil´s not already secured for being the host 2014.

South America is supposed to host the World Cup after South Africa 2010 and of course Brazil wants to take the World Cup home being 5th time champion. Although a couple of even South American countries are supporting Brazil Sepp Blatter insists on giving the spot away early, Brazil still needs to reach the required level of stadium standard.

If anyone´s asking me Brazil needs the chance to host a World Cup. They play such an amazing soccer and the country lives the game as their religion and I´m pretty sure they would do a lot to actually get the Cup.

Technorati Tags: World Cup, Brazil, 2014

After making a successful return from a persistent groin injury Owen Hargreaves still hopes to be part of Sven-Goran Eriksson´s squad for the upcoming World Cup. Since his comeback on march 19th he has played all the 5 matches and he even scored. So it seems pretty clear that he´s actually trying to catch one of the 23 spots on England´s Team. Even though he knows that it might not get very easy given that the rest of the squad is not that bad. But Hargreaves stays optimistic:

I am sure he is keeping an eye on me.

This quote derives from soccernet and is very suitable for this 25 year-old player. He knows it´s not his last chance to play at a World Cup, but he´s also aware of the fact that he´s become a decent player and therefore Eriksson is up to a pretty big decision. We´ll all know more mid-may. Less than a month now, huh.

Interesting question to ask. What will the Allstar Team 2006 look like? I got this idea from the World Cup Blog. Every World Cup brings up new faces that nobody really knew about before? Here´s the complete 2002´s team:

Keepers: Oliver Kahn (Germany), Rustu Recber (Turkey)

Defenders: Roberto Carlos (Brazil), Sol Campbell (England), Hong Myung-bo (South Korea), Alpay Ozalan (Turkey), Fernando Hierro (Spain)

Midfielders: Claudio Reyna (USA), Rivaldo (Brazil), Ronaldinho (Brazil), Yoo Sang-chul (South Korea), Michael Ballack (Germany)

Forwards: Ronaldo (Brazil), Miroslav Klose (Germany) El Hadji Diouf (Senegal), Hasan Sas (Turkey)

There´s a lot that has happened in 4 years of football. There are some of these players that we won´t see in Germany. Others are showing up but may have limited roles on their teams. And of course a few of them will be shining again may be even brighter. Therefore I think of Ronaldinho and Michael Ballack. Well, let´s see.

Technorati Tags: World Cup, World Cup History, World Cup Players