Rossi on course to claim title

		Rossi is on course to lift his seventh premier class title at this weekend's Malaysian Moto GP, going into the race with a thumping 38-point advantage in the world championship.

SEPANG (Malaysia) - VALENTINO Rossi is on course to lift his seventh premier class title at this weekend's Malaysian Moto GP, going into the race with a thumping 38-point advantage in the world championship.

A top-four ride in Sepang, south of the capital Kuala Lumpur, will be enough for the 30-year-old Italian to be crowned the 2009 world champion on Sunday.

Rossi, fresh from placing second in Australia last weekend, has sweet memories of victories in Sepang - the season's penultimate event - and a circuit he has repeatedly said is a personal favourite.

'I like this track. It is an important race. So the main target is to have a good setting for Sunday. It is more important to think of the championship title,' he told reporters. 'The main target is to arrive in the first four and to stay ahead of Lorenzo and be on the podium,' he added, referring to Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo.

Rossi has a history of good form in the punishing heat of Malaysia, where he won from second on the grid last year and has seven podium finishes here in total, including five wins.

Taking second place at the Australian Grand Prix extended his lead at the top of the world championship standings, where he is sitting on a comfortable 270 points, after title rival Lorenzo's first-lap crash. --

2010 World Cup Qualifying

October 19, 2009

Qualifying for the next World Cup is now in progress across the globe in the race to join South Africa in the finals.

Again there will be 32 participating nations. South Africa will be joined by five other African nations, plus 13 from Europe, four from South America and Asia and three from Concacaf. There will also be two places decided by an Oceania/Asia play-off and a Concacaf/South America play-off.

ALREADY QUALIFIED

Hosts - South Africa
From Europe/UEFA - Denmark
From Europe/UEFA - England
From Europe/UEFA - Germany
From Europe/UEFA - Italy
From Europe/UEFA - Netherlands
From Europe/UEFA - Serbia
From Europe/UEFA - Slovakia
From Europe/UEFA - Spain
From Europe/UEFA - Switzerland
From South America - Argentina
From South America - Brazil
From South America - Chile
From South America - Paraguay
From Africa - Ghana
From Africa - Ivory Coast
From Concacaf - Honduras
From Concacaf - Mexico
From Concacaf - United States
From Asia/AFC - Australia
From Asia/AFC - Japan
From Asia/AFC - South Korea
From Asia/AFC - Korea DPR

EUROPE

The nine group winners qualified automatically. The best eight of the nine runners-up play a two-legged play-off to qualify.

"2010 World Cup" redirects here. For other competitions of that name, see 2010 World Cup (disambiguation).

"FIFA 2010" redirects here. For the computer game of a similar name, see FIFA 10.

2010 FIFA World Cup

South Africa 2010
2010 FIFA World Cup official logo
Tournament details
Host country	South Africa
Dates	11 June – 11 July
Teams	32 (from 5 or 6 confederations)
Venue(s)	10 (in 9 host cities)

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th FIFA World Cup, the premier international football tournament. It is scheduled to take place between 11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the culmination of a qualification process that began in August 2007 and involved 204 of the 208 FIFA national teams. As such, it matches the 2008 Summer Olympics as the sports event with the most competing nations.

This will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by an African nation, after South Africa beat Morocco and Egypt in an all-African bidding process. Italy are the defending champions, and secured qualification for the final tournament on 10 October 2009. The draw for the finals will take place on 4 December 2009 in Cape Town.

Materazzi, Hamilton and Young unite at the Milan 2009 Homeless World Cup

Posted on 11/09/2009

Italian football star Marco Materazzi and Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton met with Homeless World Cup President Mel Young yesterday at the Milan 2009 Homeless World Cup.

'They Are Like My Children'

In the nail biting Community Cup final, Wales defeated Sweden 9-7. The score vascilated as Wales scored closely followed by Sweden, until Wales snuck ahead in the second half by a couple of goals.

Wales were overjoyed with this result, especially Coach Lee who couldn't help cry due to the results. "They performed outstandingly. They have worked so hard and I am so proud of them. They are like my children. I'm proud to be from Wales and I'm proud to wear this jersey." The week started a bit slow for the Wales Team as they picked up momentum as the week progressed, and they are sad to leave. Coach Lee hopes to be back next year with another bunch of fantastic people.

The Swedish Team put up a good fight in this close game and thought the results could have gone either way. In any case, they have enjoyed their experience here in Milan and this tournament.

World Cup History

2006: Germany

Champions: Italy Runners-up: France Final Score: Italy: 1 - France: 1 (Italy wins after penalty shootout 5-3)

2002: Korea/Japan

Champions: Brazil Runners-up: Germany Final Score: Brazil: 2 - Germany: 0

1998: France

Champions: France Runners-up: Brazil Final Score: France: 3 - Brazil: 0

1994: USA

Champions: Brazil Runners-up: Italy Final Score: Brazil: 0 - Italy: 0 (Brazil wins after penalty shootout 3-2)

1990: Italy

Champions: Germany Runners-up: Argentina Final Score: Germany: 1 - Argentina: 0

1986: Mexico

Champions: Argentina Runners-up: Germany Final Score: Argentina: 3 - Germany: 2

1982: Spain

Champions: Italy Runners-up: Germany Final Score: Italy: 3 - Germany: 1

1978: Argentina

Champions: Argentina Runners-up: Netherlands Final Score: Argentina: 3 - Netherlands: 1

1974: Germany

Champions: Germany Runners-up: Netherlands Final Score: Germany: 2 - Netherlands: 1

1970: Mexico

Champions: Brazil Runners-up: Italy Final Score: Brazil: 4 - Italy: 1

1966: England

Champions: England Runners-up: Germany Final Score: England: 4 - Germany: 2

1962: Chile

Champions: Brazil Runners-up: Czechoslovakia Final Score: Brazil: 3 - Czechoslovakia: 1

1958: Sweden

Champions: Brazil Runners-up: Sweden Final Score: Brazil: 5 - Sweden: 2

1954: Switzerland

Champions: Germany Runners-up: Hungary Final Score: Germany: 3 - Hungary: 2

1950: Brazil

Champions: Uruguay Runners-up: Brazil Final Score: Uruguay: 2 - Brazil: 1

1938: France

Champions: Italy Runners-up: Hungary Final Score: Italy: 4 - Hungary: 2

1934: Italy

Champions: Italy Runners-up: Czechoslovakia Final Score: Italy: 2 - Czechoslovakia: 1

1930: Uruguay

Champions: Uruguay Runners-up: Argentina Final Score: Uruguay: 4 - Argentina: 2

About the World Cup

From it's humble beginnings in 1930 the Soccer World Cup has grown to be one of the most spectacular sporting events in the world. The 2010 World Cup promises to be the planet's biggest sporting event ever. Well over a billion people are expected to follow the month long tournament between the world's top 32 soccer playing nations.

The World Cup is the most important competition in international soccer and is organised by FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), the sport's governing body.

The tournament takes place every four years. The previous tournament was held in 2006 in Germany and Italy won the World Cup. 2010 will be the first time that the final tournament will be hosted by an African nation.

More than 160 national teams take part in the regional (Continental Zone) qualifying rounds to qualify as one of the 32 teams that will take part in finals.

Welcome to Soccer World Cup 2010 South Africa
South Africa 2010 In 2010 the Soccer World Cup final tournament will be held in Africa for the first time ever. South Africa will be the host nation.

At 22, a Veteran of the Madness

Published: October 18, 2009

Eventually, the madness of professional sports gets to everyone.
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Lionel Messi, right, of Barcelona dueled for the ball with Valencia players David Albelda, center, and Jeremy Mathieu, left, during their Spanish La Liga soccer match in Valencia, Spain, on Saturday.

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Until this weekend, it might have seemed that Spanish soccer was outside the asylum. The national squad had completed the perfect World Cup qualification, winning every one of its 10 games before sending its sons back to their clubs.

And Barcelona had taken the extra precaution of sending a private jet to bring Lionel Messi back from Uruguay. It figured that €80,000, or $119,000, was worth every cent to fly its star player as far and as quickly away from the hysteria of Diego Maradona as possible.

Messi’s special flight across 10,000 kilometers, or 6,200 miles, landed at Barcelona’s El Prat airport at 4 p.m. Thursday. He trained with his club at 6 p.m., went on to Valencia and on Saturday played the full 90 minutes in a goalless draw that keeps Barça on top of La Liga.

He didn’t sparkle, he didn’t shake all of the travel fatigue or all of the mayhem out of his system in one go. But he did complete the fifth anniversary of his Barcelona first-team career in one piece.

At 22, Messi is a veteran of soccer’s ever more exhaustive demands on its players. The administrators keep finding new ways to squeeze the performers for the extra dollars.

The nations in the World Cup, the clubs that pay the weekly wages and, above all, FIFA, which sets the rules and the tournament schedules, push players to breaking point, then lament their inability to entertain at every occasion.

Don’t you sometimes wonder how players manage to concentrate on one ball at a time?

Pepe Reina, the No. 2 Spanish goalkeeper, was seeing double in the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, England, on Saturday. He was beaten by the most farcical goal of this or many a weekend, the only goal by which his team, Liverpool, lost, 1-0.

Down on one knee to gather a routine shot from Sunderland’s Darren Bent early in the game, Reina was suddenly confronted with two flying objects.

The white soccer ball struck a big, red beach ball right in the goalkeeper’s line of vision. He flapped. The beach ball went to his right, the soccer ball ricocheted to his left, and he caught neither.

Reina looked like a man who had just stepped off a flight from one end of the world to the other.

The goal stood because the referee, Mike Jones, did not apply the rule that play must be stopped in the case of an “outside agent” of any kind interfering with the normal course of action. Although the beach ball was almost twice the size of the regulation soccer ball and was on the ground six meters, or about 20 feet, from the net, Jones and his assistants apparently failed to spot it.

Sunderland celebrated, Liverpool was flabbergasted, and the boy in the crowd who had released the red beach ball had no place to hide.

The irony was that he is a Liverpool fan. The beach ball, Liverpool red and bearing the club’s crest, was instantaneously identifiable. So was the boy, because, while the BBC blurred his face to spare him possible repercussions from fanatics, Sky TV news broadcast the teenager in all his embarrassment.

One bizarre goal beat Liverpool, no goals were scored in Valencia, but six were scored in the Spanish capital, as Real Madrid beat Real Valladolid, 4-2.

Valencia’s miracle is that it is playing at all after a summer when the bailiffs called and the club, which had run up debts of more than €500 million, or $745 million, faced bankruptcy. At the 11th hour, the regional authority, acting like a government saving a failed bank, stepped in to give Valencia €74 million.

That amount is less than the club had been offered by Real Madrid, Barcelona and possibly Manchester United to sell its strikers David Villa, Juan Manuel Mata and David Silva. The three players, all members of Spain’s national squad, remain for the time being in Valencia.

CSKA Moscow 0 - 1 Man Utd

Valencia (right) powers in a shot to give United victory

Manchester United put themselves on the brink of qualifying for the Champions League knockout phase with a win over CSKA Moscow at the Luzhniki Stadium.

Antonio Valencia earned the deserved victory late on when he angled in a strike at the far post after Dimitar Berbatov had flicked on a Nani cross.

Moments earlier, Valencia had smashed a shot against the crossbar.

The lively Nani had also gone close earlier on when his header was turned round the post by keeper Igor Akinfeev.

United were back at the scene of their 2008 Champions League final triumph over Chelsea when keeper Edwin van der Sar saved from Nicolas Anelka to secure a win on penalties.

That game had grass specially laid for it whereas the normal artificial surface was used on this occasion as a patient United notched their first win over a Russian side in Europe at the sixth attempt.

Despite CSKA being the more familiar with the so-called plastic pitch, United looked just as comfortable on the ball in what quickly developed into a cagey affair.

United were given a scare when centre-back Nemaja Vidic played his side into trouble and allowed Milos Krasic get in an 18-yard shot which he put over.

At the other end, Akinfeev was nearly caught out before managing to scramble a 30-yard Paul Scholes shot, which bounced in front of him, over his bar.

Gary Neville curled a left-foot shot narrowly high but, whether it was the pitch or defensive mindset of the teams, goalmouth chances were proving a rarity.

As much might have been expected considering, going into the tie, CSKA had won their last six matches at home in Europe while United were unbeaten in 13 away games in the Champions League.

However, Nani nearly changed the complexion of the match when he burst past Georgi Schennikov, although none of his team-mates took the gamble to get on the end of a cross he slid across the CSKA goalmouth.

Portuguese winger Nani looked the most likely to get the goal the game desperately needed and was only denied when Akinfeev dived low to his left to turn his header round the post.

CSKA - managed by former Sevilla, Tottenham and Real Madrid boss Juande Ramos - might have been the home side but showed little ambition, with United looking the more threatening as the game progressed.

Substitute Michael Owen missed a 10-yard volley from a Valencia cross before a lapse in concentration at the back by United was only rescued by the assistant referee's flag.

Krasic would have had a free shot on goal but was wrongly ruled offside.

A CSKA goal would have been unfair on the visitors and they heeded the warning as they produced a slick move involving several one-touch passes before Valencia saw a sweet strike come back off the crossbar.

Valencia made no mistake shortly afterwards when he scored the goal to reward a professional performance, leaving United commandingly top of Group B with three wins out of three.