Ivory Coast beat Nigeria to lift CAN U-17 title

IMAGE: cafonline.com

The Baby Elephants of Cote d’ Ivoire won their first African U-17 title after beating the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria 5-4 penalty shoot-out at the Under-17 Championship in Morocco.

The match ended 1-1 in regulation time and went straight to penalties accordance to FIFA regulation for the under-17s.

Congratulations to the winners though the Eaglets lost gallantly.

The Bayern dream night (Bayern 4-0 Barcelona)

IMAGE:soccernet.com
 

On the night, Bayern Munich were a lot better and the dominant side to deserve a 4-0 victory over Barcelona at the Allianz Arena in the first leg of the semi final of the UEFA Champions League.

Thomas Muller scored twice while Mario Gomez and Adjen Robben got one goal each to place Bayern on the safe side ahead of the return leg.

 

Barcelona were a shadow of themselves with so much relliance on Lionel Messi who seemed not absolutely fit for the match.

 

 If you're still trying to comprehend how the damage was done, see the highlight and stats again, then you'll realize that Barcelona didn’t come to the party or say they ran out of ideas.

 

Obviously, there is a problem at the Barca end. Many questions are being raised, one of which is if Barcelona magic or miracle can rescue the team from this mess? Time shall tell. Remember football is cruel and it's not over until the 2nd leg in the case of the UCL.

 A night no one saw coming!

Saurez bites Ivanovic so what?



Suarez bites Iva. Inset: Mike Tyson bite Holyfield

It is often said that when a Dog bites a man, it is no news but when a man bites a Dog, it becomes news worthy. What about the incidence that took the shine of the match between Liverpool and Chelsea where Luis Suarez bit Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic? What do you call that?

The match played at Anfield, Liverpool home ground on sunday ended 2-2 saw Suarez playing the Hero and the Villain at the same time. He helped his team picked that draw at home, his effort cannot be over-emphasized.

Known for controversy, several bans for different reasons and the latest is the biting incidence. Not new to Suarez though ‘cos he has once marched the mud before in November 2010 while at Ajax, he was suspended seven games after biting PSV Eindhoven’s Ottman Bakkal during a dutch league game.

May be Suarez needs to be told the Mike Tyson story. Without much ado, Tyson after the infamous fight nicknamed the ‘Bite-fight’ with Evander Holyfield lost so much even getting suspended permanently from boxing but after a year of sorrow and appeal, he got his license back to fight.

Now Luis Suarez has been fined by Liverpool, the Professional Footballers Association proposes an Anger Management Counselling, the FA yet to take a stand on the case, and his future is being discussed although the club still want to keep him despite heavy criticism. 

Is the Tyson experience enough? No! But could help. Players need to be more responsible and understand that the kids are watching. Apology accepted, go and sin no more Luis Suarez.

Djokovic beats Nadal to win Monte Carlo Masters

Image: bbc.co.uk

World number one Novak Djokovic put up an impressive performance to end Rafael Nadal's eight-year winning run in the Monte Carlo Masters, beating him in straight sets in Sunday's final.

The Serbian inflicted Nadal's first defeat in Monte Carlo in 47 matches and avenged last year's final defeat to lift his first Masters title.

Djokovic, 25, for the first time dominated on the Clay, Nadal's favourite ground to win the first set 6-2 in 46 minutes, before taking the second set 7-6 (7-1).

Earlier in the semis, Djokovic saw off Fabio Fognini while Nadal defeated French man Jo Wilfried Tsonga to set up the history-making final.

Meanwhile the prize money for the tournament is € 2,646,495

Sani Gideon back after injury layoff

Nigerian striker Sani Gideon has returned to action in Turkey after he was sidelined for three months by a knee injury.

The Akhirsar Belediyespor of Turkey striker told mtnfootball.com that he now hopes to help his Turkish club stay up in the top flight.

“I played a game for the reserves on Monday against Fenerbahce. I hope to be part of some games to help in my team’s survival,” said the 22-year-old Gideon, who featured for Gateway FC of Abeokuta before he moved overseas.

His club are in the drop zone on 35 points from 30 matches with four rounds to be played. They are two points away from safety.

He said of his long battle with injury: "I have been unlucky this season with injury. I have played seven games and was injured at the beginning of second round. It was a knee injury that made me miss up to 10 weeks initially. So I went for a scan and the doctor said I will miss eight weeks.

“Later, I bounced back after six weeks, then trained for two weeks, then the injury returned as I felt pain on my leg and that kept me out for another two weeks.”

Last season, Gideon scored four goals in 14 games for Akhirsar.

GOAL LINE TECH: English Premier League approves Hawk-eye

No goal-line controversy will be witnessed during any English Premier League match next season.

All 20 English topflight clubs on Thursday voted to approve the British Hawkeye goalline technology which involves several camera’s behind each goal.

It could be recalled that FIFA recently approved ‘GoalControl’,a camera-based system from Germany, would be used at this year’s Confederations Cup in Brazil and, if successful, would be implemented at the 2014 World Cup also in Brazil. 

The English Premier League will be the first domestic league to adopt goalline technology while Spain’s la Liga are reportedly keen to follow suit within two to three years, The German Bundesliga within three to four years while The Italians have no such plans for now.

Although unconfirmed, Hawkeye’s debut appearance on English turf could even be at the pre-season Community Shield at Wembley after the Football Association sanctioning its testing at an England v Belgium international friendly last June (Euronews.com)

 

 

The obvious ''Messidependence'' further revealed

Messi battles Maxwell during the Q/finals in Camp Nou.  (Image:ntyimes.com)

Simply put, it took the influence and inspiration of the world best footballer, Lionel Messi to save Barcelona from losing out of the UEFA champions league last night.

Messi started from the bench owing to his tigh injury, watched his team mates as they tried to unlock PSG especially having conceeded a goal, it proved very difficult but with his introduction, his presence lifted the hearts of his team mates as they further revealed after the game.

You know the outcome.... PSG out Barcelona progressed to the semi finals.

The risk was worth it afterall but he limped off the pitch on the night, lets hope to see him back in the semi finals with ties to be decide on friday 10am.

Barcelona is simply a different team without the wonder messi. Can this be said of other teams with inevitable key players? Search the world, you'll find a few.