The Only Football Blog

Barcelona football club was originally created by a team of English, Catalan and Swiss football players. Joan Gamper led the above teams and since their first appearance they have become a symbol of Catalan culture as well as a symbol of Catalanism.

Their motto is ‘Mes sue un club’, which translated means ‘More than a club”. They also house an official Barca anthem, which comes in the shape of the ‘Cant del Barca’. Both Jaume Picas and Josep Espinas wrote this particular song. Fans and team members at the matches often chant this exact tune.

Barcelona football club are in fact the second richest football club in the world in terms of profit. They in fact have an immense yearly turnover of €398 million.

Their upmost rival comes in the shape of Real Madrid. Matches between both Real Madrid and Barcelona are referred to as ‘El Clasico’.

Barcelona is in fact reined as the current champion team in both Europe and Spain, winning the most home and international trophies in Spanish football to date.

Trophies won include Copa de la Liga, Copa Eva Duarte, Supercopa de Espana,Copa del Rey and La Liga and they appear as the record holders for all above competitions.

Their other claim to fame includes winning a total of four UEFA Super Cup competitions, four UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup competitions, four UEFA Champions league contests, an impressive three Inter-Cities Fairs Cups and also two FIFA Club World Cup Trophies.

Barcelona is also the only European club to have taken part in seasonal continental football. These games began in 1955.

If you too are a fan of the world famous football club then you will more than likely wish to purchase Barcelona tickets. A great online venue to visit for all of your ticketing needs is spainticketbureau.com.

With every New Year brings new things to look forward to and new adventures, so what can we expect from 2012.

The Olympics and Paralympics

If there is one event that will define this year it has to be the Olympic and Paralympic Games. London is gearing itself up for one of the world’s greatest sporting events. While a global audience tuning into their tellies to catch a glimpse of the event.

Tracing there origins back to ancient Greece the Games are set to be a spectacular event which will bring millions of people to London alongside 10,500 athletes from 205 nations competing in 650 sessions of sport.

The Diamond Jubilee

If a summer of sporting events isn’t enough then there are always the celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

To mark the Queen’s 60th anniversary on the throne the country will take part in a series of events centring on an extended weekend at the beginning of June. The event will be marked with an extra bank holiday on Tuesday June 5th with the second bank holiday in May being moved to June 4th.

There will also be a number of celebrations taking place across the country including a Thames river pageant, the big Jubilee lunch and Jubilee beacons being lit around the world.

The economy

However, despite all the celebrations surrounding the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee there is still worries over the world economy.

Economists have already predicted that the UK economy will enter a double dip recession in the first quarter of the year. While at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos the IMF has warned that inappropriate cuts could lead to a strangulation of growth in the world economy. Alongside the deepening euro zone crisis the world economy could continue to be rocky this year.

We discovered recently that Wayne Rooney’s impending ban at Euro 2012 will be cut to two matches instead of the three that England had initially feared.

The threat of a three match ban left England manager Fabio Capello openly questioning the wisdom of taking Rooney as part of England’s squad. Many fans and pundits considered this an extreme view and it opened a debate as to who will fire England to success at the coming tournament.

Most people saw Capello’s threats of leaving Rooney behind as a warning to UEFA – either reduce the ban or lose one of your most marketable players. Some whole heartedly agreed with Capello’s ambiguous sentiments about leaving their star man behind and wondered how a revamp of the squad may take shape.

Many of England’s current crop of players have been tarnished by failure, and the chance to start afresh seemed appealing to some. Players like Phil Jones at Man United are already showing world class ability and if the likes of Jones, Wilshere, Sturridge and Rodwell can come of age within the next few months then England could have a bigger chance than many might suspect.
Phil Jones has been a revelation at the heart of the Man United defence.

He represents a modern breed of centre half that can play football as much as he can dominate in the air and exude raw physicality. Daniel Sturridge has proved to be a player who can pick the ball up in deep positions and run at the opposition with pace and skill – a real weapon in the modern game. Chelsea’s policy of settling him down into a wide position could be to England’s gain.

The sense of expectation surrounding England at these major tournaments seems like it’s beginning to diminish. Spain are outright favourites for any international silverware at the moment and this could play to England’s favour. England have already notched up a win over the best team in the world in their build up for next summer, and whether they were fortunate or otherwise, they showed Spain can be beaten.

http://sports.coral.co.uk, Betfair and Bet365 are three of the top places to bet on football online.

http://sports.coral.co.uk currently support an array of possible football wagers, these include the likes of English, Scottish, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, French, Other European tournaments, UEFA Cup competitions, Tournaments in the rest of the world, Euro 2012 and Player, Manager and Team specials.

The better bet coupon available online at http://sports.coral.co.uk covers all Premier League, Championship, SPL, La Liga, Serie A & Bundesliga fixtures. This new coupon also boasts to provide users with a much better price than any of the other coupons on offer.

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When you click on the football tab at http://sports.coral.co.uk you will be taken to a page that reveals an assortment of live betting matches, ante-post and coupons and all matches. Users are simply to tick the boxes of the events they see, they will then need to click on the tab that is labeled ‘Create Coupon’ in order to view these events.

All of the matches are listed; it is therefore up to those that are placing the bet to select any events they wish to place a bet on. They can do this by simply visiting the football section of http://sports.coral.co.uk.

http://sports.coral.co.uk are also offering a promotion at the moment in that they will refund any lost bets on the first and last goal scorer and score cast on the particular match in question. This is a great offer that shouldn’t be missed and is featuring when the first goal in a televised championship fixture is scored as a header!

The http://sports.coral.co.uk venue is certainly a great place to check out if you are a football fanatic!

Betting on Premiership football scores can be a tempting wager, especially if you have a good prior knowledge of the teams you are betting on. If you are an avid football fan as many of us are, then it is likely that your greatest footballing knowledge will be of your own team. There are certain informed predictions that statistics or a passing interest cannot divulge; confidence, form and team spirit are all factors in deciding Premiership Football scores. With insider knowledge of the way your team plays you can make far more educated bets.

For example we often know when our team is ‘due a win’ and we are often right. We know who the key players are which might not be as apparent to the neutral observer. Some players benefit the team by their very presence rather than their talent and we realise that when they aren’t playing, our team could be in trouble. We get a sense of when a long odds centre half is ‘due a goal.’ We know which scorers are the most consistent at getting the first goal and in some cases it is nearly a sure fire bet – Shearer in his heyday at Newcastle, Rooney in the current Man Utd side.
It is always tempting to make a bet on the Premiership football scores of other teams to liven up a game you would otherwise be neutral to, but recognise that without the benefit of first hand knowledge, your chances will dwindle. If you don’t let your heart rule your head it is easiest to make money off your own team. Instead of taking on hopeful bets on outrageous score lines, we can make sensible informed choices based on our expertise.
Football is central to many of our lives in the UK, and from watching, scrutinising and endlessly debating our teams we can have a good guess as to how they will fair from week to week.

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bwin.com is offering customers a new £5 free bet offer through its recently-launched football betting site, http://www.bwinbetting.com. The incentive is exclusively available to bwinbetting.com readers and has been launched in time for the new football season, which is now just weeks away.

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Known to football fans across the world as the shirt sponsor of Spanish giants Real Madrid, bwin.com launched bwinbetting.com earlier this year with the aim of ensuring punters can make the most informed betting decisions possible. It features previews of all the latest games across a wide variety of leagues and cups, a comprehensive stats section, betting tips and football news.

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England defender John Terry has moved to deny that there is a rift in the England squad between the players and Fabio Capello after a disappointing start to the World Cup.

“We have a meeting tonight to watch the game and see where we went wrong. As a group of players we owe it to the people back home,” said Terry.

“If we upset the manager then so be it. If people need to get things off their chest they should do. If we feel that things need to be changed then everyone needs to voice their opinion. If that upsets him or any player then so what?”

“On behalf of the players there’s no unrest in the camp at all. We’re obviously still disappointed from the game the other night, but we have to pick ourselves up and we have to win the game on Wednesday,” said Terry.

“We’re all behind the manager, we shouldn’t be looking at excuses or criticising the manger. All we can do as a group of players is stick behind him. We’re here, we’re supporting and we are fully behind him. We know we’ve got his support as well and that’s the main thing.

“I’m not going to sit here and question the manager. All I can say is I’m here on behalf of the team and players and we’re all fully behind the manager. Since the manager has come in he’s had his ways and his philosophies that he’s brought to the side.

“That’s worked in the campaign and nothing should change from that. We’ve got to stay unified and stay together and get the win.”

Asked if he believed Joe Cole could liven up team, Terry responded: “I think so, we’ve seen that with Chelsea. I personally think he and Wayne [Rooney] are the only two in the side who can really open up things and are key to breaking down defences. If he’s called on, Joe will do a great job.”

England are currently 12/1 with bwin to win the World Cup with Ladbrokes and 888sport offering 10/1 and 11/1 respectively.

Bayern Munich may not be showing spectacular performances the past two seasons, but they are serious in improving their position by strengthening their lines. Among the things they need, Oliver Kahn stated that the most important thing Bayern Munich needs right now is a world-class goal keeper. Bayern Munich finishes second in the 2008/09 Bundesliga after losing the league’s championship trophy to Wolfsburg, while their performance this year is not quite improved just yet; they are now in third place.

Kahn continues his comments by stating that throughout his career with Bayern Munich, from 1994 to 2008, the weakest link in Bayern Munich’s strong chain is the goalkeeper. It is definitely the toughest position to fill. Although experts are considering Kahn’s job at keeping Bayern Munich’s goal safe was spectacular, the team doesn’t have a worthy replacement yet.

The current Bayern Munich goalkeeper, Hans-Jorge Butt, is not performing as well as anyone would expect. He is often found being replaced by Michael Rensing who is also not a superbly performing goalkeeper. It is obvious that Bayern Munich needs to improve their last defense by adding a strong and reliable goalkeeper to the mix.

Rensing is probably too young to be the first goalkeeper of huge team such as Bayern Munich, while Jorge Butt is simply too old to be as reliable as the team need. According to Kahn, several viable alternatives include Gianluigi Buffon and Petr Cech. Although Kahn personally opts for Buffon, the final decision would be in the hands of team management.

Shocking news came from what should be the world’s biggest football team. Manchester United has officially announced that they have to deal with £716.5 million of debts and interest carefully in order to survive. After the recent rumors of the team selling their Old Trafford Stadium, this recent announcement is definitely worse than expected.

The reason for MU’s increasing debts is the raise of interest rates and other costs. The team’s management has to cope with interest rate increase from 14.25% to 16.25%; MU spent more than £68 million repaying interest alone last year, and the burden will be much heavier after the 2% increase.

Sir Alex Ferguson had stated that Manchester United is not affected in any way — especially when it comes to purchasing and maintaining their best players — by the increasing amount of debt. Still, both the public and the media are not entirely convinced with Sir Alex’s statement, especially after seeing the £80 million Manchester United received after selling Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid being allocated for other posts; only less than a quarter of the money were used to shop for new players.

Sir Alex did purchased Antonio Valencia and Gabriel Obertan earlier this season, while Michael Owen was acquired for free from Newcastle United. The sale of CR7 to Real Madrid also brought Manchester United’s 2009 financial report to a cool £6.4 million closing profit; the 2008 was a lot worse, showing £42.7 million in financial losses alone. Will Manchester United solve their problems?

Carlos Tevez seemed to be very disappointed by several Manchester United’s fans scolding him and labeling him a traitor when MU first met Tevez’s new team, Manchester City. Since then, he promised he would go all out on his former team and wouldn’t hesitate to celebrate goals he scored against Manchester United. He proved his words for sure after scoring two spectacular goals against Manchester United on yesterday’s MU vs. Manchester City Carling Cup match.

The match was nothing less than amazing; with both teams playing all out for the spot at Carling Cup’s final match, but the match ended with 1-2 for Manchester City. Tevez scored both Manchester City’s goals without hesitation, and he sure did celebrate the victory without worrying about his old team at all.

After the match, Ryan Giggs — one of Manchester United’s top player — commented that Tevez is a great player. Even so, the team has no regrets letting Teves go to Manchester City. Just weeks before the match, papers and media are reporting how Sir Alex Ferguson considered Tevez’s demands to be too expensive while Tevez considered the team as rather not serious about keeping him in.

“Carlos is a very reliable player, and he is also a great penalty executor,” said Giggs to ESPN Star. With the second leg of this rendezvous coming up shortly, Manchester United players have a lot to make up in order to compete for the Carling Cup. We’ll see if Tevez can go all the way.