Social Networking, Football Style

All football fans want their opinion heard, whether its serious blogging or just telling your workmate that a goal should have been given offside. Its everyday chat and the lifeblood of millions of people in hundreds of countries.

Social Media is growing apace and with it websites and forums on all subjects where you can converse with people of similar interest. Football has such a huge appeal that there are thousands of sites already up which allow discussion of your favourite teams and the latest action. Many of these sites focus on particular clubs so that the focus is directed at the latest goings on at the club, who is playing that is not good enough, who they should buy next, how terrible the referee was in the last match etc. Unfortunately some of these sites often attract people that think it is clever to swear and name call within their posts so look for a site that is well moderated if you decide to join the fray.

As a fan of a particular club I do tend to visit a few of the sites for my team and read the latest opinions but in general I like to participate in more open discussion so I go to a site that is less focused mostly. If you can find a site with blogs , videos, opinions polls, forums etc it becomes fun and you can become part of the community very easily or even import your own community. Its possible now to bring in your own set of fans for a particular club and set up your own group within a bigger site. If you are a local club without a website you can form your own community within these sites now with your own unique forum and club page set up in minutes. Your club members can build personal pages and even load videos or pictures of the latest match. If your club has communication problems like posting the team for the match at the weekend its absolutely ideal.

I use http://www.thebackofthenet.com but as it has all these facilities and more but there are choices out there that could benefit your club without spending any money. These sites are fun and free to everybody that is interested in football. The content is all contributed by members who are football lovers from around the world and it changes everyday so its a great place to visit. I hope you will go and get involved if you love football.

Chris Archer has been a follower and participant in football for many years. He has forthright views on football and loves to share them. He likes to discuss professional and local football on the social media site http://www.thebackofthenet.com

Mourinho Departure Shows Money Means More Than Football

As the Chelsea fans approach Stamford Bridge this weekend there will be a thought in the back of their minds that things won't be quite the same anymore. The Special One finally fell on his sword this week and decided that he could no longer satisfy his bosses need for success...

...but they forget just how well Mourinho has done. Two consecutive Premiership victories just could not hide the fact that all the Chelsea board are interested in is the Champions League, the one trophy Jose just couldn't bring home.

So, what can we learn from this? As a football fan we all want our team to win - we want them to win well, and Chelsea have been winning exeptional well since Mourinho arrived from Porto. Now there's a thing, he came from Portugal on the back of a Champions League success and there is no doubt that Abramovich expected him to do the same again.

Chelsea fans will most likely remember Mourinho as the man that brought them great success, great football and great players. The rest of us will breath a sigh of relief as Chelsea begin the task of restructuring and building a new team under a new manager, a chance to catch up, a chance to overtake. Only the men at the top will know why they wanted Mourinho out, for the rest of us we can only regret the fact that one of the worlds top managers has escaped.

Lets hope that one day the great sport of football returns to us with sport as the focus, not as a business. Big clubs are making more and more money all the time, smaller clubs are becoming extinct and people like Mourinho are needed to show what passion there is behind the game.

Duncan Rice is the webmaster of the live football scores website latestfootballscores.co.uk [http://www.latestfootballscores.co.uk] and the website design and hosting service pagesurfer [http://www.pagesurfer.co.uk].

An amateur webmaster but expert footie fan, you can expect to see articles relating to football (hate the word soccer) and the world which revoloves around it. A great man once said 'football is not about life and death - it's more important than that'. I agree.

Soccer Skills - How To Improve Your Weaker Foot

Improving your weak foot takes a serious amount of time and hard work for results to start to show. There's no doubt that the best players in the world have almost equal ability with both feet. They can perform dummies, tricks and pass efficiently with both feet giving them more options and opportunities when they have possession of the ball. Being able to use both feet is a skill that every modern footballer needs to have.

There is no real secret to improving your weaker foot other than hard work in your soccer training. As a player you need to be able to dribble with both feet giving you the sense of unpredictability against defenders. It allows you to beat defenders either using your left or right foot. To improve your weaker foot ball control you can do simple drill is such as little cuts, any kind of touches on the ball with your weaker foot is improving it. To accelerate the process of improving your weaker foot you need to perform dribbling drills such as little cuts around any kind of objects. To perform this you dribble the ball touching the ball with the inside of the foot with your weaker foot then with the outside of foot with the weaker foot and repeating this is in a continuous motion. You can then create a variations such as 2 touches with the inside foot and 2 touches with the outside of the foot. Another one is two touches with the inside of the foot and one touch with the outside of the foot. There are many variations to this drill and is your hard work that will make these drills pay off.

To improve passing with your weaker foot you simply have to do use your weaker foot. This can be done by either grabbing a mate and simply passing the ball in different styles to each other learning and maintaining skills with your weaker foot. Or if you do not have the opportunity to grab a friend you can always find a wall and practice passing the ball and receiving the ball with the wall. It's important when using the wall that you pick a consistent spot and try to hit it on a consistent basis. It's crucial that you learn not only to pass the ball along the ground with your weaker foot, but to learn to chip the ball and practice your long passes. It's crucial that you do not become a one footed player as this will make you predictable.

This article has only scratched the surface of what you can learn to learn more goto Football Smart and for more on dribbling and skills goto Ball Skills

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FIFA 10 - The Next-Gen Soccer Video Game Experience

Here is my two cents on FIFA 10 video game;

Graphics: The graphics of this version of FIFA is superiorly much better than the previous versions of the game. The players look more realistic and can be compared to that of PES 2009(although it is much better). The player's shirts, shorts, and hair move and their breath on a cold, snowy day can be seen. The facial features of the players can be seen more clearly. This is probably THE next-gen soccer experience.

Available Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PC, Nintendo DS, N-Gage, PSP, Cell Phone, and the iPhone through the AppStore.

New Features: 

To make sure that the attacking team doesn't have an advantage on the counter attack, the defensive line or "the defense" will be positioned deeper. This was done improve the realism of game play.
360 Degree Dribbling System - A new system which allows players to make more 'precise' passes. These 'precise' passes were not able to be made in previous versions of the game.

Improved Features:

Manager Mode: Now, making a 5-star team is much harder. This means you can't just buy many highly-rated players and expect your team to become a 5-star team. You have to gain experience with your team. Another cool thing is that your pre-season friendly matches are organized by your ASSISTANT MANAGER! I thought that this was pretty cool.
A.I. has been improved.
Set-piece delivery has been improved. This means that scoring goals or crossing from a free kick/corner is much easier.

David Ruther revealed the following features on his Twitter account:

The wall defending against a free kick can be moved through use of the shoulder button.
The game will not feature dynamic lighting.
Cross-park passes are now generally a lot more driven, and will take about half the time to cross the pitch.
You can assign specific stadiums to clubs.
On cold days, it may snow, and players' breath will be visible.
There will be new crowd effects.
There will be a new training mode, similar to the one in the PS2 version.

To watch a trailer for this upcoming game, please visit: http://europeansoccer-about.com/VideoGame [http://www.europeansoccer-about.com/VideoGame]

For more information on European Soccer, please visit [http://www.europeansoccer-about.com]. We offer the latest news, league, club, and player information in detail and can download great wallpapers of your favorite European soccer players for FREE. You can find great deals on Soccer Posters.

US Major League Soccer (MLS) and Its Steady Growth

Organized in 1993, the United State's Major League Soccer federation was established in order to create a Division One-level professional football league in exchange for the staging of the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The MLS began play in 1996, and had an initial ten teams competing.

The MLS is considered as the premier professional football league in North America. Currently, it has thirteen teams, which are mostly based in the U.S., along with one Canadian team. The league's matches are regularly broadcast on national TV, and are also featured in a number of Web sites that offer daily updates, football highlights and live streaming videos as well.

How the MLS Season Runs

The Major League Soccer season generally runs from late March or early April to November, and teams here play a total of 30 regular-season matches each. During the post-season playoff, a total of 8 teams compete with each other, and this culminates with championship final or the MLS Cup.

For the 2008 season, the MLS matches will be played from March 29 to October 26. A total of 14 teams are divided into the Eastern and Western Conferences, who have seven teams each. The league's postseason starts on October 30 and runs until November 23, ending with the MLS Cup 2008 finals.

MLS Team Names and Ownership Formats

Teams in the MLS, much like other American professional sports teams, generally are given nicknames at their inception. Teams like the Tampa Bay Mutiny, Los Angeles Galaxy, Houston Dynamo, Columbus Crew, San Jose Clash have nicknames much like other US sports teams, while clubs like D.C. United and Miami Fusion FC, have more traditional European-style titles.

How the MLS Managed To Grow Despite Experiencing a String of Financial Losses

The Major League Soccer federation, according to a BusinessWeek magazine report, has lost more than $350 million since its inception. However there have been positive signs of growth and profitability for the league. With the completion of more soccer-specific stadiums, the levels of ownership have expanded and television coverage has also increased as well.

The league has managed to see revenues significantly soar and successfully kept its expenses to a minimum. Television coverage of the pro league has also consistently expanded as well, with league organizers and team owners sealing a deal with US broadcaster ESPN for added TV rights and increased presence across North America. The league also saw the return of MLS to Univision and its Spanish-language networks, in a major bid to corner the lucrative Hispanic-viewing market and increase its fan base in Latin and South America as well.

The Worldwide Web has also helped the league flourish, with fans trooping to many Web sites that show football highlights, updates and live streaming videos of different MLS matches.

Catch the latest soccer videos and highlights at [http://www.sportizo.com]

Live Streaming and Live Score of all soccer and sports matches.

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