Feature: Eight Reasons Why Parker Should be England Captain

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Many different opinions appeared after Pearce appointed Scott Parker as England Captain for the friendly against Netherlands. Some said it was a joke, and some said Gerrard or Lampard or Hart deserves to be the captain more than him. I know in football people always disagree with each other, but hear me out before you disagree on this appointment. Below are 8 reasons why Parker SHOULD be England new captain:

Feature: Premier League, The Best in Europe?

Should I say, ‘Farewell, AVB.’?
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Everyone knows Napoli or AC Milan are not an easy team to play against. So when both Arsenal and Chelsea arrived in Italy, I am pretty sure most of their fans were hoping for a  draw. ‘Just, don’t lose this game.’ was probably what they were thinking. But guess what? Both teams lost their games in the most unacceptable way.

Feature: Is England in Trouble?

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The departure of Capello had definitely put a lot of people in shock. No matter what the real reason is for him to come to such a decision, WHO should be the new manager is a more important question. With Euro 2012 in 4 months time, this is really a bad timing to get a new manager.

Feature: What Does Ballon D'or Tell Us?

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Messi won Ballon D’or three times in a row, well a hat-trick in winning this award is really impressive, but when the mighty Ronaldo was unable to achieve this, what does it tell us? Is it because there were no other players better than Messi? Or is it because the world already blinded from other footballing style and only know how to scream Barcelona?  This should probably be called, Football Imperialism.

Feature: Where Should David Villa Go?

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Is David Villa’s time with Barcelona comes to an end?

Transfer window will soon be reopened and many Spanish press have been talking about the future of David Villa. The Spanish top scorer of all time was on the bench during El Clasico and was only given less than 10 minutes time to play. In the game against Levante, David Villa was an unused substitute. When a striker like him, spent more time on the bench than on the field, his future of course becomes a question mark.

Feature: Euro 2012 Predictions

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I have given some thoughts to the groups of Euro 2012 after the draw and feel like making some wild guesses. Feel free to disagree with my choices! ;)

Most Unpredictable Group: Group A

Group A consisting Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech. Personally, I think this group can be quite tricky, simply because they don’t have a team that stands out. Yes, Russia looks like the strongest among all but the gap isn’t that big after all. So any combinations is possible for this group. We may see some new faces in quarter-finals. My prediction? Russia and Poland. The host always has some advantages, no?

Feature: Dear AFC, Time for Some Changes

I didn’t try to hide my shock and disappointed face when I heard all Japanese and Korean players who were running for AFC player of the year were unable to attend the event. Because it means that these four players would be ineligible for the award. Why is that? Well, AFC has this rule that player must attend the annual awards ceremony to win the trophy. With this rule, a lot of questions arose.

Feature: Messi-Ronaldo Competition is Hurting La Liga

When everyone is enjoying the rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid, counting whether Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo scored more hat-tricks in a season…Have you realized a big problem is evolving in the La Liga? Let’s call it, the Messi-Ronaldo syndrome.

How do you tell when someone is suffering from this syndrome?

Symptom 1:
They care about who score the goals more than who won the game.

Feature: My Kind of Football

How would you answer, if someone ask you ‘What is football’? Will you say, ‘Football is 22 people chase after a ball, and try to get the ball at the back of the net’? If this is your answer, there are two problems in this statement. Firstly, there are 23 people chasing a ball, including the referee, but to be precise, there are usually just 21 people chasing the ball, because the goalkeepers do not ‘chase’ after the ball. However, today I am not going to teach you about football.

Sometimes, I get offended when people said to me, ‘You ONLY know about football.’ I hope you don’t see football as ‘only’ football, because there are clearly a lot of things in football and the word ‘only’ just not wide enough to include them. If a person sees football only as a ball being kicked around, obviously he doesn’t have a clue about football. If you see football as a sport, sorry, you do not know enough about football as well. Football world is like a network, and you can connect it to anything you want.

Feature: What Happened to Torres?

We have witnessed the great finish in the beginning of the second half against Man Utd on Sunday; we also witnessed the ‘miss of the decade’ later in the game, both done by the same person, the 50 millions Fernando Torres. Somehow, media become more caution about the ‘El Niño is back’ headlines, because of all the false hopes earlier. So, where should we begin?

Feature: Who Can Be A Football Star?

Just a tiny announcement before I begin the feature: Today is the Euro qualifiers, so we will be on Twitter, tweeting Spain-Liechtenstein game live, join us on twitter and discuss with us!

Not sure if it is just me, or people who watch football long enough, sometimes can’t help but wonder, what made a footballer into a football star? Skills? Don’t think so. Achievements? Not really. Luck? More likely. All of above? Well, let’s see.

Feature: Will Arsenal Survive?

The beginning of this season seems to be tough for Arsenal, after facing Liverpool at home last week, they just played Manchester United in Old Trafford yesterday. With Nasri just gone to Manchester City, many doubts raised, from the fans especially, questioning Wenger’s capabilities as a manager. Yes, it is true that Arsenal did not win any trophy in six years; it is also true that departure of Fabragas and Nasri may reduce the strength of the team, but do these mean Arsenal will not be able to survive, and they have already lost the battle in winning anything this season? I don’t really think so.

Feature: Why Goalkeepers Often Being Underrated?

The debate about goalkeeper or defenders being underrated has been going on for many years, but let’s put the defenders aside for today, and focus on the goalkeepers.

There are two schools of thought on how can a team be successful, one emphasizes the importance in attacking, that a team needs to be good in scoring goals to win trophies, which, was challenged by Paraguay in COPA 2011. The other one emphasizes on defense, it suggests a team cannot success without good defending system. Although most people enjoys watching the more entertaining attacking football, one cannot deny that in contemporary football world, the latter fits the situation better. Manchester United wouldn’t have won the title last season without Edwin van der Sar; and Spain wouldn’t have won the World Cup without Casillas. Every team that won titles, has a keeper who is steady and made very little mistakes. Even for a team like Barcelona, which rely more on scoring goals and enjoys playing attacking football, they wouldn’t have reached the top without Victor Valdes, though many people tend to overlook this fact.

Feature: The Goods and Bads of Pre-season Tours

As all the teams are already back home preparing for the Leagues to begin, I think this is just the right time to talk about pre-season tours. Obviously, it is the commercialization of football that leads to all these pre-season tours. Players now, have to travel across continents to ‘prepare’ for the new season. These tours do in a way, benefit the clubs, mostly in terms of popularity, finance, but when it comes to preparing the club for a new season, well, not so much, in my opinion. Let’s break it down here:

Feature: Why Hong Kong Football Needs More Support Than Booing?

In the recent Barclays Asia Trophy, I have heard different voices on Hong Kong football. It is understandable that the England press said something like, Torres is definitely going to score against Kitchee, because it simply looked very easy to put the ball in the back of Kitchee's net (But he ended up scoring his precious goal against Aston Villa). Yes, our team is not good enough to play against English clubs and we are not going to argue on that. But what I don't understand is, friends went to the stadium and came back telling me many Hong Kong people were criticizing Kitchee throughout the game.

Feature: Managers/Coaches are not Magician

This week is probably not a good week for coaches, Batista, coach of Argentina national team and Bradley, coach of the United States national team were both being sacked. We all aware that football world is very realistic, if you cannot provide good results, then sorry coaches, you will be removed from the position. Some coaches were horrible, they used their players in a wrong way, used ridiculous tactics, or just simply don't know how to coach, we get that, but along the way, we have also seen many good mangers/coaches being sacked.

Feature: What's Wrong with Argentina?

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It is very hard for us football fan to ignore Argentina's performance in the COPA 2011. Despite blaming Messi and asking to sack Batista, what really went wrong with the team?

Feature: What is Loyalty?

Hello guys! Miss us? Yes, we missed you, so we are back. Remember we promised you something different? When we started the blog, we said ALL things football, therefore except news, photos, matches, here is something new, a feature. Oh, and you will continue to see more. Shall we?