Monthly Archives: May 2013

The official launch of the Real Madrid home shirt has taken place today. The Spanish giants revealed the new design of their 2013-14 shirts and kits. The new shirt is very diverse to last year's shirt designed by Adidas. Last year's shirt stood out with its big bold black outlines around the collar and sleeve areas, these matches up with the large BWIN shirt sponsor which was centre in big dark text. The new Real Madrid shirt has taken on a new style; it has much more of a lighter design to it. The famous Adidas three stripes which appeared black on the 2012-13 home shirt are now a grey colour which lightens the shirt up quite a lot.

The orange details on the shirt certainly add a great touch to the home shirt, they are situated on the collar area of the shirt and the end of the sleeves, and these trims look extremely stylish. Another change is the collar; last year's was a V-neck now the style has changed to a modernised crew neck. Manufacturers, Adidas have their branding logo embroidered

With the special one due to announce his return to Chelsea soon I'm asking the question is it a good move? He was Chelsea's most successful manager ever but will he have control issues with Roman Abramovich still holding the purse strings? He definitely has the fans on his side as for years as soon as the current manager has hit a sticky patch they have called for their special one. The team is greatly changed from his first spell in charge but with John Terry still there and Frank Lampard just signing a one year extension to continue wearing his number 8 football shirt, the central spine of "his" team is still there. The newer players bought by other managers, or Abramovich himself, must respect the double winner of the champions league. The first competitive game that he would take charge of would see Him up against his old La Liga enemy Pep Guardiola in the European super cup, and Mourinho would relish reigniting his old rivalry with him. But as far as the Premier League goes who is

Last night was the night England wore their new England football kit for the first time, they drew 1-1 with the Republic of Ireland. This was quite a disappointing result as a win would have given the fans, manager and players the confidence to believe they are capable of beating top teams. Roy Hodgson chose to play the classical 4-4-2 with his players but this has been criticized by football specialists and former players. Gary Lineker said that he could not believe Hodgson has chosen to play his players in a 4-4-2 format. The 4-4-2 system is very rarely used anymore in football; most managers will not use the old format now as it has proved to be less effective than others.

Hodgson tried to back up his chosen system by adding in some positive comments saying that the players played well and tried to get around the Republic Of Ireland defence. However this may not be good enough to 'try' against a side like Brazil. England will play Brazil in a friendly on Sunday 2nd June. Some key players

It will soon be time for the group stages in the confederation cup 2013. The cup this year will be held by Brazil, who are also hosting the 2014 World Cup. This is usually how the confederation cup works, it comes along every 4 years and whoever is going to be holding the World Cup the following year will also hold the Confederation cup in preparation. Generally it is the cup holders, host nation and six continental champions who qualify for the confederation cup.

Last year's winners were Brazil who played brilliant throughout the whole tournament, the USA won second place and Spain grabbed third place as they played fantastically in their Spanish Kit. The cup was first hosted in 1992 and Spain are yet to win the cup. For this year's cup Chelsea striker Fernando Torres has been recalled to the Spain squad after being left out of most of the Spain fixtures so far. Torres, 29 has recently found his good form under interim boss Rafael Benitez. The former Liverpool hit man, who moved to

Stories have surfaced about the prospect of former AC Milan player Clarence Seedorf becoming the new AC Milan manager and taking over the AC Milan shirt. Rumours surrounding this have been talked about before at the very start of may, with reports that either him or Van Bommel would take over from current boss Massimiliano Allegri. Former Manchester City and current AC Milan Striker Mario Balotelli expressed his disappointment that AC Milan may be getting rid of Allegri.

Most of the doubt came at the start of the 2012-13 season when Milan got off to a very poor start. It wasn't long after star players such as Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva played their last game and left for Paris Saint Germain. When the two players left last year the side started to go downhill, they sat in 15th place in October 2012. As the season went on AC Milan got used to life without their star players  picked themselves up even managing to qualify for the Champion's League. Fans have been behind Allegri all the

In an exciting all German Champions League final played at Wembley Stadium in London, Bayern Munich beat Borussia Dortmund to claim the title of European Champions League winners 2013. It is the fifth time the club has secured victory in this competition although their last win was not since 2001 when they beat Valencia. Â Over the last few years the German team have suffered disappointment after reaching the Champions League final in both 2010 and 2012 but losing out on both occasions to Inter Milan and Chelsea respectively. The first half was evenly played with good attacking football from both teams, but ended with a 0-0 score line. Both teams emerged after the half time break revitalised and eager to win, and what an exciting second half it proved to be. A pass from Robben set up Mandzukic in the 60th minute to put the team in the Munich football shirts a goal up. Â A badly thought out tackle from Dante meant Borussia Dortmund were awarded a penalty that expertly hit the back of the

Women's football has in recent history been a much inferior sport to that of men's football despite the fact that it is not a new phenomenon, in fact according to the Football Association the first football match took place in 1895.  Up until 1920 the popularity of football rivaled that of men's, on Boxing Day in 1920 a match between Dick, Kerr's Ladies and St Helen's played at Goodison Park attracted a crowd of 53,000, fans with a reported 10-15,000 more people turned away due the stadium being at capacity.  In comparison the average attendance at a Super League game during the 2011/12 season was 550.  In 1921 the FA banned women from playing at Football League Grounds due to the unsuitability of the game for women, this ban remained in place for a staggering 50 years until it was finally lifted in 1971.  The ban and resulting negativity surrounding women's football obviously had a major impact on the successfulness and popularity of the sport that still lingers today.

Since

Billions of people around the world, if asked, would express their following or support for one football club or another, even in countries where football (also known as soccer) is not the most popular sport.  Being a football supporter means different things to different people, for some it is merely watching the odd game on TV, and occasionally checking the results and league position, for others it plays an important daily part in their lives keeping up to date with team news, rankings and statistics, attending home and away matches and buying team merchandise such as the official replica kits.  Wherever within the scale of these two extremes most football supporters fall they would be happy to receive a football gift based around their chosen team.

The giving of gifts for Christmas and other special occasions is a tradition that has increased significantly over the years, in 2012 the average spend per person on Christmas gifts in the UK was £445, add to this all the other occasions

Many passionate football supporters go and watch their favourite team playing matches, both home and away. Some supporters hold season tickets, these tickets usually cost well over £500 pound for the most popular clubs. Arsenal's season tickets were ranked the most expensive nearly coming in at £1000 pounds each. One of Arsenal's cheapest single day tickets costs around £35-40 pound. This can all be very expensive for fans, so why go and pay all that money to watch a match when you can watch the same one in the comfort of your own home live for free?

Sky, one of Britain's favourite broadcasting companies have always been the ones to bring live football to your homes. For years now Sky sports have provided live coverage of Premier League matches and other matches such as fixtures between La Liga teams. Often on a Saturday and Sunday they will pick out the most interesting matches and you can watch them live, with Sky's live pause and rewind you can also pause the game whenever you want to,

The new Barcelona Home Shirt has reverted to the traditional red and blue vertical stripe design with more red stripes than blue.  The sleeves start off blue, but hint at an echo to last years design by gradually merging into red, the right sleeve features the official La Liga LFP patch. The shirt has a striking v-neck collar that is yellow in colour at the front, and around the back of the neck the collar is yellow and red striped, this is the design of the Catalan flag a heritage the club are extremely proud of and like referred to in the design of their kits. Inside the shirt underneath the collar is lettering that reads Mes que un club that translates to 'More than a club', this references the fact that Barcelona FC is a symbol of Catalonian culture and has become a popular club motto.

In traditional football shirt style the front of the shirt is adorned with a Barcelona crest, the Nike swoosh logo in yellow and the sponsor printed in white.  For the first time in the clubs history