Monthly Archives: June 2015

The 2014 2015 season was a great one for the Juventus football club, bringing a fourth consecutive title in the Italian Serie A (with only three losses along the way, no less), as well as a long-awaited return to the top of the podium in the Coppa Italia. Still, if one thing continues to elude the Italian titans, it's a European title. They haven't won the Champions League since 1995 1996, and haven't clinched the Europa League since 1993. Needless to say, in 2015 2016, the primary goal is going to be ending that draught. The announcement that Juventus sign Mario Mandzukic signals a plan of action!

Juve's Offensive Void

Mario Mandzukic is on his way to Juve after a single-season stint with Atletico Madrid. The 29-year-old Croatian striker will join the Zebras on a four-year contract, and will hopefully fill the void that existed in the club's offense during the 2014 2015 season.

While the wearers of the Juventus

As England exits Euro U21 tournament we ask what can be done to improve the chances of the English national team? Last summer, when the England national football team was eliminated from the 2014 FIFA World Cup without winning a single game, many wondered how England had fallen so far from football prominence. It wasn't that they were expected to win the tournament: on the contrary, the English side have only won the World Cup on one occasion, and that was almost half a century ago. But 2014 was the worst World Cup performance in history for the English team, featuring only two goals (the only other time England went home winless, in 1958, they at least netted four goals) and ending with a 26^th place finish out of 32 teams.

Since then, most soccer fans have backed off from the "English football is doomed" stance, thanks in part to the senior national team's performance in the Euro 2016 qualifiers. Indeed, the wearers of the England football shirt have bounced back substantially

So Liverpool sign Roberto Firmino! Who is he? And why did LFC sign him? It's no secret that the Liverpool football club needs to find some new firepower if they are going to contend in the 2015 2016 Premier League. Last season was a huge step down from the team's near-championship run in 2014 2015, with the Reds struggling to compensate for the departure of offensive wizard, Luis Suarez. They still came in sixth place and scored a qualification for the 2015 2016 Europa League, but the last match of the season-a demoralizing 1-6 loss against Stoke City-showed just how much things needed to change at Anfield.

The good news is Brendan Rodgers is off to a good start in fleshing out his squad for the 2015 2016 campaign. Summer transfer signings have so far included Manchester City midfielder James Milner, Burnley forward Danny Ings, and now, Hoffenheim attacking midfielder Roberto Firmino.

Where many clubs unveiled their 2015 2016 home shirt before the 2014 2015 season was even fully complete, Real Madrid held off until June 15^th to launch the new Real Madrid home kit 2015 - 2016. The jersey, which maintains Real's traditional white and black home kit design, was revealed alongside a new away shirt design. The mock-up of the 2015 2016 Real Madrid third shirt, meanwhile, has been leaked to the press.

Real Madrid Shirt

The Home Jersey

For the 2015 2016 home jersey, Real Madrid and Adidas opted to keep things relatively simple and traditional.

The 2014 2015 season was a strong one for AS Roma, ending in a second-place finish in the Italian Serie A. It was the football club's sixth runner-up finish in the Italian top flight in the past decade. Yet despite the fact that the Wolves consistently crop up near the top of the Serie A table, they haven't actually won an Italian football championship since 2001. The team looks to change that fact during the 2015/16 season, and they've launched a brand new AS Roma home kit 2015 - 2016 to mark the start of their next chapter.

The AS Roma home jersey 2015 2016-unveiled in early June by Roma and their kit manufacturers, Nike-boasts a slightly modernized redesign of last year's home shirt. The jersey retains the maroon color and golden trim of the 2014 2015 home kit. However, the design is updated this time

Do you want your kids to love watching soccer as much as you always have? Better yet, do you envision your child becoming a big-time soccer star in the Premier League, La Liga, or the Bundesliga? There's really no guaranteed method of getting kids interested in football. After all, some kids raised in sports-loving households end up wanting to blaze their own paths, while other children develop interests in different sports than what their parents or siblings love. However, if you want your child to take up football, here are five ways that you can help the dream along.

1. Start Early

It's never too early to start planting the seeds for lifelong football fandom. From dressing infants and toddlers in miniaturized soccer kits to taking them to games at a young age, raising your child in the culture of association football improves the chances of them adopting that culture as their

With the mid-June qualifying games now on the books, we are officially more than halfway through the Euro 2016 qualifying competition. Standings in each qualifying group are now starting to solidify themselves, and we are getting a better sense of which soccer teams are in good qualifying position and which ones are going to have to turn on the heat between now and October. In this blog post we take a look at the teams in Euro 2016 qualifying group D.

Of all the groups in this year's qualifying competition, Group D is undoubtedly among one of the most interesting. After winning last year's World Cup in glorious fashion, the German national football team really should have been able to steamroll Group D. After all, there are no other real heavyweight soccer teams in the group. Poland, Scotland, Ireland, Georgia, and Gibraltar are the other five contending countries, and none of them even participated in the 2014 World Cup-let alone reached the top of the podium.

On June 12^th, Turkey won an away game against Kazakhstan, Iceland topped the Czech Republic 2-1, and the Netherlands grabbed a satisfying 2-0 victory over Latvia. The three fixtures represented the start of the second half of the Euro 2016 qualifying competition, of which each team has now played six of their 10 games. With only a few months remaining until we see the final lineup for the 2016 European Championship, now is the perfect time to analyze the current situations in the qualifying groups and assess what certain soccer teams need to do in order to secure Euro qualification. We will start with Euro 2016 qualifying group A.

Group A has proven to be one of the most surprising and unpredictable in the qualifying competition-at least so far. When the group was originally announced, most football fans expected the Netherlands to take the top spots without much difficulty. After all, the Dutch squad has finished in the top three of the last two World Cups, and was the

It may not garner the attention or press coverage of the regular European Championship, the World Cup, or even the Copa America, but the 2015 UEFA European Under 21 Championship does provide some interesting insight on the up-and-coming talent of European football. Therefore, if you want to get a glimpse at the soccer stars of tomorrow ahead of everyone else, you might want to tune into Saturday's under-21 Euro semifinal matches. Here's what to expect.

Semifinal Match 1: Portugal vs. Germany

The first semifinal match on Saturday will be played between the winners of Group B (Portugal) and the runners-up from Group A (Germany). The Portuguese side will be playing in the "home team" position, while the Germans will be donning their away kits.

This match should be an exciting one to watch, since Portugal and Germany performed similarly during the group stage. The German side, though widely predicted to win

When the 2015 2016 football season gets underway in late August, the game will be missing one of its greatest and most vital voices. This Jurgen Klopp career review will track this popular football manager's career to date. Following two long coaching stints at FSV Mainz and Borussia Dortmund, Klopp will be taking a sabbatical next season. Originally, Klopp was ready to leap right back into the fray following his departure from Borussia Dortmund. He no longer felt he was the best coach for the job at BVB after the club's disappointing seventh place finish in the 2014 2015 Bundesliga.

He at first insisted that he wouldn't be taking a break, and that he would be considering other coaching opportunities for the 2015 2016 season. Quickly, Jurgen was linked with possible moves to Liverpool