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TSV 1860 Munich ( 1 – 3 ) Jahn Regensburg , Friendly on The 19th of June, 2013 at five to five Podcast:

The days of Zach MacMath in between the pipes for the Philadelphia Union look to be coming to an end. Wednesday the Union announced the signing of veteran goalkeeper Oka Nikolov, who most recently played for Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt. The 39-year old Macedonian has spent the last 20 years with the club and earned 414 total appearances, including 229 in the Bundesliga. Most recently, the German-born goalkeeper started the final eight games of Eintracht Frankfurt’s 2012/2013 season, helping earn the club a spot in the playoff round of the 2013/2014 UEFA Europa League. “We’re excited to have a player with Nikolov’s experience and leadership join our team,” said Union manager John Hackworth. “We think he will provide excellent depth and mentorship to our young goalkeepers.” It looks very interesting to see this go through for the Union. They had been reportedly in talks with Toronto FC to trade for Stefan Frei. That deal got killed as the Union and Toronto couldn’t get things worked out. The post Philadelphia Signs Veteran Keeper Oka Nikolov appeared first on WVHooligan.com - MLS Blog.

Former Manchester United striker Mame Biram Diouf is set to extend his contract at Hannover despite interest from Fulham, reports talkSPORT. read more

Japan's Italian head coach Alberto Zaccheroni says he is looking to defeat his home country when Japan face Italy in the Confederations Cup

Two weeks ago was an exciting day for football and could quite well go down as a date in history where another divine footballing marriage was sealed. That was the day when Brazil’s most prodigious talent since Ronaldo — Neymar da Silva Santos Junior — completed his long-awaited transfer to Barcelona. Since his introduction to the big stage at the tender age of 17, when the scrawny forward was brought on for the last thirty minutes in a 2-1 win against Oeste, Neymar has experienced a level of fame that very few athletes of his age are subjected to (or afforded, depending on how you view it). Before he had even kicked a ball amongst the big boys of Brazilian domestic football, the hype surrounding this baby-faced whippersnapper from Sao Paulo was already permeating through the aisles of the Estadia Vila Belmiro, the home of Santos F.C. Having developed a passion for futsal at an early stage, a form of “hall football” that is played even more frequently than soccer in Brazil, Neymar quickly learned the fundamentals of his country’s approach to the game. Futsal is played on a hard indoor surface the length of a five-a-side pitch, with a a smaller ball that has less of a bounce than a regular one. The game is played between two teams of five players, with the chief emphasis placed on skill, improvisation, and guile. Matches are played at a frenetic pace in a claustrophobic environment, where players have to think quickly and without hesitation. Futsal is a speciality of the Brazilians, and is rightly accredited for helping the national team to establish their world-famous panache that has bedazzled generations since the founding of the FIFA World Cup in 1930. With this type of schooling, Neymar was gifted with a cultured perspective on how the game should be played, combining his futsal education with street football where he would have undoubtedly found out what it was like to be kicked from pillar to post by kids of lesser ability. Though futsal is a sport that many Brazilian youths participate in, there are always a few prodigious talents that have adroitness with the ball that comes as second nature. Not only did Neymar have it, he personified it. As he rose through the ranks of the Santos academy like a fledgling peacock, enjoying a highly successful youth career, money and celebrity were soon magnetized by Neymar’s allure, and by the time he was 16 he was earning 25,000 reais a month. Upon signing his professional contract at 17, sponsorships were queuing up in droves for the new golden boy of South America. Without too much difficulty, Neymar soon established himself in the Santos first team, creating a rabid fervor amongst watching crowds whenever the ball was at his feet. Like his predecessors Ronaldinho and Denilson, he was not afraid to run head-on at opposing defenders, using a hypnotic repertoire of drag-backs, step-overs and flicks that left many in his wake, disoriented and left to figure out how they had been so easily bamboozled. In his debut season, Neymar racked up 14 goals in 48 games, which included the decisive goal in a 2-1 win over Palmeiras in the 2009 Campeonato Paulista semi-final. Much like Holland, Brazilian football places the main bulk of its hopes on youth, so youngsters are often thrown into the deep end before their chins have even begun to sprout a few pathetic hairs. Precociousness is something to be celebrated, not confined to stagnation in the reserves or on the bench, meaning that Neymar was given the platform to show off his artfulness as soon as his professional terms were agreed. Of course, with youth comes impudence, and the new darling of Santos possessed an abundance of it. Though football is a team game, Neymar is the type of player who will only pass the ball if there is no conceivable way of setting on a path towards the goal, frequently opting to dribble through a crowd of bodies, miraculously emerging from an assault of boots, elbows, and shirt-tugging

The USA passed the halfway point of World Cup qualification with three straight wins to top their group, but are Jurgen Klinsmann's team on target for Brazil?The numbers don't lieLet's start with a rather banal but crucial fact which overshadows everything else we have to say about the fourth, fifth and sixth games of the USA's ten game Hex qualifying campaign:The USA took nine points from those three games and are top of the standings.We can talk about the manner in which they did it — the individual winners and losers in the race for first team spots, and the breakout players (step forward Mr Altidore). We can talk about the isolated moments that assumed significance in retrospect, and there's value in those snapshots. But the fact is that without the US getting the job done, in whatever manner they needed to, we'd be talking about "nervous summers" and maybe revisiting the "does Klinsmann control his squad?" conversations.As it is, the team were careless with a comfortable lead in Jamaica (but got away with it), formidable in their movement against an outclassed Panama, and struggled to get going in the heat and altitude of their game against Honduras. But the common thread, other than Altidore's goals in each of those games (and the Germany friendly that preceded them), was that the US found ways to get the wins that put them in pole position for Brazil. And as Mexico have been learning in the same group, you don't get points for the number of chances you make, but the ones you convert. Jozy Altidore has had an unequivocally successful seasonJozy Altidore's season finally ended in Utah, and what might have gone down as a baffling study in contrasts turned into an unqualified success during what was the final sequence of games in a long season for the European players in the squad, including Altidore. Altidore famously came into camp as an enigma - a scoring machine in the Eredivisie who couldn't get a goal at international level and repeatedly looked like an isolated figure in his frequently curtailed appearances under Klinsmann. Indeed it wasn't so long ago Klinsmann was publicly questioning his attitude, yet as the squad leaves Salt Lake he must be questioning what he'd have done without him. From finally breaking his two year drought in the friendly against Germany (which lest we forget came on the back of a worryingly easy romp of a win for Belgium in the first friendly of this five game sequence), Altidore's goals turned out to be worth 7 of the 9 points the US amassed in their surge to the top of the standings. But as we noted in the reaction to the Panama game, his threat is now more integrated into the US approach play than the times over the past couple of years where he wandered around up front isolated and frustrated — trapped in a vicious cycle of limited supply and wasted opportunities.There were echoes of that era in the first half against Honduras as the US allowed the visitors to narrow the play in the first half and ended up sending balls over the top more in hope than expectation. But even in the frustration that resulted there were signs of the change in mentality and by the second half, Eddie Johnson's occasional forays into space opened up by defenders guarding Altidore had evolved into the type of movement that saw Zusi and Fabian Johnson combine to set up Altidore's goal.There was a moment half way through the second half where Altidore turned away from goal, darted forward, then attempted an audacious backheel to set up a team mate. It didn't quite come off, but he had the confidence to attempt it, and perhaps just as crucially the mandate and belief from his coach and a finally-convinced fan base to try this sort of inventiveness. On this form he won't have wanted the season to end. It has though — and it's been a good one.The US still thrive on widthAfter "running" and "working hard" we might want to add a third quality of successful USA teams: "width"It's always pretty apparent what teams are goi

According to sports director Heribert Buchhagen, Eintracht Frankfurt are in talks with Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner. read more

The newly-relegated Serie B club will be taken charge of by the ex-Italy international, who is the 11th appointment in two and a half years Palermo have confirmed that Gennaro Gattuso is the club’s new head coach on a one-year deal. The Rosanero were relegated from Serie A in the season just completed following an 18th-place finish and have responded by hiring the ex-Italy international, who was part of the Azzurri side which lifted the World Cup in 2006. Gattuso follows in the immediate footsteps of Giuseppe Sannino, although he is the 11th appointment for the position in two and a half seasons and the 20th appointment at the Stadio Renzo Barbera in seven years. He has a limited amount of coaching experience having been promoted from player to player-manager at Sion in February this year, when he became the fifth boss of the 2012-13 season at the Swiss club. Following his sacking on May 13, Gattuso was heavily linked with the Sicilian club and Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini revealed in early June that a verbal agreement was in place with the former defensive midfielder. The 35-year-old enjoyed a profitable time at AC Milan during his playing career – having joined in 1999, he won two Champions League trophies, two Serie A titles and one Coppa Italia before leaving in 2012. On the international stage, Gattuso won 73 caps for Italy and was named in the World Cup team of the tournament in Marcello Lippi’s victorious 2006 squad. The new Palermo boss will be presented to the media on Friday, with Luigi Riccio as his assistant in the 2013-14 season.

Sky Sports is reporting Colombian international Macnelly Torres could move to the Premier League this season. read more