Weekly Soccer News, April 8, 2010
Messi, sixth player to score four in Champions League
Barcelona's Leo Messi joined a select group of players who have scored four goals in a single game of the Champions League. With four goals against Arsenal at Camp Nou (4-1), Messi equalled Marco van Basten, Simone Inzaghi, Dado Prso, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Andriy Shevchenko, all of them scorers of a "poker" of goals since the old European Champions Cup was rebranded as the Champions League in 1992.
Van Basten was the first to achieve the feat in a match Milan won 4-0 against IFK Goteborg on November 25th, 1992. The Italian Simone Inzaghi emulated the Dutchman as Lazio beat Marseille 5-1 on March 14th, 2000. The Croatian Dado Prso became the third in a sensational 8-3 win for Monaco over Deportivo in November 2003, while a year later Van Nistelrooy did the same for Manchester United against Sparta Prague (4-1) in early November 2004.
The last to score four before Messi was Andriy Shevchenko in Milan's 4-0 thumping of Fenerbahce at their Istanbul Stadium on November 23rd, 2005. Curiously, four of the six mentioned games took place in November, for some reason the most prolific month for goal poachers.
The magnificent Messi currently leads this season's scoring charts in the CL with eight goals. Last season, the Argentinian was also the best in this department.
World Cup games with Avatar technology
Twenty-five matches at the forthcoming World Cup, including the finals, will be broadcast in 3D technology, with Brazil being the most targeted, announced the organizers.
Brazil will be featured in three such games, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Nigeria and South Korea in two while England and France will be shown in the advanced technology should they progress beyond the first round.
The first game to be broadcast in three dimensions will be the inaugural match between South Africa and Mexico at Soccer City. The remaining four venues to participate in the projects are Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.
The 3D images will reach viewers in 26 countries and will also be shown in theaters in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Berlin and Paris.
Viewers will have to use 3D television sets with battery-powered glasses. The images obtained in such fashion will be superior to the ones in cinemas, where the audience will use the same type of polarized lenses as those employed in order to view the recent blockbuster Avatar.
All in all, approximately 250,000 people will be privileged to see the matches in three dimensions with the technology developed by Sony, which advertises the new capabilities as a step forward as relevant as the passage from black and white to colour TV.
Calciopoli: the scandal that never ends
Inter Milan could lose their controversially awarded title for 2005/06 in the wake of the finding that owner Massimo Moratti held suspicions conversations with the head of the refereeing organization, supposedly with the intent of ensuring favourable referee designations for his team.
Unlike Juventus, Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio, Inter were one of the few leading Italian clubs spared in the referee rigging scandal that shook Italy in the spring of 2006. The big four and a couple of lesser teams were punished by relegation (Juve) or points deduction for tampering with referees, after the police tapped hundreds of incriminating telephone conversations.
Juventus were even stripped of their 2005 and 2006 titles, the latter being awarded to Inter as the highest placed innocent team.
Curiously, the phone calls between Inter's officials and the chief of the refereeing organization Paolo Bergamo were also recorded, but not used by the prosecutors in 2006 when the scandal broke out.
Juventus' lawyers recently unearthed a series of communications between Moratti and Inter's then president Giacinto Facchetti with those responsible for the designation of referees, prompting the FIGC (Italian FA) to investigate Inter as well.
According to Corriere dello Sport, the FIGC is considering opening an investigation against Inter.
Juventus are hoping that at least their 2006 title will be taken away from their rivals from Milan, giving Juve the partial satisfaction of knowing that nobody has profited from the same crime for which they were so severely punished.
Guerrero banned for throwing bottle at fan
The Peruvian international Paolo Guerrero earned himself a five-match ban in the Bundesliga for throwing a plastic bottle at an offending fan last week. At the end of the first half of the game against Hannover, Hamburger's striker heard fans of his own team shouting abuse at him. The player's reaction was to launch a bottle he had in his hand into the stand, hitting one spectator straight in the face. Guerrero also attempted to reach the stand to do more damage, but security guards prevented him.
Hamburger reportedly fined him with a sum between 50 and 100,000 euros, while the German FA added another 20,000 euros, a lesser sum considering Guerrero committed the act of violence in response to a provocation. The Peruvian apologized, and the victim did not press charges.
The five match ban could spell the end of Guerrero's presence in the Bundesliga since his contract with Hamburger expires in May. However, he will be present in the Europa League semifinals against Fulham, after scoring one of his team's three goals in the quarterfinals at Standard Liege on Thursday.
Al Qaeda threatens carnage at the World Cup
The South African World Cup in one of the objectives of the terrorist group Al Qaeda, specifically their North African branch. Taking advantage of the media impact of the event, the group's leaders have threatened to attack "the stadia full of spectators" and "count the corpses by hundreds."
In their communique published by CBS, the Islamist extremists claim it would be "incredible" should the sound of an explosion resound during a game between the USA and England.
The said match is on schedule already on June 12th in the 1st round of Group C.
Apart from these two nations, the chief targets of the terrorists would be France, Italy and Germany, accused of taking part in the "Zionist crusade against Islam".
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