GOLTV is on the pitch with Germany all week long with Premier League Cup action. Starting Saturday July 29th GOLTV will have exclusive cup coverage with Hamburgo and Hertha Berlin matching up at 9:30 am ET on Saturday LIVE and then defending champions, Schalke, continue the soccer craze when they meet Bayer Leverkusen at 12:15 pm ET LIVE on Saturday. The winners of Saturday’s games will go on to play in the semi- finals on August 1st and 2nd at 2:30pm ET.

Also don’t miss out on South American league play. GOLTV brings soccer fans around the world with LIVE matches from Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala. Don’t miss Brazil’s Santa Cruz and Corinthians play on Sunday July 30th at 3:00pm ET. (Read full article…)

July 20, 2006

VIVA ITALIA! GOLTV Salutes World Cup Champions, Team Italia, with a Memorable Look Back at the Year That Brought Them to the Copa

GOLTV’s exclusive one week programming relives the teams and Serie A matches behind the journey to Italia’s success

TORONTO – GOLTV and Italian fans won’t have to wait another four years to see the World Cup winning stars. Fans will be able to relive all the action of the 05/06 Serie A season starting July 24 to July 28 exclusively on GOLTV Canada. (Read full article…)

Cristiano Ronaldo, the mesmerizing Portuguese winger, is quite possibly on the way to becoming something very special in his game. His talent can be hypnotic, his temperament is suspect, but he is just 21.

Watch him when he matures, his coaches say. Wait until he learns to use those quick feet, that imaginative brain, that magic control of the ball.

Right now there is a contest for his skills. Real Madrid covets him, Manchester United has him on contract until 2010, and it seems that with each interview he gives his heart lies in a different place.

(Read full article…)

Vasco x Flamengo face off in a historic match

The Brazilian distributor Globo TV Sports is offering its clients an exclusive broadcast of the Brazilian Cup finals between Flamengo and Vasco. This is the first time that the two largest football clubs in Rio de Janeiro – among the top rivals in Brazilian football – will face off in the Brazilian Cup.

Flamengo is the most popular club in Brazil, with over 31 million fans. It is the only team in the country with five national titles. In 1981, it won the Libertadores da America Cup as well as the Toyota Cup - World Championship against Liverpool, in Tokyo. (Read full article…)

The World Cup offered its share of heroes, villains, glorious moments and disgraceful ones. totalSoccer.ca hands out its own awards.

Best team- Italy

The country has been crowned World Champions four times now, making it the most successful European nation in football history. The Azzurri played brilliant football, mixing defensive solidity with attacking bite.
This was truly a team effort. Twelve of Italy’s goals were scored by ten different players! (Read full article…)

So Italy triumph after twenty-four long years, silencing the doubters and heartening a nation.

For those of us lucky to have been around for 1982, Italy’s triumph would probably have had even more significance, a sense of history coming full circle.

In 1982 it was Marco Tardelli who roared with joy after scoring in the World Cup Final against then West Germany. Twenty-four years on it was Fabio Grosso, a left-back who coach Marcello Lippi picked out from Palermo of all clubs, yelling with no restraint against Germany in the semi-final.

Or maybe some shrewd observers also remember how Italy triumphed against the backdrop of match-fixing then as they have done now.

(Read full article…)

When the 2006 World Cup DVDs come out, producers will include a certain type of footballer. Not those revelling in their achievements in the last month, but those anxious to prevent reminders of their ineptitude or incompetence in Germany, fervently hoping their reputation isn’t sullied. Here, then, to prompt their memories, is Soccernet’s nightmare XI, to be managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson:

Goalkeeper: Fabien Barthez (France)
He only conceded three goals in seven games, yet Fabien Barthez can consider himself distinctly fortunate to have kept out Gregory Coupet. That he was may be a form of nepotism: Messrs Makelele, Thuram and Zidane did their old mate one last favour. In the same spirit of generosity, Barthez gifted South Korea a goal to threaten France with first-round elimination. And his consistent failure to deal with Italy’s set-pieces in the final spread panic throughout the French defence. (Read full article…)

Observer Sport’s World Cup team on the summer’s most memorable matches, players, fans, cheats and sweet, sweet curried gravy sausages

Sunday July 9, 2006
The Observer

Best match
Germany 0 - 2 Italy
Totally compelling - and instead of getting cagier in extra time it grew more sweaty and more intense. Closely followed by Portugal 1 - 0 Holland : 16 yellows and four reds, pure grit, proper needle - a minor World Cup classic. Also, Japan 1 - 3 Australia and Ghana 2 - 0 Czech Republic : the Czechs were
hit by Ghana ’s pace, spirit, skill and strength, and had absolutely no answer. (Read full article…)

O meia francês Zinedine Zidane, expulso em sua última partida pela seleção de seu país, ouviu ofensas dirigidas a sua irmã pelo italiano Marco Materazzi, segundo leitura labial do programa Fantástico, da Rede Globo.

Zidane dá adeus aos campos com destempero
Veja fotos da expulsão
Na despedida, Zidane iguala recorde e é expulso
Opine: Zidane manchou sua carreira com expulsão?

Ao trocarem palavras, depois de um lance aos 3min do segundo tempo da prorrogação, Materazzi teria chamado de prostituta, por duas vezes, a parente de Zidane; e o francês revidou com uma cabeçada no peito do rival e acabou levando cartão vermelho. (Read full article…)

So Berlin it is for the Italians.

Who would have thought? Well me, but not many others.

Italian football is going through inquests, trials and tribulations, but on the pitch it remains a standard, a standard of defensive excellence, flair and guts.

For those who accuse Italian football of being strictly defensive here is an emphatic riposte: Fabio Grosso.

The full-back never quits attacking. Who was there to win the penalty against Australia deep into injury time? Grosso.

Who was it who curled in an exquisite shot past German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann in extra-time? Grosso, a defender.

(Read full article…)