shocking buy that should never have happened!!!!

This time of a year, European football news is dominated by transfers and rumours surrounding these transfers. Clubs scramble to buy new players and others fight just to keep their stars. Now a days, the money flying around the transfer market is insanely huge. Tottenham, for instance, paid 16.5 million pound for Darren Bent this week, Manchester paid around 17 million pound for Anderson. The question now is how much do these clubs get in return for their investment on these players? It will be seen soon but they must know too well to invest that much which probably builds a decent team these teams spend on one player. The amount of money doesn't garanteed that a player will be a success.

A Recent article on The Sun dubbed players who weren't up to the expectations of their teams and supporters, "Worst buys"!! These are worst buys the newspaper picked from the premier league: "Premiership Shockers XI" Do you have some names to add? go to discussion forum!!

Massimo Taibi (Manchester United)
The Italian keeper was brought in to fill the hole left by Old Trafford legend Peter Schmeichel. Instead, Taibi failed miserably and made just four appearances in a United shirt after signing from Venezia for £4.4m.

Fans still cringe at the memory of him letting a daisy-cutter from Matt Le Tissier slip through his legs, for which he was dubbed the 'Blind Venetian'. Now 37, he is back playing in Italy with Torino.

Roque Junior (Leeds)
The Brazilian World Cup winner was supposed to plug the gaps in Leeds' leaky defence. Signed on a season-long loan, the towering centre-half left every Yorkshireman scratching his head as to how he could possibly fit in alongside Ronaldinho and Co.

He was eventually paid £1.2m for making just five starts as Leeds were relegated to the Championship. Now playing for Bayer Leverkusen, he also owns a popular kids clothes company.

Per Kroldrup (Everton)
Sadly for Toffees fans, Kroldrup was no Great Dane. Hailed by boss David Moyes after signing from Udinese for £5m, the centre-half started only one game — and that was a 4-0 drubbing by Aston Villa.

Kroldrup played a total of just 147 minutes, costing Everton £13,600 for each of them when he was sold to Fiorentina for £3m after just six months.

Marcelino (Newcastle)
Not a popular topic of conversation around the Bigg Market. Much was expected from the Spanish defender when he signed from Real Mallorca for £5.8m.

But fans were left asking whether boss Ruud Gullit had bought the same player who was so composed against La Liga's finest strikers. The final straw came when he refused to play for weeks because of a broken finger.

Winston Bogarde (Chelsea)
The Dutchman was handed a four-year £40,000-a-week deal at Chelsea. He started disastrously and never recovered, playing just 11 times during his contract.

Chelsea tried everything to dump Bogarde but you have to hand it to him, he refused to walk away from his luxury life. The ex-Barcelona, AC Milan and Ajax man ended up commuting from Amsterdam to train with the youth team. To no-one's surprise, he retired a rich man after leaving Stamford Bridge with no takers for his signature.
VERON ... hopeless at United

Juan Veron (Manchester United)
Even in the unparallel riches of today's game, it beggars belief that Manchester United paid over £28m for Veron. The Argentina star arrived in a blaze of glory from Lazio but the massive hype was quickly forgotten.

Known as an elegant master on the ball, Veron could barely pass to a team-mate 10 yards away at times. What was baffling was why Alex Ferguson signed him in the first place when he already had Keane, Scholes, Giggs and Beckham.

Kleberson (Manchester United)
Another Brazilian with a World Cup winners' medal who couldn't hack it in the Premiership. Kleberson was actually signed as a replacement for Veron when he joined for £6m but the only thing they had in common was their utter ineptitude.

Along with Eric Djemba-Djemba, his departure was celebrated far more than his arrival.

Ali Dia (Southampton)
One of the greatest tales in Premiership history. Dia was signed by Southampton boss Graeme Souness when he was told by a George Weah impersonator that he was his cousin and a Senegal international.

The player was brought on as a first-half substitute against Leeds but was so bad he was taken off later on. Souey dumped the fraud, who was last seen playing for non-league Gateshead.

Tomas Brolin (Leeds)
The Sweden ace was signed from Parma for £4.5m but soon became as inflated as his transfer fee. Brolin, a hero in his homeland, failed to bring his form for the Italians to Leeds and soon piled on the pounds.

He was sent round Europe on loan before agreeing to a bizarre move to Crystal Palace where he was briefly appointed player-coach. Began selling vacuum cleaner parts after retiring from football.

Marco Boogers (West Ham)
The £1m arrival from Sparta Rotterdam was sent off in his second match for the Hammers for a sickening two-footed lunge on Gary Neville. He soon went AWOL from Upton Park and was later found in a Dutch caravan park after suffering a breakdown.

West Ham boss Harry Redknapp later admitted he signed the Holland striker despite only watching a video of him. Boogers later recovered to star once again in his homeland.

Alberto Luque (Newcastle)
Another smart signing by Graeme Souness. The Spaniard was hailed as the latest saviour of Newcastle when he signed for a whopping £9.5m two years ago.

But the Geordie crowd, ever impatient for trophies, quickly grew tired of Luque's drab displays and niggling injuries. Scored just twice during his time at St James' Park and was last spotted on loan at PSV Eindhoven.

Group C Result Copa America!

The two matches in this group have resulted a combined 10 goals as Paraguay and Argentina beat Colombia and USA by five to nil and four to one, consecutively.
The first match of the group was played on Thursday night between Paraguay and Colombia. In the span of three minutes Colombia saw themselves getting close to lead the game to trailing by two goals. Colombia were awarded penalty on the 28th minute but Alvaro Dominguez’s weak shot was saved by the goalkeeper. In two minutes, Bayern Munich's player Roque Santa Cruz scored two similar goals and gave his team the lead. On the 80th minute, santa Cruz scored his third and substitute Salvador Cabanas put further misery to Colombians by adding two more goals on 85th and 88th minute.

On the other game, USA got to an early lead when Eddie Johnson converted a 9th minute penalty but Hernan Crespo equalized just after two minutes. USA, defended well and frustrated their counterpart until 60th minute when Hernan Crespo finds the target again. Up to Pablo Aimar's 78th minute goal gave Argentines a two-goal cusion , USA was well in contention and had few chances to get level. Argentines increasingly pressed for more goals and substitute Carlos Tevez scored 85th minute goals and handed USA the first lose since they lost to Ghana in the world cup.

The competition continues on Saturday when the host nation Venezuela plays against Peru and Bolivia plays against Uruguay in Pueblo Nuevo.

Copa America, Second Day Results!

The second day match of this year's Copa America produced yet another surprise. This time Mexico pulled off a shocking win over Brazil by two goals to nil both goals coming five minutes apart in the first half of the game. Nery Castillo scored on 24th minute and Ramón Morales added another five minute later to give Mexico unassailable lead. Mexico spent much of the second half defending their goal and trying to catch Brazilians on the counter attack. And it almost paid off when the best chance went to them on the dying minutes of the game after their forward broke free and rounded the goalkeeper but the goal to his mercy, shot the ball wide. Might win "Miss of the year" competition!!

On the same group Chile came from behind by scoring two goals in the last ten munite of the game to defeat Ecuador 3 to 2. Antonio Valencia on the 16th minute gave Ecuador the lead but Humberto Suazo equalized on the 21 minute. Within two minutes Ecuador regained the lead until the Humberto Suazo hit the target again on the 80th minute. To make the matter worse for the overconfident Ecuadorians,Chile led the game for the fist time and kept it that way to get all three points and share the lead in the group with Mexico with three points.

Today in group C match Paraguay plays against Colombia and Argentina plays USA.

Haile smashes World record in Golden Spike Grand Prix!!

Running before a near capacity crowd at Mestsky Stadium, the legendary Ethiopian covered 21,285 metres over the course of 60 minutes to break the previous best, 21,101m, set by Mexican Arturo Barrios in La Fléche, France, on 30 March 1991.

(IAAF World Athletics Tour 2007)

The Copa America began on Tuesday in Venezuela

The 42nd edition of the Copa America hosted by Venezuela has began Yesterday, June 26 with ten teams from south and two teams(USA and Mexico) from North America. The competition has long lost its glamour when big nations like Brazil and Argentina bring their second and younger team as senior players either opting out to take rest after long season in Europe or save themselves for bigger competitions.

Yesterday's match in Merida between Uruguay and Peru resulted in huge upset when Peru beat fourteen times tournament winner Uruguay 3-0 in Group A. Miguel Villalta (first half), Juan Carlos Marino and Paolo Guerrero were on target for Peru.

On other match of the day, Bolivia twice came from behind to tie 2-2 with the host nation Venezuela who never won in this competition since 1967. Venezuela looks to record its second ever win in their history of the tournament when they took an early lead before Bolivia hit back an equalizer with a deflected shot. The host nation retook the lead on the 56th minute only to be tied seven minutes from time.

In Group B, Brazil will play against Mexico and Chile plays against Ecuador today in Estadio Cachamay.

Thursday, in Group C, Argentina entertains USA while Paraguay plays Colombia.

Henry Unveiled in Barca!

Henry officially unveiled today in Barcelona shirt in Nou Camp (and given the number fourteen as it was in Arsenal and a legendary player and coach of Barca Johan Cruyff used to put on as well) after passing medical test and signing a four year contract with his new club. The official transfer fee for him is 16.1 million pound ($32.2 million) and he will be paid a staggering 128,000 pound ($255,642) a week. 'Thierry Henry is a player we've been after for many years and now he's here,' Barca president Joan Laporta told a news conference. He revealed that Johan Cruyff, who once led Barca to the champions league final, wanted to sign Thierry Henry when he was young playing for Monaco.

On the other hand, Barcelona vice-president Ferran Soriano denied rumours that Samuel eto'o could go to Arsenal following the signing of Henry. AC Milan and Liverpool have also been interested in signing the 26 years old Cameroon international who has not had a perfect relationship with Frank Rijkaard and Ronaldinho the previous season.

Ethiopian Women Soccer National Team

Read about Ethiopian women soccer national team's triumph on its counterpart Moroccan women national team as well as "Ethiopian Football Federation" on Saturday edition of Addis Admas Sport.

Henry's Replacement!?

After the departure of Henry this weekend, Arsenal and Arsene Wenger are busy looking for replacement but report says that they are having stiff competitions for strikers as Manchester united and AC Milan are already one step ahead of them in the market as they are already talking to players and their agents. According to Soccerway, french striker and former Arsenal player Nicholas Anelka is shortlisted to replace fellow french Henry. According to the same report, Anelka has announced 'he would jump at the chance to move to one of the Premiership's 'big' clubs' so that he can play on champions league.

However, if Arsene Wenger can't land Anelka he already targeted Ajax players Klaas Jan Huntelaar (above) and possibly Ryan Babel as back-up but Arsene 'definitely believes Anelka is the ideal replacement' and rumoured to offer around 11 million British Pound.

Klaas Jan Huntelaar, nicknamed 'The Hunter' , is a 24 year old striker of Ajax who has scored 33 in 2005/06 season and 37 goals in 48 appearances for the team last season and Wenger is believed to rate him highly. The other possible replacement, Babel, 20, is Hollands Under-21 international and he scored a goal in Sunday's final of European Championships with a 4-1 win over Serbia.

African Champions League Results!

African Champions League Matches took place this weekend in different cities. In Group one Al Ittihad of Libya won JS Kabylie of Algeria by a goal to nil in Tripoli. The goal came in five minute to go on the second half to give a surprise victory for first time group phase participants.

On the other match of this group FAR Rabat of Morocco lost to Tunisia's Etoile du Sahel at home after seeing their two players sent off in each half and conceded the only goal on 66th minute penalty.

On Group Two, holders Ahly needed two goals in the last five minute of the game to beat al hilal of Sudan in Cairo. Flavio and Osama Hosni both scored after coming off from the bench. On the other hand, Tunisia's Esperance and Asec Mimosas of the Ivory Coast drew 0-0 in Tunis. The next match will be played on July 6-8, 2007.

Etoile du Sahel (TUN) v Al Ittihad (LBY)
JS Kabylie (ALG) v FAR Rabat (MOR)

Al Hilal (sud) v Esperance(Tun)
Asec Mimosas(Cot'd) v Ahly (Egy)

Henry in picture!

Here are some pictures from Henry's stay at arsenal!

Henry leaves Arsenal!!!

Although the main focus of this blog is Ethiopian and African football, it is impossible not to blog about European leagues too as they are hugely popular around the world.

The first news about European football on this blog is regarding Arsenal. For those who are Arsenal fans, this is a sad day following the announcement of Henry's departure to Barcelona pending on medical results. BBC sport reported today that Arsenal's leading striker is certain to leave the club he played for very successful 9 years after Barcelona agreed to pay about $ 32 million.

The name "Walyas"!!

A name 'walyas' is being used by some Ethiopian fans to nickname our national team. Why Walyas? i suspect the fact that this isolated and endangered animal only be found in Ethiopia might be the reason. As far as i know, this animal is weak, very shy and isolated. Neither it is sign of power, strength or beauty nor well known to the world that mentioning its name brings Ethiopia in peoples mind. Besides it is only found in small area of the country and hardly represents all Ethiopians and the rich cultures we have and history we are very proud of.

Walya has got nothing in it that represent all these qualities we have. To me the only thing that naming our national team after walya does is bring a lot of questions and confusion in people's mind instead of impressing them. The world know us by the draught and hunger as well as different wars we had and having now. We need something that changes this impression and calling our national team 'walyas' doesn't help! We Ethiopians are too much to Walya!

What better name do you nominate for our team? Please take few seconds of your time and put your nomination below and best five names will be up for final vote. The name that gets the most vote will be chosen to represent Ethiopia and at least we use it among the Internet community(or only on this blog!) (Just put the name you have on the space below 'other'. Don't worry about the first checkbox.)

One on One: Haile Gebrselassie!!

This is an interview Haile gave to the The Sun sport online a week ago.

"The latest star to come under the spotlight in The Sun's weekly Q&A session is legendary long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie." Full interview

The Ever Falling "Giants"! (part II)

As much as am proud of the 'rising teams' of eastern Africa, i am disappointed by the two 'bigger' teams - Ethiopia and Kenya. Kenyans were having years of crisis in their league regarding its administration to the point of having two parallel premier leagues. The controversy surrounding the legality of their leagues angered FIFA and landed them a ban from international tournaments including this unsuccessful campaign while they were in the midst of it only to be reversed later. Its a no-brainer that it has negative influence on the players. Partly as a result of this and other similar sad situation they performed poorly and eliminated without finishing their schedule. I see a brighter future for them as everything get back to normal.

However, the team that can't disappoint me enough is Ethiopia's national team fittingly called by some 'walyas'. 'Walias' have run out of pretext long time ago when they reasoned out their loses by four, six and even eight goals blaming hotel accommodations, transport, food, weather, field, refereeing, spectators, you name it. Every lost game has got something to put blame on but which is always has to be other than their own weakness or their opponents better qualities. I heard no players ever admitting that they were inferior in technique and outperformed by the other team who scored six goals past them. Instead you hear them saying they played well and even better than the opponent even though they conceded half a dozen goals. I am eager to listen to what they have to say this time around.

However, i hope many people agree with me if i say those mentioned minor problems are not the root cause of our team's string of bad and humiliating results. Instead mainly because of lack of basic football techniques and to some extent lack of talent( though one doesn't necessarily need it to be great player). I won't sound too bold to say that our players are not technically fit to play modern football in any league in the world except Yemen. A team with similar speed, physical strength and technical ability like our national team have little chance of succeeding in international competitions. It can clearly be seen how far behind we are in modern football as we don't have a single player from our country playing in major European leagues like West-Africans. Our players couldn't succeed even in African league either and after few weeks of trial they were often sent back home.

Unless drastic changes are made to the way our players are trained and invest on future generation to teach modern football, we get no relief from our agony any time soon. My hope is that with all the exposure the current generation has to modern football than ever before(to English premier league of European champions league), we might see a lot of young people coming up with already developed mindset of the modern technique making it easier to implement whatever is needed to win a game. They grow up watching how Wayne Rooney attack on goal, how he controls the ball and how Fabregas plays at midfield gives them a lot of visual understanding of the game. Its up to the coaches to transform that understanding to football field. I think knowing where your teammate might be on the field without looking at him and knowing what your teammate can do with the ball in advance gives you crucial edge. You will be pre-active rather than reactive in the field. You hit the ball before it hits you.

Give your own comment on it! what do you think about our current national team?

East Africans on the Rise! (part I)

This years CAF cup qualifying campaign looks different from any other previous ones as the always forgotten east Africans are now on the rise and challenging the ever dominant westerners. Take for instance Tanzania, a minnow even by the Eastern standard, have a chance to qualify ahead of world cup quarter finalist and one time(not so long ago) CAF finalist, Senegal! Coached by a Brazilian, Tanzania is level on point with Senegal and a win at home on their next match could book them a trip to Ghana in January.

The other team from CECAFA region is Uganda who rivived their hopes of qualifying by beating africa's giant Nigeria and hopefuly thier next two wins will put them to Ghana as well. The other team from this lowly region is Eritrea, who is having a great campaign so far, and a win combined with other group matches going in their favour qualifies them to Ghana for the first time ever. Burundi, with six points and two games left have a good chance of going through if they can beat the favourite of the group egypt. As i described on my prevoius blog below, its better to write off Ethiopia as the chance of qualification is next to none.

Of all the teams from the region, no one betters Sudan who made it through to Ghana for the first time in many, many years which they did it in style with four wins (as many away wins as home) and one more game to play at home.

However disappointed i am by ethiopia's team, i am proud of those teams from this region who are putting a real effort to change the status quo of African football and they deserve credit. Soon we might see more and more of east african teams in the CAF cup.

Good luck to all of them!!!

Fading Away!

As we witnessed yesterday, our team's away performance once again put us down from very likely qualifiers to the bottom of the table with so a slim chance of qualifying that it makes your head spin to know how. We need miracle of all miracles to go to Ghana in 2008. After all these bad results, surprisingly we still have a chance to qualify as a group winners and probably with a distinction of being the only team with 0 away point. Here is how it might happen. First of all we need to take care of our business at home with Namibia. Not only that we need to win by at least four goals margin but also hope Libya ties DR Congo. In this scenario, Ethiopia and DR Congo will be tied at nine points and a team with a better goal differential will win it. Any other result will keep our team home yet again.

The other option for our team is a little bit complicated as it involves several teams and combinations of the following should happen for our team to qualify. Of the three spots left for best runner ups, Sudan claimed one and our team is going against the following odds to claim one of the remaining two.

-Ivory coast win/tie Gabon- Egypt win/tie Burundi- Egypt win/tie Botswana

- Mauritania win/tie Burundi -Nigeria win/tie Lesotho-Niger win/tie Uganda

-Cameroon win/tie Eq Guinea -Swaziland win/tie Eritrea -Burkina Faso win/tie Senegal( if tied, Ethiopia need to score at least 6 goal)

-Mozambique win/tie Tanzania -Gambia win/tie Algeria( if tied, Ethiopia need to score at least 6 goal)

-Cape Verde win/tie Guinea -Togo win Mali (Ethiopia needs 11 goals against Namibia)

-Sierra Leone win/tie Benin -Chad win/tie Congo-South Africa win/tie Zambia

Missed Opportunity!!!

As well expected, Ethiopian team fail to get a point away from home. With a chance to go top of the table and having huge incentive (in a way of knowing the result of other match which went in our favour) to play even harder, our team failed miserably as usual.

We seem not to ever know why our team find it so much difficult to get a point away while we outplayed and, sometimes very convincingly, win the same team at home. It is so strange to me to explain what goes on with our "away team". For me it looks like that we got two national team- the home team and an away team -like home kit and away kit. But our team is defined by the result where the away team is almost always held scoreless and always loose while the home team try really hard to win and usually end up winning at least by a goal.

There can be no more crucial game than this in this years campaign for our team. They knew they need at least one point, just a single point but couldn't do the task.

Having said that, we still have a slim chance of qualifying if we manage to beat Namibia at home and hope other teams result go our way.

On my next blog i will write about the chances we have and how we might sneak through to Ghana.

Opportunity Knocking on the Door!!!!

As i wrote on my last blog, the best result our team needs from the other group ten match is a draw between DR Congo and Namibia and hope we will manage to get one point from Libya's game. Namibia did a great job and did its part to our cause to hold group leader DR Congo and opening a rare and precious chance for our team to go top of the table but if we go by history it certainly will not happen instead we might end up to our familiar position of being last place of the group after tomorrows match away to Libya.

I hope our team fight to death to get that one illusive point and open up a huge opportunity to qualify at home on the last match of the campaign.

Good luck!

Ethiopia vs Libya : Make it or Break it!!!!

Ethiopia is to play Libya this weekend in Tripoli for the second match of second leg. Ethiopian team fought well and got a deserved win against the favourite DR Congo team in Addis just after losing to the same team away two weeks before. Now two games left to play all four teams have almost equal chance of qualifying to Ghana 2008. This weeks result could result in a complete shakeup in the standing and probably for the last time. Ethiopian team has a very very poor record on away matches losing all and scoring none so far. Considering this horrible away performance it is almost unforgivable sin to expect three point from the Libyan match. To get a draw in this match is also being overly optimistic. To me, loosing by one or two goals is fair result. So far our team has as good a chance as the group leader DR Congo and second placed Namibia. But it all depends on how we fair in the next match.

A Lose would leave us on last place of the group with a deficit of three or four points from the leader. However, a draw in the other match between Namibia and DR Congo is the best result for our team especially if we manage to snatch one point out of Libya. A lose now combined with a win by DR Congo will eliminate us from qualifying directly and leave us with a slim chance to qualify by virtue of being a good runner up of all groups provided that we win the last game at home against Namibia.

Good luck Ethiopians!!!

FIFA's ranking for June 2007!

Ethiopia ranked 86th in the world again on june 2007 after falling back to 95th last month. As far as i can remember this is the highest our team ever ranked in the world. In Africa we are 19th which is also the same spot we held two moths ago. DR Congo (who currenly leads the group that Ethiopia is in) is the only team that is ranked abouve ethiopia in group ten being ranked 16th in Africa. The other two teams, Namibia and Libya are ranked 37th and 23rd respectively. Does this means we are better than both those teams and finish 2nd in group ten?