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Kaka Named FIFA's World Player of Year Ahead of Messi, Ronaldo

Kaka Named FIFA's World Player of Year Ahead of Messi, Ronaldo
By James Cone



Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- AC Milan playmaker Kaka was named as FIFA's world player of the year, becoming the fifth Brazilian winner since soccer's governing body introduced the award in 1991.

The 25-year-old, who helped AC Milan win Europe's elite Champions League last season, was presented with the trophy at a ceremony in Zurich late yesterday after topping a poll by the coaches and captains of 165 national teams with 1,047 votes.

``It's really special for me, it was a dream for me just to play for Sao Paulo and one game for the national team,'' Kaka, a devout Christian, said after receiving the award. ``But the Bible says that God can give you more than you even ask for, and that has happened in my life.''

Barcelona and Argentina forward Lionel Messi was the runnerup with 504 votes, FIFA said, with Manchester United and Portugal winger Cristiano Ronaldo polling 426 votes in third.

It's the second accolade this month for Kaka, who received the 52nd annual Ballon d'Or, or ``Golden Ball,'' award for the best player in world soccer by heading a poll of journalists organized by France Football magazine.

For three straight years the same player has collected both trophies, starting with Brazil's Ronaldinho in 2005, then Italy's World Cup-winning captain Fabio Cannavaro last year.

Kaka, whose full name is Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, was the top scorer in the Champions League last season with 10 goals. He helped AC Milan reach the final for a third time in five years, where it beat Liverpool 2-1 to collect the trophy for a seventh time.

Kaka established himself as a key player soon after joining Milan from Sao Paulo in 2003. He's also won a Serie A title, two European Super Cups and the Italian Super Cup in Italy.

Club World Cup

Two days ago, he scored one goal and set up two more in the Club World Cup final as Milan beat Boca Juniors 4-2 to become the first European team to win FIFA's global club championship.

Kaka has become one of the most sought-after players in soccer, with his skills earning endorsements with Adidas AG, the second-largest sporting goods maker, and fashion house Giorgio Armani SpA.

Kaka is set to sign a contract extension at Milan that will make him the sport's top earner, Gazzetta dello Sport reported last month. He currently makes 6 million euros ($8.8 million) a year, while his Brazil teammate Ronaldinho receives 8 million euros at Barcelona, the newspaper said.

Ronaldinho has twice claimed the world player of the year title, while three-time winner Ronaldo, Romario and Rivaldo are the other Brazilians to top the voting. Kaka is the 12th different player to win in 17 years.

In the women's award, Brazil's Marta won for the second straight year, beating Germany's Birgit Prinz and fellow Brazilian Cristaine in the poll of coaches and captains of 137 national teams.


FIFA PLAYER OF THE YEAR
1991: Lothar Matthaeus (Germany)
1992: Marco van Basten (Netherlands)
1993: Roberto Baggio (Italy)
1994: Romario (Brazil)
1995: George Weah (Liberia)
1996: Ronaldo (Brazil)
1997: Ronaldo (Brazil)
1998: Zinedine Zidane (France)
1999: Rivaldo (Brazil)
2000: Zinedine Zidane (France)
2001: Luis Figo (Portugal)
2002: Ronaldo (Brazil)
2003: Zinedine Zidane (France)
2004: Ronaldinho (Brazil)
2005: Ronaldinho (Brazil)
2006: Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)
2007: Kaka (Brazil)

Blatter warns of risk that Brazilians will dominate all national teams

From The Canadian Press:

DURBAN, South Africa - FIFA president Sepp Blatter stepped up his crusade against foreign players at club and country level Sunday, warning that Brazilian players threaten to comprise half the national soccer squads in the next 10 years.

Blatter has long campaigned for a maximum quota of five foreign players at club level - a move which would contravene European labour laws.

At a news conference Sunday ahead of the 2010 World Cup preliminary draw, Blatter said he was unhappy that national laws granting citizenship through marriage or naturalization after as little as two years threatened to change the character of international soccer.

Specifically, Blatter said that Brazil - which boasts 60 million active soccer players - threatened to flood other national squads.

"If we don't take care about the invaders from Brazil, not only toward Europe but toward Asia and Africa, then the next World Cups in 2014 and 2018 out of the 32 teams - you will still have national teams - but we will have 16 full of Brazilian players," he said.

"It is a danger, a real, real danger."

Former Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, who is now in charge of 2010 World Cup host South Africa, said Brazil is likely to export 1,200 players this year. Over the past five years, more than 5,000 Brazilian soccer players have gone abroad.

One of Portugal's stars, Deco, was born in Brazil and grew up playing locally before being granted Portuguese citizenship. He said he made the move after realizing he would not have an opportunity to play on Brazil's national team.

Brazilian-born midfielder Antonio Naelson made a similar move, seeking Mexican citizenship so he could play for that country. Barely known in Brazil, Naelson was included in coach Ricardo Lavolpe's Mexican squad for last year's World Cup.

At the World Cup, Japan selected midfielder Alessandro Santos, who was born in Brazil and became a regular starter on Zico's team. Tunisia included Brazilian striker Jose Clayton, a key player in the African team's campaign to qualify for its second straight World Cup.

Croatia striker Eduardo da Silva was born in Brazil but moved to Croatia when he was 15 and gained citizenship there in 2002.

In 2004, Brazilian striker Ailton, who played in the German Bundesliga then, tried to become a citizen of Qatar. Midfielder Lincoln also considered switching nationalities so he could play for Germany.

Parreira said the success of Brazilian soccer lay in the combination of "mass production" with high quality thanks to well-structured training clubs which nurture young talent.

"Everybody wants to be a football player," he said.

Hosted by Copyright © 2007 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Brazil 2014

Soccer
Brazil wins the cup
Oct 31st 2007 | SAO PAULO
From Economist.com

It will host the 2014 World Cup

FOR Brazil, a country with a seemingly endless supply of football players with magnetic feet, winning the football World Cup is usually a fairly straightforward business. Hosting the event, which comes round every four years, it is likely to prove much harder. On Tuesday October 30th FIFA, the world soccer’s governing body, confirmed that the competition will take place in Brazil in 2014.

This victory gives the country a chance to get even with the other rapidly developing BRIC countries (Russia, India and China) on one score. China will host the Olympics next year; India has the Commonwealth Games in 2010; the Winter Olympics will go to Russia in 2014. For any big, fast-growing economy with lousy infrastructure and a sprinkling of political corruption, it seems that hosting a big sporting event is a must these days.

Compared with the other countries competing in this informal BRIC competition, Brazil has a head start. It was the only country bidding for the World Cup in 2014. The host nation is chosen from a different continent each time, though FIFA recently said that it would abandon the system, and no other country in the region fancied taking on the challenge.

Football-mad Brazil has other advantages too. It already has lots of stadiums and so it should not have to build many more. They are too small and too crumbly at the moment, but they could be repaired and enlarged in time for the big event. China, by contrast, has a dozen sports centres, an underground railway and an airport terminal to complete before the Olympics start next year.

Brazil’s problem lies instead with the challenge of getting a few hundred thousand foreign tourists to the matches in time for the kick-off. As in India, the other big, functioning democracy in this particular competition, any big public project in Brazil with an inflexible deadline provides opportunities for expensive pork-barrel politics for a legislature that can make high drama out of even routine spending bills. Funding Russia’s Winter Olympics (which has its own problems: for a start, Sochi, the host city, is a seaside resort) will be straightforward by comparison.

As if to illustrate what lies ahead, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s entourage in Zurich, where FIFA made the announcement, included a smattering of ministers and no fewer than 12 state governors. They will all demand that a share of the spending comes their way. The government’s allies in Congress and the Senate will make sure that their pet projects see some cash too. Contracts for big building projects in Brazil have been an invitation to collect kickbacks in the past. And Brazilian football has its own problems with money scandals. Federal prosecutors are currently hovering over Corinthians, one of São Paulo’s biggest clubs, and want to speak to Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch based in London, about whether the club was used to launder money.

Total pessimism is unwarranted, though. The country’s confidence is so high at the moment that it will make a success of the tournament somehow, even if the pre-tournament antics off the pitch are not very pretty to watch. The football, on the other hand, should be. In its last outing, Brazil’s national team thrashed Ecuador’s in the Maracaña stadium in Rio de Janeiro. After scoring four elegant goals, Brazil’s players reacted to a fifth with a shrug. Why? The players apparently reckoned it was too ugly to celebrate.

World Cup

ESPNsoccernet: World

Thursday, October 25, 2007
Brazil recommended to host 2014 World Cup

ZURICH, Switzerland -- FIFA inspectors Thursday recommended Brazil's bid to host the 2014 World Cup, saying the country is capable of staging an "exceptional" tournament.
Soccer's governing body will announce the tournament host Tuesday, and Brazil is the only candidate. The inspection report was sent to FIFA's executive committee.
"Brazil is an appropriate choice to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup," the report said. "Brazil has shown the potential and demonstrated itself to be more than capable of hosting an exceptional FIFA World Cup."
Brazil has won the World Cup a record five times and hosted it once. That was in 1950 when it lost the final to Uruguay before a Maracana Stadium crowd of about 200,000.

Radiohead will let fans decide how much to pay for new studio album

Originally posted: October 1, 2007

Radiohead will let fans decide how much to pay for new studio album

Radiohead has announced that it will release its seventh studio album, “In Rainbows,” on Oct. 10 as a digital download. What’s more, the band will let its fans decide how much, if anything, to pay for it.
“It’s up to you,” the checkout screen says on the U.K. band’s Web site, radiohead.com, for pre-ordering the 10-song disc.
An expanded, physical version of the album also will be released, but not until Dec. 3. It will include an18-track double-album packaged in both CD and vinyl versions, with lyrics, artwork and photographs in a hardback book and slipcase It will be sold for 40 pounds, the equivalent of about $80.
The band’s Jonny Greenwood made the announcement Sunday on radiohead.com: “Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days. We've called it ‘In Rainbows.’ ”
That sort of terse public-relations release wouldn’t fly at a major label, but the internationally acclaimed U.K. band has completed its obligation to Capitol/EMI and is a free agent. Though the major record labels have blamed free file-sharing for cutting into album sales, Radiohead’s career has painted a different reality.
In recent years, unauthorized digital copies of Radiohead’s albums have been widely downloaded and shared by fans months before their official release dates; yet CDs such as “Kid A,” “Amnesiac” and “Hail to the Thief” have consistently debuted in the top 5 of the U.S. and U.K. charts.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2007/10/radiohead-says-.html

greg@gregkot.com

0-4

USA Women 0-4 Brazil Women
By Jonathan Stevenson

Marta celebrates doubling Brazil's advantage in HangzhouBrazil caused a major surprise by earning a place in the Women's World Cup final at the expense of USA.

The US, who had not lost for 51 games, went a goal behind when Leslie Osborne inexplicably headed into her own net.

The superb Marta then cut inside and drilled in, before the US were reduced to 10 when Shannon Boxx was unlucky to be sent off for a second booking.
Christiane slotted in and Marta sealed it with a brilliant solo goal, cutting in from the left and rifling home.
The victory sets Brazil up for a final clash with Germany in Shanghai on Sunday, with live coverage on BBC Two at 1245 BST and live updates on this website.
The pre-game talk was almost all about USA's sensational decision to axe number one goalkeeper Hope Solo in favour of 36-year-old veteran Briana Scurry.

The spotlight was certainly on Scurry and she failed to come through her first test, flapping hopelessly at a free-kick punted into the box, only to be let off the hook when Elaine blazed over from six yards.
But when Brazil did take a surprise lead, there was not much Scurry could have done about it.
Formiga swung a corner in from the left and Osbourne, hesitating over how to clear her lines, unfathomably stooped to head the ball into her own net.
If Scurry was blameless for the first, she could - and perhaps should - have done something about the second goal.
Marta collected the ball and cut in from the right and drilled a shot towards the bottom corner, Scurry getting down to her near post but failing to get sufficient contact on the ball to prevent it going in.
By first-half stoppage time, USA's hopes lay in tatters. Boxx was ludicrously adjudged to have fouled Christiane and she was sent off for her second booking.
The second half was as one-sided as you could imagine the semi-finals of a World Cup to be.
Brazil tore US's 10 women to shreds, Maycon twice using her blistering pace to sprint clear, but twice drilling wide of Scurry's far post.
The third goal came when Formiga got away down the left and crossed to find Christiane on her own 12 yards out. She steadied herself and coolly slotted low into the corner.
Marta produced some magic down the left to set up Christiane again only for her shot to curl wide, before Marta scored a goal that will live long in the memory.
She magically flicked the ball around Tina Ellertson with the heel of her left boot, cut in past one defender from the left and drilled low under Scurry.
Christiane rifled against the post with the clock ticking down as the Brazilian bench began their celebrations in earnest.

GRR - ORD - SFO

Arriving California...At Paul & Cammie's...
Looking up Powell Street from Market Avenue. Boy, were those cable cars fun to ride!

(I will figure out how to rotate these pictures at a later date -ed.)

GARFIELD!

GARFIELD!

Travelling

Look forward to possibly a California diary and some photos from Gi's recent trip home...

Can we do it?

Two Babies and a Wedding

Good weekend. I was privileged to attend the wedding of our good friends, Don & Hannah.

I also was able to see Benjamin & Duck's daughter, Rony(sp?). She is quite cute: 

 

One more baby: Kristy's 9-mo old, Jestyn. My gosh he's got huge blue eyes--Gi would love him: