China is not a nation you’d list when thinking about the world’s footballing elite. But President Xi Jinping is hoping to change that. Last year, China unveiled a plan to “become a footballing juggernaut by 2050”. The country is spending more money to attract players, including some of the game’s biggest names, to move to China.
You might not have had much time to watch the Malaysian Super League this year, but you definitely have time to watch this goal scored by Mohd Faiz Subri, deemed by FIFA to be the best goal of 2016.
That's right, Subri's incredible strike has won him the Puskas Award.
We don't have much to say about the goal, which really speaks for itself. Look at that curve!
The exorbitant fees that the Chinese Super League has been willing to pay to land the world’s best look like peanuts compared to what one unnamed CSL club was willing to pay Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo to bring the Ballon d’Or winner to East Asia.
News of Carlos Tevez perhaps becoming the highest paid footballer on the planet by earning nearly $40 million with Shanghai Shenhua ($1.25 per second) was unfathomable. That kind of total, when dissected and attempted to be understood, is like standing on the beach and trying to fathom all the individual grains of sand or staring up at the night sky and quantifying your place in the universe.
According to The Daily Mail, 32-year-old Argentine forward Carlos Tevez is set to become the world’s highest-paid player following a move to Shanghai Shenhua in the Chinese Super League.
Tevez follows in the footsteps of Oscar, Hulk and Graziano Pelle, all players that’ve swapped more traditional footballing climes for a personal jackpot in the CSL.
Football has long been obstinate in its opposition to video technology, going so far as to appoint fifth and sixth officials to stand behind the goals doing absolutely nothing as opposed to implementing any kind of instant replay system.
Goal-line technology has, in recent times, been successfully used at the highest levels of the game, but this only came about because of legitimate instances of robbery at the pinnacle of the sport.
If you are a Real Madrid or Club America fan you better fear the deer, and I’m not talking about the Milwaukee Bucks.
Since the dawn of the FIFA Club World Cup over a decade ago, there have seldom been semi-final upsets. In most Club World Cups, the decision of who takes the trophy has featured the UEFA Champions League winner and the Copa Libertadores champion.
Still, Japanese side Kashima Antlers just joined Congo’s TP Mazembe and Morocco’s Raja Casablanca as the only three teams to knock out a South American representative in the semifinals.
According to The Telegraph, Chelsea’s Brazilian attacker Oscar is on the verge of completing a historic transfer to Chinese Super League club Shanghai SIPG. SIPG made waves back in June by signing Hulk for a record fee of £47.5 millionNea, but Oscar looks set to join his fellow Brazilian and smash that record in the process.
Kim Jong-Un wants North Korea to have the most powerful national soccer team in the world, and, if he and his youth academy coach are to be believed, that will happen sooner rather than later.
They say they're creating players better than Messi. Really.
From Marca:
"We train our youngsters to become more talented players than even Lionel Messi," said Yu He, coach of the International School of Pyongyang Football.
Life is a cruel, cruel mistress. One second you’re rolling nothing but sevens and 11s at the craps table, your fellow bettors chanting your name as you bestow precious monetary gifts upon one and all. The next you’re crapping out, broke as the cellphone that you’ve just managed to drop into the toilet, and boarding your flight home from Vegas with nothing but a scant recollection of what personal pride feels like.
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