BATE Borisov will have a tough task ahead of them on September 28th 2011 when they take on reigning Spanish and European champions Barcelona at home in Minsk in a Group H Champions League game. Borisov have been beaten at home by their previous two Spanish opponents, Real Madrid and Villarreal.

All teams in the group are level on one point each after they all drew in their opening round matches. Barcelona drew 2-2 at home with Italian club AC Milan with while Borisov tied FC Viktoria Plzeň 1-1 on the road.

Borisov, the reigning champions from Belarus will be looking for their first ever home win in the Champions League group stages. They made the tournament in 2008/09, but only managed a draw in their three home matches. However, since the beginning of last season they’ve only lost at home once in European competitions, as reported to WCBetting.com.

FC Barcelona has never played a match in Belarus before, but they’ve won their last two Champions League road games dating back to last season when they had three wins, a loss and two draws away from home.

Borisov has four wins and a draw in their last five games dating back to February as their league hasn’t started yet. Barcelona has two wins and three draws in their last five outings including a 5-0 win over Atletico Madrid on the weekend when Lionel Messi scored a hat trick.

Barcelona, as we all know, could very well be the best football team on the planet at the moment. But even the best teams get beaten sometimes, especially if they’re not properly motivated for the game. It might be a bit hard for them to get up for this match in Minsk, but knowing what lies at the end of the rainbow in May should do the trick.

Borisov will be at a disadvantage since their only games recently have been in Europe. It doesn’t matter how often you train, it’s just not the same as game action. Barcelona has been pretty explosive this season with 5-0 and 8-0 wins in league play, but the atmosphere in Minsk should mean that this game will remain at a respectable score for the home side.

Betting Predictions for Bate vs Barcelona

Don’t expect Borisov to win the match or even draw it for that matter, but they shouldn’t lose by any more than two goals.

William Hill has the odds of a Borisov win at 14/1 and a Barcelona victory at 1/6. A draw is listed at 6/1.

This means the South African’s could face one of the continent’s top teams, such as Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, or the Ivory Coast, in a two-legged playoff round with a home and away game for each team. Kirsten Nematandani, who is the president of the South African Football Association, stated the obvious when he said it isn’t good news for South Africa.

He said that south Africa had hoped to earn a spot among the top five nations in Africa so they would be seeded and wouldn’t have to play one of the continent’s other top teams. He added that anything can happen in an open draw and they’ll just have to play the best they can to beat whoever they’re drawn against in the playoff round.

South Africa were lucky enough to have received a bye in the first round of qualifying games for the 2014 World Cup, but will face Central African Republic, Botswana, and Somalia or Ethiopia in a round-robin format in the next round of qualifying. This qualifying stage will narrow the teams down to the final 10 teams who will then have to pair off against each other.

Fortunately for them, South Africa is the top-ranked nation in their qualifying group and is expected to make it to the final 10 teams. However, the other favourites in their groups are Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Algeria, and Tunisia. This means the playoff rounds for the five 2014 World Cup spots in Brazil are going to be hard for all of the teams involved and a place in the Finals will be well earned.

The game, at Loftus Road, also has some interesting side plots, such as ex-Newcastle player Joey Barton facing his former teammates in his debut for QPR. The 29-year-old Barton was let go on a free transfer two weeks ago after the controversial player criticized Newcastle on several Twitter posts. He signed a four-year deal with the London club on Aug. 26th.

QPR also has a new owner since Tony Fernandes, a Malaysian businessman, took over a month ago. Along with Barton, the club also signed several other players such as Luke Young, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Armand Traore, Jason Puncheon, and Anton Ferdinand.

However, fullback Young, who came over from Aston Villa, will probably miss the game due to an injured knee. Defender Bradley Orr will likely sit out the game too with a groin problem. Kieron Dyer will be missing from QPR’s midfield with a foot injury and striker Heidar Helguson is likely to miss the game with a sore groin. However, Clint Hill returns from suspension and DJ Campbell has recovered from his virus.

Newcastle will have to play without the services of striker Shola Ameobi, who has a foot injury, as well as midfielder Hatem Ben Arfa and defender Mike Williamson. Look for new signing Davide Santon of Inter Milan to start on the bench. Keeper Steve Harper could be in the squad along with Danny Guthrie, but Haris Vuckic is out with a broken hand and Mehdi Abeid has an injured knee.

Newcastle opened the season with a 0-0 draw against Arsenal and then beat Sunderland 1-0 and Fulham 2-1. QPR were embarrassed 4-0 at home by Bolton in their first game and then beat Everton 1-0 away before losing 2-0 in another road game to Wigan.

Newcastle has gone home with all three points after their last two visits to Loftus Road. They don’t have the strongest lineup in the EPL at the moment, but are holding their own. They still need a top striker after losing Andy Carroll last season.

Predictions and betting for QPR vs Newcastle

QPR actually has several skilled players, with the likes of Wright-Phillips, Campbell, and Young, and should be able to pull out a draw at home here.

Online Sportsbook William Hill has the odds of a QPR win listed at 6/4 with a Newcastle victory at 19/10. The odds of a draw are 21/10.

Rioting started in London on Saturday the 6th of August in the Tottenham area (home of Tottenham Hotspur FC) and continued for the rest of the week, first spreading to other areas of London and then to other cities including Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Bristol.

The match between the two European heavyweights was due to take place in London on Wednesday the 10th. On Tuesday the 9th, the FA announced that they felt there was no choice to call off the game, offering a refund to the 70,000 people who had bought tickets to see the spectacle. As it was a friendly, the match does not have to be rescheduled elsewhere in the football calendar, and unfortunately for the fans, will simply go unplayed.

It seems that the decision to cancel the game was a prudent one, given that rioting continued on the 10th and an overstretched Metropolitan Police would have been in no way able to take on the duties they normally undertake for football matches held in the capital, and the influx of 70,000 people on the city may have exacerbated problems with transport – most importantly, visiting fans could have been put at risk.

This is not the only disruption the UK riots caused to the football world. In just the second week of the football season (and ahead of the first weekend of the Premiership), matches at some London grounds were cancelled because of the riots. Tottenham were due to be playing at home, and as Tottenham had been so central to the riots this game was postponed. Elsewhere in the English League, the Carling Cup matches West Ham v Aldershot, Crystal Palace v Crawley Town and Charlton v Reading were cancelled in London, and in Bristol, the tie between Bristol City and Swindon also failed to take place.

Some of England’s top players have spoken out against the rioters on social media site Twitter, with Manchester United and England stars Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand among those who have condemned the rioters in their tweets. Some UK media outlets were accusing social media sites of making it easier for rioters to coordinate their attacks, but the number of celebrities (including those in the sport world) appealing for the riots to stop on their Twitter accounts shows that essentially, social media was being used on both sides of the argument.

The riots seem to have died down at this point, and hopefully this means that the English Football League, and indeed the rest of the country, can return to normal, though the ticket holders and all of the fans who were planning to watch on TV throughout Europe will not get to see England play Holland in 2011.

This is because Real Madrid thought it would be a good idea to sign the youngster to a year-long contract before cross-town rivals Atletico Madrid got their hands on him. Coira is signed and sealed and is scheduled to be delivered to one of Real’s youth academies on Sept. 6th.

Coira won’t receive any money while playing with the Spanish league runners up from last year, but his father is going to be paid travel expenses. Messi is Coira’s hero and he said he’d like to be just like him. But Coira’s got a pretty good head start since Messi was almost twice his age, 13, when he joined Barcelona. He then debuted with the senior squad after he turned 16.

Atletico Madrid also Interested

It was reported that a Real Madrid scout saw the seven-year-old play and thought he was pretty good. But once word got out that Atletico was also looking at him and interested, then Real made sure they locked up his services, at least for a year. If things work out well after a year and both the club and player are happy, then the deal can be extended for another year, and so on until he reaches 16.

Coira lives in Madrid with his family and has an older brother playing in the Spanish second division, so the team didn’t have to travel half way around the world to Argentina to find him. But signing a child at seven years old isn’t exactly new for Real, as a spokesman said they’ve signed younger kids in the past, but declined to name who and how old they were. It seems that cradle robbing seems to be a favourite pastime of the franchise.

So while other seven-year-olds are playing with their friends and learning how to tie their shoes, Coira will have the weight of the world on his shoulders as he’ll now feel pressured to produce or be deemed a failure. Who knows, maybe the kid will end up being the greatest player in the world, but if he doesn’t meet expectations it can stunt his growth mentally.

Many football players stand out above their teammates at a young age for many different reasons and it doesn’t mean a thing. However, if they can dominate games when they’re about 13 or 14 years old, then there could be some realistic potential there. It’s way too early to tell at seven years old how good a player could be.

It’d be interesting to know if Real would have signed the youngster if Atletico Madrid didn’t show any interest in him. Anyway, we’ll see if he’s re-signed next year. In the meantime Coira will also spend the next 12 months learning how to write his name… just in case.

It was a home game for the USA at the Rose Bowl in California, but about 80 per cent of the fans were there to support Mexico, and this was disappointing to USA soccer officials. Bradley achieved a few high points while in charge of the team since 2006, including a victory over Spain in 2009 an the Confederations Cup. However, he followed that up by losing the tournament’s final despite holding a 2-0 lead over Brazil in the first half.

But other than that’, the USA has disappointed its fans quite often and Bradley was too interested in the sport’s tactical side rather than the emotional side of it. His sacking wasn’t a shock to most fans and neither was the hiring of Klinsmann as the U.S. has been trying to get him since 2006. They were close last year, but the German pulled out of contract talks at the last minute. The Americans have finally gotten him and he’s now the 35th person to manage the team in its history.

But while there’s no doubt the 47-year-old was once a great player, his managerial record is quite questionable. Klinsmann managed Germany back in 2006 to a third-place finish in the World Cup, but the event was held in Germany. A third-place finish at home for a team as strong as the Germans isn’t actually a feat to be proud of. It’s a disappointing result.

Klinsmann was only in charge of the national team for two years, which was his inaugural managerial position, and then headed to Bayern Munich during the summer of 2008. He only lasted 10 months there until he was sacked. In total Klinsmann’s managerial experience consists of 34 matches managed with Germany, where he won 20 games, drew eight and lost six for a winning percentage 55.55 per cent, and 45 games at Bayern, where he won 25, lost nine and drew nine for a winning percentage of 58.1.

But the most disappointing job on his resume came with Toronto FC of North America’s MLS. Klinsmann was hired as a special consultant with the club as it was one of the worst in the whole league. The problem is that after Klinsmann’s involvement they’re still one of the worst in MLS with the worst goal difference of all teams.

Klinsmann doesn’t have a lot of experience when it comes to managing football teams, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to fail. He hasn’t actually managed anywhere over the past couple of years, but won’t have to wait long to get back on the bike as the U.S. is scheduled to face arch rivals Mexico on Aug. 10th. Their 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign starts up shortly after that.

Klinsmann could be an improvement over Bradley, but based on his record so far, it’s not going to be by much.

The 2014 World Cup Qualifying Draw took place in Brazil on July 31st and in usual FIFA style there was some controversy involved in the event. Brazilian legend Pele was initially snubbed by Ricardo Teixeira, who is the head of the Brazilian Organising Committee, and the government had to intervene to make sure Pele was invited to the draw. Teixeira also slammed England and the British media in the press before the event and FIFA president Sepp Blatter actually stood up for them defended them, which likely the first and last time we’ll ever see Blatter side with England.

In addition, the rankings of the teams were controversial as always. The top nine-seeded teams are taken from the current FIFA rankings and the last four year’s worth of games are used to calculate the team’s spots. This meant Norway, which hasn’t qualified for a major tournament since Euro 2000, was ranked ahead of France. This means France paid dearly for having a brutal World Cup last year. However, the French didn’t really start crying about their ranking until they were placed in Group I with world and European champion Spain on the last ball of the draw. England can count themselves lucky as they were second-last ball in the draw.

The winner of each of the nine groups will qualify for the tournament and the eight best second-place teams will compete in a two-legged playoff with the four winners advancing, making 13 teams from Europe qualifying. The record of the last-place team in Groups A to H won’t be used when determining the best runners up positions.

William Hill is already giving out lots of odds on the winners of each group, and what team will qualify.

Keep in mind that the qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup don’t start until September 2012 and a lot can happen between then and now. They end up in October 2013 with second-place playoffs taking place in November 2013.

All Qualifying Groups for World Cup in Brazil

GROUP A

Croatia, Serbia, Belgium, Scotland, Macedonia, and Wales
. Anything can happen in this group as three of the teams, Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia were all part of the former Yugoslavia and Wales and Scotland are both British nations. Look for Serbia and Croatia to battle it out for first place, making it tough for anybody else to take second. Belgium could be the surprise team though.

GROUP B

Italy, Denmark, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Malta. 
Italy will face competition from Denmark and the Czech Republic for first place, meaning one of those three teams is going to end up in third place and miss out.

GROUP C

Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Austria, Faroe Islands, and Kazakhstan
. The Germans should win this group, with Sweden, Ireland and Austria all fighting it out for second place.

GROUP D

Holland, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Estonia, and Andorra
. The class of this group is Holland and they’ve beaten Hungary a couple of times in Euro 2012 qualifying quite easily. The Dutch shouldn’t have a problem topping the group with Turkey, Hungary, and Romania battling it out for second place.



GROUP E

Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland, Albania, Cyprus, and Iceland
. All of the other top-seeded teams would love to swap places with Norway here. Even though the Norwegians are ranked higher, this group is wide open for Switzerland and Slovenia to take first place. It wouldn’t even be a surprise if Norway came in third.

GROUP F

Portugal, Russia, Israel, Northern Ireland, Azerbaijan, and Luxembourg
. Portugal always seems to struggle in qualifying rounds for major tournaments and they get be troubled by Israel and Russia. They usually manage to do enough though. Israel and Russia should fight it out for second.

GROUP G

Greece, Slovakia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lithuania, Latvia, and Liechtenstein
. Like Norway, Greece isn’t really that strong of a team, so Slovakia could take first, with Bosnia having a shot at a second-place finish.

GROUP H

England, Montenegro, Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, and San Marino
. England is another team that often struggles in qualifying campaigns. They’re having a tough time right now with Montenegro in Euro 2012 qualifying and have struggled with Poland in the past. Ukraine is also strong enough to cause some damage. In fact, other than San Marino and Moldova, this is a wide open group.

GROUP I

Spain, France, Belarus, Georgia, and Finland. 
This looks like it’s going to be a showdown between Spain and France for first and second. However, if Spain takes the group, Finland could sneak in at second place.

In fact Antonio Di Natale of Udinese led the league in scoring last season with 28 goals. The best the English Premier League could muster up was Dmitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez as they shared the EPL Golden Boot with just 21 goals each.

These were the top scorers in Italy’s top division last season:

Antonio Di Natale (Udinese) 28, Edinson Cavani (Napoli) 26, Samuel Eto’o (Internazionale) 21, Alessandro Matri (Juventus) 20, Marco Di Vaio (Bologna) 19, Giampaolo Pazzini (Internazionale) 17, Francesco Totti (AS Roma) 15, Zlatan Ibrahimovic (AC Milan) 14, Robinho (AC Milan) 14, Alexandre Pato (AC Milan) 14, Antonio Floro Flores (Genoa) 13, Andrea Caracciolo (Brescia) 12, Alberto Gilardino (Fiorentina) 12, Alexis Sánchez (Udinese) 12, Sergio Pellissier Chievo (Verona) 11, Marco Borriello (AS Roma) 11, Javier Pastore (Palermo) 11, Marek Hamsik (Napoli) 11, Hernanes (Lazio) 11, and Mirko Vucinic (AS Roma) 10.

All of these players hit double figures last season, but the race will realistically be between Eto’o, Di Natale, Pato, Ibrahimovic, and Pazzini.

These are the odds that sportsbook William Hill currently has listed for the Golden Boot winner in the Italian Serie A for the upcoming season. Serie A will kick off on August 28th.

8/1
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
8/1
Samuel Eto’o
9/1
Edinson Cavani
12/1
Alessandro Matri
12/1
Giampaolo Pazzini
12/1
Alexandre Pato
12/1
Antonio Di Natale
16/1
Diego Milito
20/1
Djibril Cisse
20/1
Robinho
20/1
Mirko Vucinic
20/1
Marco Borriello
20/1
Bojan Krkic
25/1
Alberto Gilardino
25/1
Antonio Floro Flores
25/1
Goran Pandev
25/1
Amauri
33/1
Marco Di Vaio
33/1
Adrian Mutu
33/1
Fabio Quagliarella
33/1
Mauro Zarate
33/1
Ezequiel Lavezzi
33/1
Francesco Totti
40/1
Stevan Jovetic
40/1
Jose Eduardo de Almeida
40/1
Miroslav Klose
40/1
Sergio Floccari
40/1
Marek Hamsik
40/1
Pablo Gonzalez
40/1
Emanuele Calaio
40/1
Rodrigo Palacio
50/1
Maxi Lopez
50/1
Alessandro Del Piero
50/1
Antonio Cassano
50/1
Fabrizio Miccoli
50/1
Fabio Borini
50/1
Jonathan Biabiany
66/1
Eder
66/1
Alessio Cerci
66/1
Mauro Boselli
66/1
Vincenzo Iaquinta
66/1
David Di Michele
66/1
Filippo Inzaghi
66/1
Cristian Bertani
66/1
Javier Pastore
66/1
Hernan Crespo
66/1
Graziano Pelle
66/1
Wesley Sneijder
66/1
Milos Krasic
80/1
Simone Tiribocchi
80/1
Davide Moscardelli
80/1
Dejan Stankovic
80/1
Moestafa El Kabir
125/1
Robert Acquafresca
125/1
Christiano Doni

On July 4th, Orlando Silva, who is the nation’s sports minister, held a news conference and stated that the country’s capital city of Brasilia is on schedule with its World Cup preparations and it could even be chosen to host the event’s opening match.

Silva made the positive announcement after he inspected the 70,000-seat Estadio Nacional in the city of Brasilia, which is also known as the Mane Garrincha. The sports minister said that the work on the stadium is about a third of the way finished and it could be a good place to kickoff the 2014 World Cup.

However, Brasilia will likely get some competition from Sao Paulo, which is the nation’s largest city, as it also wants to host the tournament’s opening game. Silva said that Sao Paulo is behind schedule though and things are coming along too slowly.

The municipal government in Sao Paulo recently approved a tax break of $269 million which will see a new 48,000-capacity stadium built for the local Corinthians soccer club in the city’s eastern suburbs. This stadium is also supposed to be used to host games in the World Cup, but FIFA states that stadiums need to hold 65,000 fans for opening World Cup matches.

This has altered original plans and added cost to the new building. In addition, the stadium isn’t supposed to be ready until the end of 2013, which means it won’t be usable for the confederations Cup tournament that year which is regarded as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup.

Brazil has hosted the tournament once before, back in 1950, and is anxious to impress the world again in 2014, but there have been reports out of the country that said it’ll be a race to get some of the stadiums, transportation, and infrastructure ready by the deadlines.

Brasilia said it’s meeting all of FIFA’s guidelines and the city will have all of the technical attributes in place to host the opener. But in the past, Ricardo Teixeira, who is the president of the local organizing committee said he was certain that Sao Paulo would get the honours of the first match.

It’s believed that the final decision will come down to the local organizing committee. But while some internationals are held in Brasilia, the city doesn’t currently have a club in the country’s first soccer division.

Out of the 208 members that make up FIFA, Palestine who are ranked at 167 in the world, is the only that isn’t recognized by the United Nations as a state. The Palestinians will now take on 123rd-ranked Thailand in the next preliminary round.

It was the first ever World Cup qualification match held on Palestinian soil and the aggregate win sparked off celebrations after the game in the crowd of 9,000. The game took place at the Faisal Al Husseini Stadium which was officially opened in October of 2008, which was also the 10th anniversary of Palestine joining FIFA.

After the game, Palestine manager Moussa Bezaz stated that Afghanistan was an excellent team and it was a tough match, but the most important thing is that Palestine advanced to the next round of World Cup qualifying. He also said it was important that Palestine showed the world that it could host a qualifying game in a safe and secure environment and he hopes it opens the door for Palestinian sport in the future.

Palestine’s next qualifier is in Bangkok, Thailand on the 23rd of July with the return leg at home on July 28th.

Meanwhile, 163rd-ranked Bangladesh also made it through to the next Asian qualifying round after drawing 169th-ranked Pakistan 0-0 in Lahore on July 3rd. The soccer game was the first time a major international sports event took place in Pakistan since 2009 when the Sri Lankan National cricket team’s bus suffered a fatal attack. Bangladesh had beaten Pakistan 3-0 at home in the first leg on June 29th.