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Archive for the ‘Fifa standings’ Category

Almost every culture around the world has some type of connection to the history of football/soccer. Such cultures as the Ancient Greeks, Persians, Vikings, The Chinese, Japanese, and much more, played a game that is much like today’s football/soccer. For instance, The Chinese played “footballer” games dating as far back as about 3000 years ago. However, it was in England that soccer / football really began to grow in popularity. After becoming popular in England, soccer became a widely loved sport throughout the world. The celebrated FIFA World cup led the way to the rise of soccer stars, and conferred world soccer records holders such as the player who has scored the most goals in world cup soccer history.

Brazilian professional footballer Ronaldo Nazario de Lima has scored the most goals in Fifa World Cup history. Ronaldo Lu?s Nazario de Lima, more generally known as Ronaldo, was born in September 18, 1976. In 1993, Ronaldo began his professional soccer/footballer career playing for Cruzeiro. In his single year with Cruzeiro, he accumulated 12 goals in 14 games and led the team to win their first Copa do Brasil championship. After playing with Cruzeiro, in 1994, he joined with the Dutch football team PSV. In 1996, in his final year with PSV, Ronaldo aided the team to win the Dutch Cup.

Ronaldo is also an established national footballer for Brazil. He has played in 97 international games, accumulating 62 goals and standing 15 goals away from the Brazilian national scoring record. He was a member of the Brazilian team that won the 1994 and 2002 World Cups. During the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo became the highest goal scorer in the history of the World Cup with his fifteenth goal.

Nicknamed ‘O Fen?meno,’ which is translated as “”The Phenomenon” in English, Ronaldo made the number 9 famous and made it tantamount with the position of center forward. During his footballer career in Europe, Ronaldo became one of the most celebrated ‘strikers’ throughout the world after he won his first Ballon d’Or as the European Footballer of the Year in 1997, and then once more in 2002. He is also one of only two players to have won the FIFA Player of the Year award three times. In 2007, he was named as one of the best starting eleven of all-time by France Football and was named to the FIFA 100, a list of the greatest footballers compiled by his fellow Brazilian soccer star, Pel?.

To many contemporary footballers, Ronaldo is a living icon who has been credited with encouraging a stronger marketing interest in soccer throughout the world, particularly because of his relationship with Nike who had in the past spent their marketing resources and time primarily on Basketball.

The soccer that we know today was shaped during the 1960s. Increased media coverage and TV broadcasts has made the game more popular than ever. With soccer stars such as David Beckham in the spotlight, the popularity of soccer will continue to grow.

The Fans of Mississippi State Bulldogs had been witnessing the games of their team in the field for a long time – they have cheered with every victory that are achieved with efforts and mourned for every losses incurred. It was unfortunate to take note however that the history of the school didn’t manifest much victory as more of the losses were noted. The Bulldogs have been struggling in their performance in the football field since 1905, and for most people outside the state they are becoming a team that will not be of much concern to their opponents. Their fans can always be seen following their standings with high hopes that they will emerge and turn the tides of fortune in their favor.

Conference concerns
Taking a glance at Bulldogs’ history, you can conveniently say that they are just one of the teams that wouldn’t seem to pull it all together. Well, it will be wrong to say that. The truth is; Mississippi State is suffering from a disadvantage of a major concern; they are playing the NCAAs Southeastern Conference or (SEC). All football enthusiasts are aware that SEC has that reputation of being the strongest in the nations’ conferences historically speaking. It is dominated by motivated major league teams like the Louisiana State, Alabama and Florida; the SEC is comprised of difficult conferences which is makes success a difficult thing to achieve. The nations’ best players in high school want to play on teams that win regularly; that is why recruiting for Mississippi State is never easy.

For a high school superstar it is obvious that when being recruited in the SEC by teams that are not considered to be that famous in winning games it would be a turn off, especially those who want to make it big in the college ranks. Given an option to choose to play for a strong team that is outside of the SEC like Texas or the Ohio state, for example – or playing for the SEC teams that are considered to be weak like the Mississippi State; an average player would most likely to choose the Texas or Ohio state over the Mississippi State. Their thinking would be that it would be worthless to put an effort playing for a team that doesn’t seemed to have a chance in winning their conference title.

Will there be a change of tide?
The structure of the SEC in terms of team performance is seen by most analysts to stay the way they are as it was in the recent years – Louisiana State, Alabama and Florida competing over the Conference crown and for a Bowl Championship Series. The Bulldog fans see the radiance of the spirited team on their field practice. There are many factors that should make the bulldogs not lose hope, the combination of veteran and young talents on the field is a good start in the foreseen progress that the team will eventually accomplish.

The battlefield positioning however can often bewilder even the most optimistic forecast; Mississippi State will surely be sharing the same dilemma on the next season. Beginning with the selection of the quarterback; it is junior against freshmen the competition between Tyler Russell and Chris Relf is building up, and there is this vast predicament on running back, the final organization of the starting team has already been decided. One thing for sure though, the fans of the bulldogs will constantly occupy the stands cheering unconditionally for the team that is representing their school.

France made their entry into the international field of Football in 1903. The team, associated with the French Football Federation, goes under the nickname “Les Bleus” (The Blues) in France. Today, France’s football team offers a high level of competition in matches – but believe it or not, the team used to be very modest, one that some would consider an “easy game”. Their first international match was versus Belgium, and was a tie game. In 1930, France’s national team was one of the four initial teams from Europe that participated in the inaugural World Cup. Nonetheless, at that time, France’s team was still looked down upon as an easy defeat. In the mid 1950′s, France did see some mild success, for once not being at the bottom of the standings.

Their first true experience at being a huge success came at the end of 1984. From December of 1984 to April of 1985, France was ranked number one in the Elo ranking categorization of football teams. This success was held out fairly well, and met another high point from May of 2001 to May of 2002, when the team from France sustained a FIFA ranking of number one; today, this number one FIFA ranking means more worldwide, as FIFA is an internationally recognizable organization.

Perhaps most memorable for many people is France’s win of the FIFA World Cup in 1998. Thirty two different teams, from five different confederations, competed through 64 matches. France won nearly every match that they competed in, and ended up taking the championship upon beating Brazil 0 to 3. Other awards given to the French football team during the 1998 FIFA World Cup include “Most Entertaining Team”, and the “FIFA Fair Play” Trophy. The Stadium that the French Football team usually plays at is the “Stade de France”, which was built in 1995 and opened during 1998. The construction of the stadium cost over 285 Million Euros. In fact, the stadium was built for the purpose of the 1998 FIFA world cup – it’s both ironic and fitting that France would win the world cup at their own stadium the year that it opened. After the World Cup, the Stade de France has continuously been used for various football events, although for the majority of the year, the stadium is empty. The majority of events that France’s team participates in at the Stade de France are won by the French team, partially owing to the home team advantage of having more frequent access to that field, as well as higher morale and support from the crowd.

France’s team may still not be the most reputable team around, but from their humble beginnings they were able to rise into a team that is recognizable in many places around the world, and were even able to claim the glorious title of World Champions.