He was born May 20, 1981, in Móstoles, Madrid.  He started early with Real Madrid, joining their junior squad for the 90-91 season.  It wasn’t until 98-99 that he was called up to the senior squad.

During the 01-02 season, he lost his spot as starting goalie to backup César Sánchez, but managed to regain it when Sánchez was injured in the final game.

He won the La Liga title in 07-08, and won the Zamora trophy.

In 2008, he and captain Rául were awarded new contracts.  Casilla’s contract will keep him with Real until 2017, with an automatic extension if he plays 30 league games in his last season.  There is also a buy-out clause of £113 million.

He has stated that he has no intention of leaving his boyhood club.

Internationally, he debuted at the U-17 games at the 1007 FIFA U-17 World Championship, and was later made captain.  Two years later, he went on to win the FIFA World Youth Championship and the UEFA-CAF Meridian Cup.

He made his senior debut in a match against Sweden when he was 19.  He was an unused sub in Euro 2000.  For the World Cup 2002, he was on the roster as a back-up, but was moved ahead when starting goalie Santiago Cañizares had to withdraw due to injury.

He was the first choice goalie in 2006. When captain Rául was excluded from Euro 2008, Casillas was made captain.  He became the first goalie-captain to lift the world cup trophy as a winner when they won the 2008 UEFA European Championship.

He was born September 13, 1973, in Naples, Italy.  His mother was a maid, and his father was a bank clerk.

He started his career as a ball boy for Napoli, where he watched his idols Diego Maradona and Ciro Ferrara play.  He eventually progressed enough as a player to play alongside some of them.

In 1995, a cash-strapped Napoli traded him to Parma. In his six years there, he won the UEFA Cup and Coppa Italia.  He also continued to get national team call-ups.

In 2001, he was traded for €23 million to Inter Milan. He spent two years with them, and then did two years at Juventus.  With Juventus, he won two consecutive Scudetti in 2005 and 2006. He also won l’Oscar del Calcio: Migliore difensore, the Football Oscar.

After the Calciopoli trials, when Juventus was moved down from Serie A to Serie B, he chose to leave.  He did three years at Real Madrid, and won La Liga title.

After three years at Real Madrid, he returned to Juventus.  After a disappointing season, he claims to not be returning next year.

Cannavaro has played in three world cups: 98, 02, and 06, where Italy was crowned winners. He has also been in two Euro Cups: 00 and 04.

He has a charity with Ciro Ferrara, called Fondazione Cannavaro Ferrara, that specializes in the procurement of cancer research equipment and surgery for special cancers at a hospital in Naples.

He is married and has three kids, aged 11, 9, and 6.

UPDATE: According to The Spoiler, “Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro has turned down a one-year extension at Juventus to join UAE club Al-Ahli, revealing the move “realises my dream of living in Dubai and finishing my career playing for one of its clubs”.”

Cristiano Ronaldo is John Rambo.  The Dirty Tackle

England wins 2-1 against Japan; scores no goals.The New York Times

World Cup winning coach leaves football…to help son choose university.Yahoo! Sports UK & Ireland

Wealthy spectators spending millions.South Africa Times

Vidic calms rioting Serbian fans. The Dirty Tackle

Best quote of the day goes to the All-Whites assistant coach Brian Turner:

“When people start throwing empty bottles of Jack Daniels onto the park, it’s rather a serious sort of offence. I don’t think there was any real concern for players safety, but it’s a bit disappointing that they were empty!”

And here is Wayne Rooney’s commercial for Tiger Beer, the flagship brand of Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey on July 31, 1987, he4 spent his teenage years in Palatine, Illinois.

He played for Sockers FC, and later attended the IMG Soccer Academy in Bradenton, Florida- a dedicated training facility for the Under-20 national team- from fall 02 to spring 04.

He turned professional at 16, and entered the MLS SuperDraft. He was selected 36th overall by MetroStars, which was then coached by his father, Bob Bradley.

In 2006, he became the youngest player sold when he was traded to SC Heerenveen in the Netherlands.

In 2008 he signed a four-year deal with Borussia Mönchengladbach of the German Fußball-Bundesliga. He currently plays midfield for them.

He has been on the national team since 2007, and started in every match for the U.S. in the 2007 FIFA Under-20 Cup.

His dad is the current coach for the U.S. national team. Although not confirmed yet to the 23-man squad, he made the preliminary list of 30 players.

I’m not gonna do much more than name the players and their country.  The profiles will start going up soon.

So here it is, in alphabetical order:

• Michael Bradley, USA
• Fabio Cannavaro, Italy
• Iker Casillas, Spain
• Landon Donovan, USA
• Cesc Fàbregas, Spain
• Steven Gerrard, England
• Thierry Henry, France
• Kaká, Brazil
• Frank Lampard, England
• Mata, Spain
• Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal
• Dejan Stankovic, Serbia
• Fernando Torres, Spain
• Robin van Persie, Netherlands
• David Villa, Spain

The first profile should be up later tonight.  I hope you enjoy them!!

~Suz

Last week were the finals for the Turkish Süper Lig. From what I understand, their scoring works the same way as the English Premiere League: there is no final between the first and second place team, the winner is the one who has the most points at the end.

Second-place Bursapor was one point behind Fenerbahçe. Since Bursapor faced last year’s champions, Beşkitaş, Fenerbahçe was expected to win their 18th league title.

Some 50,000 Fenerbahçe fans filled the Şükrü Saraçoğlu stadium. Most weren’t focused on the actual game, just waiting to celebrate their imminent win.

At 90 minutes, the game was tied, and the ref announced 4 extra minutes. Fenerbahçe played offensively, attacking the goal.

Two minutes into the extra time, the announcer shouted that Bursapor had tied their game, and Fenerbahçe was the league winner. Fenerbahçe stopped attacking, and finished the game tied 1-1.

When the match ended, fans took advantage of having no barricades and streamed onto the pitch to celebrate, carrying players around on their shoulders.

A few minutes later, the announcer came back on to apologize for his mistake, saying, “The Bursapor vs. Beşkitaş game in fact finished 2-1. Bursapor are the champions.”

Fans stood in shocked silence, and the players walked ran off the pitch.

After a short silence, fans went crazy. They began to break seats and set fire to the stands. Riot police came in and drove back the fans with tear gas, while fire trucks drove onto the pitch to put out the fires.

Turkey is obviously a place that takes it’s soccer very seriously. As far as I know, there were no injuries.

Well, now you know not to piss off a Turk. They go crazy!!

~Suz

A day after checking into the Hyde Park Southern Sun hotel in northern Johannesberg, they were robbed of £1900.

The Colombians were in South Africa to play a friendly match against Bafana Bafana, which they lost 2-1. They played in a sold-out Soccer City in Soweto.

Two women have been arrested and charged.  CCTV cameras showed two scantily-clad women in the corridors right before the robbery.

The Hyde had asked police to keep the matter quiet to try and avoid negative publicity before the cup. Police ignored the request and arrested the women after complaints from the Colombian team.

This isn’t the first time a team has been robbed in South Africa. According to the South African Times:

In June, during the Confederations Cup, $2400 (R18394) was stolen from several players from the Egyptian soccer team at Johannesburg’s Wanderers Protea Hotel.

Many teams have concerns about South Africa’s high crime rate. Officials have promised to try and make this the safest cup ever.

This definitely won’t help matters. The police isn’t helping either, with quotes like this one:

Gauteng police spokesman Colonel Eugene Opperman said: “It was an inside job. How do you police that? You cannot. They worked there everyday.”

The Hyde Park Southern Sun will play host during the cup to the Slovania team, who check in June 8th.

Good luck to them!!

~Suz

I’ll also be altering the list a little.  Some of the players are no longer attending the world cup, and I’ve also discovered other hot ones.  So I may up the list to twenty.  Maybe.

I can’t guarantee that the posts will be super in-depth.  If you’re looking for a complete history for each player, I suggest you look them up on Wikipedia.  But I can promise a pretty picture and enough to get by in conversation.

So look for that starting next week.

Also, I’ve started a new blog, and you’re all welcome to check it out.  It is essentially just my opinion on random things I find online or things I want to do or place that look interesting.  It is a completely random blog, and I’m open to topic suggestions.  Feel free to check it out here. It has what I consider the best name ever. Shenanigans and Blarglelargle. Yeah, try saying that ten times fast!!

Anyways, thanks for checking out my blog, and I hope you check out my new one.  And come back for some hot pictures next week!!

~Suz

I hope you all enjoy that picture!!  I’m going to see if I can find more of that match.  Keep your fingers crossed!!

~Suz

It appears, however, that Cristiano Ronaldo is not happy to be sharing underwear time with his rival.

It’s been rumoured that Ronaldo wants to sue Vanity Fair for using his image to promote it’s June issue.

Ronaldo, 25, became the highest-paid soccer player in the world last June when Real Madrid bought him from Manchester United for a record-breaking $130 million.

Ronaldo’s Portugal and Drogba’s Ivory Coast face each other in their World Cup openers on June 15th.

Both are part of Group G, which is considered the tournament’s Group of Death, which means tha at least one quality team won’t move on past the group stage.  Group G includes three of the world’s best teams: Brazil, Portugal, and Ivory Coast, as well as the super secretive North Korea.

The article inside is just as good, with pictures of Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, Ghana’s Sulley Muntari, the U.S.A.’s Landon Donovan, Brazil’s Kaká and Pato, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, Serbia’s Dejan Stankovic, England’s Carlton Cole, and Germany’s Michael Ballack.

Now if only they would play the game dressed like this, I really feel more women would watch.  I know I wouldn’t look away!!

~Suz