Lionel Messi won FIFA Ballon d'Or award and FiFPro XI and Neymar clitch FIFA Puskás Award for 2011-2012.

Lionel Messi won his third consecutive FIFA Ballon d'Or award after beating Cristiano Ronaldo and Xavi. So far he has won every title and some of them twice but the world cup still a tough one despite the possibilities of playing two more world cups. Individually he performed well, but also get a push fantastic top player like Inesta and second run-up Xavi. Club achievement played a major role and made it easy for him to beat Cristiano Ronaldo. Spanish Liga title, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. Messi has become the second player after Michel Platini to have won the Ballon D'Or awards in three consecutive years.

Barcelona star Lionel Messi won his third consecutive FIFA Ballon-d'Or award and singer Shakira

FiFPro XI only come from three European teams, Barcelona - 5, Real Madrid 4, and Man Utd – 2 and six of them from Spain national team.

Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Dani Alves (Barcelona), Gerard Piqué (Barcelona), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Nemanja Vidic (Manchester Utd), Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona), Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), Xavi (Barcelona), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Wayne Rooney (Manchester Utd).

Other awards
FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year -- Homare Sawa (Japan National team)
FIFA Men’s Football Coach of the Year -- Pep Guardiola (Barcelona)
FIFA Women’s Football Coach of the Year -- Norio Sasaki (Japan women’s national team)
FIFA Presidential Award -- Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United)
FIFA Fair Play Award -- Japan FA
FIFA Puskás Award for the best goal– Neymar (Santos)

FIFA World Cup qualification draws for 2014 in Brazil

The FIFA 2014 World Cup has been scheduled to feature 32 national teams from FIFA six continental confederations. Only the host, The 5 times world cup champions, Brazil will be allowed to participate in world cup finals without competing in qualification draw.. Spain, World cup and European Champions will join other 30 national teams in competing for their place in World cup finals.
The preliminary draw of the 2014 FIFA World Cup draw was made on 30 July 2011 at the Marina da Glória in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 32 world cup place distribution
1. Europe (UEFA): 13 places
2. Africa (CAF): 5 places
3. Asia (AFC): 4 or 5 places
4. South America (CONMEBOL) 4 or 5 places (Brazil host)
5. North, Central American and Caribbean (CONCACAF): 3 or 4 places
6. Oceania (OFC): 0 or 1 place

2014 FIFA World Cup qualification for European zone-UEFA
The road to 2014 world cup for European zone teams will kick off on August 2012 after the Euro 2012. 53 national teams will compete for 13 allocated places for this zone. 9 group winners will automatically enter the world cup finals and eight best runners-up will face play-off for the remaining 4 places.

France recent poor performance pushed them to 15 in FIFA World Rankings world wide and have been drawn with World cup champions, Spain. In the last world cup play-off, France won a controversial play-off win over Ireland to qualify for the 2010 World cup inals in South Africa. France coach Laurent Blanc speaking to French FA's website, he said "At least we won't receive the tag of favourites with the world champions and European champions in our group. It's extremely exciting to compete with the best. It's through such matches that we can improve.''
''It'd be a lie to say that we're in an easy group. But we will focus on our task and France will take its chances as usual.
''Spain will definitely be our toughest opponent in the group. But I have confidence in our team and the goal will be to advance in first place.''

FIFA/Cocacola world ranking for Africa (CAF) national teams 2011

Africa national football teams FIFA/Cocacola ranking released on Jun 2011. FIFA ranking for (CAF)Africa teams moved Cote d'Ivoire 7 place up in world ranking: their best position ever in the ranking. After the 2010 world cup success, South Africa seems to be dropping having moved from 90th to 38th in the last ranking.

Netherlands 2-2 England: Defoe's rescue England

Jermain Defoe scored two goals to secure a 2-2 draw for England national team. Defoe’s two goals came in second hold after Holland took a lead on first half after mistakes by Rio Ferdinand and Gareth Barry. Fabio Capello was also impressed by his team reaction on second after which saw Defoe, Cole and James Milner shining.

FIFA World Cup Awards

FIFA World Cup awards
FIFA World Cup has several awards for teams and individual players awards and some media have started predicting what team or player will winner some of these awards in World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Apart from World cup champion and fisrt runner up awards, the tournament has six other awards usually given after the final game, these awards are
The Golden Shoe 1930 (Golden Boot, "adidas Golden Shoe"scorer 1982)
The Golden Ball ( "adidas Golden Ball") for best player.
The Yashin Award for best goalkeeper (first awarded in 1994)
The FIFA Fair Play Trophy for the team with the best record of fair play (first awarded in 1970)
The Most Entertaining Team award for the team that has entertained the public the most, during the World Cup final tournament, as determined by a poll of the general public, first awarded in 1994
The Best Young Player (currently commercially termed as "Gillette Best Young Player") award for best player under 21 years of age at the start of the calendar year, first awarded in 2006.
An All-Star Team (currently commercially termed "Mastercard All-Star Team") comprising of the best players of the tournament and is also announced for each tournament since 1990.

Jack Wilshere, Promising Arsenal midfielder

Jack Wilshere, Promising Arsenal FC midfielder will be taking lots of headline this season and could make in under U21 squad and even. He joined Arsenal FC at age of 9 years, and become a creative midfielder who is seen by Fabio Capello as talented young player in premiership. Jack Wilshere just turned 17 years on January 1st this year. He is also tipped to be able to even earn a call to World cup 2010 if he get regular matches.

Fabio Capello on Jack Wilshere

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"He plays without fear, with confidence," said the Italian. "And the other players passed the ball always to him. This is not normal to be so young and so good."
His performance in preseason matches have been great and really impressed Arsenal Manager, Arsene Wenger and Under 20 England coach, Brian Eastick

Arsene Wenger on Jack Wilshere

"I believe what is good in Jack's case," said Wenger, "[is] he reminds me a bit of Rooney when he started"

Brian Eastick, England's U20 coach

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"Jack Wilshere is a real talent and we think he'll be knocking on the door of the U20 and Under-21 teams this year." Jack Wilshere

Zambia football team aiming for World Cup Qualification

Zambia football team picture Coach
Hervé Renard (France)

Goalkeeper
Kalililo Kakonje / AmaZulu
Kennedy Mweene / Free State Stars

Defenders
Joseph Musonda / Golden Arrows
Hichani Himoonde / Zanaco FC
Emmanuel Mbola / Pyunik Yerevan
Nyambe Mulenga / ZESCO United
Dennis Banda / Green Buffaloes

Midfielders
Noah Chivuta / Maritzburg United F.C.
Felix Katongo / Free agent (football)
Andrew Sinkala / FC Augsburg
Stoppila Sunzu /
Fwayo Tembo /
Chanda Mwaba / RoPS
Francis Kasonde / Power Dynamos F.C.

Forwards
Christopher Katongo / Arminia Bielefeld
James Chamanga / Dalian Haichang
Emmanuel Mayuka / Maccabi Tel Aviv
Jacob Mulenga / FC Utrecht
Given Singuluma / TP Mazembe

New FIFA WORLD FOOTBALL RANKING RELEASED

New updated FIFA football ranking for August have been released. The table have very little change to the previous one. In the top ten list German and Italy swap number 4 and 5. Italy have dropped to fifth as German rise to fourth.

Other changed in top 25 list saw Paraguay move two placed up to 20th at the expense of Uruguay and Czech Repubblic in 21is and 22nd repectively. The new FIFA ranking will be released again on 2nd of September 2009.

Okocha, Weah, Kalusha, Kuffor, Fofana played in Lagos Friendly

Nigeria’s 1994 Super Eagles squad beat Africa all stars 2-1 in friendly match scheduled by MTN as welcome to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The game was played at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos (the battle of legends).

The Nigerian (Super eagles) side captained by Enyimba coach, Augustine Eguavoen took the lead on 3rd minute when Garuba Lawal, beat goalkeeper Alain Goumeni from Cote d’ Ivoire for the Africa. The African stars side, had the 1995 World Footballer of the Year, George Weah, the former Liberian presidential candidate.
Titi Camara equalized for the Africa all stars in 23rd minute before Jonathan Akpoborie add the second goal for super eagles in 28th minute, making it 2-1 for Nigeria. Austin Okocha, was a great entertainer and most fans wanted him back to the Nigerian national team. Among Nigeria football legends were Amuneke, Victor Ikpeba and Okocha were thwarted by who stood as a rock in defence till the end of the match.

The African side represented by football greats like Titi Camara of Guinea, Kalusha Bwalya from Zambia, Phil Massinga of South Africa, Ghanaians Odarty Lamptey and Samuel Osei Kuffor, Cote d’Ivoire’s Abdullahi Traore, Youssouf Fofana and Paul Ndiefi of Cameroon.