Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Mobile World Congress 2012

Last year Nokia didn't announce a single new phone at the MWC, but this year they came ready to steal the show. As expected, they unveiled the Nokia Lumia 610 WP7 Tango phone, worldwide availability for the Lumia 900 and a three new Ashas, but what really sent the crowd into a roar was the Nokia 808 Pure View.

Mary McDowell had to repeat it twice, so that people could be sure they didn't mishear - the 808 Pure View packs an amazing sensor with a whopping 41 megapixels resolution. Yep, 41MP!!! Are you serious??? The camera lets you snap 3MP, 5MP and 8MP photos and because they're saved in a new image format, you can zoom in those photos with little image quality degradation at any time after taking the photo.

Or you could squeeze out almost every megapixel that the sensor has a shoot a 38MP image. That's more than most DSLRs!

See it for yourselves here at Nokia Europe and on the phone specifications, head to GSM Arena .


Spain's 2nd Strip

La Roja, currently preparing for Wednesday's friendly against Venezuela in Malaga, showed off a different look with an unusual colour choice for their reserve kit for Euro 2012.
The sky is the limit for Spain. This summer, La Roja will look to become the first national team to claim a European Championship, a World Cup and another continental competition in consecutive tournaments.

And they will hope their new light-blue second strip will bring them good fortune in Poland and Ukraine.

Ahead of Wednesday night's friendly against Venezuela in Malaga, Spain have unveiled a stylish sky-blue second strip which is based on a kit used by La Roja in the 1960s and, according to manufacturer Adidas, uses a combination of colours "never seen on a Spain shirt" before.

Several Spain stars, including Barcelona's Xavi, Real Madrid's Xabi Alonso and Athletic Bilbao's Fernando Llorente, took part in modelling of the new kit on Monday, before the Spain squad started training ahead of the game on Wednesday.
Spain wore red as they defeated Germany in the 2008 European Championship final, but earned a maiden World Cup win in the South Africa showpiece against Holland in a dark-blue outfit, while La Roja's Under-21 side claimed their own continental crown last summer in an all-white strip.

Good omens? Perhaps. Spain will go into Euro 2012 as tournament favourites and Vicente del Bosque's men will hope a new kit brings a new title, too. So can 'celestial' Spain hold off the likes of Germany, Italy and Holland to add Euro 2012 glory to success in 2008 and 2010?

Monday, February 27, 2012

Old Is Gold

An article by Gary Neville - Giggs and Scholes show the older players how to manage their careers.

Something interesting has happened over the last 10 years in the Premier League. Players who once would have been discarded as expensive and too old have become important parts of title-winning squads.

In fact, the ideal Premier League squad these days would have about eight players under the age of 23, about 12 between 23 and 31, and four or five up to 38.

Five years ago at Manchester United, we were given a presentation about the famous Milan lab at AC Milan, where, with good sports science and healthier lifestyles, they have kept players well into their Thirties.
They showed us the likes of Alessandro Costacurta, who was 40 at the time, Cafu, who was 36, Serginho, 35, and Paolo Maldini, 38, all of whom were still playing. United’s vision was to keep outfield players playing into their late Thirties, almost unheard of 20 years ago.

Essentially, there are three cycles to your career. When you’re young, you’re in and out of the team. Then, between 21-30, you’re the king, one of the core group of five or six players who start every week.

But if you play every Wednesday and Saturday and every tournament in the summer between the ages of 21-30, it’s an absolute fact that you’re going to fall off the cliff at 32. The injuries will start to come and your recovery from games won’t be quite the same.

It’s key at that moment that two things happen. First, you recognise the change physically and start to look after yourself better. And, second, mentally you accept that you’re no longer going to be ‘the man’.

I was reminded of that when I was in Naples last week, watching Chelsea in the Champions League, where the manager Andre Villas-Boas dropped Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Ashley Cole.

And with the amount of discontent there appears to be at the club, with stories being leaked and the manager admitting players challenged him about selection, it almost seems as though there are some players at Chelsea who aren’t accepting that change is happening to them.

Because I can see it physically in them. They are not what they were four or five years ago. But if they can just accept that change — and, if they were better managed and the manager explained to them their new role and made them feel a part of it — they could have careers at Chelsea until they are 37 or 38.

Take Jamie Carragher at Liverpool. People might look at him and say: ‘He must be furious to be sidelined at the age of 34.’ But actually he can sit back, relax. Let the two lads who are playing well carry on.
Contribute when you can because you will be needed. If you can accept that the bulk of your war on the front line is over, then you can go back behind the lines and become a general. It is players such as Carragher who will set the tone in the dressing room, impose discipline and provide advice and encouragement to young players when they need it.

Young players need guidance, and if you look at the likes of Juan Mata, Daniel Sturridge, David Luiz and Gary Cahill at Chelsea, you wonder whether that guidance is available to them.

It seems as though there is a battle of personalities going on rather than an acceptance from Villas-Boas that these players are important and a recognition from the players that their role has changed.

There is a solution that can work for everyone. It doesn’t need to be a battle. And today we must recognise the best example of all in Ryan Giggs, ready to play his 900th competitive game at the top level today at the age of 38.

On Thursday night, the camera panned to him just after Danny Welbeck was brought on against Ajax and it was clear he wouldn’t be needed for the night. He had his feet up, quite relaxed, without a care in the world, ready for the Norwich game today. There would have been no showdown with the manager or stories in the press about how he had been snubbed.
Paul Scholes is in the same mould.

If you look at Arsenal’s spell without trophies, which will be seven years at the end of the season, you could argue that Arsene Wenger discarded players such as Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires too quickly.

With players of that stature in the dressing room and on the pitch in big games, his teams might have had more mental strength about them. They might not have been able to reproduce the form of old all the time but they still could have made a difference.

Rio Ferdinand is just hitting that phase of his career. Maybe you’re seeing signs of it with Steven Gerrard, with the injuries he has had. It will happen to Wayne Rooney in three or four years. But they all still have important contributions to make.

If you’re 32 and get dropped, don’t get wound up about it. Chill out, relax. You fought your war. Just go and fight the battles you need to fight.

Because what is the alternative if you don’t accept you’re no longer top dog? Going off to China or to the furthest reaches of Russia to play for Anzhi? Or ending up at a mid-table Premier League club?

Far better to manage your expectations, stay at a great club and become a great leader in a team that can still win trophies.




Torres, He's Afraid

An article by Alan Shearer - FERNANDO TORRES has become a frightened striker.

Frightened of getting a chance because he is frightened of missing a chance. Frightened of the reaction he will get if that ball goes wide.

He no longer wants to be in a position to score because then he can't be criticised if he misses. On Saturday, he had the perfect opportunity when he came on with around 15 minutes left to get a goal against an already beaten Bolton.

But when Juan Mata got the ball wide and looked for a fox in the box, Torres was stood outside of it. He didn't want to know. I really don't know if he is ever going to get back from the place he is in now. Certainly not at Chelsea.

He arrived for a ridiculous fee of £50million probably knowing that it was the owner rather than the manager who wanted him. He got off to a bad start and it has been downhill from then on.

What he has stopped trying to do is get those bread and butter goals. We saw at Liverpool he can have the eye for the spectacular. But when you are on a barren run you have to get in that box, in amongst the flying heads and boots and pick up a scrap.

Some strikers become legends from doing just that. Look at Gary Lineker and at the 150 goals Ruud van Nistelrooy scored for Manchester United. I don't think one of them came from outside the area. You have to be in there to get those chances. You have to be moving too, making yourself a nuisance, but he is not even doing that. I thought that when Didier Drogba went to the African Cup of Nations, Torres would have the chance to shine, to be the main man, but he continued to fade.

I have never known any other striker with his talent to be in a position where he has not scored in 21 games for his club. He looks shot and needs a cut-price move away. We have all had barren spells, I had one with England leading up to Euro 96 of 13 games lasting nearly two years without a goal for my country.

I was fortunate that I was still scoring goals for my club. I also will never forget Terry Venables saying to me a month or so before the tournament that no matter what, I was still his No 1 striker. That gave me a great lift and helped me back on to the scoring trail for my country.

I don't know what Andre Villas-Boas is saying to Torres. Maybe there is nothing he can say.
Only the player himself can sort out what seems to be a mental problem. An art that came so naturally to him now fills him with angst. I hope he can come out of it but I seriously have my doubts.


Friday, February 24, 2012

WrestleMania XXVIII Preview

WrestleMania XXVIII is the forthcoming twenty-eighth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It is scheduled to take place on April 1, 2012 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. There are currently four official matches scheduled for the event's card.

The main event heading into WrestleMania XXVIII, would feature The Rock going up against John Cena. Cena challenged The Rock to a one-on-one match at WrestleMania XXVIII. With The Rock subsequently accepting, the match was officially announced on WWE.com. Let's watch the videos folks.



A second main event match scheduled for WrestleMania would pit The Undertaker against Triple H in a Hell in a Cell match. Last year at WrestleMania XXVII, in a No Holds Barred match, The Undertaker defeated Triple H via submission, in their second encounter at a WrestleMania (the first being at WrestleMania X-Seven in 2001, where The Undertaker won as well). However, in the post-match events, due the harsh physicality suffered during the bout, The Undertaker failed to leave the venue (Georgia Dome) on his power, as he was carted away by the medical staff on a stretcher for the first time in his career, while Triple H left on his own accord. Triple H finally accepted The Undertaker's challenge at WrestleMania XXVIII, saying that if "he [Undertaker] wanted an end, they would go all the way", and proposed that they would compete in a Hell in a Cell match.

In January 2012, at the twenty-fifth annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view, Sheamus won the thirty-man Royal Rumble match, giving him the right to challenge either the WWE Champion or the World Heavyweight Champion at WrestleMania XXVIII. At the Elimination Chamber event in February, Sheamus attacked Daniel Bryan, after the latter successfully retained his World Heavyweight Championship in an Elimination Chamber match, thus declaring his wish to challenge Bryan for his title at WrestleMania.

Another match booked for WrestleMania is from the Raw brand, which would see CM Punk defending the WWE Championship against Chris Jericho. On the February 13 edition of Raw, Jericho accused Punk in an in-ring segment of being a copycat of him, and that he (Punk) stole his proclamation of being the "best in the world". While competing in the Raw Elimination Chamber match at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, Jericho was knocked out by a kick to the head by Punk, rendering him unable to compete any further. This incident further fueled Jericho's animosity towards Punk. On the February 20 edition of Raw, Jericho last eliminated Big Show to win a ten-man battle royal to determine the number-one contender to face Punk for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XXVIII to prove who is "the best in the world".


Monday, February 20, 2012

Iniesta, Best In The World - Rooney

Andres Iniesta has scored landmark goals for Barcelona and Spain, but it was his all-round performance in the 2009 Champions League final that led a Manchester United superstar to call him the best in the world – and he shouldn't even have been playing.

Iniesta was injured in a 3-3 draw with Villarreal, a few days after scoring a dramatic, injury-time winner against Chelsea in the 2009 Champions League semi-final. From diagnosis of a two-centimetre tear in his right thigh muscle, there were 15 days until kick-off in the final, against Manchester United, in Rome.

He told the doctors in the Hospital de Barcelona, up on Avenida Diagonal, just a few hundred metres from the Camp Nou that “there is no way any injury was going to make me miss this match.” He told his father “not even a hole in my leg would stop me playing.”

What he, his family and all the medics at Barcelona knew full well was that this muscle tear was a couple of millimetres below the one which had cost him two months’ recuperation the previous November. The truth was that under no circumstances should he have played and in no circumstances, having convinced the normally conservative Pep Guardiola to risk him, should it have been so easy for Iniesta to sprint away from his midfield markers, Michael Carrick and Anderson particularly, in setting up the crucial opening goal for Samuel Eto’o, or to complete 91 minutes.
At half-time, the Barca medics warned Iniesta that, at all costs, he mustn’t shoot, because his thigh injury had already deteriorated so badly that the stretch and strain on that muscle if he attempted to pull the trigger might cause it to rupture. What drove him was the memory of the 2006 Champions League final in Paris against Arsenal, which he admits was “the worst day of my football career – it took until Rome to get the thorn out of my side about not starting that match”.

Despite playing against Sevilla in the last Liga match before the 2006 final, Iniesta was dropped for Paris. A lot of people have the impression that Iniesta and Xavi ran the midfield – they didn’t. Instead of Barca’s La Masia graduates, it was Cesc Fabregas, then of Arsenal, who stood out – starting, playing terrifically in a 10-man side after the 18th minute and then leaving the pitch in the 74th minute with Arsenal leading 1-0.

Barca lined up: Valdes; Oleguer (Belletti 71), Puyol, Marquez, Van Bronckhorst; Van Bommel (Larsson 61), Edmilson (Iniesta 46), Deco; Giuly, Ronaldinho, Eto’o.

 Iniesta’s entry changed Barcelona’s mobility, how much they stretched Arsenal and dragged Arsene Wenger’s increasingly tired players around the centre of the pitch, but even with a winner’s medal in his hand, he judged the night as having been incomplete. Hence the risk in Rome.

Guardiola subsequently described Iniesta’s fitness as having been “about 60 per cent”, so imagine the magnitude of his performance when Wayne Rooney disconsolately told his United team-mates in the losers' dressing room: “We’ve just lost to the best player in the world”. He was talking about Iniesta, not Messi.

Iniesta was asked about Rooney’s sentiments just before the World Cup and he told me: “If I said that I wasn’t pleased then I’d be lying. It’s nice to hear, but the best thing is that the description comes from a top player and an important footballer. From a guy like Wayne Rooney, it says a lot. I could just as easily have said the same thing about him and his talents. Wayne has always impressed me, he works so unbelievably hard for the team and, above that, he has so much quality.” Typical Iniesta. Take a compliment, give one back.


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Del Piero Wakes Up Girl From Coma

Over the last 19 years of his career, Alessandro Del Piero has become a revered footballing legend while sticking with Juventus through good times and bad. He's won a World Cup and committed his time and financial support to cancer research. He also dresses up like Santa Claus and walks the streets of Turin at Christmastime. And now, he's even being credited with waking a young girl from a coma.
According to our friends at Eurosport, 12-year-old Giada Scalise suffered a brain hemorrhage while watching a Juventus match on television last month. After two weeks without a change to her condition, the Scalise family turned to Del Piero for a different kind of help. He obliged with a video message to Giada.

Italy's ANSA news agency picks up the story from there:
The parents of Giada, a big Juventus supporter from the small southern town of Cerenzia, believe the footballer made an important contribution to the happy outcome. "That night (after listening to the message) something special happened," said the girl's father, Francesco.
"First she moved her hand and then after a few hours she called out 'mamma'. Then after about 24 hours she talked and asked for an ice-cream".
The girl's parents appealed for Del Piero's help via a charity after she fell ill and slipped on January 22.
In the message, he said: "Hello Giada, I'm Alessandro Del Piero. I hope you can wake up as soon as possible to watch lots of our and my games, to come and see us and, above all, get to know each other".

So there you have it. Not only can Del Piero score wonder goals from all over the pitch, but his voice also has wondrous healing powers. Then again, the girl's mighty desire for ice cream may have also had something to do with it.