England where placed in a tough group in the world cup draw on Friday as the three lions where drawn against Italy, Uruguay, and Costa Rica in Group D, Roy Hodgson’s men will face the Italians in the first match to be staged at 2:00am UK time with the other two being on at normal evening times.
The other threat being Uruguay’s imposing attack force of Liverpool’s Luis Suarez and Paris Saint Germain’s Edison Cavani. In other groups the big group match drew up a rematch of the 2010 final with Spain to play Holland and Portugal facing Germany, holders Brazil face Croatia in the opening match while Argentina will face Bosnia-Herzegovina who will play their first ever world cup since the breakup of the old Yugoslavia. The Tournament starts on June 12th and finishes on the 13th July with Spain, Brazil, Argentina, and Germany many bookies favourites to win the Jules rimet trophy although some people also think Portugal stand a good chance if Ronaldo is in form and Columbia are most people’s wildcard with Monaco striker Radamal Falcao in the squad. For England’s case it will be a hard group to come out of but if they do come out in the top two then the potential opponents could be Columbia, Greece or Ivory Coast with this being the world cup most people would imagine that the three lions will give it their all in the group and what happens we will have to wait and see but most are already looking forward to heading to Brazil for what they hope will be great entertainment and goal scoring from the world’s best on the world’s greatest stage.
Why Ronaldo Should Win The Ballon D’or
For the last five years we have had the endless debate of who is better Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi. Both play for the two biggest clubs in the world and in the same league La Liga for the last four years. In the first FIFA awards, Ronaldo won the honours with his brilliant form for Manchester United with 42 goals in all completions. However, for the last four years the little man from Argentina has dominated with some people shouting conspiracy about FIFA President, Sepp Blatter’s, supposed favouritism of Messi and dislike of Ronaldo.
This year Messi’s form has dropped with slight injuries and his court case for tax evasion whilst Ronaldo’s form has been getting better.
Ronaldo has already bagged twenty four goals this season and single handily made sure his country, Portugal, qualified for next year’s World Cup in Brazil where most people hope he comes up against his long-time nemesis.
I have always been a Ronaldo fan since he started at Manchester United back in 2003 and I will say Messi is not my favourite player but I respect his ability. I knew he would be player of the year in 2010 but I did not expect him to win for the next three years.
As an avid La Liga fan, I have watched both Ronaldo and Messi this year and I think Ronaldo has been playing the better football this year. Messi, on the other hand, has had niggling injuries and has also been prosecuted for tax evasion in Spain which could have been a distraction from his game. Most pundits believe the big man from the Portuguese island of Madeira will win but there could be a upset with Bayern Munich’s Frank Ribery also being a favourite because of Bayern’s treble winning dominance in the Bundesliga and the Champions League.
We won’t know who wins until January but it would be a travesty in my mind if Ronaldo doesn’t scoop the award for the second time in his career.
FIA announce 22 races for next season
The FIA last week announced the provisional calendar for the 2014 Formula one season with 22 extra races, the first time in the sports history that more than 20 races will take place in a race season, the new editions to the calendar will be the race in new jersey and Sochi, Russia races returning to the grand prix calendar will be the Austria and Mexico with circuit now named the Red Bull ring making its return after a ten year absence and Mexico a twenty one year absence. 
The full calendar will be announced in December after the seasons conclusion, the announcement of more new races will make the teams work harder than ever to impress at these new tracks. Talk or Mexico emerged with McLaren driver Sergio Perez becoming the new sensation in Mexico and with edition of Estiban Gutierrez most people would think it was only right for F1 to return to Mexico, the other edition of New Jersey had been in the pipeline for some time with supposed to happen this year but fell through when organisers couldn’t come up with the money according to Ecclestone but recently it seems the organisers have produced the finances to stage the race, Russia had always been talking about staging a race but only know it seems to have finally gathered movement and looks set to take place next year, Austria makes a return after Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz bought the track from the previous owners and reached an agreement with Ecclestone. This announcement is bound to get fans excited at the thought of more races then ever which will hopefully bring more excitement to the sport. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has said that the main target for the rest of the season is finish ahead of Ferrari in the constructors championship, the Brackley based team who have impressed immensely in the last 12 months since signing former champion Hamilton have scored three wins, four podiums and seven pole positions have been the big improvers to everyone’ shock and for them to finish second behind Red Bull would be a massive achievement for a team that could only manage one win in their first three years.
Sporting Insights 