The Sports Review

The Oakland Raiders were badly in need of improving their defense and this was achieved by signing a one-year contract with free agent defensive end Greg Spires, an ex-Bucs player. The Raiders were on the hunt for someone to play in unison with left end Derrick and the think tank of the Raiders now feel that Spires can do that job. Greg Spires took part in the team’s offseason practice session after joining the Raiders last Tuesday. Greg, who has received rare reviews for his defensive skills in America’s premier sports event, NFL, has had 39.5 sacks in his 10-year tenure and his best season at the NFL was in 2004. 

Owen Hargreaves made his first goal for Manchester United in the match against Fulham in the Barclays Premier League. With this 3-0 win, the reigning Premier League champions, Manchester United, reduced the lead of Arsenal to 1 point. In the second leg of the UEFA Champions League, Manchester Utd will meet Lyon and in the Quarter- finals of FA Cup they face Portsmouth. The team Manchester Utd is fully fit and Sir Alex Ferguson gets the option of selecting the best players for the coming matches as all his top players are injury free. Hargreaves is sure that the Red Devils will become treble champions this year.

According to Hargreves, this is the most interesting part of any season and he is happy that he is with Red Devils. He is proud about the performance of the team and considers the strength and the age of the players as advantage in competitions. The team is balanced with young and active players as well as old and experienced members like Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Edwin van der Sar. The Manchester United team definitely has the prospective of winning the European title, if all the players put the 100% effort into each game. The players are like the pieces of a puzzle, every thing should fall in the exact position for the picture to be complete, such that every player should do their work perfectly to win a match.

Manchester United had a stunning victory over the Fullham at the Craven Cottage in the Barclays Premier league. With this victory Manchester has cut the upper hand of Arsenal in this league. United made this victory by taking the help of its top players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney only at the last 20 minutes of the match. Their defense line was also not very strong as Nemanja Vidic and Ryan Giggs were injured. Even though many of their star players were resting, Manchester was able to celebrate victory because of Owen Hargreaves and Park Ji-Sung. Owen made the first goal for the United by a well finished free kick and Ji-sung made the goal by a beautiful header.

The domination of Manchester united was clear through out the game. They played beautifully by showing good control over the ball and making calculated passes. They made their first shot within three minutes of the start of the game. Third goal was gifted by the Fulham player, Simon Davies, he made a self goal in John Shea’s pass. He came to play the match after a one – match ban. Now Arsenal has very powerful competition in reaching the premiership of the league.

The coming Saturday will witness the clash between Kevin Keegan’s men who are placed 13th in the English Premier league and Sir Alex Ferguson’s men who are currently in the 2nd position in the premier league. The Newcastle manager is very much determined in changing the fortunes of his side come Saturday, as his side is presently on a nine match no win situation. If Keegan’s wishes of beating the reigning champions come true, it will be considered to be an upset of sorts in the premiership. Kevin Keegan hopes to repeat the stunning feat achieved by his team when they beat the Man Utd team 5-0 on 20th October 1996 at St. James’ Park.

The victory on that day was one of the greatest achievements of Keegan in his coaching career and he feels that his record against Sir Alex is not as bad as the records of some other managers. Kevin said that his side is the under dog going into the game and hence will not have any pressure on their shoulders. He said that with a little bit of luck his team can surprise a few people. The Newcastle boys have worked a little bit harder for this game and were given a couple of days of rest before the training to get them all up and running for their big game on Saturday.

Real Madrid is identified as the richest football club in the world according the survey conducted by the accountancy firm Deloitte for the second consecutive year. The English clubs claimed three of the top five positions. According to Dan Jose a partner of the Sports Business Group, no other country has achieved this so far in the Football Money League. Manchester United reached the second position by climbing two places from last years position. Barcelona took the third position by dropping one place. Chelsea and Arsenal, the two English teams took the fourth and fifth places respectively.

Real Madrid got in to the first place by winning the Spanish league in 2006-07 seasons and this win caused an enormous increase in their revenue, it reached 261 million pounds by the end of the season. Manchester leaped in to the second position by winning the Premier League last season and it is expected that Manchester United can pose a challenge to Real Madrid in 2007-2008 season with the latest television deals for the Premier League. There is a net increase of 11% in the revenues of the first 20 clubs combined. The clubs in the top 20 position include six English clubs, four German and Italian clubs, three clubs from Spain, two from France and one Scotland.

Michael Dwayne Vick is a well known National Football League star, quarterback in Atlanta Falcons team.
On Monday he was condemned to 23 months in prison by a federal judge as a result of his role in illegal dog fighting and related gambling activity and then lying about it. He also was mulcted of $5,000 and given a trial period of three years. It’s quite difficult to predict when see Vick back in game (not in gambling of course), but it’s absolutely clear that world sport is not ready to sacrifice him!

On Sunday the Giants lost to the Cowboys with 31-20 score. The loss has driven them in frustration. They may have come third after Dallas and Green Bay in the National Football Conference. Now they will hardly be able to score better place in the playoff in the next seven weeks.

Currently the Giants lag behind the Cowboys. Their rival has the two games advantage over them in the East Division. Thus the Giants are more likely to get to the playoff games as a wild-card team.

Nevertheless, the Giant’s Coach Coughlin tries to stay calm and assures that to win the division is not so important, because their main aim is to reach the play-off games.