Showing posts with label Cristiano Ronaldo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cristiano Ronaldo. Show all posts

Friday, June 22, 2012

Euro Cup 2012: Portugal-Czech - As it happened

Zeenews Sports Bureau

Warsaw (Poland): 90 + 4 min And that is the end of it, Portugal are the first semi-finalists of Euro 2012 courtesy a solitary goal by Cristiano Ronaldo.

90 + 3 min Corner for Czech Republic, Even Petr Cech comes forward. Too long from Plašil.

90 + 2 min Hugo Almeida (Portugal) is adjudged to be in an offside position.

90 min 4 minutes of added time.

89 min YELLOW CARD for Limberský (Czech Republic).

88 min Rezek (Czech Republic) is penalised for a foul on Joao Moutinho (Portugal). Rolando (in) - Raul Meireles (out) (Portugal).

87 min  Pekhart (in) - Hübschman (out) (Czech Republic).

84 min  Custódio (in) - Nani (out) (Portugal).

81 min Pereira hits it straight to Cech, good step up by Nani.

79 min  and it is Cristiano Ronaldo. Diving header by the winger as he connects a Joao Moutinho cross into the box. Ronaldo raced ahead of Alves to get on the end of Moutinho's cross. One bounce past Cech, too strong for the Czech keeper.

75 min Through ball from Meireles, Nani gets space, but again misses.

73 min Hugo Almeida (Portugal) is adjudged to be in an offside position.

71 min Good ball in again, Ronaldo controls but his pass by Meireles is squandered high over the bar.

68 min Cristiano Ronaldo misses again. Yet another effort from the Real Madrid forward who times his run excellently to meet Nani's right-wing cross, but his volleyed effort at the front post is blocked excellently by Michal Kadlec.

66 min Cech races out of his box to parry a great ball in towards Ronaldo, but knocking Kadlec over in the process. The defender is down and looks to be in quite a bit of pain.

62 min Baroš (Czech Republic) misses the target.

61 min Rezek (in) - Darida (out) (Czech Republic).

60 min What a run by Pilar , gets into the box dribbling his way past three defenders, but fails with a cross in.

59 min OFFSIDE as Almeida puts in a diving header past Cech off a Nani cross. Goal disallowed.

58 min Nani shoots after getting acres of space, Cech blocks.

56 min Long range effort from Ronaldo, blocked by Kadlec.

54 min Corner for Portugal, Raul Meireles (Portugal) delivers the corner. Cleared away.

53 min Through ball by Meireles, Ronaldo shoots, over the bar with a mistimed shoot.

51 min Coentrao whips a cross into the box that Cech plucks out of the air. The goalie tries a quick kick to set up his team's counter, and it works fairly well; the Czechs have a throw-in very deep in the Portuguese half.

48 min Another free kick, Good one from CR7, low one to Cech’s left gets hand to it SAVED.

47 min Hübschman (Czech Republic) concedes a free-kick for a foul on Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal). Fre kick taken by Ronaldo, blocked.

So that is the end of a rather one-sided affair with Portugal being the aggressor. Ronaldo had two good chances, but was denied once by the post as he shot one just wide.

45 + 1 min Skills by Ronaldo, takes it down on his chest, turns around, beats Petr Cech, but denied by the post.

45 min Good play by Nani and Ronaldo as two minutes of added time.


43 min João Pereira (Portugal) is penalised for a foul on Limberský (Czech Republic). Free kick for Cech Republic.

40 min  Hugo Almeida (in) - Hélder Postiga (out) (Portugal).Helder Postiga seems to have a hamstring injury.

38 min Good ball in by Kadlec, Long pass, Plašil takes it down but no danger.

35 min Limberský fouls Nani, free kick for Portugal, it is Cristiano Ronaldo range, and he swirls the ball keeping it low, Cech gets a hand to it.

33 min Corner for Portugal, Moutinho takes it. Not a good clearance and Ronaldo tires a bicycle kick, just wide of goal.

28 min Theodor Gebre Selassie is played into space down the right-hand channel and whips in a dangerous low ball, but Portugal centre-back Pepe cuts the ball out brilliantly at the near post.

27 min YELLOW CARD Miguel Veloso (Portugal) is shown a yellow card.

26 min YELLOW CARD for Nani.

24 min Big chance for Ronaldo as he moves forward, and blasts the through pass towards goal, Cech moves forward with a good block.

23 min Coentrão goes past Jirácek and takes a shot, bit of a lob, Cech takes it.

22 min Pilar (Czech Republic) concedes a free-kick for a foul on João Pereira (Portugal).

20 min Corner for Portugal, Jirácek has a tussle with Ronaldo, but too long by Miguel Veloso.

18 min Chance for Czech Republic, Baros slides in, just wide. Corner for Czech.

17 min Corner awarded to Czech Republic, Plašil takes the corner, Rui Patrício pushes it away. But another corner for Czech. Cleared away though.

15 min Good run by Czech forward. First real attack from them.

14 min Czech struggling to get any possession as Nani looking good at the left flank.

12 min Corner for Portugal, short one taken by Nani, Moutinho takes the shot, straight to Cech.

9 min Baroš (Czech Republic) is penalised for a foul on Pepe (Portugal).

7 min Jirácek has a shot on goal, just wide. Jirácek cuts inside very well and shoots towards goal but his effort is deflected out for a corner. Once again it's taken short and the delivery into the box is poor, though Portugal waste the counter through Ronaldo

3 min Pilar (Czech Republic) is flagged for offside.

2 minfirst corner of the match, for Czech Republic.

1 min So we are underway here at Warsaw.

Welcome to the live coverage of the 1st quarterfinal between Portugal and Czech Republic.

Portugal: Rui Patrício, Alves, Pepe, Coentrão, Pereira, Veloso, Moutinho, Meireles, Nani, Ronaldo, Postiga

SUBS: Eduardo, Beto, Costa, Rolando, Lopes, Custódio, Quaresma, Micael, Viana, Almeida, Oliveira, Varela.

Czech Republic: Cech, Gebre Selassie, Kadlec, Sivok, Limberský, Plašil, Pilar, Hübschman, Jirácek, Darida, Baroš

SUBS: Laštuvka, Drobný, Suchý, Hubník, Rajtoral, Rezek, Rosický, Petržela, Kolár, Necid, Pekhart, Lafata.


With Cristiano Ronaldo peaking just at the right time, Portugal go into the quarterfinals against Czech Republic high on confidence. After two goalless games against Germany and Denmark, Ronaldo started to feel the heat but a brace in the last group game against the Dutch gave the Portuguese the bragging rights

Monday, May 28, 2012

Spanish Soccer Scores a Goal on Social Media

When it took a look at the English Premier League’s social media side last week, the main takeaway was that the 2012 season marked the big social push of the world’s most high-profile soccer league.
But Spain’s LigaBBVA — considered a tier below the EPL on the pitch, although it’s home to powerhouse clubs Real Madrid and FC Barcelona — actually looks to be world soccer’s digital leader. To get the fuller picture, we scoured social media sites, and consulted LigaBBVA as well as the Spanish sports and social media site Sportwist. 


Perhaps the place where La Liga’s social media dominance shines most is with its biggest stars. Three of the top four sports-related Twitter accounts are from Spanish soccer — Real Madrid stars Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo have 10.7 and 9.9 million followers, respectively, while the FC Barcelona club account claims almost 5.2 million. Last month, Kaka became the first sports figure ever to break 10 million followers on the the network. Fellow LigaBBVA stars Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Pique, Carlos Puyol, Xabi Alonso and David Villa each top one million followers as well.
The league itself maintains profiles on pretty much all the social web’s major networks — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest and multiple Chinese services.
LigaBBVA engages fans extremely well on Facebook in particular. The league’s official page has more than 1 million fans. During a stretch in April, engagement peaked according to Sportwist, with more than 55% of those fans “talking about” LigaBBVA teams, matches and players — an outstanding level of engagement for a brand in any industry.
SEE ALSO: English Premier League: The Social Media Season
LigaBBVA also dominates world soccer leagues on Twitter. The @LigaBBVA profile counts more than 280,000 followers there, compared with the official @premierleague account’s approximately 209,000 followers. LigaBBVA also has a Klout score of 74, compared to the EPL’s score of 70. The German Bundesliga — considered by many the world’s third-best league in overall quality of play — has a Klout score of 49.
On the Chinese social network Sina Weibo, Spain’s soccer league has 155,000 followers, as well as an additional 106,000 fans on the similar Chinese network Ren Ren.

What powers LigaBBVA’s social media popularity? Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, arguably two of the world’s three most popular club teams. Consider this, for example: Barcelona has more than 31 million Facebook fans and about 5.2 million Twitter followers; Real Madrid has over 28 million Facebook fans and 4.7 million Twitter followers. No other LigaBBVA team approaches a combined total of 500,000.