The defending champions got a place in next summer’s tournament after a 6-0 win over Jamaica in the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Women’s Championship. Maybe one hour after the US Women’s Soccer Team beat Jamaica 6-0 on Sunday at the Toyota Stadium to qualify for the World Cup in 2019, some Megan Rapinoe gave a phone.
Peter Crouch said he was quite pleased with the goal as it was one out of the great headers he has scored till date. He has endless people telling him that it came off the back of his head, although he was trying to flick it in. Crouch wanted to make a significant difference when he made an entry at Preston. As per Crouch, he hoped to do some act straight away to get his head on to the free kick of Joe Allen only through his first touch which was quite amazing. All strikers get a bit restless towards the beginning of every season to achieve the mark. Crouch was no different as he was in the right direction and the only thing that came in between his happiness was that they only achieved a single point at Deepdale and still hoping for the first win. The team is confident that things would fall in place soon.
Everton midfielder Wayne Rooney is close to completing a transfer to DC United, as per reports. Sky Sportsclaim the deal should be done in less than 48 hours before the player travels to Washington later in the week.
The future of Scottish women’s football manager Anna Signeul has been thrown into doubt after Scotland suffered a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Netherlands. The result sees Scotland fail to reach the World Cup 2015 finals. It was rumoured that Signeul may consider stepping down from her position as a sign of accepting the failure to get the team to the finals. However, Signeul says that she was to carry on and help the team reach the European championships. Scotland came into the match against Netherlands knowing that they had to win by at least a two-goal margin in order to reach the next stage.
However, a 2-0 defeat means that they have now gone out of the competition after a 4-1 aggregate loss. Signeul says that one of the reasons for the failure of Scotland to reach the World Cup finals is likely to be down to the significantly lower investment in women’s football in the country. She says that the women’s game should attract more investment in order to develop better players. Her comments come at a time when even men’s football is struggling to keep up with the rest of the European leagues.
“We will qualify for the Euros in two years’ time, that’s for sure. We are disappointed, but when you see steady progress, we should be confident.” I think we need to develop the game on all levels. We need more players, we need a better league, a competitive league. We are very vulnerable when we have so few players, but we have done a fantastic campaign and it’s just sad that we can’t go on. We need to continue what we’re doing because it’s working and we have young players coming through,” said Signeul, who has been in charge of Scotland since 2005.
Theo Walcott believes that Arsenal is a matured unit now and they are going to perform much better against the big sides this season.
Arsenal had faltered against the big sides last season and that had resulted in them finishing 4th in the table despite having got off to such a good start.
According to Walcott, the lessons have been learnt from the errors of the last season and this time around, there will be a different approach shown by his team against the rivals.
Speaking to a sport website the other day, the winger said, “We have seen over the last couple of years that there hasn’t been a big gap in the quality of the sides any more in the league. If you take any side lightly, you will have to pay the cost. You are not going to get any easy matches over here.”
“Winning big matches of course is very, very important if you have to stand a chance of winning the league. Even if you manage a draw in some of those matches, it’s good. Obviously, for the supporters, it’s always about the win, but, if you see by how many points we missed the league title last time around, it’s only 7. Few draws instead of defeats could have got us really close.”
“This season, our defence is more tightened. That has been our main issue in the recent years. You should be prepared to look ugly at times as well. The important thing is to be effective. If our defence does the job, we will be there fighting for the trophy surely.”
With 1 win and 2 draws in the ongoing league, Arsenal currently has 5 points in the kitty and they are at the 7th position in the points’ table.
Arsene Wenger confirmed that Louis van Gaal is genuinely interested in signing Thomas Vermaelen from Arsenal but the French manager revealed that he is only considering offloading the Belgium defender to a foreign club.
Considering that Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand and Patrice Evra have made their way out of Old Trafford, it comes as no surprise that Louis van Gaal is searching around in the transfer market for players that can reinforce the defensive division of Manchester United and Thomas Vermaelen is one of his targets but it seems highly unlikely that a transfer involving both clubs will happen.
Wenger told reporters: “Manchester United is part of the group of bidders. He could leave. We have offers from abroad and ideally I would rather sell him to a club abroad. We’re in a position where it’s difficult to stand in his way.”
Barcelona is another club interested in signing the veteran defender with an offer of £10 million already being launched by the Spanish side as they are hoping to secure the services of Vermaelen before the transfer window concludes.
Vermaelen sustained a hamstring injury which has left him unable to train with his teammates at the Emirates Stadium but his days at the Premier League are reaching its end after only being able to make 14 league appearances in the previous season, he has fallen behind the pecking order of Arsenal as he has had to stay on the sidelines of the club for the majority of the past season. Wenger’s preferred options at the heart of the defence is Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny which leaves Vermaelen having to settle with a substitute role.