Whether it happens to be that long awaited home improvement project, saving for a summer vacation or preparing for retirement, I think we can agree that any worthy project will go through a “launch phase.” This phase consists of a time of dreaming, planning and targeting specific time-lines to hit as you begin to “execute” your plan. The same holds true in the college search for athletes and below are snapshots of general suggestions that might just help you along the way.

Gather Information

Gathering information is critical to the successful organization of any worthy project. Building a college recruiting information base can begin as early as the ninth grade as a family hobby and increasingly grow into a highly organized, disciplined project by the end of the junior year.

Begin by gathering information on the student-athletes colleges of choice including team and coach profiles, statistics, ranking, and academic offerings. Continue to update and maintain individual e-files on these favorite college programs.

Develop your initial college list

This is where the fun begins! You have built an initial knowledge foundation about the college search and you have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for in a college experience. Now it’s time to develop a grouping of institutions that potentially meet that end.

Peterson’s College Search (www.petersons.com/collegesearch) is a great resource where you can input specific information about what you are looking for in a 4 year college experience and up comes a listing of colleges and universities that initially “match.” Investigate both the general and athletic college websites. From there you can begin to put together a more detailed list of coaches and their contact information.

Build your Team

Parents, prospect, high school/club coach, college advisor, guidance counselor and a personal mentor could all be part of your team in the college recruiting process. Each team player will have a specific role to play in order to ensure the prospect’s best chances in navigating the college search with confidence. Advance goals should be set with clarity and purpose that compliment the organizational structure of the recruiting process.

By selecting the team approach, the responsibilities are equally distributed to the area experts. All assignments should be clearly spelled out and communication between the team members should be frequent and consistent. This will help streamline the college quest and assist in avoiding any confusion that could contribute to unclear thinking, misdirection and potentially poor choices.

Define Yourself: The Profile

It is important to streamline your portfolio into a comprehensive and efficient format that stands above the rest. Keep your profile simple, neat and professionally formatted. Make the job of initial evaluation easy for the college coach by highlighting pertinent information including:

• Personal and school contact information
• Academic standing, awards, and test results
• Physical characteristics
• Athletic clubs and level, showcase tournaments, and elite camps
• Athletic Statistics, Records, and Awards
• Mission Statement
• Coach’s Comments

Show your Stuff: The Video

A videotape, DVD or web stream are means of developing a first impression and trust me when I say that first impressions are remembered. Typically, a coach will roughly evaluate a recruit within the first 2 minutes of a video. They need to! Along with the hundreds of profiles, they are also being bombarded with hundreds of videos!

Make your video succinct, professional, and yet attention grabbing. Keep in mind that as individual collegiate sports differ, it is important to communicate with the individual college coaches about their requirements for DVD footage.

Develop your Plan

A knowledgeable consumer will have a clear edge in the pursuit of the attainment of any worthy product. I believe that the same holds true in the college search and I encourage families to make every effort and commitment to organize pertinent information regarding this process and to execute well-designed plans.

Develop timelines that will target general events in the beginning of the college search (making unofficial visits, maintaining your data base, and attending competitions) and continue with more specific events (compiling a video and player profile, communicating with coaches, and making official visits, etc.) as time progresses. This will increase the chances of “hitting targets” throughout the recruiting process.

Similar to a NASA Space Shuttle launch, the beginning phase of any college recruiting plan will be time consuming, demanding and require the greatest effort. That said, once you break free of that “gravity” and you remain persistent with your plan, you will give yourself the best chance in building and maintaining momentum toward your ultimate goal.

Tom Kovic is a former Division I college coach and the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting, where he provides individual advisement for families on college recruiting. For further information visit: www.victoryrecruiting.com.

Why a football match of this magnitude has to have it’s final result shrouded in controversy, when there is absolutely no need for it to be so, is beyond the concept of most of the world’s football watching public. Why is it that one man, Sepp Blatter, can control the result of football matches when the whole world can see, thanks to television replays, if a goal is a goal or not?

Irrespective of any result in any football match,  most football fans and experts will concur that a goal can, and often does, change a game, and the fact that in this particular case it would have brought the two teams level, with England in the ascendency, an alternative outcome was a distinct possibly.

That being said, England were, over the 90 minutes, by far outclassed by a young German side that operated a successful counter-attacking system, that inflicted England’s worst ever world cup result, but was it not for the poor decision of not awarding England’s equalizer would this have been the result?

Football is not the same game it was twenty years ago, it is much faster, players are much fitter and the skill levels are much higher, the margins for error are finer than ever before and unfortunately, this means that the pressure placed upon referees and their assistants to make correct decisions is far greater than ever before.

The game of football has evolved much faster than the game’s governing bodies who, to many, seem to be encapsulated in the past. Sepp Blatter, and his other sidekicks within FIFA’s governing body, are unwilling to move forward at the same pace as the game, as doing so would obviously require a reversal on any stance against technological assistance for referees, this type of stubbornness can only be detrimental to the game. The reluctance to embrace technology is hindering the game and the sooner FIFA realize this the better.

France, who capitulated at this year’s tournament were only there because of FIFA’s reluctance to use technology, use of which would have shown a double handball by Thierre Henry in the build up to their goal against the Republic of Ireland in a play off match that effectively qualified them for the world cup finals. There was so much public condemnation about the manner of their qualification, even from the French public, that it must have played heavily upon the player’s psyche leading into the tournament and is probably responsible in part for the team’s performances.

Football is a game where the dividing line between winning and losing is getting finer and finer, there are no ‘whipping boys’ left in world football which means that correct decision making is becoming much more important and this is why technology must be used whether the dinosaurs running FIFA agree or not!

Daniel Major – Irregular Spanish Verbs

Benefits of Buying Football Merchandise Online

There are several online stores that deal with selling football merchandise only. You could also buy from major online shops that offer all sorts of merchandise, where you often get tempted to interesting products from other departments and end up buying them. Once I started surfing the net for buying football merchandise, but ended up buying Beatles merchandise. Well, here are some reasons why you could prefer buying merchandise online.

Online stores offer a huge collection of merchandise compared to the traditional shops in your city. Products in a physical shop are limited to the number of shelves on the shop whereas there is no limitation to the number of merchandise showcased on online stores. So, the choices are more when it comes to online shopping.

It is a time consuming process to visit each shop and select from a relatively small collection of products. In online shopping, you can shop from variety of football merchandise at the convenience of sitting in front of your laptop. If you place the order today, the product will knock your door the very next day.

Online shops offer low shipping costs for the products you buy. There will always be some products for which they charge no shipping fee. So, there is no need to worry about the shopping fares associated with shopping online. As online shops are available 24 x 7, you can make the purchase any time.

How to Buy Football Merchandise Online?

Using major search engines, list out the shops that offer football merchandise. Then explore each site looking for your favourite product. As it is FIFA season, some products that sells hot are country-specific world cup t shirts, FIFA tracksuits, FIFA windbreakers and FIFA world cup bags. You can either bid for your favourite item in an online auction site or get the product by paying the asking price in an online retailer shop.

Online shops usually offer credit card payment gateway so that you can make the payment via your credit card. There are stores that accept payments via paypal, debit card or cheque. Whatever is the option, you need to fill in the requested details to process the transaction. If you are sending the purchased product to your friend on a special occasion, make sure that the gift will reach your friend on time.

Online shopping of football merchandise has gained importance nowadays. This is because of the ever increasing number of football fans and the convenience offered by online shopping. Buying the merchandise online becomes a thrilling experience when you make the purchase while watching an interesting football match.

USA will start their campaign for 2010 World Cup football against one of the strongest team of 19th edition of World Cup on Saturday June 12 at Rustenburg. England won their last World Cup title back in 1966. However, United States is making their sixth straight trip to the FIFA World Cup. According to the betting sites predictions, England is the strongest team in group C followed by US, Slovenia and Algeria.

England striker Wayne Rooney is one of the world’s most valuable football player. He is in great form these days and has an ability to score when the team needs it the most. Mid fielder Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard can also be very dangerous for any opponent. For USA, Edson Buddle and Clint Dempsey are key players. USA won their last match before FIFA World Cup 2010 against Australia by 3-1. According to the betting sites, Algeria and Slovenia are underdogs for Round of 16.

Group C schedule for World Cup 2010:

Saturday June 12, England vs USA at Rustenburg from 20:30
Sunday June 13, Algeria vs Slovenia at Polokwane from 13:30
Friday, June 18, USA vs Slovenia at Johannesburg from 16:00
Friday, June 18, England vs Algeria at Cape Town from 20:30
Wednesday June 23, USA vs Algeria at Pretoria from 16:00
Wednesday June 23, England vs Slovenia at Port Elizabeth from 16:00

Read here for more information related to Soccer World Cup 2010 and Football World Cup 2010.

The Loughborough University scientists involved in the design of the ball say they have developed a ball featuring “a completely new, ground breaking technology, which has perfect roundness.”

Well this groundbreaking technology will break how many heart, time will tell. But years of preparation of goalkeeprs will go in vain if they find it really difficult to guess the movement of the ball.

The Jabulani will allow goal keepers to really celebrate with this new ball or not, but players are lining up to complain it behaves erratically and they are having difficulty judging its trajectory, especially at relatively high altitude.

David James, England goalkeeper, described new Adidas ball as “horrible”, Spanish keeper says it is “rotten” and Italian keeper Giasnluigi Buffon fears its unpredictability can ruin the world cup.

Derek Leinweber, Adelaide University researcher, supports the goalkeeper point of view, and proves it through computer simulation that the new ball is faster than the previous balls, and the rough surface made it more erratic.

Leinweber says, “And, the ball bends better. It means that the goalkeeper’s institution is just a little bit off.”

Goalkeeper’s practice and his reflexes will be tested more than ever before. His anticipation and reactive move may go wrong as the ball is faster and takes different angle.

Best of luck to the goal keepers as this time the English Players known for their ‘Bend it like Beckham’ kicks can do miracles in South Africa.

Read here for more information related to FIFA World Cup 2010 and FIFA World Cup News.

Top stars including Shakira will perform on Thursday and a secret performance just ahead of match on Friday. The concert will be broadcast live from the heart of the Johannesburg Soweto Township’s 40,000 capacity Orlando Stadium at 1800 GMT.

Soccers fans from across the world have already booked their tickets to watch Shakira in opening concert of FIFA World Cup 2010 singing official song “Waka Waka” with South African pop group Freshlyground.

Among others who are going to rock Johannesburg are Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys and John Legend. Top African musicians including Angelique Kdjo from Benin, The Parlotones from South Africa and Amadou and Mariam, the blind musical duo from Mali.

But there is a surprise element from FIFA for the world just before the opening match between host South Africa and Mexico.

Lebo M, the Soweo-born musician behind Broadway’s “The Lion King,” is the producer of 25-minute performance at Soccer City Stadium. Nelsen Mandela has picked a song “Hope” to play at opening by rocker Russ Ballard and Chris Winter.

But Mandela’s pick South African opera tenor 34-year-old Siphiwo Ntshebe, die dsuddenly last month of meningitis. Lebo M is not yet clarified who will replace Siphiwo, in the singing event on Friday before 95,000 spectators.

As this kind of Global event brings huge publicity, several small musical groups raised voice regarding the non representation of Local artists in the opening event. They called for boycott of the event from the people, and people’s response to their boycott call is not gaining momentum.

Stampede during the warm up match raises serious doubts regarding the preparedness, crowd management and security. If any thing of this kind happens during the main event, this will be shameful for Africa and football community at large. Hope the South African government will fully utlize this global oppurtunity to boost its image and avoid this kid of minor mistakes.

Read here for more information related to FIFA World Cup and World Cup Latest News.

The central defender suffered a ligament injury in the final minutes of the training after he fell badly.
Ivory Coast star and captain Didier Drogba also broke his right arm in a 2-0 warmup victory over Japan

The FA said in a statement, “Further to a scan arranged by the England medical staff immediately, after training in Friday afternoon, Rio has been ruled out for four to six weeks and will therefore unfortunately miss the world cup.”

Now Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard will captain the team. Michael Dawson of Tottenham Hotspur will replace Ferdinand in 23 man squad. The team manager Fabio Capello said, “It is obviously a bad news and everyone with the squad is very disappointed and sorry for Rio. It was an accident injury in training but had nothing to do with the pitch.”

It is not just captain Rio but goal keeper David James, who also complained about the knee injury and did not, participate in training on Friday.

England team is going to face U.S on June 12 opening match. Rio took over as captain after Chelsea’s John Terry was stripped of the job in February because of an off-pitch scandal involving his private life.It was Rio’s third World Cup, but unfortunately got disrupted before the start.

Read here for more information related to Soccer World Cup 2010 and FIFA World Cup News.

Arsenal’s Theo Walcott omission from the coach Fabio Capello roster was quite surprised. The 21-year-old Walcott, who has won 11 caps, would have been the youngest member of the party. From the probable 30 squad for World Cup Football 2010, seven players were failed to find place in 23 men squad including Theo Walcott, Michael Dawson, Leighton Baines, Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Scott Parker, and Darren Bent.

England’s final 23-man squad for World Cup 2010:
Goalkeepers: Robert Green (West Ham United), Joe Hart (Manchester City), David James (Portsmouth),
Defenders: Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Ledley King (Tottenham Hotspur), John Terry (Chelsea), Matthew Upson (West Ham United), Stephen Warnock (Aston Villa),
Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Aaron Lennon (Tottenham Hotspur), James Milner (Aston Villa), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City),
Forwards: Peter Crouch (Tottenham Hotspur), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham Hotspur), Emile Heskey (Aston Villa), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United).

Read here for more information related to FIFA World Cup News and FIFA World Cup 2010.

Official partner of the FIFA World Cup Adidas takes a different approach with a series of animated comic book strips. TBWA Hakuhodo’s senior creative director Kazu Sato created this viral project celebrating Japanese footballers Atsuto Uchida and Takayuki Morimoto. The first TV ad is ‘The feather leads to the revolution’.

The best part of this project is making FIFA meaningful to children. The full comic strip was gathered together on 25 May at the Haneda Airport to see the Japanese team depart for South Africa.

Coca-Cola reflects on the past in its first TV commercial ‘History of celebration’ for the World Cup. The company brings back Roger Miller as the first African player to score at the World Cup.  The ad partners with YouTube in 90 markets and involves the public by asking them to upload their version of celebration. Coca-Cola has been sponsoring the World Cup since 1978.

Sony announced on 8 April that it is offering 25 World Cup games in 3D. In the UK people are asked to trade in their old TV sets in order to experience the World Cup in full force.

Visa Europe also launched a TV ad titled ‘Evolution’ created by Saatchi & Saatchi London’s Executive creative director Kate Stanners. The commercial features a chubby man inspired by a dance move during a football game.

Official World Cup sponsor Budweiser and agency DDB Chicago ends the rival war between Brazilian and Paraguayan footballers. The love spreads contagiously across the world as people swop pets, wigs and more.

Nike never stops ‘just do-ing it’. They did it again with a ‘Write the future’ campaign by Wieden Kennedy in Amsterdam taking viewers on a roller coaster ride. The campaign is released in 32 countries and created by co-creative directors Mark Bernath and Eric Quennoy.

Pepsi also launched a ‘Oh Africa’ a lot earlier than other FIFA related ads in March and it’s one of the first World Cup ads to appear on the top ten viral chart of Visible Measures. Akon is the voice behind the soundtrack.

ESPN campaign is titled ‘One game changes everything’. The first out of three commercials is titled ‘Robben Island’. The ad also features U2 and the Soweto Gospel Choir. The other two ads from ESPN are titled ‘United’ and ‘The power of 10’, which celebrates the unity of cultures.

Optus is traditionally known for its ads bringing the world of animals and mankind together. The ad sees a young Soccerroos fan discover the training ground where players are engrossed in an intense practice session with fierce creatures like rhinos, crocodiles and elephants.

Non-alcoholical beer Birell by Al-Ahram Beverages in Egypt, have created eight ads to ‘man-up’ football fans.

Read here for more information related to FIFA World Cup News and FIFA World Cup 2010.

A South African artists union said on Tuesday that it was mobilizing a boycott of FIFA World Cup Kick-off concert protest the large numbers of international artists in the line up.

The kick-off concert is scheduled to take place at Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg’s historic Soweto Township on June 10. It will be broadcast live worldwide.

General Secretary of the Creative Workers of South Africa Oupa Lebogo said, “This is not an African event, aw are telling the masses to stay away from this event.” He added, “We are not calling for violence or protest outside the concert venue, we just want people to stay away from it.”

How successful will be the call of boycott, time will tell but for time being Tickets for the event have been sold out, with price ranging from 450 rand ($58) to 1400 rand.
Since the March announcement of the star-studded line up, including American performers such as Alicia Keys and John Legend, local musicians have been demanding greater participation.

To pacify the raising voice of he local artists FIFA has increased the local acts to seven from three in the initial list.

It is not just the representation of the artist in the much anticipated event but the price of Ticket is also a big issue. The union feels feels that the 450 rand price for the cheapest ticket is too steep for the ordinary South Africans.

“That amount is more than a weekly wage for many workers in this country. This is an elitist event which is not intended for the people,” said Leboga.

Legendary trumpeter, Hugh Masekela and the Grammy Award winning Soweto Gospel Choir are some of the local headliners.

Read here for more information related to FIFA World Cup and Soccer World Cup 2010.