http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/European-Football-Confederation-Clubs-(UEFA)_Summary.html en-us http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_21005.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:33:00 CST
Vestel Manisaspor is one of the eighteen teams that constitute the Turkcell Super Lig, the Turkish Premier Super League. This is by far the most popular sporting competition in the country, and it is managed by the Turkish Football Federation, formed in 1923. Established in 1959, the Premier Super League plays its teams against each other in two half seasons. At the end of the league season, the bottom three teams are relegated to the Secondary League Category A. The champion and the runner-up represent Turkey at the UEFA Champions League the following year. Additionally, the teams of the Premier Super League participate along with the 36 teams of the Secondary League for the Fortis Turkey Cup, which yields two slots for the UEFA Cup. Turkish teams are limited to six foreign players.  http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_21004.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:32:45 CST
The club’s history started in the 1870s when a group of young men decided to form a football team in the town of Rhyl. They were initially known as Rhyl Skull and Crossbones and wore a pirate motif on their black shirts which was intended to strike fear into their opponents. http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_21003.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:29:39 CST
Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña, S.A.D. (its popular Galician name is Deportivo da Coruña) is a Spanish football club from A Coruña (La Coruña), Galicia (an autonomous community in the northwest of Spain). The club was founded in 1906, and at this time plays in the Liga de Fútbol Profesional or LFP (commonly known as La Liga, is the professional football league in Spain). The Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña is normally referred to simply as Depor or Super Depor. The team’s colors are blue and white. When playing as a home team, Deportivo de la Coruña’s players wear a kit composed of a blue and white vertically striped shirt with blue shorts and socks; when playing as away team, they wear a navy blue shirt with a yellow cross, navy blue shorts and yellow socks.

Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña has a home ground the Estadio Riazor, a football stadium in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. The stadium was opened in 1944, and has gone through a series of renovations. The stadium has a seating capacity for 34,611 spectators. Deportivo has a range of skillful and talented players, such as Juan Carlos Valerón, Roy Makaay, Diego Tristan and Jorge Andrade among others. The club has won the Spanish League once (2000), the Copa del Rey twice (1995, 2002), and the Supercopa de España three times (1995, 2000, 2002). Among remarkable feats of the team is when in the 2004 UEFA Champions League, Depor knocked out the previous year's runners-up Juventus. Then, defeated defending champions AC Milan in improbable fashion, erasing a 4-1 deficit in the opening leg in Milan with the largest comeback ever in a knockout Champions League tie (4-0). http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_21002.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:28:48 CST
Hibernian F.C. started to harvest triumphs since the year 1875 when the club was founded. Informally known as “The Hibs”, this Scottish football club represents Edinburgh in the Scottish Premier League. This Scottish football club’s headquarters is located in Leith, a city located in Edilburgh; it is the place where the squad trains and plays home football matches; the name of it is Easter Road. This stadium has capacity for 17462 people and was built in 1893. The ground was renovated in 2001 and its dimensions are 112 yards x 74 yards. http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_21001.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:28:11 CST
Boras is a city in Vastergotland, western Sweden. The most successful sports team is the IF Elfsborg which was founded in 1904 as Boras Fotbollslag. The club has won four Swedish championship titles (1935- 1938- 1939- 1961) and two national cup titles. IF Elfsborg is at this time playing in the highest Swedish league, Allsvenskan, which holds the top 14 clubs. The winners of the Allsvenskan are considered the Swedish Champions who qualify for the UEFA Champions League.

The squad’s home is the Boras Arena, a ground built in 2005, with an artificial turf pitch and with a capacity for 14,500. The yellow uniform of the IF Elfsborg is wore in the 2006 season by the goalkeepers Abbas Hassan, Johan Wiland, and Nicholas Sharro; the defenders Johan Sjoberg, Johan Karlsson, Martin Andersson, Jon Jonsson, Jesper Arvidsson, Marcus Falk- Olander and Andreas Augustsson. The midfield is covered by Jari Ilola, Anders Svensson, Samuel Holmén, Magnus Samuelsson, Emir Bajrami, Stefan Ishizaki and Daniel Eres; the strikers are Daniel Alexandersson, Mathias Svensson, Daniel Mobaeck, Joakim Sjohage, Denni Avdic and Leandre Griffit.

The “Yellows” include in their history multiple records including the player with most appearances, the striker Sven Jonasson with a total of 410. Jonasson has also the record of most goals scored, a total of 252. In addition the squad has the best away victory, when in 1936 they bet IFK Eskilstuna 12-2. The highest attendance is also registered in the Ryavallen (formerly stadium of the team) a total of 20, 235 fans were present in the match against the IFK Goteborg in 1977.
http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_21000.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:27:30 CST
Portugal is characterized for having really good football clubs, and among them, the CF Estrela da Amadora has to be mentioned!  In spite of the fact that the full name of this club is Clube de Futebol Estrela da Amadora, their fans are used to call them Os Tricolor or Estrela, meaning star in English.  In addition, it is based on Amadora, located in the northwest part of Lisbon.  This is the largest city of the entire country and the capital of Portugal.  It has a population of 2,700,000 inhabitants.

These days the chairman of the Club de Futebol Estrela da Amadora, which was founded in 1932, is called António Oliveira, and the team’s manager is António da Conceição.  Today they play in the Liga betandwin.com, which is better known as the Portuguese Liga.  In the Liga, they rely on the 9th position (in the 2005-2006 season).  The uniform they use for playing home is white socks, white pants, and a white T-shirt with two vertical stripes: one red and one green.  On the other hand, their away uniform is yellow socks, black pants and yellow T-shirt.

Some of the players that are part of the CF Estrela da Amadora’s squad these days are Bruno Vale, Amoreirinha, Rui Duarte, Hugo Carreira, “Santamaría”, Hugo Morais, Semedo, Roberto Santos, Eusébio Sousa, “Tony”, and Igor Sousa.  Moreover, they play their home games at the Estádio José Gomes.  This stadium is located on Reboleira, Amadora and is able to hold more than 12,630. http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_20999.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:27:14 CST
Galatasaray is one of the eighteen teams that constitute the Turkcell Super Lig, the Turkish Premier Super League. This is by far the most popular sporting competition in the country, and it is managed by the Turkish Football Federation, formed in 1923. Established in 1959, the Premier Super League plays its teams against each other in two half seasons. At the end of the league season, the bottom three teams are relegated to the Secondary League Category A. The champion and the runner-up represent Turkey at the UEFA Champions League the following year. Additionally, the teams of the Premier Super League participate along with the 36 teams of the Secondary League for the Fortis Turkey Cup, which yields two slots for the UEFA Cup. Turkish teams are limited to six foreign players.  http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_20998.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:27:01 CST
Fubol Club Barcelona is a sports club from Barcelona, Catolonia (Cataluña), Spain (is the second largest city in Spain, capital city of Catalonia and the province with the same name). The club was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Catalan footballers led by Joan Gamper. Currently, FC Barcelona plays in the Liga de Fútbol Profesional or LFP (commonly known as La Liga, is the professional football league in Spain). The club includes three other professional sports teams, which compete at basketball (Winterthur FCB), handball (FC Barcelona-Cifec) and roller hockey. The club has become a Catalan institution and therefore they have adopted the motto “Barça is more than a club”.

FC Barcelona is known by its followers by any of its nicknames that include: Culés, Blaugrana, Barcelonistas and more popularly as Barça. The team’s colors are blue and red. When playing as a home team, Barcelona players wear a kit composed of a red and blue vertically striped shirt with blue shorts and socks; but when playing as away team, players wear an all orange kit. FC Barcelona’s home ground is the Camp Nou (Catalan for "new field", sometimes reversed in other languages to become Nou Camp) a football stadium in Barcelona, Spain. The stadium was founded on September 24, 1957 and is officially named Estadi del Futbol Club Barcelona, but is popularly known as the Camp Nou around the world. The Camp Nou has a seating capacity of 98,787, making it the largest football stadium in Europe and is known to be one of the biggest and most atmospheric stadiums in the world.
http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_20992.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:26:24 CST
Dynamo Moscow is the name of a professional football club located in Moscow that was part of Dynamo sports society and affiliated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Soviet era. The roots of this club date back to 1887 when an Englishman called Clement Charnock founded a factory club with the name Morozovtsi Orekhovo Suevo Moskva. In 1961, this team was renamed OKS Moskva. With this new name and identity, OKS Moskva won several Moscow league championships during 1910-1914.

After the Russian revolution, the club was in a very complicated situation, they were under the authority of Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the Interior Ministry and chief of the Soviet Union's secret police force. This association brought some problems to the club that was even referred to as garbage by other clubs due to their ties with the Interior Ministry. In 1923, the club changed its name to Dynamo Moscow, but they keep being victims of strong criticism.

In spite of this situation, Dynamo Moscow kept working hard in order to win their first championship. They were preparing the road for their first two soviet championships in 1936 and 1937. That same year, they also won the soviet cup.  Dynamo Moscow has won the soviet championship 11 times (1936, 1937, 1940, 1945, 1949, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1963, 1976), the Soviet Cup champions 6 times (1937, 1953, 1967, 1970, 1977, 1984), and the Russian Cup champions and USSR Super Cup champions once (1995 and 1977 respectively. Their home stadium, Dinamo Stadium, was built in 1928 with the capacity to hold 36,540 people. http://www.bigsportsfanatics.com/articles/Soccer_20988.html Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:26:01 CST
The Clube Desportivo das Aves is the name of a really well-known football club in Portugal.  In particular, this club is based in Vila das Aves, a beautiful town.  This town relies on a population of 8,492, according to the 2001 census.  In addition, Vila das Aves is renowned for being a very industrialized place located in the northern part of the country, specifically in the municipality of Santo Torso.  In English, the name of this town is Town of Birds.

It is common to hear people calling the club Aves, meaning Birds in English, or Desportivo das Aves.  This football, which is fully named Clube Desportivo das Aves, is the greatest pride of Vila das Aves.  In 2006, their local club was promoted to the Portuguese Liga, which is also known as the SuperLiga.  Before that, they finished second in the Liga de Honra, in the 2005-2006 season.  The official supporters group of this club, which was founded on November 12, 1930, is Força Avense.

The colors of the Clube Desportivo das Aves’s uniforms, both home and away, are white and red.  The one utilized for home games is red socks and pants, and a white T-shirt with red vertical stripes and red sleeves.  On the other hand, their away uniform is red socks, white pants and T-shirt with red sleeves.  The chairman of the team is called Joaquim Pereira, and Prof. Neca is the manager.  Also, they play their home games at the Estádio do CD das Aves, which has a capacity of 9,000 spectators.  This stadium was founded in 1981.