Zidane vs. Materazzi

Final of the World Cup 2006… Olympiastadion overcrowded – 69000 fans… Italy – France still 1-1 in the extra-time… Moment of weakness in the last match of his career… France led in the 7th minute after Zidane scored from the penalty. Italy leveled 12 minutes latter after Materazzi’s header. It was 1-1 at the end of regular 90 minutes and the match proceeded in the extra time. In the 110th minute Zinedine Zidane kicked Materazzi after being provoked and insulted, and got himself sent-off. Italy became world champions latter that night. What made him so angry? No, we are not going to answer this question, but we will see this moment from some different angle: Extraordinary video remix by Superpan05. Don’t miss this one!

Hattrick - The best online football manager!

Hattrick is a game where you get to lead a virtual football team to glory, in competition with other participants all over the world. You perform the duties of both a club owner and manager. You buy and sell players, invest the club's money in utilities like a bigger stadium, or in the youth squad. You select a team from the players who are in top form at the time, plan your tactics before the next match, decide on what sort of training is needed, and much, much more...

Try it

Also, there is great site of the Macedonian Hattrick community. Visit Maktrick

"Makedonija naviva za vas"

The new Macedonian football anthem sang by Macedonian pop icon – Tose Proeski, who died tragically few months ago in a car accident…
Watch this video made by CekoMK with all the best moments of the Macedonian national team. The anthem is in the background…

The UEFA Champions League

Originally founded in 1955 Union of European Football Associations – UEFA, created the elite club’s competition named European Cup. Every European league champion entered the next season’s Cup finals in hope to bring the prestigious title – Champion of Europe. The most dominating team is Real Madrid with 9 titles, followed by Milan with 7 and Liverpool with 5 trophies.
In 1992 the UEFA Champions Cup was renamed to Champions League, due to a change of the format of the competition. Today Champions League is top quality competition where the best European clubs are playing and offers the most entertaining games!

See some CL action:


The official UEFA web site

Football betting – largest source of money

The last extra-profit of football is made from taking the money from the ordinary people – By betting!
Yes, here are the largest profits. The wealthiest deal signed in football today is between Real Madrid and BWin. It costs amazing 21.5 million € per season! Now, there are so many people who would like to take chances by guessing the winner of the match, goals scored, and a lot of different games which are offered at online betting sites.

bwin William Hill Sky Bet

If you want some useful betting advice, try these sites:
BetPlace ProSoccer Sigurica

Football commercials

The 90’s are the last period of football era when players were only football players. Their mega popularity and pretty faces started to sell product of random companies by shooting commercials. Pepsi, Adidas and Nike are leading top-profitable companies which made money from those football commercials. These are some best made Pepsi commercials where actors are football stars:


Also, Adidas made some perfect football commercials:



And two Nike commercials:

Shirt sponsors and TV rights

In the “80’s big investments in football were made by some of the leading world companies like: Parmalat, Pirelli, Sharp, Opel, JVC, Carlsberg etc… Those companies “bought” a commercial space at the front of the kits and become “shirt sponsors” of those clubs. Later, many other big companies placed their investments in football. Top companies like: Fiat, Audi, Toyota, Tamoil, Siemens, Samsung, LG, Sony, Sega, AIG, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Tele+, Sky Sport, Fly Emirates, O2 and many, many others. After the magnificent success of these sponsors, football was never again the old recreational game. It became great way of making money.

The next level of making money in football became TV rights. Those big, rich, and successful clubs became very attractive because they had the best players of the world. The largest stadiums in the early 90’s could attend approximately 50.000 – 80.000 visitors, but it was not enough. Football was already extra popular around Europe and the world. Then, the largest TV media came on the stage. The clubs and the leagues started to sell TV rights to the leading broadcasting companies. Football was in everyone’s home.

First investments in football

In the 50’s the basic point of football started turning around, and Real Madrid was the club who made the first investments. They bought few of the best players of those days, like Alfredo di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas and deservedly reached the top of Europe. After Real Madrid, more European clubs made investments in football and that resulted with raising the level of European football. Despite the fact that those days South America’s clubs had outstanding players, even more than European clubs, they started to lose the step with the European clubs because of the economical difference.

The biggest European clubs, in the years afterward became “football industry”, because the largest world companies became their sponsors, investing a lot of money in the club’s treasuries. First, the sportswear companies started campaigns for dressing the team players, so sportswear companies like ADIDAS, Nike, Puma, Reebok, Umbro etc. spent a lot of money investing. By some calculations, it paid off, and that was the reason for more and more investments.

Short history of football

A lot of people will ask: When and where are the beginnings of the game called football (soccer)? Who is the first football club ever? Who is the scorer of the first goal in the football history? Or maybe, why is football so popular today? Is it just a game?

Unfortunately, many of these questions will stay unanswered…

From what is known, we can note that by most theories, Great Britain is the homeland of football, and the first football club founded was Sheffield F.C. in 1857
The first official international match was played in 1872 between England and Scotland and this game finished goalless.
More about the history of football can be found here

Football kept developing and spread in all European countries by the end of the 19th century. Many of the best clubs today were assembled during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century (Manchester Utd. in 1878, Liverpool F.C. in 1892, Juventus in 1897, Barcelona F.C. in 1899, A.C. Milan in 1899, F.C. Bayern Munich in 1900, Real Madrid C.F. in 1902, F.C. Inter in 1908 etc.)

Great step ahead for football was the establishment of the International Football Federation - FIFA in Paris on 21 May 1904. FIFA organized the World Cup in 1930 which was held in Uruguay. The host nation also won the World Cup. It became tradition and the WC was held every for years. Read more about history of the WC
Another leap forward was foundation of the European football association named UEFA in 1955 and according to that, the same year UEFA started off today’s most prestige club competition – The Champions Cup (in 1992 renamed to Champions League). First winner was Real Madrid, who was dominating club those days with 5 consecutive trophies. See all winners