West Brom striker Victor Anichebe has stated that he has not spoken with anyone representing the Nigerian football Federation in the last few weeks regarding the recall to the national team.

As one of the top strikers available for selection, Anichebe is almost certain to be part of the squad that will fly to Brazil in order to take part in the World Cup 2014. However, the former Everton striker has made himself unavailable for the national team in the last few years in order to concentrate on his club career. Now, he acknowledges that the World Cup 2014 may be his last opportunity to play in a major tournament.

Since he is doing well at the moment, Anichebe says that the possibility of returning to the national team is high. The striker, though, nobody from the Nigerian football Federation – including the manager Stephen Keshi – has not contacted him about possible recall. This puts his participation in the World Cup in doubt. Nigeria recently won the African cup of nations and are regarded as one of the strongest representatives from this continent. They have a great chance of making it into the knockout stages of the tournament after being grouped alongside Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Iran.

Argentina are expected to win the group comfortably, while Nigeria are the favourites to finish in the second place.
“I haven’t spoken to anybody, that goes from the federation to Stephen Keshi himself. We will see what happens. Right now I’m playing well, feeling fit, strong and helping my team in the situation we are currently in at the moment. If I continue to play well from now to the end of the season then we can take it from there. The Premier League is watched around the world so it’s easy to see what qualities I can bring to the team,” said Anichebe.

Brazil come into the World Cup 2014 as one of the strongest teams in the competition. They did extremely well in 2013 and also lifted the Confederations Cup, which acts like the precursor for the World Cup. However, they are not without their problems as they are not exactly strong up front.

Luiz Felipe Scolari has been looking at a number of strikers in the last few months, but it looks like they will go into the tournament with a striker conundrum still intact.

The nation are likely to go back to one of the former strikers Adriano, who recently returned to playing football. The former Inter Milan man has not been playing for the national team since 2010, while he also played his first competitive match in almost 2 years for Atletico Paranaense. He came on as a substitute in a 1-0 win for the club. Scolari has not failed to rule out the striker being selected for national team duty, but he says that it is a longshot. The former Chelsea boss says that he will not rule out any player capable of representing Brazil.

Brazil are looking to get Diego Costa, who is also eligible to play for Spain, before the start of the tournament.

“There are lots of stories. Everybody lobbies for one player or another. We all do it when we want a player to do well. There are some that haven’t played for some years. I am looking at everything. But I have to make my observations in accordance with a series of factors, not just one. That’s not true. You don’t talk about whether a player is fit if it’s clearly not the case,” said Scolari regarding Adriano’s future and also rumours that he spoke with Atletico Paranaense’s football director Antonio Lopes about Adriano.

Former Blackburn Rovers star Lucas Neill is in danger of missing out on the World Cup 2014 according to Australian national team manager Ange Postecoglou. As the captain of the national team, Neill was expected to be picked for the World Cup, but his failure to find a club so far could ultimately cost him a place in the squad according to the manager.

Neill is without a club after leaving Omiya Ardija a month ago. Neill is reportedly coming to the end of a career where he has represented the likes of Everton, Blackburn, and West Ham.
The 35-year-old could consider quitting football after the World Cup, but the latest revelation from Postecoglou could force him into retirement much earlier than expected.

Postecoglou is expected to leave Lucas out of the team for the upcoming friendly in March. Depending upon the performance of the players, Postecoglou could decide upon his final squad. This will be the last friendly match for Australia before they take part in the World Cup where they will face the likes of Spain and Netherlands in the group stages.

Since the 2012 season, Lucas Neill has only played a handful of matches and Postecoglou says that it would not be fair on some of the young and upcoming players to continue selecting the 35-year-old.

“The message has been consistent to all the players about my expectations so I’m not going to be having series of meetings with players. Where my priorities lie is to see where players are playing and hopefully playing good football then I can sit down and watch them play and assess where they’re at. But the message is pretty clear and I don’t think it will surprise anyone that I’ll only be looking at players who are playing regularly and playing some good football,” said Postecoglou.

Even though England have suffered from back-to-back defeats in recent matches, captain Steven Gerrard has said that the team should go to the Brazil 2014 World Cup with belief and confidence. England have not won a major trophy in 1966 World Cup triumph and they definitely do not go into the 2014 World Cup as one of the favourites.

They managed to scrape past the group stages and qualify automatically courtesy of a good run of form towards the end of the campaign. This developed a positive belief amongst the team and supporters, which has come to a crashing halt after the two defeats.

Despite this, Steven Gerrard has said that they can go to the World Cup with belief and confidence by taking a look at the achievements in the past few months. Hodgson has managed to introduce a number of young players into the squad, and they appear to be the future of the team. Gerrard is likely to play in his last World Cup and major tournament for England. England have slipped almost close to the top 20 in the FIFA rankings, but the Liverpool captain chose to not look at the rankings since they do not provide an accurate information of the quality.

“We are not one of the favourites, we know that. But at the same time you have got to go into the tournament with a bit of belief and confidence, and give it your best shot. Of course there are better teams out there than us – you only need to look at the rankings where we are, but we have got to go in there and give it our best shot. I think these results will bring people a little bit down from where they were after Poland and Montenegro, there will be a bit of realism and perspective out there,” said Gerrard.

Real Madrid recently brought in Gareth Bale for a world record transfer fee of £ 86 million. He has recently surpassed Cristiano Ronaldo as the most expensive player in the world. This will bring a lot of pressure on him according to former Real Madrid legend Ronaldo.

The Brazil international played for the club for a few years and was part of one of the first ‘Galactico’ era. He was also one of the most successful Real Madrid players in the last decade. After having recently retired from the sport, Ronaldo is involved in the World Cup ambassadorial work for his country.

He has stated that the Real Madrid fans and the media will be expecting no less than the best performances from Bale from the start. It is one of the disadvantages of having to live with the world record fee. He has said that the pressure will start mounting upon Bale from the first poor performance he puts in. Since it is easy for the pricetag to dominate his game, Ronaldo has recommended that Bale should forget about this aspect as soon as possible. He has also praised his compatriot Neymar for choosing Barcelona as the next stage in his career.
He thinks that would allow him to compete against the best in the world.

“It is only normal that, whenever he puts in a poor performance, the fans will remind him that the club paid €100m for him. I can only recommend to Bale that he does not let his price tag become an obsession. Playing in Europe and for Barcelona will benefit Neymar. He will learn a lot in Spain. Teaming up with [Lionel] Messi will make him a better player. It will be good for Brazil’s national team, too. Brazilian players coming to Europe tend to do well,” said Ronaldo.

Barcelona talisman Lionel Messi will be part of the Argentina team that will travel to Italy to take on the hosts in a friendly match in Rome next month that will be watched by Pope Francis, according to an announcement by the team coach Alejandro Sabella.

Messi, who is currently in his pre-season with Barcelona, will join up with the Argentine squad in Italy before the friendly takes place, according to reports received. The match is scheduled to take place on the 14th of August and the Argentine coach has named a very strong 22 man squad to travel to Rome for the friendly. The likes of Ever Banega, Javier Mascherano, Angel di Maria, and Gonzalo Higuain have all been named in a star studded squad for the friendly, which will be the first time Argentina has played in Italy since the infamous 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Messi has been the centre of a lot of controversy in recent times with Argentine authorities claiming the four time World Player of the Year has not paid over € 5 million in taxes and have held up his father responsible for the overdue payment along with Messi.

He was also pictured with a stripper in Las Vegas during a vacation which his girlfriend was in Spain and despite all these controversies, Messi remains the biggest player in the world and his presence will arguably make the match one to watch out for when the two teams go head to head against each other in a few days’ time.

Pope Francis, who recently replaced the retiring Pope Benedict XI, was born as Jose Maria Bergoglio and served as the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires and is a supporter of San Lorenzo in the Argentina top flight and the match will be held in his honor.

Whereas once Arsenal would have been amongst the bookmakers clear favourites to win the Premier League title, these days things have changed somewhat for the team from North London. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they have become a rank outsider when it comes to the title bets, but – even at the relatively low odds of 11/1 – gambling on them to win it would still represent a risky bet in most eyes. The fact is, they haven’t looked close to challenging in nearly a decade, and last season proved how far behind the likes of Manchester United they really are.

Of course United now have a new, less experienced manager – which means they will approach the season a little more nervously than they might have before – and there has been similar upheaval at Man City and Chelsea. However it is still hard to see Arsenal coming out on top over all these teams, and most football betting fans will view a bet on them to finish in the top four – at modest 4/7 odds – as a more realistic proposition.

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Brazilian defender Thiago Silva has said that he wants to lift the FIFA World Cup 2014, which will be held in his home country. He has also targeted the Champions League title with his club team PSG as well.

The 2014 will be an important one for some players, but Silva has said that it is especially big for him. The former AC Milan man is regarded as one of the best defenders in the world. He arrived at the French capital in a deal worth in excess of £ 35 million, thus making him the most expensive defender in the world.

Silva has admitted to the stress of being a captain at both club and national level, but he is confident that it will not prevent him from taking both titles next year. There is a lot of pressure on PSG as a club due to the extraordinary amount of wealth they have spent in the last few transfer windows. Silva has recalled how Chelsea have managed to capture the Champions League title in a similar fashion, although it took the English club almost a decade of spending by Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. Silva has also said that pressure is on the Brazilian team due to the arrival of a new manager in the form of Scolari.

“The pressure is very big here in PSG’s new project and in Brazil as well, since we have a new manager who has just arrived. Pressure exists in every corner, the key is to be ready and know how to deal with it. Our success at PSG doesn’t surprise me because this project is being very well executed with a lot of great professionals behind it, like Leonardo, the chairman and the manager as well,” said the 26-year-old, Thiago Silva in a recent interview.

FIFA has expressed the confidence in the South American nation Brazil, as he prepares to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup. This is an extremely demanding tournament for the government, as it generally involves upgrading the infrastructure in every part of the country. Stadiums and transport are the major infrastructure that would be developed as part of this tournament.

However, Brazil have been undertaking its work in extremely slow fashion, which has raised doubts about this country being ready for the World Cup. The FIFA President Sepp Blatter, though, has said that he is extremely confident that Brazil will be able to complete all the work within 12 months time.

It has become extremely clear that the country will not be in a position to host the 2013 confederations cup in the best possible manner. The iconic Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro is expected to host the final of both the confederations cup and the World Cup. However, work on this stadium is yet to be completed, but the government has given a deadline till the end of April. A new playing service and a fibreglass roof are some of the additions that will be carried out between now and the end of April.

“It’s all a question of trust and confidence. They will be ready because it is the World Cup and no one can afford not to be ready for the World Cup,” said the FIFA President. The confederations cup will not feature six stadiums that will be part of the FIFA World Cup. They are yet to be completed as well. FIFA has given a deadline till the coming December in order to complete work on these stadiums. Hotels and transport infrastructure still remains causes for concern ahead of this major tournament, which will see the World Cup return to South America after a long time.

David Beckham leads a cast of football giants in a new film to boost England’s chances of hosting the World Cup in 2018, ahead of this week’s decision.

The film showcases the bid’s proposals for a ‘Football United’, a global fund for football, which FIFA President Sepp Blatter has already backed.

Bid vice-president Beckham is joined in the video by a host of fellow English and international footballers ‘united’ behind the proposal.

They include England captains Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard, Ghana stars Michael Essien and Asamoah Gyan, Honduran midfielder, Wilson Palacios and Brazilian defender, Alex.

The film shows coaching sessions in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean – the type of which Football United says it would fund.

And it includes players like Fernando Torres and Nani who believe England is the country of choice for leading footballers from other countries.

England 2018 chief executive Andy Anson said: “Football United will aim to match FIFA’s current annual investment in grassroots football and social development to reach one billion people and benefit each of FIFA’s 208 member associations.

“We believe our Football United proposals can benefit a generation of people around the world because we have all of English football behind it.”