Some Facts about the FIFA World Cup 2014

Whenever there is a World Cup the world goes into soccer frenzy. With viewership that amounts to billions, this is the world's most popular game, and it is easy to see why. The last tournament took place in 2010 inSouth Africa, which took its place in history as the first tourney held in African soil. However, this time thetourney heads to South America, to the home of "Joga Bonito." Joga Bonito is Portuguese for, "The beautiful game." No-one can come up with a display of trickery and great technical ability as the Brazilians do. Everyone is excited, from the player's to the fans, for the upcoming 2014 World Cup. It is important to be informed well in advance in case you plan on attending the event. Here are some facts going to the next FIFA World Cup:

This will be the 20th edition of the FIFA World Cup. It will be back in the continent where the first tourney was hosted. This was back 1930 by the eventual winners Uruguay.

The 2014 World Cup will be slotted mid-year between June 12th and July 13th 2014. The opening kick-off to the closing game. They hope to play the opening game at Sao Paolo while hopefully the closing game will be hosted at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro. Football fans will be treated to a footballing feast for a month.

Brazil enters an accomplished group of countries that have hosted the competition twice. These countries are Mexico, Italy, France and Germany. The first time Brazil hosted the World Cup, was in 1950, where they ended up in tears as they lost to Uruguay, who beat them 2-1 in the final at the Maracana. his World Cup has significance not only to the Brazilian people, but also to the South American continent as a whole. Being the first World Cup in the continent since Argentina in 1978, to say it has been a long time will still feel like an understatement. It has been 36 years since the last tourney in this footballing powerhouse continent that boasts the best players in history to ever grace the football pitch.

For the first time two consecutive World Cups have been hosted outside Europe. Moreover, these two World Cups have been hosted in the Southern hemisphere. The 2010 tourney was graced in South Africa. The 2014 World Cup came along as the byproduct of FIFA's policy to rotate the World Cup through the different confederations.

Sports is one of the few unifying factors in this world. It helps to harmonize many nations thereby fostering peace and harmony. It does not matter your race, culture, religion sport is indiscriminate. Where sports is selective is where it endows a select few with its bounty of skill. The footballing world's super-power, has been given a chance to win it once more at home. The world will be watching with bated breath, for the 2014 World Cup to unfold, and by the looks of things it has all the ingredients for another history making tourney.

Ways to Help you Get a College Football Scholarship

The fantasy of numerous great football players would be to a single play in the Nfl like in some Houston Texans players. But their primary goal must be pursuing the natural road to progression by first qualifying for a NFL and college football scholarship grant. The truth in recruiting is the fact that primarily less than six percent of high school football athletes get hired. There are plenty of scholarship grants that are offered and college or university employers mostly center their attention in blue chip players. Being a blue chipper isn't a prerequisite for playing football at the college level and irrespective of an athletes' level of play, sticking with particular guidelines will significantly improve getting hired.

The primary points an athlete has to do would be to start knowing and comprehending the recruitment process especially on how colleges and universities get players. A good place to start is actually by having a copy of the "College-Bound Student-Athlete Guide" at www.ncaa.org.

Each and every athlete looking at getting into college or university on a scholarship grant also needs to join with the NCAA Clearing House. There isn't a time requirement for joining in the clearing house, but it is best if you achieve this by at least the junior year of high school. High school guidance professionals are also a good point of ingenious facts.

Advanced planning and getting ready early is vital as the saying which goes "the early bird catches the worm". In get yourself ready for the football recruiting procedure, it can also be said that dedication and getting ready early will get the fascination of college coaches.
Football summer camps are great venues for learning certain skills associated with each position specifically conducted by Texans football players. Also, working with a great work-out and training attitude prior to reaching the high school level is very important in staying ahead of the conditioning contour. Do remember that instructors like athletes who are willing to do their best towards their growth.

Developing a leadership mentality is an important factor that players need to master especially the way to conduct themselves both off and on the field. Learning how to come up with good judgements is an inherited expertise. College instructors frown upon recruits who may have behavioral problems. Mental attitude and lifestyle management should start early, in order it will not be an issue over the recruitment procedure.

High school coaches and recruiting services do a passable job at setting up game spotlight clips and forwarding them to recruiters. They may likewise assist in assisting to prepare a remarkable athletic cv. However never leave every facets of your future in another person's hands. Nobody can take care of your own welfare a lot better than you. Effort, hard work and diligence makes sense equally in the game and off. Blue chip players will often entice the most recognition from recruiters, nevertheless perseverance can and will make popularity.

Notre Dame University Football

By Ben T Hogan

When thinking of Notre Dame football in the past ten years, well I guess you could think but you probably won't come up with anything. This is because they have been all but relevant when it comes to solid teams in the NCAA. With Notre Dame being one of the top football programs in the nation for as long as anyone can remember they have been in a slump since the early 90's. They have been through five coaches since they have had a National Championship in Lou Holtz and they are on their sixth with Brian Kelly who is on his third year. But there is something different about this year. With the last three national titles coming from the coaches third season there is a positive outlook on this year.

Not only that but they have seemed to make it through the regular season undefeated, something that they have not done since 1988 which so happens to be the last time they have won a nation championship as well. With all of these signs pointing in their direction it will still be a tough task when coming to this years national championship game. They play Alabama which is last years national champion and has thought to be all year the best and most complete team in college football right now. Alabama has the number one rated defense in the league right now and has shown they can slow down just about anyone. But also they have shown a weakness in their loss to Texan A&M, a mobile quarterback gives them trouble. This is a good for Notre Dame because they also have a mobile quarterback and he has grown through the season.

Also Notre Dames defense has been great all year. There has not been one game this season that they have played bad, when the offence has had bad games the defense has stepped up and made sure they are in the game to win it at the end. With the defense being led by the best linebacker in nation Manti Teo, they are looking strong going into the title game. With all of these aspects put into place my bet would be on Notre Dame to have the upset win in the title game that most people thing is going to be an easy win for Alabama. Go Notre Dame, coming from a big Notre Dame fan.

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The New York Giants Have Some Changes To Make On Defense To Return To The Top

By Denis Krusos

The Giants were unable to make the playoffs in 2012 and have a chance to defend their title. The team's defense struggled to stop opponents' in the air or on the ground late in the season in a couple of pivotal games. Opponents gashed the Giants for big plays and converted all-to-frequently on 3rd down. The consecutive 34-0 and 33-14 defeats to the Falcons and Ravens in December sealed their fate.

The G-men have some tweaking to do on offense (add some youth to the offensive line and hope that Hakeem Nicks returns healthy in 2013), but the foundation is in place to score a bunch of points. David Wilson and Reuben Randle flashed enough potential in their rookie seasons that the team's coaches should feel good about their production increasing significantly in 2013. However, the Giants' defense sprang some leaks in 2012 and more will be required to right the ship.

The biggest surprise of the past season was how tame New York's vaunted front four was in far too many contests. Big Blue's defense is anchored by their front four. The heralded line played a big role in both of New York's recent championships. The Giants surrendered an average of 14 points in the last six games (including the playoffs) of the 2011 championship season. The consistently disruptive pass rush turned Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady into mortal quarterbacks. That did not happen enough this past season, especially down the stretch.

Justin Tuck faded late in the year with another shoulder injury and at 30 may be in decline. His 4 sacks were the fewest he has had since 2006. Tuck played in just 6 games that season, but clearly was a talented, young defensive end that was starting to figure out the pro game. The former Notre Dame star needs a big off-season to get in the best shape of his life. He also may need to become more of a 3rd down player to keep him fresh.

Osi Umenyiora probably will depart via free agency. The ten-year veteran had only 6 sacks, which was his fewest since 2006. Umenyiora likely will find a team to pay him to be an every down player and not just as a pass rushing specialist that the Giants envision him to be. New York's most prized defensive force, Jason Pierre-Paul, also saw his production decline substantially in 2012. JPP is just entering his prime, but the combination of more blocking schemes designed to slow him down and time spent at defensive tackle due to injuries, curtailed his effectiveness.

A bounce-back season from Pierre-Paul would hardly be surprising. However, fans should not be shocked if Jerry Reese spent the team's 1st round pick on a talented defensive end that can rush the passer in the 2013 NFL Draft. Reese never met a gifted defensive lineman that he did not like. Reese has a keen eye for talent and knows better than most that harassing a quarterback with a wave of long-armed and athletic pass rushers is the best way to stop today's air attacks. Ezekiel Ansah (BYU) and Dion Jordan (Oregon) are a couple of defensive ends in this year's draft that the Giants will definitely kick the tires on. The thought of pairing JPP with another young and dynamic defensive end has to be appealing to the Giants, especially with RGIII in the division.

The other most disturbing defensive surprise was the poor play of cornerback, Corey Webster. New York's number one cornerback was beaten for an alarming number of big plays in 2012. He played like he lost a step and the NFL is a cruel sport when a weakness is identified. Teams will not stop attacking a weakness until you give them a reason why. Webster turns 31 soon and may not be able to be the player that he once was. The former 2nd round pick (2005 NFL Draft) may not be back unless he is willing to reduce his 7 million dollar salary for the upcoming season. It is not wise to pay a player for past production.

The Giants are thin at the critical cornerback position and likely will target a cornerback high in the draft. Prince Amukamara (1st round, 2010 NFL Draft) may have a breakout season in his 3rd year, but has yet to avoid nagging leg injuries. The Giants like last year's 3rd round pick, Jayron Hosley, at cornerback. However, he has to get stronger this off-season and prove that he can stay healthy despite having a small frame. A quality young cornerback is badly needed to help New York's secondary. Jordan Poyer (Oregon State) is an intriguing cornerback that the Giants will seriously evaluate. He could be this year's draft's version of Casey Hayward. Hayward slipped to the 2nd round of last year's draft because he lacked great size and speed. He turned out to be a steal for the Packers because he is such a smart and instinctive cornerback.

Giants' fans should feel good about having a talent evaluator of Jerry Reese's caliber running the draft. Big Blue builds primarily through the draft and supplements with the occasional value free agent (TE Martellus Bennett being a prime example). The Giants could easily see a rejuvenated defense with the addition of a couple of talented young players. The 2014 Super Bowl takes place in New York and the Giants would love to have a home game.

http://www.profootballdraftnetwork.com provides extensive pre and post NFL draft analysis. The site features scouting reports, rankings, top values, biggest risks, interviews with college coaches, players and mock drafts.

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How NOT to Beat a Youth Football Team With a Beast at Running Back

By Dave Cisar

Beating That Youth Football Team With a Beast at Running Back

If you've coached youth football long enough, you are going to coach against that big beast running back that is carrying an entire team on his shoulders. He is usually at the absolute upper end of the age bracket, mature for his age (may have even started puberty early) and is usually right at the weight limit if you have one. In many youth leagues, the players weigh in just one time for the entire season. In some cases, a player may drop 10-15 lbs prior to the weigh in, don't get me started on how wrong that is. So later in the season, those same players may be 20 lbs over the weight limit, creating some pretty sizable mismatches.

What separates these players from others is maturity, athleticism, attitude and in many cases size. Most of us play against average or above running backs with average size and average athleticism. Every year we all see some pretty nimble, fast and athletic backs who are small. But it is very rare to play against that player who is bigger than most players in the league, but also fast, athletic, has good burst and body control and is physically mature. When you face a player like this, the biggest obstacle you will face will be the minds of your own players. We've faced kids who scored 30 touchdowns in a season who were more than twice the weight of 25% of the players on our team. This one 6th grader comes to mind who played in a 5-6 grade Division. He had to weigh about 20 lbs over the running back weight, as this game took place nearly 3 months after he had weighed in. He was as tall as many of our 6 foot coaches and he had a pretty thick moustache and chin whiskers to go along with his hulking frame and 99th percentile speed.

Stopping Him

How do you stop kids like that? Focus on tackling and scheme to limit these one man shows makes a lot of sense. There is no one way to approach this, but one thing you surely won't want to do is lose the game in the minds of the players prior to the game. Let your defense know who is going to get the ball a lot, where he is going to get the ball, the plays he is going to run and his running style, but be careful not to over-hype the man-child. The more you build the beast up in the eyes of your players, the more mythical he becomes. The more time your players have in their little minds to envision this man-child running over them and through them, the less effective your boys become on the field.

Don't over sell the man-child. Tell your kids to gang tackle, but don't make him out to be a beast. If you are truly facing a beast, you may want to even reconsider showing film of him to your players. Lots of youth football coaches film and have scout film to share with their players. This may be one of those cases where you don't bother showing the film to your kids. I've even gone so far as to do my pre-game warmups away from the game field and not come out for the National Anthem. You do this to make sure your kids don't have any time to see the beast and get all worked up about him prior to a game. I'm talking about little 70 lb Cornerbacks having to tackle a 135 lb Running Back nearly a foot taller than them. The more time your kids have to fret and worry about something, the worse it becomes. That 135 lb running back becomes a 200 lbs running back in their minds. Once that happens, you can expect to see a lot of ole bullfighter style tackling from your defenders.

What does make sense is to scrimmage or practice with a team who has some bigger running backs, the week or weeks leading up to this game. If your team is like mine, we rarely if ever have any big athletic running backs to practice against on our own team. You have to figure out a way to get your team some reps against a bigger player in order to build their confidence.

Often times you will see teams that have a man-child at running back do really well early on, because the other team has heard so much about him or seen him play. Many youth players 

You Play Football With Your Mind

By Ronni Cohen

Psycho-Motoric Skills

Apart from physical fitness, strong technique and good mental ability, a football player also needs developed psycho-motoric skills, meaning attention and concentration abilities, multi-tasking, implied perception (ability to perceive in advance), space orientation, information processing (input-output) pace, motoric memory and the like.

In order to illustrate this matter, let us look into the process of information processing and performance of Barcelona's midfielder, Chavi Hernandez, from the point of receiving the ball to its release- the moment of the pass:

A. Identifying an open space in the direction of a passing angle and moving into it.
B. Realizing that the ball is being passed towards him.
C. Moving his look away from the ball and screening his surroundings.
D. Pointing his look at the ball, while it is half underway, anticipating where it is heading to and its strength in the moment of absorption.
E. Receiving the ball (Almost blind absorption), while taking a look at the surrounding area and estimating potential moves.
F. Passing the ball with supreme accuracy to his teammate or towards an open space, where a teammate is moving to.

Now we can better understand Chavi's sentence in an interview: "When you arrive in Barcelona as a child, the first thing that you are taught is: think, think, think and fast. From the age of ten you are taught that it is a shame to lose the ball."

Chavi actually speaks about the brain and thinking functions during physical effort, or in simpler words about training the brain.

In his book "A User's Guide to the Brain" (Zmora-Bitan Publishers 2005), Dr. John Ratey, Neuro-Psychiatrist from Harvard Medical School, concentrates influential insights with respect to the training perception of athletes:

"Imagine what happens inside your head when you have to make a decision. You receive information from the different brain functions: facts, opinions, thoughts, memories and predicting outcomes. You arrange the fractions of information, add reason test possible results and instruct a response. Phases of this process are based on motorial functions, organizing by sequence, adding analyzing and instructing, the neural networks that work within those processes are those that work in motorial processes". He further emphasizes that: "parts of the brain that are used to organize sequences and timing of cognitive function are the same parts that organize a sequence and timing of physical actions"

These kinds of insights are applicable in an effective manner using psycho-motoric training, which is customized to a player individually. In other words: Since it is possible to train a football player and improve his physical fitness, technique and coordination and, as already known, it is possible to train a chess player to improve his decision making skills, then why won't we able to train both at the same time?

The talent Potential

Players who are blessed with a god-given talent, like Pele, Johan Cruyff, Maradona, Messi, etc. are also endowed with very rare psycho-motoric skills. One of their distinctive qualities is their ability to think and take the right decision in motion. Taking Eyal Berkovitz as an example, the unique quality which made him such a good player is his ability to pass (that is, to process information pertaining to space) during constant movement, without taking negative effect on the game's fluency. This kind of skill may sometimes make the difference between good players and very good players and between excellent players to those who are recognized as geniuses.

Coaches use to say that you cannot teach talent. Either you have it or you don't.

This is true, but think how many talented football players work hard and still are not able to utilize their talent potential to the fullest?

A football player, who has a tendency for "attention lapses" ('disconnections') may perform critical mistakes out of momentary lack of attention, no matter how talented he may be. Motivation alone or hard training will not spare the distress from the player and coach. We are talking about a neurological pattern, which the player has hardly any effect on. The first step towards the solution of this problem is the development of consciousness and awareness of these "disconnections" and the second step is a pinpoint interference/ training dedicated to attention. A football player's attention and concentration skills have also an effect on the amount of mental effort that he invests for keeping up his concentration along the game.

Obviously physical fitness has an effect on this issue, but even if we start out from the assumption that the player has an adequate physical fitness, symptoms of mental fatigue will often be noticeable. When a player performs very well on the first half and totally disappears from field on the second half, this cannot always be attributed to his physical fitness. Players that performed psycho-motoric training for several months have reported not only of

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