Pre-Season friendlies have begun to kick off around Europe as teams prepare for next season, some teams have started slowly against lower league opposition, while others have taken on other big teams in tournaments around the world.  Already Chelsea have claimed the title in the World Football Challenge, while the Peace Cup is still taking place with teams like Juventus and Real Madrid as just a couple of the major teams participating. This pre-season has also seen the debuts of star players like Cristiano Ronaldo for Real Madrid against Shamrock Rovers, and the introduction of Michael Owen as a red devil.

Here is a brief summary of pre-season matches so far from some of Europe’s big clubs:

England

Arsenal: vs Barnet 2-2, vs SC Columbia 7-1, vs Szombathelyi H 5-0. Leading Scorer: Bendtner (4).

Chelsea: vs Seattle 2-0, vs Inter Milan 2-0, vs AC Milan 2-1, vs Club America 2-0. Leading Scorer: Lampard (2), Drogba (2).

Everton: vs Bury 1-2, vs Rochdale 4-1, vs River Plate 0-1. Leading Scorer: Jo (2)

Liverpool: vs St. Gallen 0-0, vs Rapid Vienna 0-1, vs Thailand 1-1, vs Singapore 5-0. Leading Scorer: Nemeth (2)

Manchester City: vs Orlando Pirates 0-2, vs Kaizer Chiefs 1-0, vs Kaizer Chiefs 0-1. Leading Scorer: Ireland (1)

Manchester United: vs Malaysia 3-2, vs Malaysia 2-0, vs Seoul 3-2, vs Hangzhou Greentown 2-8. Leading Scorer: Giggs (3).

Spain

Atletico Madrid: vs Colmenar Viejo 3-0,  vs Benfica 2-1, vs Ajax 3-3, vs Sunderland 0-2. Leading Scorer: Simao (2)

Barcelona: vs Tottenham 1-1, vs Al- Ahly 4-1. Leading Scorer: Bojan (2)

Real Madrid: vs Shamrock Rovers 1-0, vs Al-Ittihad 1-1. Leading Scorer Benzema (1), Raul (1).

Sevilla: vs Juventus 1-2, vs Seongnam 0-0. Leading Scorer: Squillaci (1)

Valencia: vs Den Haag 4-1, vs Udinese 0-0. Leading Scorer: Navarro (1), Gonzalez (1), Michel (1), Alba (1).

Villareal: vs Navata 27-0, vs Vilamalla 10-0. Leading Scorer: Pereira (10).

Italy

AC Milan: vs LA Galaxy 2-2, vs Club America 1-2, vs Chelsea 1-2, vs Inter 0-2. Leading Scorer: Inzaghi (2)

AS Roma: vs Riscone 9-0,  vs Viktoria Plzen 1-1,  vs Blackburn Rovers 2-2. Leading Scorer: Totti: (3)

Fiorentina: vs Cortina 13-0, vs Belluno 7-0.

Inter Milan: vs Club America 1-1 (4-5 pks), vs Chelsea 0-2, vs AC Milan 2-0. Leading Scorer: Milito (2)

Juventus: vs Cisco Roma 4-1, vs Nancy 1-1, vs Vicenza 1-1, vs Sevilla 2-1.

Some teams have started off their preseason’s with a bang while others have started slowly. How important are preseason games to how you feel about your team’s chances in the upcoming season?

Full Name: Oguchialu Chijioke “Oguchi” Onyewu
Nickname(s): Gooch
Birthday: May 13, 1982
Birthplace: United States
Position: Defender (Centre Back)

Club Information:
After two years playing for Clemson University in South Carolina where he was nominated for the 2001 Hermann Trophy and named an All-American Onyewu went Pro in 2002, landing in France at FC Menz.  In 2003 he was loaned out to Belgium club La Louviére, and then onto Standard Liége.  The loan to Liége was then made into a permanent deal for the 2004-2005 season.  In January 2007 Onyewu went on loan to English Premire League club Newcastle United, however this loan only lasted for the remainder of the season, Newcastle opted not to make the deal permanent and Onyewu went back to Liége after playing only 11 games for Newcastle.  He then returned to Liége where he continued to improve his game and helped them to two Belgian league titles in a row.  On July 7, 2009 he completed a move to A.C. Milan on a free transfer signing a three year deal.

International Career:
Onyewu has 47 caps for the U.S. Men’s National Team, his first came in 2004 in a game against Panama. He has  scored 5 goals, his first one being in a match against Honduras in the 2005 Gold Cup.  He started in all three on the United States games in the 2006 World Cup, unfortunately he conceded a penalty in the match against Ghana in which Ghana scored and the U.S were knocked out of the Cup with the 2-1 defeat.  He was a major part in the United State’s second place finish in the 2009 Confederation’s Cup.

Fun Facts:
• His name Oguchialu means “God fights for me”.
• He holds both a U.S. and Belgian citizenship.
• He has four siblings, two brothers (Uche and Nonye) and two sisters (Chi-Chi and Ogechi)
• His father played football in Nigeria before moving to Washington D.C. to attend Howard University.

Players from teams around Europe have slowly begun to report back to their club teams to begin training after their summer holiday. To the fan, this means the start of preseason training matches and being able to see their teams new signings in action.  But most importantly, it means that the long and sometimes unbearable summer without football is starting to draw to a close, and the start of the new season and the hopes and dreams that come with it is at hand.

(pictures from arsenal.com and liverpoolfc.tv)

This weekend marks the start of the Concacaf Gold Cup with two matches today and two more on Saturday and Sunday.  As usual the two top contenders for the trophy are going to be the United States and Mexico.

The United States are the defending champions of the Gold Cup, and are coming off a Confederations Cup performance that saw them beat then World number one Spain and get into the final, which they lost 2-3 to Brazil, the team which took Spain’s number one ranking. However, coach Bob Bradley has elected to bring very few  members of that squad to the Gold Cup, opting to give chances to more domestic based players instead.

Players to Watch:

Goalkeeper- Brad Guzan- a member of the Confederations Cup squad that beat Egypt 3-0 to shock everyone and make it out of their group, Guzan plays his club football at Aston Villa and will be looking at the Gold Cup as an opportunity to show he can do more than just back up Tim Howard.

Midfielder- Benny Feilhaber- another member of the Confederations Cup squad, Benny scored the winner in the last Gold Cup final against Mexico. Currently playing for Aarhus in Denmark, he will be looking to perform well to perhaps make a move back to a bigger league.

Forward- Freddy Adu- while Jozy Altidore is another US attacking player to watch, Freddy Adu is the player who needs to perform in this tournament.  Adu went as an unused substitute at the Confederations Cup and is coming off two disappointing club seasons at Benfica and Monaco.  A good performance in the Gold Cup could go a long way to seal his spot in the US team ahead of the World Cup and also put pressure on his club side to play him more in the future.

Mexico is coming into the Gold Cup after two warm up friendlies against Venezuela and Guatemala, the first of which they won 4-0 and the second they drew 0-0.  Before this Mexico were going through a challenging period of internationals which means they are just fourth in their World Cup Qualifying group.  A win in the Gold Cup could go along way to boast the team’s and their fans confidence ahead of next summer.

Players to Watch:

Goalkeeper- Guillermo Ochoa- the talented young Mexican keeper who plays for Club America in the Primera Division of Mexico is going to be hard to beat in the Mexican goal.

Attacking Midfielder- Giovani dos Santos- dos Santos scored his first two goals for the Mexican national team in their friendly against Venezuela and will look to continue scoring in the Gold Cup.

Forward- Carlos Vela- the  forward became just the second Mexican player to score in the Premier League when he scored for Arsenal against Portsmouth in May, he will look to add to his 5 international goals playing aside Omar Bravo up front.

While no non-North American team has ever won the Gold Cup there are several other teams to watch that are going to hope to change that.

Costa Rica- Los Ticos are leading their World Cup qualifying group and have recently defeated the United States showing they have what it takes to cause an upset.

Honduras- Another team putting in a strong WCQ campaign, they will hope to use a strong Gold Cup performance to keep in them in the hunt for South Africa.

Matches:

The Gold Cup kicks off today with Canada taking on Jamaica and Costa Rica facing off against El Salvador. The following games this weekend are:

7/4

Honduras vs Haiti

Grenada vs United States

7/5

Panama vs Guadeloupe

Nicaragua vs Mexico

The full Gold Cup schedule can be found here.

Kaka was introduced to around 50,000 fans at the Bernabeu yesterday.  It was revealed that he was given the number 8 shirt, instead of the 5 that many speculated he might receive. In his introduction he said that Florintino Perez’s project to get Madrid to compete with the best teams in Europe was one of the reasons he joined, and that Madrid was the only team he would leave AC Milan for. He concluded saying:

“It’s a great privilege to form part of great teams. I’ve been fortunate to play with great players, and I’m now going to continue doing the same.”

Cristiano Ronaldo has also completed his reported 80 million euro move to Real Madrid and will have his own unveiling ceremony next week.

Breaking News: Karim Benzema has now become the latest player to join Real Madrid, with it being announced that the 21 year old striker has joined from Lyon for 30 million euro.

After a great tournament showcasing Europe’s top young footballers, here is Off the Post’s team of the U21 European Tournament:

Goalkeeper:

Manuel Neuer- Germany (Schalke 04)

Defenders:

Andreas Beck- Germany (Hoffenheim)

Jerome Boateng- Germany (Hamburg)

Salvatore Bocchetti- Italy (Genoa)

Kieran Gibbs- England (Arsenal)

Midfielders:

Mesut Ozil- Germany (Werder Bremen)

Sami Khedira- Germany (VfB Stuttgart)

Ola Toivonen- Sweden ( PSV Eindhoven)

Sebastian Giovinco- Italy (Juventus)

Forwards:

Marcus Berg- Sweden (FC Groningen) *Winner of the Golden Boot with 7 goals*

Robert Acquafresca- Italy (Genoa)

Germany U-21’s defeated the England U-21’s today 4-0,  with goals scored by Gonzalo Castro, Mesut Ozil, and two by Sandro Wagner.  It was always going to be a hard test for England who had three players out suspended for the match, two of them strikers, which left Theo Walcott up front on his own. Walcott was isolated most of the game and saw very little of the ball, and England had only one solid chance the whole match coming from a James Milner run and cross which found Adam Johnson whose backheel attempt deflected off his other leg and went wide.

Mesut Ozil was the star performer again for Germany, who along with scoring a goal assisted the first goal with a brilliantly placed pass to Castro who lifted the ball over the goalkeeper and into the net.  Ozil, who plays his club football for Werder Bremen in the German Bundesliga, was certainly one of the best performers in this European Championship.  Tomorrow we will profile some of the other top performers in the tournament. And for our readers, which players stood out to you in this U21 Championship?

Finally, congratulations to Germany, winners of the 2009 European U-21 Championship!

After a long period of inactivity I am happy to say that we are back.  As some may notice our return has come with a name change as well, Off the Post is the new name we have come up with as we feel it will better identify the site. The name change has also come with a slight change in content as well.  We are going to cut down on the match recaps and focus more on the latest news in the world of football, and also have more player profiles and pictures/videos.

So welcome everyone to Off the Post! Tell us what you think about the changes and what you would like to see in the future in your comments.