Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Liverpool Football Club
Liverpool Football Club are an English professional association football club based in Liverpool, England. Liverpool play in the Premier League, and are the most successful club in the history of English football, having won more trophies than any other English club. They have won a record 18 First Division titles, and seven FA Cups. Liverpool have won five European Cups, which is an English record. They have also won the League Cup a record seven times.
The club were founded in 1892, though they had limited success until the appointment of Bill Shankly as manager. Under Shankly Liverpool won 3 League Championship titles, 2 FA Cups and the club's first European trophy the UEFA Cup. During the past 30 years they have been one of the most successful clubs in English and European football, winning four European Cups from between 1977 and 1984. The club experienced a lean period during the 90s, but enjoyed a revival following the advent of the millennium winning a cup treble in 2001, and the club's fifth European Cup in 2005.
The club's traditional colours were red and white, however this was changed to all red in the 1960s. Likewise the club's crest has evolved throughout their history, with flames being added to the crest following the Hillsborough Disaster to honour the 96 Liverpool fans who lost their lives in the disaster. At the Heysel Stadium Disaster, 39 Juventus fans died when a wall collapsed after crowd trouble in the 1985 European Cup Final.
Liverpool have played at Anfield since their formation, although there are plans to move to a new stadium in Stanley Park, which is due to be completed by 2011.
Liverpool have a large and diverse fan base, who hold a string of long-standing rivalries with several other clubs; the most notable of these is with neighbours Everton, with whom they regularly contest the Merseyside derby. Liverpool also have a fierce rivalry with Manchester United, due to the success of both clubs, as well as their proximity to each other.
Liverpool have a large and generally loyal fanbase, with virtually all home matches selling out; in 2006–07 Liverpool had the fourth-highest average League attendance for an English club; 43,561, which was 99.7% of available capacity, and the second-highest all-time average attendance. Liverpool fans often refer to themselves as "Kopites", which is a reference to the fans who once stood, and now sit, on the Kop at Anfield.
The song "You'll Never Walk Alone", originally from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel and famously recorded by Liverpool musicians Gerry & The Pacemakers, is the anthem of the club, and has been sung by the Anfield crowd since the early 1960s. The song has since gained popularity among fans of other clubs around the world. The song's title adorns the top of the Shankly Gates, which were unveiled on 2 August 1982 in memory of former manager, Bill Shankly. The "You'll Never Walk Alone" portion of the Shankly Gates is also reproduced in the club's crest. Popular chants include "The Fields of Anfield Road" (to the tune of "The Fields of Athenry"), "Poor Scouser Tommy" (first section to the tune of "Red River Valley"; second section to the tune of "The Sash") and "Liverbird Upon My Chest" (to the tune of "Ballad of the Green Berets").
Liverpool's longest standing rivalry is with fellow Merseyside team Everton, against whom they contest the Merseyside derby. This stems from Liverpool's formation after a dispute with Everton officials and the owners of Anfield, which was the ground Everton were using at the time. Religious differences have been cited as a division, though both teams stem from a Methodist origin, undermining the notion of a Catholic–Protestant split.[54] The Merseyside derby is usually a sell out fixture and tends to be a scrappy affair; it has had more red cards than any other fixture in Premiership history.
Liverpool also have a significant rivalry with north-west neighbours Manchester United. This is mostly due to the success enjoyed by the two clubs and the geographical proximity of the two cities. Liverpool and Manchester United are the two most successful teams in England, both with large international support. Liverpool dominated English football from the mid 1970s through the 1980s with 11 titles in 18 years, and they also won four European Cups in the period, while Manchester United have dominated the Premier League era from 1992 with ten titles in 16 years to 2008, with two UEFA Champions League.
Liverpool's first competitive game was in the Lancashire League against Higher Walton. The match was won 8–0, with a mostly Scottish team.Ian Callaghan holds Liverpool's appearance record, having made 857 over the course of 19 seasons from 1958–78. He also holds the record for League appearances with 640.Of the current squad Jamie Carragher has the most appearances with 500 as of 15 January 2008.
Liverpool's all time leading scorer is Ian Rush, who scored 346 goals in two spells at the club from 1980–1987 and 1988–1996.Rush holds the record for the most goals in a season with 47 in 1983–84. However, during his career, Rush could not surpass the league goal-scoring record of Roger Hunt, which has stood at 245 since 1970.In the 1961–62 season, Hunt scored 41 goals, setting the club record for league goals in a single season.Gordon Hodgson is the club's third highest scorer with 240 goals, and holds the club record of 17 hat tricks. The most goals scored by a player in a single match is five, which has been achieved by John Miller, Andy McGuigan, John Evans, Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler.Fowler also holds the club and Premiership record for the fastest hat trick from when he scored three against Arsenal in four minutes, 32 seconds in the second game of the 1994–95 season.
Steven Gerrard is Liverpool's all-time leading goalscorer in the European Cup (now referred to as the Champions League) with 28 goals and also the club's active goal scoring player with 100 goals. Liverpool's biggest ever victory was 11–0 against Strømsgodset IF in 1974, in which nine of the ten outfield players scored — a Liverpool record.Rotherham Town were the victims of Liverpool's biggest league win, losing 10–1 in 1896.This margin of victory was matched in the modern era, as Crystal Palace were defeated 9–0 at Anfield in 1989.Liverpool's heaviest defeats were against Huddersfield Town in 1935 which finished 0–8, and Birmingham City in 1954 which ended 1–9. Liverpool's 8–0 victory on 6 November 2007 against Beşiktaş J.K. in the Champions League is the record win in the competition.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
My Hero
Torres started his career with Atlético Madrid, with whom he progressed through the youth ranks. He made his professional debut in 2001 and finished his career with the club having scored 75 goals in 174 La Liga appearances. Prior to this, Torres played two seasons in the Segunda División, making 40 appearances and scoring seven goals. He joined Liverpool F.C. in 2007, after the club paid their record transfer fee to sign him and marked his first season with the club by being their first player to score more than 20 league goals for the club in a season since Robbie Fowler in 1995-96 in English football.
He is also a Spain national football team and made his debut for the team against Portugal national football team in 2003. He has since participated in three major tournaments; UEFA Euro 2004, 2006 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2008. He was unable to score for Spain during the 2004 tournament, but did so on three occasions in the 2006 World Cup. Torres scored the winning goal for Spain in their 1–0 win over Germany national football team in the UEFA Euro 2008 Final.
Early career
Fernando Torres, born on 20 March 1984, became interested in association football as a child and joined his first team, Parque 84, at the age of five. His grandfather was not passionate about football, but prided himself in being an Atlético Madrid supporter, and Torres inherited his love for the Madrid club. However, when he was seven years old, he started playing regularly as a striker in an indoor league for his neighbourhood club, Mario’s Holland. He was later voted the best player in Europe for that age-group. Torres' first season at the highest level of Spanish football, La Liga 2002-03, was a good one which saw him manage to score 12 goals in 29 appearances as Atlético finished 11th. Aged just nineteen, he was also named Atlético's club captain. Atlético reached the final, but lost on penalties to Villarreal CF. Cerezo later said in January 2006 that the club were willing to listen to offers for Torres, and Torres claimed Newcastle United F.C. had made a bid to sign him in March.After the 2006 FIFA World Cup, in which Torres participated as a member of the Spain national football team, he admitted that he had turned down the chance to join Chelsea at the end of the La Liga 2005-06 season. Following the La Liga 2006-07 season, in which he scored 14 La Liga goals, with reports in the English media stating that Torres was the main transfer target of Liverpool. The rumours reached such a fever pitch that Atlético president Enrique Cerezo made a statement saying, "We've received no offer from Liverpool or any other club or player." However, a few days later, new reports suggested Atlético had agreed a deal with Liverpool for Torres; the fee rumoured was £25 million with Luis Javier García Sanz moving in the opposite direction in a separate transfer deal. Then on 30 June Atlético announced a deal with Villarreal to sign Diego Forlán, which was seen as a move to replace Torres before his departure had become official. On 2 July it was reported Torres had cut short a holiday to fly back to Madrid to finalise the move to Liverpool. The following day, Torres passed a medical for Liverpool and it was announced that a farewell press conference would be held in Madrid on 4 July to bid farewell to the Atlético fans. The transfer fee is the highest paid in Liverpool's history,
Liverpool
Torres made his competitive debut for Liverpool against Aston Villa F.C. in a 2–1 win on 11 August 2007. He made his first appearance in the UEFA Champions League four days later in a 1–0 victory over Toulouse FC, after coming on as a 79th minute substitute. His first Premier League goal came on his Anfield debut on 19 August, in the 16th minute in a 1–1 draw against Chelsea F.C.. His first hat-trick came in a 4–2 victory over Reading F.C. in the Football League Cup in September, with all of his goals coming in the second half. His first goals in the Champions League came on his third appearance in the competition as Liverpool beat F.C. Porto 4–1, during which he scored twice.He won the Premier League's player of the month award for February, during which he scored four goals in two league appearances, including a hat-trick against Middlesbrough F.C. on 23 February 2008. This hat-trick and another in a 4–0 victory over West Ham United F.C. on 5 March 2008 meant he became the first Liverpool player since Jack Balmer in November 1946 to score a hat-trick in successive home matches. Later in March, after he scored a 47th minute header against Reading F.C. at Anfield, he became the first Liverpool player since Robbie Fowler in the 1995-96 in English football season campaign to score 20 league goals in a season.
In April, he scored another Champions League goal, this time against Arsenal F.C. in the quarter-final second leg, to help take Liverpool through to the semi-final. This goal took him onto 29 goals for the season in all competitions, eclipsing former Liverpool F.C. favourite Michael Owen personal record for goals in a season. On 11 April, 2008, it was announced Torres had made a six man shortlist for the PFA Players' Player of the Year Award, which was eventually won by Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United F.C.. The Spanish international was also nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year Award, which was won by Cesc Fàbregas of Arsenal and was named in the PFA Team of the Year.
On 4 May 2008, Torres scored a 57th minute winner against Manchester City F.C., which equalled the consecutive Anfield league goal record of eight games set by Roger Hunt. After scoring his 24th league goal in the final game of the season, a 2–0 win against Tottenham Hotspur F.C., he set a new record for the most prolific foreign goal scorer ever in a debut season in England, eclipsing Ruud van Nistelrooy's 23 goals. He ended the season in joint second with Emmanuel Adebayor in the race for the Premier League golden boot. Torres was subject to media speculation that Chelsea were willing pay £50 million to sign him but Torres responded by saying it would be "many years" before he left Liverpool. Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks also negated the idea of a transfer, saying he would not allow Torres to leave the club at any price. Torres made a promising start to the Premier League 2008–09 season, scoring the only goal in a 0–1 away win against Sunderland A.F.C.. He suffered what was later confirmed as a hamstring tear in a 0–0 draw against Aston Villa, which would keep him out for two to three weeks.
International career
In February 2001, Torres won the Algarve Tournament with the Spain under-16 team. The under-16s took part in the 2001 UEFA European Under-16 Football Championship in May, which they also won, with Torres scoring the only goal in the final, as well as finishing as the tournament's leading goalscorer and was also named the player of the tournament. making him Spain's top scorer for qualification. In the second group match, Torres scored twice against Tunisia national football team; firstly in the 76th minute to take Spain 2–1 into the lead and then again from a penalty kick in the 90th. He finished the tournament as Spain's joint top scorer alongside fellow striker David Villa with three goals. The Madrileño was called up to Spain's UEFA Euro 2008 squad, where he set up Villa to score Spain's first goal of the tournament in the opening game against Russia national football team. Torres came under criticism for apparently refusing to shake the hand of Spanish manager, Luis Aragonés, after being substituted. He has since denied being angry with the coaching, citing that he was actually "angry with himself". Torres scored the winner and claimed the Man of the match award in the UEFA Euro 2008 Final against Germany national football team in a 1–0 victory. He was later named as a striker along with his striking partner David Villa in the "team of the tournament".
PLAYSTATION PORTABLE
PlayStation Portable
PSP is the first truly integrated handheld entertainment system designed to handle multiple applications — music, video, photo, Internet, live and recorded TV, and wireless connectivity, with games as its key feature. PSP system features an unmatched library of portable entertainment content, totaling more than 200 games and nearly 450 feature films, TV programs, and videos from major studios and record labels, as well as downloadable content from the Internet.
From an aesthetic perspective, the Sony PSP is a gorgeous device. It's one of those gadgets you immediately want to get your hands on but vigilantly want to protect once you set it down. Weighing essentially the same as the Nintendo DS (6.2 ounces, including removable battery) and measuring 6.7 by 2.9 by 0.9 inches (WHD), the body feels well built and solid in your hand. Although not a lightweight, it's by no means a brick, nor, we suspect, would it be especially durable in a fall; you'll want to treat the PSP just as gingerly as an iPod or a Palm-style PDA.
The PSP's screen is roughly the same size as the entire front face of the iPod.
The centerpiece of the handheld is its especially impressive 4.3-inch wide-screen display (480x272 pixels, 16.77 million colors). The screen is flanked by controls that will be immediately recognizable to fans of past PlayStations: the directional keypad is to the left of the screen, and the familiar square, triangle, circle, and X buttons are to the right. We dug how Sony managed to include an analog "joystick" below the directional keypad. The stick isn't raised like the analog controls on a PS2 or an Xbox, but it conveys that multidirectional element that gives it a joysticklike feel.
The analog controller (located just below the four-way directional pad) is surprisingly responsive.
In lieu of the PS2 controller's four total shoulder buttons, the PSP has two: one per shoulder. Ergonomically, the device is OK but not great; as with most handheld gaming devices, you'll have to do a little finger stretching every 15 minutes or so to keep from cramping up.
The PSP uses Sony's recently created "cross media bar" interface. You use the directional keypad to horizontally navigate through Settings, Photo, Music, Video, Game, and Internet icons, and each section has other icons attached to it on a vertical axis. All in all, it's a simple and elegant way to access the PSP's many features.
Games and officially licensed movies come on Sony's proprietary UMD (Universal Media Disc) media, which are housed in protective cartridges. The UMD drive is grafted to the back of the unit; you load it and snap it shut just as you would a camcorder. The top edge also sports infrared and a USB 2.0 port that you can use to link the device to your PC or Mac, though no USB connection cable is included.
UMD media slip into the back of the PSP. The top-facing USB port provides PC connectivity.
The headphone jack is at the bottom left of the unit; Sony's official earbud-style headphones sport an in-line remote to control basic playback. The nice thing about the remote is that you can use other headphones with it, not just the provided 'buds. Like Apple, Sony has chosen to go with white headphones. We're not sure why, since the PSP is black (though an iPod-white version is available in Japan).
has a glossy finish--and is mostly black--it's a fingerprint magnet. A static-free cloth should always be at the ready when using your PSP, and the Value Pack had one bundled. Sony's official carrying case is a padded soft case, but a variety of third-party versions are also available .
The folks at Sony tout the PSP as, first and foremost, a gaming device. But in the next breath, they claim that it can do so much more, billing it as "the first truly integrated portable entertainment system." Both statements are, in fact, true, and suffice it to say that as a portable gaming device, particularly from a graphics standpoint, the PSP is unparalleled. You're getting a miniaturized PS2 gaming experience--or close to it, anyway--and Sony has amassed a decent selection of titles from various game developers to show off its handheld's gaming chops.
Beyond gaming, the PSP's video prowess may be its most impressive trait. As we previously noted, the display is a 4.3-inch TFT LCD with a 480x272-pixel resolution and 16.77 million colors; by comparison, each of the Nintendo DS's two screens has 256x192 pixels with 260,000 colors. The picture quality from a UMD movie such as Spider-Man 2 is superior to what you'll see on most portable DVD players, though the majority of DVD players have significantly larger screens.
The only problem with video playback--and it's a big one--is that it's currently hard to watch anything but UMD videos on the PSP. Unlike Sony's MiniDisc, UMD is not a recordable storage format, so you'll have to store any video or music and images on a Memory Stick Duo card. The lack of affordable and recordable UMDs has put the format in dire straits. Sony is hoping to give the format a boost by bundling UMDs with its DVDs and creating an accessory that can transfer the video to TV, but it remains highly unlikely that the many studios and retailers that have jumped ship will come back.
Thankfully, getting media onto a PSP is much less of a hassle than it used to be. The Sony Media Manager software lets you transfer photos, music, and videos from a PC to your PSP with relative ease. It also lets you back up your saved games and manipulate podcast feeds. It's a worthwhile alternative to the bare-bones media management options with which the PSP originally shipped in March 2005, but it will cost you about $25--it's not bundled with the PSP. Fortunately, there are also a wide variety of third-party and freeware software titles available, many of which focus on converting existing video files to PSP-friendly formats (see our "How to put video on your PSP" tutorial for one example). Unfortunately, "home brewed" videos are limited to scaled-down resolutions that fail to completely exploit the PSP's native 480x272 screen. The exception: live, streaming video from Sony's LocationFree TV accessory. This Slingbox-like device lets you watch live TV on your PSP while in range of any Wi-Fi hot spot. Still, it's a shame that the only way to take full advantage of video on your PSP is to buy UMD-format movies or expensive networking accessories.
The PSP originally came with a 32MB Memory Stick Duo card, but you'll need a much larger one for music and movies.
What about music? Well, the good news is the PSP plays many types of audio files without your having to convert them to Sony's proprietary ATRAC format first--a common problem with the company's earlier MP3 devices. You simply drag your audio files into the music folder on your Memory Stick Duo card, and they'll show up on the PSP. Firmware-updated PSPs can play MP3s, ATRACs, WMAs, WAVs, and AAC-encoded song files, though not the copy-protected versions from Apple's iTunes Music Store. The device supports M3U playlists, but if you have your playlists in another format, you'll need to find and download a converter. However, as basic as the PSP's music player is, it will be adequate for many people.
Those interested in replacing their iPod with the PSP will have to deal with the lack of on-the-go playlist functionality and, most important, the DIY storage. You can get a 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo card for about $50, while double the capacity will cost you about three times as much. Sony announced 4GB and 8GB Memory Sticks at E3 2006 but no pricing. Player controls can be initially tricky--the in-line remote is handy--but we like the speedy precision of the fast-forward/rewind functions as well as the undulating background graphics. The PSP can also display album art when it's available.
The image viewer is also basic, with simple slide-show functionality. But again, it's easy to drag JPEG files--or TIFFs, PNGs, GIFs, and BMPs, if you have version 2.0--onto a memory card, rotate them (if needed), and show off your shots to anybody who might want to see them. In addition, you can set a photo as your PSP's background wallpaper, replacing the colorful splash screen behind the home menu. Unfortunately, you can't view photos and listen to music simultaneously.
Last but not least, the PSP has built-in Wi-Fi capabilities. Getting our handheld up and running on even a WEP-encrypted home wireless network was a breeze, and the PSP lets you save multiple wireless configurations so that you can connect from multiple locations without repeating the setup procedure each time. Though PSPs purchased before September 2005 were previously limited to WEP encryption, upgrading to v2.0 firmware adds support for the more secure WPA-PSK standard. Once you're Wi-Fi enabled--and you've installed the latest firmware--you can access the Web using the PSP's onboard browser. This slick, nearly full-featured app supports tabbed browsing, Javascript, and CSS, though Flash support is still lacking.
The browser looks great, displaying crisp images and reproducing colors very accurately. Typing isn't quite the pain it could have been; Sony has augmented its standard cell phone-style input system with a few shortcuts, giving common strings such as http:// and .com their own keys on the virtual keyboard. Furthermore, the PSP remembers every address you type, so you'll never have to tap in a long, complicated URL more than once. You're given the option to reshape the browser's display window, in much the same way that you can resize video clips during playback. This helps avoid the dreaded left-to-right scroll-back while reading articles, though it usually garbles the page's layout in the process. You can easily save images from the Web to your Memory Stick Duo and subsequently use them as wallpaper on the PSP's main menu; customizable wallpaper is another perk of the 2.0 firmware.
JavaScript works like a charm, cooperating with several JavaScript toolkit utilities, but the Flash player included in the latest update is version 6--the current standard is 8--which makes viewable content hit or miss. Our videos and the rotating feature images on the CNET main page, for example, require version 7 at the very minimum. On the PSP, the Flash images and movies change to text and still images, respectively. Some sites seem to mix and match Flash versions, which makes compatibility even more haphazard. We were psyched to see a Strong Bad e-mail start up, only to stop playing when the scene changed. We also noted that the Flash player struggled to work with compatible content, as Strong Bad's typed response chugged out in full words rather than the smooth tapestry of letters that normally flows from his laptop. Adding to the Flash woes is the lack of a suitable keyboard emulator on the PSP, rendering most Flash games unplayable.
As expected, overall Web performance is a little slow. On CNET's reasonably fast connection, we still had to wait a good 5 seconds before images started popping up on the pages. Once the images began to load, the cursor would freeze in place until they were finished downloading. This sort of thing isn't a problem on a computer, where you can still read plain text and click links without images, but the PSP's small screen made the wait a bit more frustrating.
The PSP's strong slate of features--as well as the many bells and whistles that Sony has added via its first major firmware update--proves that the handheld is still under development and hints at even greater things to come. Some of those future upgrades are more fully developed than others. Sony highlighted a few of the more noteworthy forthcoming PSP features in the pipeline at a business conference in March 2006. In terms of gaming, an emulator is being developed that will allow the PSP to play digitally distributed (that is, pay-per-download) PlayStation 1 titles. Later in the year, Sony is pledging to add Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) support to the PSP, with an EyeToy-styled Webcam peripheral to complement it.
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