Asia

I can see it now, the invitation letter fluttering down the chimney a la Hogwarts and gently nestling at the feet of former Canadian player turned China national beach soccer coach Ross Ongaro. 

Dear Mr. Ongaro,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at the 2016 Beach Soccer Worldwide Mundialito. You’ll play Portugal, Brazil, and the United States of America. This is not a joke. Best of luck, lads!

Sepp Blatter

A giant lizard took a penalty against a dolphin before a Japanese J League match. We have no idea why this happened, but we do know that, in the event of a penalty shootout, any giant lizards should not be among your five takers.

This penalty was a disaster, and not the kind Godzilla usually perpetuates. He swung at it with his tail and missed because he is not super coordinated with the whole spinning thing. 

A little while ago, I wrote about Andrey Arshavin and his slow and painful descent into obscurity. To summarize, having failed to make an impact at Arsenal after three years, the Gunners shipped him back to Zenit, where he effectively did nothing. He was then handed off to Kuban Krasnodar, where he continued to be pretty much useless.

The International Champions Cup (ICC) is upon us! While the safe money is on Leicester City to win the competition which “revolutionized the international soccer landscape”, Australia’s Melbourne Victory and Italy’s Juventus took to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to stake their own claims on winning the competition’s historic fourth edition.

No one told Carlos Blanco that it was a meaningless preseason game — the guy apparently lives for the ICC. 

The player goes where the heart (or the multimillion-dollar investment) is.

This year we have seen a surge in Chinese soccer investments, both in China and Europe. Chinese billionaires have been buying up European clubs and, more interestingly, they have been buying top players to take home.

It's pretty safe to say that unless you're a Chelsea fan, you probably hate Diego Costa. His mastery of the dark arts of football tends to rub a lot of people the wrong way. He is the pantomime villain of the Premier League, the Loki of the world's game, the Iago to the Othello that is the Premier League referee. 

This January’s transfer window was something of an oddity. Instead of the usual headlines involving the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea or Paris Saint-Germain, the biggest story came out of China. The Chinese Super League, CSL, spent $278 million during the winter transfer window, outspending the $250 million dropped by the Premier League. So, we decided to take a look at the top paid footballers in China today.

President Xi Jinping has set out to revamp China's football development system, which includes the goal of having over 100,000 new players by 2017.