Asia

Three of the best Colombian players have just left well known clubs from Europe and landed in the Chinese Super League, where their new teams paid a lot of money for them.

The latest to sign to play in the Far East is Jackson Martinez. Martinez failed to convince at Atletico de Madrid, the team that bought him last summer for €35 million and has now sold him for €42 million euro to Guangzhou Evergrande. Atletico made €7 million profit on Martinez.

If you’re asked to think of the most rabid fan bases and intimidating venues in the footballing world, you’ll most likely imagine the crowds in Europe or South America. In Europe, the leagues in England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France are seen as the benchmark for boisterous crowds and lively game day atmospheres.

It appears that Liverpool's youth academy in India, DSK Shivajians Liverpool International Football Academy, is turning out world-class talent. On Sunday, Chhangte Lallianzuala – a product of DSK – scored a brace in only his second-ever international cap for India.

Talk about a good end to the year. On Christmas, Lallianzuala became the youngest player ever to appear on the senior national team for India. Two days later, during India's match against Nepal in the SAFF Championships, he scored this gem:

What Ronaldinho can accomplish in a commercial, James Jeggo is capable of conjuring in the middle of a professional match. Channeling the great Dinho, Jeggo performed his own personal crossbar challenge while an Australian A-League game took place around him.

With the score level at 0-0 in the 61st minute, Jeggo smashed an unstoppable drive against the crossbar before receiving the ball again, this time making no mistake as he unleashed a venomous rip which found the back of the net. Spectacularly, all of this took place in the space of less than five seconds.

When you are a kid, it’s easy to get caught up in your own fantasies. You can day dream about having superpowers, find a cool looking rock and think that it has magical properties, see something totally explainable but think you’ve just witness a miracle. There are no ground rules when it comes to interpreting situations as a kid, and the situation in which these 55 kids were placed in 2013 was ridiculous to begin with. How would you react if you were seemingly between the ages of 7 and 10, and had to face two professional athletes? In soccer kids fail sometimes, but this a unheard of.

United Arab Emirates footballer Abdullah Qassem will have a lot of time to think about what he said about his national team coach while he's stewing in prison.

the 29-year-old UAE international reportedly criticised UAE coach Mahdi Ali and used "indecent gestures" in a video that ended up being seen by the Abu Dhabi Court of Misdemeanors, which handed Qasem and the unnamed person who filmed the video three-month jail sentences for their insubordination.

It is absolutely shocking that North Korea has allowed itself to fall in love with soccer. For those who don’t know, the totalitarian state does all it can to repress its population, which has little freedom and almost no opportunity to express itself. Information on the outside world is controlled to the point that the average citizen probably knows less about world politics than you or I know about the chemical composition of Raid.

Look out world, or at least Turkey. Turkish club Antalyaspor has announced the signing of Barcelona and Brazil national team legend Ronaldinho, to be made official within the next few days. 

Did we mention that Antalyaspor already has Samuel Eto'o committed for next year? 

He also alluded to a third big-name signing, so let the speculation begin. We think it'll either be Didier Drogba, or someone who played with Ronaldinho and Eto'o at Barcelona, like Carles Puyol or Rafa Marquez. 

Tarek Elrich hadn’t scored in over two seasons; he put that right this weekend with a dramatic solo goal