Former Ivory Coast defender found dead

Lohore Steve Ulrich Gohouri's (known as Steve Gohouri) dead body has been recovered from the river Rhine. The 34 year old player was missing from middle of December, after he attended his current fourth division German side TSV Steibach's Christmas party on 11 December and was due to travel to see his family in Paris. As he failed to appear, on 12 December their loved ones filed a missing persons report. Tragically for them a body was recovered on New Year's eve in Krefeld, north of Dusseldorf, which later was subsequently identified as Gohouri. An autopsy showed no evidence of violence on his body by third parties. Gohouri who was born in Ivory Coast, moved to France as a 5 year old where he was raised in the suburbs of Paris.
This defender began his football career in France and played for clubs in Israel, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, England, Greece and Germany. Debuted for his country in 2006, won 12 caps and scored 3 goals. He also was a member of Ivory Coast 2010 World Cup and 2008 African Cup of Nations squad.

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Speedy Rodriguez

Real Madrid star was caught by police driving 200 kilometers per hour on his way to a training session this weekend (we can only assume that he was asleep from the New Years party or he did not want to wake up early). Spanish portal 'As' reported that James Rodriguez was chased by an unmarked police car that had repeatedly signaled him to pull over, where limitation on the roads he used for was 120 kph. Now the playmaker could face a hefty fine and even have his driving licence taken away. This same 'speedy trouble' also has had his teammate Karim Benzema last year.
Anyway, this was definitely not a good start of 2016 for the Colombian!

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Salman's big plans for FIFA

Election day for choosing next new FIFA president is getting closer and closer. We now know the date - 26 February and slowly we are hearing plenty of (new) plans from the 5 presidential candidates.
Among them is sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa who's idea is to divide FIFA into two separate entities as part of a turnaround plan. The Bahraini suggested that he will consider to divide this organization in: 'football FIFA' who will be responsible of governance, running events and tournaments ; and 'business FIFA' where this organization would handle commercial, financial and funding matters. If he will be elected and take office(s) than we can only assume that he will be the head of these 2 powerful companies and that split will be inevitably.

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Tips for UEFA Champions League

Fully 37 years Europe had a main competition to determine which club was playing best football on this continent which was called European Champions' cup. From 1992/93 season the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has announced completely new, silly, complicated format with a group game system in between. This 'little mix up' means more matches played, additional teams from one country and a new name for the tournament: UEFA Champions League (popularly known as Champions League). In other words, only the top 15 countries are allowed to have more teams (up to 4) in the newly formed competition based on a coefficient list, more running, sweating, midweek action and (constant) injury of the players from so many matches. From that big change and through the years, Champions League has become one of the known brand of European football who, of course, everybody wants to participate in it. But unfortunately small countries with their respective and true champions cannot (or very rarely) feel the air of Champions League spirit who wants to play before their own crowds. That is why clubs from well known 5 'best' top European leagues are constantly winning this trophy (with the exception of few years).

This annual Champions League 2015/16 season is now entering the final phase. Excitement with the 8 groups from last fall are now over, but the real things will follow now: with the knock-out phase. Fourteenth of December UEFA has conducted the draw for round of 16 where games will be playing in 2 months. Tips of those games can be found here with the following pairs:

16 February, leg 1: Benfica - Zenit St. Petersburg and Paris St. Gemain - Chelsea.

17 February, leg 1: Gent - Wolfsburg and Roma - Real Madrid.

23 February, leg 1: Arsenal - Barcelona and Juventus - Bayern Munich.

24 February, leg 1: Dynamo Kyiv - Manchester City and PSV Eindhoven - Atletico Madrid.

08 March, leg 2: Real Madrid - Roma and Wolfsburg - Gent.

09 March, leg 2: Zenit St. Petersburg - Benfica and Chelsea - Paris St. Germain.

15 March, leg 2: Atletico Madrid - PSV Eindhoven and Manchester City - Dynamo Kyiv.

16 March, leg 2: Barcelona - Arsenal and Bayern Munchen - Juventus.

All games from Champions League starts in their regular time slot - 20.45 CET, except from St. Petersburg where Zenit entertain Benfica from 18.00 CET.

Overview in 2015 and expectations in 2016: Whoever passed the groups has passed, there is no going back now. However, from February things will be really interesting. Some derbies are already drawn and with full excitement we are waiting for them. But the real thrill will have to answer the 23-year old 'curse': since this new format was introduced no club has ever defend its Champion Leagues title. For that to find out we have to be patient until 28 May when final will be played in Milan's San Siro stadium (officially known as Stadio Giuseppe Meazza).

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Free tips for African Cup of Nations qualifiers 2017

Apart from all regions for World Cup qualifiers which I in detail explained last week, on this page you will find free tips for all qualifiers from the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) as well. Thirty first edition from this prestigious African tournament will take place from middle of January and will last until first week of February 2017. Originally, host nation of welcoming the best African teams was Libya but because the ongoing civil war in the country in August 2014 CAF (Confederation of African Football) has decided to switch Libyan hospitality with Gabonese.
Fifty two member states are divided into 13 groups with 4 teams each. But because Gabon, who is already qualified as a host nation and is playing in these qualifiers, now we have 1 group with 3 teams. This means that Gabon results will now be considered as friendlies and will not count for the overall standings. On the other hand Morocco, who withdraw from hosting this event in 2015 due to spreading of the ebola virus, was banned for the next 2 AFCON tournaments (2017 and 2019) by CAF. However, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned this decision in their favor, so it was clear for Morocco to enter this qualifiers.
Thirteen group winners plus two best runners-up (second placed) teams plus Gabon conclude 16 best African teams who will fight for the trophy in 2017. These (long) qualifiers began on 12 June 2015 and will last until 03 September. Two rounds was played so far, with third continuing 23 and 26 March, while round 4 games will be played 27 and 29 March:

23 March, round 3 in group A: Tunisia - Togo and Djibouti - Liberia.
23 March, round 3 in group B: DR Congo - Angola and Madagascar - Central African Republic.
23 March, round 3 in group C: Mali - Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan - Benin.
23 March, round 3 in group D: Comoros - Botswana.
26 March, round 3 in group D: Burkina Faso - Uganda.
23 March, round 3 in group E: Zambia - Congo and Guinea-Bissau - Kenya.
23 March, round 3 in group F: Sao Tome and Principe - Libya and Cape Verde - Morocco.
23 March, round 3 in group G: Chad - Tanzania and Nigeria - Egypt.
23 March, round 3 in group H: Ghana - Mozambique and Mauritius - Rwanda.
23 March, round 3 in group I: Ivory Coast - Sudan and Gabon - Sierra Leone.
23 March, round 3 in group J: Algeria - Ethiopia.
26 March, round 3 in group J: Seychelles - Lesotho.
23 March, round 3 in group K: Senegal - Niger and Burundi - Namibia.
23 March, round 3 in group L: Swaziland - Zimbabwe and Guinea - Malawi.
23 March, round 3 in group M: Mauritania - Gambia and Cameroon - South Africa.

27 March, round 4 in group A: Liberia - Djibouti and Togo - Tunisia.
27 March, round 4 in group B: Central African Republic - Madagascar and Angola - DR Congo.
27 March, round 4 in group C: Benin - South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea - Mali.
27 March, round 4 in group D: Uganda - Burkina Faso.
26 March, round 4 in group D: Botswana - Comoros.
27 March, round 4 in group E: Kenya - Guinea-Bissau and Congo - Zambia.
27 March, round 4 in group F: Morocco - Cape Verde and Libya - Sao Tome and Principe.
27 March, round 4 in group G: Egypt - Nigeria and Tanzania - Chad.
27 March, round 4 in group H: Rwanda - Mauritius and Mozambique - Ghana.
26 March, round 4 in group I: Sierra Leone - Gabon.
27 March, round 4 in group I: Sudan - Ivory Coast.
29 March, round 4 in group J: Lesotho - Seychelles.
27 March, round 4 in group J: Ethiopia - Algeria.
27 March, round 4 in group K: Namibia - Burundi and Niger - Senegal.
27 March, round 4 in group L: Malawi - Guinea and Zimbabwe - Swaziland.
27 March, round 4 in group M: South Africa - Cameroon and Gambia - Mauritania.

Current champion in Africa is Ivory Coast, but most successful nation is Egypt with 7 titles. Next champion of Africa will have the right to compete in the FIFA 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia (Confederation Cup competitions are staging exactly 1 year prior to the World Cup).

Overview in 2015 and expectations in 2016: In 2 rounds played so far in some groups there are some surprises, while in other some favorites are way behind. If those favorites would like to be in Gabon next year then we have to see lots of fighting, sacrificing, sweating, running on the pitch over the next crucial games for them. But we expecting some surprising nations to be among final 16.

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