All goals were scored 21 minutes from the end. Basically, Real Madrid dominated the match but Manchester City scored first, thanks to Edin Dzeko (68´). The goal proved to be the best motivator for “Los Blancos” who started to attack aggressively. They suffered but shortly after Dzeko´s goal, Marcelo (76´) scored the equalizer.

En el minuto 85, Aleksandar Kolarov marcó el segundo del City. Los ingleses apenas saborearon algunos minutos de victoria, debido al fantástico contraataque que realizaron los de Mourinho y que culminó con el gol de Benzema (87’).

But the one that put an end to the match was Cristiano Ronaldo, scoring the winner goal in the 90th minute. It was a very emotive moment for Real Madrid, not only because they had just won against Manchester City, and their first Champions match, but because its star player reconciled with his fans after a much talked comment the Portuguese made about being sad.

At the end both teams pleased their fans, because they played a spectacular match, putting on a great show on the field, but…  Will they keep this attitude in their respective leagues?

Mexico was the forgotten team of the final. All the attention was focused on its rival and its stars. However, the Mexicans only needed 27 seconds to score their first goal, quickly waking up Brazil from their golden dreams.

It was supposed to be Neymar´s day, it was, instead, Oribe Peralta´s, the Mexican player that gave the victory to the Azteca team scoring its two goals. The first one came from a mistake made by the Brazilian defense, and the second one followed a nice play from Mexico. At the end, Brazil only scored once, and the goal did not come from acclaimed Neymar, but from Hulk.

Truth is Mexico had to perform a perfect match to overcome the favorite squad. On the other hand, Brazil opted for his forwards, the same way it has been doing for the last years. The formula has brought the Brazilians countless titles, but this time it wasn´t enough to help them win its first Olympic gold medal.

The Goteborg organizers, where the match took place, had designated the game as a “supermatchen” (supermatch), like if it were the third edition of a Champions Finals between these two great teams.

Barça created more sense of danger than Manchester United. De Gea had to work harder than Valdés, in fact the Red goalkeeper was outstanding defending the net against Iniesta and Messi´s attacks.

Manchester just had a clear occasion coming from Rooney, and the team was lucky to have a penalty on his favor when Tello brought down Nani, forcing the referee to point to the spot. Rooney´s kick was easily saved by Víctor Valdés and so the first leg of the match ended scoreless.

Second leg started and sir Ferguson made some changes, taking Rooney off the field and bringing in Kagawa, who forced Pinto, the second FC Barcelona´s goalkeeper, into a magnificent save.

The match ended with a 0-0 draw and it had to be decided in a penalty shoot-out. Xavi and Piqué scored for FC Barcelona and Pinto made two wonderful saves, to Young and Nani. At the end, Barça won 0-2, and rightfully so, since it was the team that attacked the most, always in control, repeating the story of the last two matches between these two great teams.

On the other hand, Japan won again, this time against Morocco, and is now the leader squad in Group D with six points. Honduras, that eliminated Spain yesterday, is now second in the same group.

Yes, Spain had three great opportunities to score, but they missed. And yes, there were, according to the Spaniards, two clear penalties against Spain that the referee did not whistle. But for some fans, the biggest fault of them all was the decisions that the Spanish National Team coach, Luís Milla, made. He left Ander Herrera on the bench and populated midfield with players who are not used to associate to each other easily.

La Roja will officially be eliminated on August 1st, after his match against Morocco set to be played in Manchester.

Yes, we know, the important thing is to participate, that´s what we tell our children, but Spain has flopped, olympically so, leaving its fans greatly disappointed.

Juan Mata, along with Javi Martínez and Jordi Alba, and some other stars, will represent the Spanish Football in this Olympics. They will have to fight hard to win the gold medal, a prize they´ve got just once, back in 1992 in Barcelona.

Now let´s talk about the real kickers. Women were the ones that started the football competition in this Olympics.  Brazil trashed Camerun (5-0), United States beat France (4-2), Japan won against Canada (2-1), United Kingdom beat New Zeland (1-0) and North Korea knocked Colombia (2-0).

But don´t get confused. The football competition has started, but the Olympics hasn´t, at least until tomorrow, July 27^th when the opening ceremony will take place in London, marking the official start of the 2012 Olympic Games.

Blatter, 76, did not reveal the name of the person who tried to bribe him, but he said “it was related to a classification match for World Cup 1986, the person told me that it would be nice to have the referee in our side, and then, he put an envelope with 50 thousand dollars in my coat. I talked to my accountant, he advised me to open an account on this person´s name and put the money in it. I told that person what I did and 14 days later he withdrawn the money. Since then, nobody has tried to bribe me ever again”.

However, Blatter never reported this person to the authorities, according to him because back then FIFA did not have an Ethical Committee like the one it now has.

This interview comes out to light just a few days after incriminatory documents about the ISL case were made public. We are talking about the major corruption scandal so far in FIFA history, in a case in which former FIFA president (from 1974 to 1998), Joao Havelange, and Ricardo Teixeira, president of the Brazilian Football Confederation for 23 years, have been involved.  Allegedly, they were receiving large amounts of money from the company in charge of commercializing sports events broadcasting rights at the time.

Last Wednesday night the American cable television network ESPN presented its ESPY awards (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) which recognizes the best individual and team performances in different sports categories.

And guess who won the Best International Athlete of the year? FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi.

He competed against big names like Real Madrid Cristiano Ronaldo, tennis player Novak Djkovic and LPGA Championship winner Yani Tseng. At the ceremony, when the presenters call out all the candidates, they highlighted Messi´s “speed, agility and master skills” which has made him “one of the most relevant football players in the world”.

If you take a look at the numbers, there is no wonder Messi won over all the fans that voted online.  He scored 50 goals in La Liga, and 73 goals in total last campaign. He also finished as the UEFA Champions League‘s top scorer for a fourth consecutive season with 14 goals.

Another well known player both in Spain and the UK got the Best MLS Player Award. We are talking about David Beckham. Maybe this recognition will ease his disappointement after he was left out of Great Britain´s Olympic football team set to participate in London this summer.

Thing is, football seems deep-rooted in the US, oh well; maybe we should call it “soccer”.

Spain didn´t let down its fans. Right from the start Spain started to attack with a very clear goal: be first one to score. And they did it playing both beautifully and efficiently: 4 goals by David Silva, Jordi Alba, Fernando Torres and Juan Mata gave the Championships to Del Bosque´s team.

Cesc turned out to play again as a “false” 9, a position he feels really comfortable at. He accomplished great results for Spain while driving the Italians crazy. The first leg of the match showed us a very suffocating Italian defense that only the imagination and skillfulness of Iniesta were able to break.

All four goals have a unique story, but Jordi Alba´s one after a masterful pass by Xavi Hernández, is worth mentioning because the young player was able to beat face to face one of the greatest goalkeepers of the world: the legendary Buffon.

Fernando Torres, the current Chelsea player, who has had lots of up and downs this season, was able to score his third goal of the championship, winning the Golden Boot award for top scorer at Euro 2012. Iniesta, on the other hand, won the top player of Euro 2012 for his overall performance in the tournament.

Finally, we end up this post talking about Spain´s defense. After an injury kept Puyol out of the Euro 2012, everybody thought that this side of the team was going to be a concern. Truth being told, Piqué, Ramos and Arbeola have held the fort together, along with Iker Casillas, so much so that Spain ended up winning Euro 2012 conceding just one goal.

Congratulations Champions!

The match against Portugal wasn´t an easy one, though. 90 minutes of regular time, then 30 more minutes of extra time, and the scoreboard remained 0. Spain ended up beating Portugal in the penalty shoot-outs. But it did not start with the right foot, because Xabi Alonso missed the first penalty kick. Lucky for Spain, Iker Casillas made a great save preventing Moutinho from scoring.

But the decisive kick came from Cesc Fàbregas. He asked to kick the fifth one, because he got the feeling that it was going to be the decisive one. And he was certainly right! He did not miss it, giving Spain the opportunity to go to finals, and preventing Cristiano Ronaldo from even try to kick.

The final will take place next Sunday July 1^st in Kiev, but we still don´t know who will Spain play against: Italy or Germany?

It wasn’t an easy math for England, because Ibrahimovic´s team has been for many years the black beast for England: they have played each other seven times, both in the World Cup and European Championships, and Sweden has equalized five matches and won the other two.

Hogdson´s team started winning the match, thanks to Carroll, who headed the ball in the 23rd minute. It wasn´t until the second half that Sweden started to react with Mellberg scoring the equalizer goal, and then the second one that put his team ahead of the match.

The adverse result forced Hodgson to make a decision that definitely overturned the whole match on his favor:  he brought on his faster player: Walcott. Five minutes later, he tied the game.  Just 13 minutes before the final whistle, the Arsenal’s striker did an electrifying burst to cross for Welbeck, who scored the third one for England.  2-3 was the final score, a result that gave England a victory, sending Sweden off the competition.

Rooney will plays with England

Finally, Wayne Rooney will play his first match in the Euro 2012 with his National Team, after being sidelined with a two-match suspension, following a red card in a classified match against Montenegro.

To be able to count on such a great striker are good news for England. In the meantime, Ukraine fears the match on Tuesday, because it hasn’t got its talisman, Andry Shevchenko, and, on the other hand, England only needs a tie to qualify for the quarter-finals.