We waited and waited, and waited, some said its a done deal, some said it will happen today, tomorrow, next week. Now we can finally say that Samir Nasri who some like to call him “The New Zinedine Zidane” or “The Next Zidan” is a Gunner. Arsene Wenger was not the only one who wanted to sign Nasri, Athletico Madrid joined the bidding war and tried to affect the deal.
There were some issues in regarding to the wages, but either way it seemed that this was only going to be decided after Euro 2008. So France is out from Group Stages, less than two days later he is taking the medical and signing a four years deal with Arsenal. It had been said that Nasri had a buy-out clause of £13.5 Million.
He effectively can play on both wing sides, Nasri have scored six goals in thirty matches he played for Marseille.
Does this signing have any direct effect on who is leaving Arsenal?, Milan are heavily after Adebayor and it sure looks like he will be their man eventually, and hleb, who Nasri is believed to be filling his place, is wanted by Inter and Barca, but he is heading to Barcelona because I think Inter Milan will be getting Roma’s Mancini instead.
Samir Nasri is a very talented player, a great addition to Arsenal, but what is next? We clearly need more players, Arsene Wenger needs to get an established player, like Nasri who is great, but we need more players in other positions. Around two months are left, lets see what happens.
And now have a look at the new gem that joined the Gunners:
Few days ago I wrote a post on how to watch Euro 2008 online for free, using some P2P applications and by visiting couple of websites for channels links. Well I also realized couple of days ago that Justin.TV the website that gives you the ability to broadcast an online channel using your webcam or any other sources, I found that people who got Aljazeera Sports Channels or any other channels who do show Euro 2008 are actually broadcasting the matches on Justin.TV, and some of those channels are broadcasting on good quality.
You can always find the best channels before the start of the match by few minutes, you can sort by number of viewers, those channels who disable the chat have the best video quality, this is depending on my experience. You can search for channels and their schedules, you can even watch what they broadcasted before, Justing.TV keeps archives of all the broadcasts until the owner deletes them.
After both teams beat Greece and lost to Spain, the pressure was on in this game. Russia needed a win, where as Sweden could get through with a draw. Russia knew that they were under pressure, and Guus Hiddink was especially feeling the heat, as he was offered a four hundred thousand pound bonus if his Russian side got through to the quarter finals.
Russia started the game better, playing fast football and catching the Swedes out. A combination of good saves, hitting the post, missing chances and simply not engineering chances well enough meant that after twenty five minutes the game was still goal less.
But then, a moment of genius from Russia produced the first goal of the game: an excellent run by the winger, who passed the ball in to the area for the under lapping right back, who then played the ball back to Roman Pavlyuchenko who neatly finished the move, playing the ball calmly in to the bottom corner.
Sweden never really looked like scoring, and Henrik Larsson had the closest chance, heading the ball on to the post, although this would have been extremely flattering if it had gone in.
In the second half the story was much the same, and Russia got a quick goal, when a sweeping move was converted in to a goal by Andrei Arshavin, who had a brilliant game.
Russia looked likely to score more, and in the last ten minutes they should have scored at least two goals, and must have had five or six good opportunities, including a couple of headers from point blank range.
Overall a good performance by Russia, who knock Sweden out the tournament, and reach the knock out stage of a major tournament since they were the Soviet Union.
The opening Ceremony was short and boring, hoping that the first match of the championship would show some talent and excitement, but it didn’t. The first match was also boring, I know that Czech Republic scored a goal through Sverkos, but even that I knew from watching the match highlights. I preferred to play PES 2008 on PS2 with friends rather than watch this match
But the second match had it all, it was great match with explosive talents from both sides, although Portugal had most of the control of the field and most of the shots on target. But Turkey also had some really dangerous attempts on the goal.
Cristiano Ronaldo was trying his best to score, not caring much if his team actually wins or loses, he looked focused on scoring himself and he did shoot some shots he could have passed to players near the goal.
Pepe scored a canceled goal in first half, he was offside, but then on the second half he was able to score a very nice goal. The substitute Raul Meireles scored the second goal by the end of second half.
Few minutes before Euro 2008 started today both Aljazeera Sports +1 and +2 on ORBIT changed to Aljazeera Sports 1 and 2. Those are the free to air channels that ofcourse do not air Euro 2008. I have already talked about this before, it was pretty clear that Euro 2008 wont air on ORBIT. But people still had hope, mainly because when they called ORBIT call centers they were told that the championship will be aired on Aljazeera Sports +1 and +2, which is ofcourse not true.
Many many subscribers are mad and frustrated now from both Aljazeera and ORBIT. I would suggest them to aim their anger on ORBIT because they were the ones giving false hope to their customers.
If you are an ORBIT subscriber what would you do ?
I just heard the good news, Arsene Wenger will be one of the analysts in Aljazeera Sports Channel’s Euro 2008 coverage. I heard that some other big names might be there too, but for now this is the biggest name that I heard so far, it will be very interesting in hearing his say on the matches. And yet again Aljazeera Sports keeps surprising us. From now on I will expect anything, the sky is the limit.
The European leagues ended, Real Madrid crowned champions of Spain, Inter Milan became the Italian champions again, and Manchester did the double with the league and champions league. And now comes the summer, but not your usually boring eventless summer, this summer we have UEFA Euro 2008.
After few days from now Euro 2008 will kickoff with Switzerland playing Czech Republic and Portugal against Turkey. Here in the Middle East to watch the championship you will need to subscribe to Aljazeera Sports channels, Usually people try to avoid subscribing with a pay TV service and try finding alternatives on other channels on other satellites such as Hotbird, but this scenario does not seem to be happening now because the fee to subscribe to Aljazeera Sports Channels is not expensive, its around 40 US Dollars per year, this is heaven compared to other pay TV in the region.
I have discusses the situation in regard to the Orbit subscibers before, and both sides still are saying the same thing.
Aljazeera Sports has launched a new website for Euro 2008, its in Arabic and am not sure if they will launch an English version. The website provides all information needed such as news, schedules, timings, history, photo album and results.
UEFA Euro 2008 groups goes as follows:
Group A: Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Turkey Group B: Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland Group C: Netherlands, Italy, Romania, France Group D: Greece, Sweden, Spain, Russia
Aljazeera Sports Channel +1 and +2 are available on ORBIT Network in the Middle East. But unfortunately it does not look like its going to stay like that for a long time, after the opening of Aljazeera Sports Channel +3 couple of months ago news surfaced stating that actually ORBIT will lose both Aljazerra Sports +1 and +2 by the summer or maximum by the end of 2008.
And this news now looks even more believable because of ORBIT failure in adding Aljazeera Sports Channel +3, but when I called ORBIT to ask about this issue I sensed a very relaxed tone when I was told that actually ORBIT has an eight years contract with Aljazeera on JSC +1 & +2. With all this going on we started reading new rumors that although Aljazeera +1 and +2 are available on ORBIT but still Euro 2008 will not be aired on ORBIT.
So that means you will need to directly subscribe with Aljazeera Sports Channels to be able to watch Euro 2008 which starts on the 7th of June and ends on the 29th of June 2008.
Ok, so Aljazeera will deny ORBIT subscribers the oppurtubity to watch Euro 2008, will Aljazeera really do it? My only guess is that they will end up broadcasting Euro 2008 on JSC +3 and maybe also +4 +5 channels to be able to get out of their contract with ORBIT.
In the end, even if Aljazeera allow ORBIT subscribers to watch Euro 2008 on JSC +1 and +2, we will still not going to be able to watch all the matches because its a known fact that some of the matches will actually air on JSC +3. The big surprise would be the ability of ORBIT to score a new deal and add all Aljazeera Sport Channels, but here is a small wisper in ORBIT’s ear “TIME IS MONEY”.
Yesterday was the draw for Euro 2008, 16 countries, 4 groups. Euro 2008 will be held in Austria and Switzerland from the 7th to the 29th June 2008. And as I have mentioned before, Aljazeera Sports Channels got the TV rights in the Middle East. Every football fan in the globe was praying that Italy and France draw together in the same group.
And their prayers were answered, Group C, which is called now "Group of Death", includes (Holland, Italy, Romania, France). So as you can see it does deserve the name it has been given.
We will be watching matches that has quality of finals, but in group stage. I think Germany and Portugal should be very happy with their groups, am not saying its very easy, but sure they will pass them.
Group A Switzerland Czech Republic Portugal Turkey
We waited and waited, and waited, some said its a done deal, some said it will happen today, tomorrow, next week. Now we can finally say that Samir Nasri who some like to call him “The New Zinedine Zidane” or “The Next Zidan” is a Gunner. Arsene Wenger was not the only one who wanted to sign Nasri, Athletico Madrid joined the bidding war and tried to affect the deal. 
Few days ago I wrote a post on 
But then, a moment of genius from Russia produced the first goal of the game: an excellent run by the winger, who passed the ball in to the area for the under lapping right back, who then played the ball back to Roman Pavlyuchenko who neatly finished the move, playing the ball calmly in to the bottom corner.
Few minutes before Euro 2008 started today both Aljazeera Sports +1 and +2 on ORBIT changed to Aljazeera Sports 1 and 2. Those are the free to air channels that ofcourse do not air Euro 2008. 
Although the schedule is available on many many sites, but I did receive requests from readers to add a GMT time match schedule. 
I just heard the good news, Arsene Wenger will be one of the analysts in Aljazeera Sports Channel’s Euro 2008 coverage. I heard that some other big names might be there too, but for now this is the biggest name that I heard so far, it will be very interesting in hearing his say on the matches. And yet again Aljazeera Sports keeps surprising us. From now on I will expect anything, the sky is the limit.
The European leagues ended, Real Madrid crowned champions of Spain, Inter Milan became the Italian champions again, and Manchester did the double with the league and champions league. And now comes the summer, but not your usually boring eventless summer, this summer we have UEFA Euro 2008.
Aljazeera Sports has 
Aljazeera Sports Channel +1 and +2 are available on ORBIT Network in the Middle East. But unfortunately it does not look like its going to stay like that for a long time, after the opening of Aljazeera Sports Channel +3 couple of months ago news surfaced stating that actually ORBIT will lose both Aljazerra Sports +1 and +2 by the summer or maximum by the end of 2008.
Yesterday was the draw for Euro 2008, 16 countries, 4 groups. Euro 2008 will be held in Austria and Switzerland from the 7th to the 29th June 2008. And as I have 