World Footy News

The Lao Elephants, Asia's newest club, will host their first-ever home match this weekend with the powerhouse Jakarta Bintangs visiting Vientiane for a showdown.

The Elephants debuted late last year, traveling to Vietnam for a tournament against the Thailand Tigers and Vietnam Swans. While they went down to the more experienced Swans and Tigers, the Elephants performed fairly well on their first hit-out and will be hoping to build a reputation as a footballing outfit worthy of respect in the Asian circuit.

The match, to be held on April 19th, coincides nicely with the Lao New Year, giving visitors another reason to head to Vientiane to play some footy and soak up the celebratory atmosphere.

The Bintangs are one of Asia's oldest and proudest Australian rules clubs, with a number of former Bintangs spread around the world. One such is Rob Spurr, founder of the brand-new Santiago Saints in the capital of Chile. With a bit of luck, we'll have an update from Los Santos in the very near future.

For more information on the Lao Elephants or the match, see their website or email martysharples {at} hotmail.com.

The Baltimore Washington Eagles took out the Inaugural Faststream Florida Invitational at the brand new Broward Country Cricket complex in Lauderhill Florida. The Eagles took the tourney after a solid win against Florida, squeaking by the New York Magpies by 1 point and with what coach Denis Ryan described as a "purple patch" kicking 4 goals to beat the top ranked Denver Bulldogs. New York ruckman, Joel Keating, won the MVP of the Tournament, while New York's Joey Discepola won the fastest man competition and the BW Eagles Jay Leveseque won the longest kick (61 yards).

The Finland Icebreakers played a 14-a-side friendly match against Stockholm's Södermalm Blue Saints on the weekend, with the Icebreakers winning three quarters but ultimately going down 75-37.

According to Finland's Heikillä Kimmo, "Finland's team is young on average and still learning the ecrets of Footy, although the skill level has improved a lot since last season. Test matches against Sweden are valued practice for Finland and are best we can get at the moment since the overall skill level in Sweden is quite high amongst the footy nations in Europe. The more international games Finland can get, the better it is."

The game was played in windy conditions, at a very chilly 3°C. The Finns rated the match as good training, considering their experience has mainly been 9-a-side footy until this game. Next step will be an 18-a-side Test against Sweden in Salo, Finland on the 26th of July, with a return leg in Sweden later this year. The Salo Test will be the first 18-a-side game ever held in Finland.

The Baton Rouge Tigers featured recently on the local Fox 44 news. Rob Montaro, Jesse Tuminski and Jeffrey Phillips describe the game and their local setup between footage of the Tigers in training. The video can be viewed here. The text version of the story, titled "Aussie Footy Action in Red Stick", can be viewed here on the station’s website.

For the record, the Tigers went down to the Atlanta Kookaburras last weekend, the Kookas 15.13 (103) to Baton Rouge’s 3.7 (25).

Former County Kerry star and Sydney Swans premiership player Tadhg Kennelly has been named in the Dream Team in the one-off All-Star match against Victoria at the MCG in Melbourne on May 10 as part of the game's 150th celebrations.

Kennelly was the only non-Australian player to be named, and joins players from the Australian states and territories which make up the Dream Team:

• South Australia (15)
  
• Western Australia (12)
  
• New South Wales (4)
  
• Northern Territory (4)
  
• Queensland (2)
  
• Tasmania (1)
  
• Australian Capital Territory (1)
• Ireland (1)

Apparently China's answer to YouTube is YouKu, and Australian Football development staff in the world's most populous country have made sure footy has a presence on there. Uploaded videos include footage from a local training session with comments from development officer Tom Mattessi, and the ever-popular AFL clip that was shown at the 2005 International Cup dinner, featuring some of the game's incredible highlights including some of those by stars with international roots.

Also uploaded is an excellent ABC Asia-Pacific interview with the AFL's General Manager of National and International Game Development, David Matthews. The video highlights some of the issues the AFL face in terms of balancing domestic pressures with hopes of expanding the game. Of particular note was Matthews' estimate that there are around 35,000 footballers internationally (compared with about 650,000 in Australia) and his prediction that the international number could grow to 150,000 in the next ten years. That's certainly feasible, but nice to hear a key player at the Australian Football League stating it. He also refers to the potential of the game as an export for Australia - as business and governments realise this fact, hopefully they will increasingly support Australia's indigenous sport. Matthews estimated current international investment at around $1 million, compared with domestic investment of $40 million.

The piece also interviews likely China captain Zhao Yonggen and VFL/AFL greats Ron Barassi and Kevin Sheedy.

The full video is here. Not really necessary, but a Google translation is here. Thanks to AFL China's Andrew Sawitsch for the heads-up. The video's are loaded under the name AFL China.

Traditional rivalry in Japan is never greater than Tokyo vs Osaka, between the town of blue suits and power and the town of merchants and fun. The greatest rivalry in Japanese sport is between baseball’s Tokyo Giants and Osaka’s Hanshin Tigers. On the same weekend when the sluggers were slugging it out in Tokyo, the Tokyo Goannas went on a road trip to Osaka to take on the hometown Dingoes in the big match at Maishima Sports Island on Saturday April 5.

WorldFootyNews.com and USFootyNews.com are teaming up to present the 2008 USFooty Top 10 Poll. To kick things off we are having a Top 10 Countdown for the Preseason Top 10. Who are the best teams in USFooty?

The Denver Bulldogs are the Number 1 team in the preseason World Footy News / USFooty News Top 10 Poll. The Bulldogs completed a remarkable season in 2007 by taking the USFooty National Championship in Louisville KY.

Despite losing to the San Diego Lions at home during the season, the Old Dogs were able to get their revenge taking the Division 1 Championship by 6 points. They finished the season 9-1, third on the USFootyNews hybrid ladder with 20 points and a percentage of 485. But they won the National Championship and were the unanimous Number 1 in the final 2007 World Footy News Top 10 Poll, no surprise given their dominance of footy in the United States over many years.

The following is courtesy of USFooty.com

Idol shocker! Michael Johns is voted off!

American Idol finalist and Ex-Atlanta Kookaburra Michael Johns finished in the bottom three for the first time Thursday, and in a surprising result ended up being eliminated from the TV talent competition.

Johns had arguably more professional music experience than the other finalist, but Johns received the fewest viewer votes for his straight-forward rendition Tuesday with Aerosmith’s “Dream On”.

From everyone at USFooty, we wish you all the best! You have a wonderful future ahead of you and will go far in your career.

Michael Good Luck in all your future adventures!

As we move to just over four months until Australian Football's de facto World Cup, the picture of exactly which nations will attend is becoming less clear. In our last update we suggested that the likely number had dropped to as low as 14, not including teams based on ethnic groups within Victoria.

Since then India firmed, finally getting some representatives to visit the AFL in Melbourne, we heard of a slight chance by the French (but subsequently discounted by another official there), and the AFL have decided to not rule out the Catalan region sending a representative side. Whether the latter will eventuate is yet to be seen as it's very early days in discussions.

We recently saw a report mentioning Fiji as a candidate, but that is understood to be a mistake. Also coming back into the picture is Tonga, as discussed in New AYAD arrives but Tonga looking for sponsor to fulfill IC dream. The AFL are also believed to be working to secure Spain and Nauru. Below we do our best to summarise what is a very fluid situation - at the end of the day, nothing is finalised.

This weekend sees the third of the Revolution’s three weekends of training and selection. The final weekend for the Revo’s selection involves a number of games against some of the best players in USFooty. The Revos will be at the Faststream Florida Tournament and has matches lined up against a team made up of players from the BW Eagles, Florida, the New York Magpies and the Denver Bulldogs. They have two games, the first on Saturday and the second on Sunday.

Assistant Coach, Jason Becker, says that the squad for Australia will be named in some form at the end of the weekend. “Many candidates are well known and the selection committee has a good understanding of their games. Other guys are newer on the scene,” says Becker. “While we'll be taking a look at everyone, and everyone will have a chance to shine by doing good things on the field, we'll need to focus a little extra on the guys who haven't made it to all the selectors' radar yet. But, in general, it's the one last chance for each guy to show what he can do. It's all about finding out who can play footy.”

The Southampton Titans held the first "Titanic Cup" a few weeks ago, with the Reading Roos defeating the Titans, Sussex Swans, Bournemouth Demons and Chippenham Redbacks for the trophy. Leading goalkicker for the tournament was Reading and Great Britain Full Forward Andy Whitaker.

Despite cold, wet and windy weather seeing the games struggle on in the mud, the day was a great success and the Titans hope for the event to become a regular pre-season fixture.

This report courtesy of Southampton Titans' President Michael Krischunas.