Godin: Griezmann"s had an amazing, spectacular year

fifa.noJSVideoMessage “I remember telling him: ‘I can’t say if we’ll win anything, but I do know we’re going to have a good time’.” Diego Godin laughed as he recalled the first time he spoke to Antoine Griezmann, a player who has since become one of his closest friends in the game.
That conversation came in the summer of 2014, when the Frenchman was rumoured to be on the point of joining Atletico Madrid. One of the leaders of the Colchonero dressing room, Godin made a point of being the first to welcome him. “We had mutual friends and I knew he was coming so I decided to give him a call,” the Uruguayan told FIFA.com. “I’d been told he was a fun person to be with and that he needed to feel welcome and wanted by people to perform well on the pitch.”
Godin took that last part very seriously indeed. No sooner did the striker make the move to Atleti than the Uruguayan centre-half became his guide and mentor. Griezmann’s passion for yerba mate infusions, which he had developed during his t..

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Sundhage and Sweden"s spectacular comeback

© Getty Images Countless memories have been made during the 25-year history of the FIFA Women"s World Cup™. Here, we look back at the second edition of the tournament in 1995 in Sweden, a country that enjoyed elite status in the women"s game for several years. The event was a joyful blend of the prestige of a World Cup and a provincial carnival. The 26 matches were held at the Rasunda Stadium near Stockholm and across the smaller cities of Gavle, Helsingborg, Karlstad and Vasteras.
These medium-sized host cities were chosen with a view to attracting as much attention as possible, and the fact that 14,500 paying spectators witnessed the Opening Match was a good start. Two weeks later, following the well-attended Final, the total attendance figure for the tournament was well over 112,000.
Amid a typically Swedish summer holiday atmosphere, the players mingled with fans in a relaxed environment. Among their number was Pia Sundhage, now one of the most successful coaches in wome..

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The bicycle kick, football’s most spectacular sight

fifa.noJSVideoMessage It is a move that has always been able to instantly get football fans up out of their seats. Known as a rovesciata in Italy, a Fallrückzieher in Germany and a ciseaux-retourné in French, the bicycle kick (or overhead kick, scissor kick) has been very much en vogue in recent weeks.
Oscarine Masuluke, a South African goalkeeper, used the method to score a sensational injury-time equaliser in a league match, Senegalese striker Moussa Sow knocked in no fewer than three of them in a month for Fenerbahce, and Brazilian attacking midfielder Marlone produced an eye-catching version of the acrobatic move to earn a spot in the three-man shortlist for the 2016 FIFA Puskás Award.
In fact, it is another Brazilian, Leonidas da Silva, who is generally credited with the invention of the bicycle kick. On 12 June 1938, during the quarter-final of the FIFA World Cup™ in France, the man known as the “Black Diamond” pulled off what would become his signature manoeuvre against Czechos..

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