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Football Coach Qualification

FOOTBALL COACH QUALIFICATION-- If you're an enthusiastic football fan and would enjoy helping others become better at the game, this could be the perfect job for the person who loves football. Football coaches develop the knowledge, techniques and motivation of football teams and players.To become a football coach you will need to take Football Association (FA) coaching qualifications and have the energy and enthusiasm needed to inspire others. You'll also need some good communication skills to get your ideas across each and every games.

The work as a football coach you should:

1. plan coaching activities, sessions and programmes
2. provide feedback and give advice on players' performance, fitness and technical skills
3. develop and discuss strategies and tactics for both individual and team play
4. give guidance on nutrition, and injury recognition and prevention
5. research good practice and innovative examples of coaching from around the world
6. advise players on how to keep up a positive mental attitude and self-discipline

At a higher level, you may also:

1. analyse matches and player performance data
2. design innovative training methods and programmes
3. deal with the media

First you could coach at amateur level, working in the community with children, youth or adult teams (often as a volunteer), or at semi-professional and professional level, with players in football academies and league clubs.As a community football coach you would work with clubs, schools and local authorities, using football as a means of personal and social development. You would work closely with local community organisations to develop opportunities for young people to get involved in sporting activities.once you got success then you will get the opportunities in big clubs.

working hours and income:Many of the coaches are part-time, and you would often combine your coaching with other full-time work, for example coaching for two evenings during the week and attending games or tournaments at the weekend.Attending training sessions and matches can mean working long and often unsocial hours in all weathers. Coaching jobs are often part-time for a few hours a week, or offered as short-term contracts. Salaries for jobs like this are usually hourly paid. As a guide, assumption between £7 and £10 an hour.Full time-community football coaches can earn between £13,500 and £24,000 a year. EFL/Premiership coaches may earn between £25,000 and around £250,000, depending on the role of the coach and the level of the club.Figures are intended as a guideline only.

Entry requirements:You can qualify as a coach by completing Football Association (FA) coaching qualifications (often called badges), which start at Level 1 and go all the way through to the UEFA A Licence for the semi-professional and professional game.You would begin by taking one of the following qualifications, depending on your experience:

1. Level 1 Award in Coaching Football
2. Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Football

The Level 1 Award introduces the basics of coaching theory and practice and would be suitable for someone without experience or who assists a coach in a team.
The Level 2 Certificate is aimed at those who already have some experience in coaching and/or playing and teaches how to plan, conduct and evaluate training sessions, using different coaching styles.These are widely available at colleges and training centers, are open to anybody over 16 who has a keen interest in sport and can be used to work with football players of all ages. 1st4sport Qualifications accredits the Level 1 and 2 coaching awards and you can find more detailed information about them on their website. 1st4sport Qualifications - Football Qualification. Volunteering at a local amateur football club is a good way to get started and gain some experience in coaching. Check the FA Find a Club page for contact details of your nearest clubs.FA - Find a Club site. The FA also offers a range of coaching qualifications if you wish to work with people with disabilities or want to concentrate on coaching children and at youth levels.To work with children, either as a volunteer or paid coach, you will need to pass background checks by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). See the DBS website for more information about checks.Disclosure and Barring Service. You can find full details of routes into coaching, volunteering, and local and national courses on the FA website.FA - Become a Coach  You could also gain coaching qualifications and experience as part of a university course in sports coaching, sports science, sports studies or physical education.Once you have completed qualifications up to Level 2 and have experience of coaching, you could progress to the higher level FA qualifications.

Training and development:After you achieving the Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Football you can apply for the UEFA B Licence. The course covers a variety of theoretical and practical skills, including:

1. principles of attacking, counter-attacking, movement and possession, and defending
2. set plays (corners, free kicks and throw-ins)
3. training drills
4. the ‘4-corner’ approach to player development - technical, physical, psychological and social
5. fitness and nutrition

The course involves 16 days of study and practical workshops, spread over a number of weeks. It can be done at regional centres or through the St George’s Park National Football Centre at Burton-upon-Trent. To apply, you must be aged 20 or over, hold the Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Football and be regularly coaching an 11-a-side team.The last stage for some coaches is the UEFA A Licence, which is geared towards those working at semi-professional and professional level, although it can be used to work at all levels.It has two parts done on a residential basis. The first part is 13 days long and the second takes eight days. You would also take a one-day pre-application course to make sure you have the necessary qualifications and experience.It builds on topics covered by the UEFA B course and includes team motivation, tactics, strategy, match analysis and player performance. On successful completion, you would be expected to apply for re-assessment within five years.There is a UEFA Pro Licence beyond the A Licence, mainly aimed at managers in professional football, which concentrates on areas like management skills, leadership and handling the media.

You can also add to your coaching qualifications with training in particular areas, such as:

1. goalkeeping
2. specific skills for defenders, midfielders and attackers
3. psychology – player confidence, mental strength and behaviour
4. futsal (South American indoor 5-a-side game, growing in worldwide popularity)

See the FA website for more details about their courses and coaching qualifications.FA - National Course Planner To be successful, you should always be open to new ideas and continually improve your skills and knowledge of the game. You can join the FA Licensed Coaches’ Club for continuing professional development opportunities.FA Licensed Coaches’ Club. Sports coach UK also offers an extensive programme of personal development courses for coaches at every level.

Skills, interests and qualities:

To be a football coach you will need to have these:

1. energy, enthusiasm and the ability to motivate others
2. knowledge of, and keen interest in, football
3. good communication skills
4. patience and determination to succeed
5. flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing environments, ability groups and weather conditions
6. the ability to give tactful, positive advice and constructive criticism
7. good organisational and planning skills
8. a confident and professional manner

You can develop your career by moving to more prestigious and higher profile clubs. Progression will depend on your results and reputation. You may also be able to take further training to develop your skills into more specialist areas, such as international coaching, performance coaching and goalkeeping coaching.As a coach working with young people, you may be able to gain relevant qualifications and move into sports development or youth work. Many of the skills and qualities you develop as a good coach would be transferable to other areas of the sports industry.

To be a Football Agent and Qualification

                          To win as a Footballer takes great skills, hard work and determination and also doesn’t hurt to have an excellent Agent…Football Agents handle all aspects of a player’s career, from helping decide which club they choose to play for, to ensuring they’re being paid enough for their service.It can be extremely rewarding, especially for those who are good at the job. And with anywhere between 5% and 10% of a players contracts generally being paid directly to them, extremely lucrative.

Typical duties for a Football Agent may include:

• Managing transfers on behalf of their players 
• Negotiating contract renewals 
• Handling marketing and media enquiries, including endorsements and sponsorship opportunities 
• Supporting players with personal issues, and handling any grievances they have with the club 
• Completing all necessary paperwork 
• Scouting potential clients 
• Babysitting (as and when required) 

A football or sports agent negotiates employment contracts for the athletes they represent. As a agent, you would talk with team owners, managers and coaches to find your client the best deal. You might also handle their public relations matters and their finances, such as investments and taxes. To do this job you will need to know about finances and business management and have a passionate understanding of sports. If you have excellent communication and negotiation skills and you enjoy following trends in sports, then this role could be for you. There are no set entry requirements to get into this work, but a lot sports agents are lawyers or have a background in contract law. It may also help to have a degree in business studies.

To get qualified:

Anyone can become an Agent. However, you will need to pass a written examination and be registered with the FA to get started.

Work activities:

Sports agent might juggle several duties at once, ranging from marketing your client’s abilities to managing their social media pages and websites. As a guideline, you will typically:

1) Scout for new and talented athletes and players at sports matches and events.
2) Manage your client’s career in terms of marketing and endorsement activities
3) Represent your client if there is a dispute between them and the organization that             employs them.
4) Act as a spokesperson for your client when they want to talk to the media.
5) Be on the lookout for better offers to match your client’s salary and long term career aims.
6) Handle contract and salary packages.
7) Support your clients during times of personal difficulty, loss of form or when they are         feeling under pressure.
8) Willingness to work flexibility and be available all times.
9) Good skill in maths and strong business skills.
10) Understanding of marketing and promotion technique.

A lot of your work will involve contract negotiation and making sure that contracts meet legal guidelines and are presented to clubs and organizations in the correct format. Some agents will use their own solicitor to carry out the legal contract work for them. You might work for a sports agency, a law firm that specializes in sporting contracts or you may be freelance. Some sports agents are employed by football lubs to recruit players on their behalf.

Working hours and conditions:
The agent should maintain his schedule in his business. An agent, you might work for a large company or work for yourself. You need to be highly motivated and willing to work long hours. You may need to work seven days a week during busy periods. For example transfer deadline day in the case of football. Some of the work might take place in offices and boardrooms when working on deals. You will also need to attend many of the matches or sports events that your clients compete in. to be successful, you will usually need to be available at short notice to give advice to clients and to represent them to the media. This job can involve a lot of travel and long hours, so you will need a driving licence for most jobs.

Income:
The agent income will depend on whether you work for an employer or for yourself, your experience and your reputation. And it will also depend on the level of athlete you represent. If you are employed by a sports agency, you may be paid a fixed salary and also between 4% and 10% of the athlete’s playing contract. You may also take between 10% and 30% of the athlete’s endorsement or advertising contract.

Entry Requirements:

No set of entry requirements to be a football or sports agent. The agents should have: work experience with a sports agency- contact agency to see if there are voluntary placements or internships available. Contacts within sports – you can build up your contacts by watching games and matches and getting to know club officials and players their parents and friends. Legal knowledge – a lot of your work will involve looking over legal contracts, so you’ll need a good understanding of contact law, and it may help if you are a trained solicitor. Knowledge in business- this is very important to the role, so you may also find it useful to study for a degree or PG course in international sports management or business management. You can find information on degree and postgraduate courses relating to sports management and business studies through UCAS.

Training and development:
Depending on the sports there may be certain licensing or registration requirements that agents have to meet, this was set by the governing body for that sports. You want to learn about your game or sport and how transfers, loans and other contracts are made. You need to be more active during transfer window.

Juventus Football Club History

                                                    Today we see the history of  one of the best decorated team "Juventus" Football Club covers over 110 years of the football from the club based in Turin, Italy. Established in 1897 the club would eventually become the most successful team in the history of Italian football and amongst the elite football clubs of the world. "Juventus" is Latin for "youth”. According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, an international organization recognized by FIFA, Juventus were Italy's best club of the 20th century and the second most successful European club in the same period. Early years

First ever Juventus club shot, 1898.

Juventus were founded as Sport-Club Juventus in late 1897 by pupils from the Massimo D'Azeglio Lyceum school in Turin,[4] but were renamed as Foot-Ball Club Juventus two years later.[5] The club joined the Italian Football Championship during 1900. In 1904 the businessman Ajmone-Marsan revived the finances of the football club Juventus, making it also possible to transfer the training field from Piazza d'Armi to the more appropriate Velodrome Umberto I. During this period the team wore a pink and black kit. Juventus first won the league championship in 1905 while playing at their Velodrome Umberto I ground. By this time the club colours had changed to black and white stripes, inspired by English side Notts County.There was a split at the club in 1906, after some of the staff considered moving Juve out of Turin. President Alfred Dick was unhappy with this and left with some prominent players to found FBC Torino which in turn spawned the Derby della Mole. Juventus spent much of this period steadily rebuilding after the split, surviving the First World War.

Italia League dominance

Fiat owner Edoardo Agnelli gained control of the club in 1923, and built a new stadium. This helped the club to its second scudetto (league championship) in the 1925–26 season beating Alba Roma with an aggregate score of 12–1, Antonio Vojak's goals were essential that season. The club established itself as a major force in Italian football since the 1930s, becoming the country's first professional club and the first with a decentralised fan base, which led it to win a record of five consecutive Italian championships the first four under the management of Carlo Carcano and form the core of the Italy national team during the Vittorio Pozzo's era, including the 1934 world champion squad. With star players such as Raimundo Orsi, Luigi Bertolini, Giovanni Ferrari and Luis Monti amongst others.

The Magical Best Trio:Sívori, Charles, and Boniperti

Juventus moved to the Stadio Comunale, but for the rest of the 1930s and the majority of the 1940s they were unable to recapture championship dominance. After the Second World War, Gianni Agnelli was appointed honorary president. The club added two more league championships to its name in the 1949–50 and 1951–52 seasons, the latter of which was under the management of Englishman Jesse Carver. Two new strikers were signed during 1957–58; Welshman John Charles and Italo-Argentine Omar Sívori, playing alongside longtime member Giampiero Boniperti. That season saw Juventus awarded with the Golden Star for Sport Excellence to wear on their shirts after becoming the first Italian side to win ten league titles. In the same season, Sívori became the first ever player at the club to win the European Footballer of the Year. The following season they beat Fiorentina to complete their first league and cup double, winning Serie A and Coppa Italia. Boniperti retired in 1961 as the all-time top scorer at the club, with 182 goals in all competitions, a club record which stood for 45 years.During the rest of the decade, the club won the league just once more in 1966–67, The 1970s, however, saw Juventus further solidify their strong position in Italian football. Under former player Čestmír Vycpálek, they won the scudetto in 1971–72 and 1972–73, with players such as Roberto Bettega, Franco Causio and José Altafini breaking through. During the rest of the decade, they won the league twice more, with defender Gaetano Scirea contributing significantly. The later win was under Giovanni Trapattoni, who also led the club to their first ever major European title, the UEFA Cup, in 1977, and helped the club's domination continue on into the early part of the 1980s. During Trapattoni's tenure, many Juventus players also formed the backbone of the Italy national team during Enzo Bearzot's successful managerial era, including the 1978 World Cup, UEFA Euro 1980 and 1982 world champion squads.Michel Platini holding the Ballon d'Or in bianconeri (black and white) colours."I played for Nancy because it was my hometown club and the best in Lorraine, for Saint-Étienne because it was the best team in France, and for Juventus because it is the best team in the world!"

—Platini after his final match in Serie A against Brescia, in 1987.

The Trapattoni era was highly successful in the 1980s; the club started the decade off well, winning the league title three more times by 1984. This meant Juventus had won 20 Italian league titles and were allowed to add a second golden star to their shirt, thus becoming the only Italian club to achieve this Around this time, the club's players were attracting considerable attention; Paolo Rossi was named European Footballer of the Year following his contribution to Italy's victory in the 1982 World Cup, where he was named Player of the Tournament.

Frenchman Michel Platini was also awarded the European Footballer of the Year title for three years in a row in 1983, 1984 and 1985, which is a record. Juventus are the only club to have players from their club winning the award in four consecutive years. Indeed, it was Platini who scored the winning goal in the 1985 European Cup final against Liverpool, however this was marred by a tragedy which changed European football. That year, Juventus became the first club in the history of European football to have won all three major UEFA competitions and, after their triumph in the Intercontinental Cup, the club also became the first in association football history—and remain the world's only one at present—to have won all possible confederation competitions and the club world title.With the exception of winning the closely contested Italian Championship of 1985–86, the rest of the 1980s were not very successful for the club. As well as having to contend with Diego Maradona's Napoli, both of the Milanese clubs, Milan and Internazionale, won Italian championships; Juventus did win a Coppa Italia-UEFA Cup double in 1990 under the guidance of former club legend Dino Zoff, however. In 1990, Juventus also moved into their new home, the Stadio delle Alpi, which was built for the 1990 World Cup. Despite the arrival of Italian star Roberto Baggio later that year for a world record transfer fee, the early 1990s under Luigi Maifredi and subsequently Trapattoni once again also saw little success for Juventus, as they only managed to win the UEFA Cup in 1993. Marcello Lippi took over as Juventus manager at the start of the 1994–95 campaign.His first season at the helm of the club was a successful one, as Juventus recorded their first Serie A championship title since the mid-1980s, as well as the Coppa Italia. The crop of players during this period featured Ciro Ferrara, Roberto Baggio, Gianluca Vialli and a young Alessandro Del Piero. Lippi led Juventus to their first Supercoppa Italiana, and the Champions League the following season, beating Ajax on penalties after a 1–1 draw in which Fabrizio Ravanelli scored for Juve.

Alessandro Del Piero lifting the European Cup after Juventus winning the 1995–96 UEFA Champions LeagueThe club did not rest long after winning the European Cup: more highly regarded players were brought into the fold in the form of Zinedine Zidane, Filippo Inzaghi and Edgar Davids. At home, Juventus won the 1996–97 and 1997–98 Serie A titles, as well as the 1996 UEFA Super Cup and the 1996 Intercontinental Cup. Juventus reached the 1997 and 1998 Champions League finals during this period, but lost out to Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid respectively.After a two-and-a-half-season absence, Lippi returned to the club in 2001, following his replacement Carlo Ancelotti's dismissal, signing big name players such as Gianluigi Buffon, David Trezeguet, Pavel Nedvěd and Lilian Thuram, helping the team to two more scudetto titles during the 2001–02 and 2002–03 seasons.[6] Juventus were also part of an all Italian Champions League final in 2003 but lost out to Milan on penalties after the game ended in a 0–0 draw. At the conclusion of the following season, Lippi was appointed as the Italy national team's head coach, bringing an end to one of the most fruitful managerial spells in Juventus' history.

Calciopoli scandal

Fabio Capello was appointed as Juventus's coach in 2004 and led the club to two more consecutive Serie A titles. In May 2006, however, Juventus became one of the five clubs linked to a 2006 Italian football scandal, the result of which saw the club relegated to Serie B for the first time in its history. The club was also stripped of the two titles won under Capello in 2005 and 2006.Many key players left following the demotion to Serie B, including Lillian Thuram, star striker Zlatan Ibrahimović and defensive stalwart Fabio Cannavaro. Other big name players, however, such as Gianluigi Buffon, Alessandro Del Piero, David Trezeguet and Pavel Nedvěd, remained to help the club return to Serie A, while youngsters from the Primavera (youth team), such as Sebastian Giovinco and Claudio Marchisio, were integrated into the first team. Juventus were promoted straight back up to the top division as league winners after the 2006–07 season, while Captain Del Piero claimed the top scorer award with 21 goals.As early as 2010, Juventus considered challenging the stripping of their Scudetti from 2005 and 2006, dependent on the results of trials connected to the 2006 scandal. Subsequent investigations found in 2011 that Juventus' relegation in 2006 was without merit. When former general manager Luciano Moggi's conviction in criminal court in connection with the scandal was thrown out by an appeals court in 2015, the club sued the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) for €443 million for damages caused by their 2006 relegation. FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio offered to discuss reinstatement of the lost Scudetti in exchange for Juventus dropping the lawsuit.

Return to Serie A

After returning to Serie A in the 2007–08 season, Juventus appointed Claudio Ranieri as manager.They finished in third place in their first season back in the top flight, and qualified for the Champions League third qualifying round in the preliminary stages. Juventus reached the group stages, where they beat Real Madrid in both home and away legs, before losing in the knockout round to Chelsea. Ranieri was sacked following a string of unsuccessful results, and Ciro Ferrara was appointed as manager on a temporary basis for the last two games of the 2008–09 season, before being subsequently appointed as the manager for the 2009–10 season.Ferrara's stint as Juventus manager, however, proved to be unsuccessful, with Juventus knocked out of Champions League and Coppa Italia, and just lying on the sixth place in the league table at the end of January 2010, leading to the dismissal of Ferrara and the naming of Alberto Zaccheroni as caretaker manager. Zaccheroni could not help the side improve, as Juventus finished the season in seventh place in Serie A. For the 2010–11 season, Jean-Claude Blanc was replaced by Andrea Agnelli as the club's president. Agnelli's first action was to replace Zaccheroni and director of sport Alessio Secco with Sampdoria manager Luigi Delneri and director of sport Giuseppe Marotta. Delneri, however, failed to improve their fortunes and was dismissed. Former player and fan favourite Antonio Conte, fresh after winning promotion with Siena, was named as Delneri's replacement. In September 2011, Juventus relocated to the new Juventus Stadium.

"Winning is not important, it is the only thing that counts!"

—Giampiero Boniperti on Juventus's winning philosophy, at the inauguration of the Juventus Stadium, in 2011.

Historic back-to-back double

Juventus team before a 2012–13 UEFA Champions League match against Shakhtar Donetsk.

With Conte as manager, Juventus went unbeaten for the entire 2011–12 Serie A season. Towards the second half of the season, the team was mostly competing with northern rivals Milan for first place in a tight contest. Juventus won the title on the 37th matchday, after beating Cagliari 2–0, and Milan losing to Internazionale 4–2. After a 3–1 win in the final matchday against Atalanta, Juventus became the first team to go the season unbeaten in the current 38-game format.[40] Other noteworthy achievements include the biggest away win (5–0 at Fiorentina), best defensive record (20 goals conceded, fewest ever in the current league format) in Serie A and second best in the top six European leagues that year.

In 2013–14, Juventus won a third consecutive Scudetto with a record 102 points and 33 wins. The title was the 30th official league championship in the club's history. They also achieved the semi-finals of Europa League being eliminated at home against ten-man Benfica's catenaccio, missing the final at the Juventus Stadium. In 2014–15, Massimiliano Allegri was appointed as manager, with whom Juventus won their 31st official title, making it a fourth-straight, as well as achieving a record tenth Coppa Italia for the double. The club also beat Real Madrid in the semifinals of the Champions League 3–2 on aggregate to face Barcelona in the final in Berlin for the first time since the 2002–03 Champions League. Juventus lost the final to Barcelona 3–1 after an early fourth-minute goal from Ivan Rakitić, followed by an Álvaro Morata equalizer in the 55th minute; Barcelona took the lead again with a goal from Luis Suárez in the 70th minute, followed by a final minute goal by Neymar as Juventus were caught out on the counterattack. On 14 December 2015, Juventus won the Serie A Football Club of the Year award for the 2014–15 season, the fourth time in succession. On 25 April 2016, the club won their fifth-straight title (and 32nd overall) since last winning five-straight between 1930–31 and 1934–35, after second place Napoli lost to Roma to give Juventus mathematical certainty of the title with three games to spare; last losing to Sassuolo on 25 October 2015, which left them in 12th place, before taking 73 points of a possible 75. On 21 May, the club then won the Coppa Italia for the 11th time, and their second-straight title, becoming the first team in Italy's history to complete Serie A and Coppa Italia doubles in back-to-back seasons.

Olympics Game History

The Olympic Games which originated in ancient Greece as many as 3,000 years ago, were revived in the late 19th century and have become the world’s preeminent sporting competition. From the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D., the Games were held every four years in Olympia, located in the western Peloponnese peninsula, in honor of the god Zeus. The first modern Olympics took place in 1896 in Athens, and featured 280 participants from 13 nations, competing in 43 events. Since 1994, the Summer and Winter Olympic Games have been held separately and have alternated every two years.The Olympic Games of AD165 ended in a horribly spectacular fashion. Just a couple of miles from the main stadium, watched by a large crowd, an old man called Peregrinus Proteus – an ex-Christian convert, turned loud-mouthed pagan philosopher and religious guru – jumped on to a blazing pyre to his death. He had been threatening to do this ever since the previous Olympics, four years earlier. The self-immolation was modelled on the mythical death of Heracles (one of the legendary founders of the Games) and was meant as a gesture of protest at the corrupt wealth of the human world, as well as a lesson to the guru's followers in how to endure suffering. Despite his brave words, as the days of the Olympic festival went by, Peregrinus kept putting off the final moment. It was not until the Games had officially finished, that he actually built the pyre and took the plunge. But there was still a big audience left to witness his death, because traffic congestion (too many people trying to leave the place at once), combined with a shortage of public transport, had prevented most people from leaving Olympia. Then as now, presumably, only the VIPs were whisked away. The story of Peregrinus is told in detail by an eye-witness, the ancient satirist and essayist Lucian – who not only describes the old man's last moments and the scuffles that broke out around the pyre between his supporters and detractors, but also throws in the point about the ancient Olympic traffic problems. Lucian himself has no time for Peregrinus: "a drivelling old fool", bent on "notoriety", he sneered. But the story is not, as some have taken it, a sign of the decadence of the Olympics under Roman rule (by AD165 Greece had been part of the Roman empire for over 300 years). Quite the contrary. It was surely because the Games were still such a major attraction that Peregrinus chose the occasion for his histrionic suicide; and it was because of their considerable cultural significance that the incident was so prominently written up.When we now think back to the ancient ancestors of the modern Olympics, we usually prefer to bypass the Roman period, and concentrate instead on the glory days of classical Greece. It's easy to ignore the fact that the ancient Games were "Roman" for almost as long as they were "Greek" – in the sense that they were celebrated under Roman rule and sponsorship from the middle of the second century BC until they were abolished by Christian emperors at the end of the fourth century AD. In fact, a pedantic chorus of protest has recently been raised at the appearance of explicitly Roman rather than Greek gods (Mars not Ares, Minerva not Athene, and so on) on the British coins minted to commemorate the 2012 Olympics. And this is not so very different from the chorus of protest raised in 2000, when the Sydney Olympic Committee put an instantly recognizable Roman Colosseum on their Olympic medals (and on that occasion the angry voices were not quelled by the claim that it was meant to be a "generalised" image of an arena, rather than the Colosseum itself). Forget the story of Peregrinus: in most modern accounts, the true ancestor of "our" Games lies in the rose-tinted age of classical Greece, between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, or maybe even further back (according to legend the ancient Games were founded in 776 BC, though not much has been found to justify that date).For us, talk of these "original" Olympics usually conjures up a picture of plucky amateur athletes, men only, of course, fiercely patriotic, nobly competing in a very limited range of sports: running races, chariot races, wrestling and boxing, discus and javelin throwing. There were no team games then, let alone such oddities as synchronized swimming. Everything was done individually, for the pure glory of winning – and for no material reward. You didn't even get a medal if you came first in an Olympic competition, just a wreath of olive leaves, and if you were lucky a statue of yourself near the stadium, or in your home town. The very luckiest might also be celebrated in one of the "Victory Odes", specially composed by the Greek poet Pindar, or one of his followers, that are still read and puzzled over 2,500 years later (and I mean puzzled over: they are written in some of the most difficult and obscure Greek to have come down to us, and the prospect of being asked to translate one of Pindar's Olympian Odes scares even the brightest student of classics).

What is more, the whole contest was performed in honour of the gods. Olympia was a religious sanctuary of Zeus and Hera, as much as it was a sports ground, and the Games united the Greek world under a single religious cultural banner. Though the warring city states of Greece were usually doing just that – warring – every four years the "Olympic truce" was declared to suspend conflict for the period around the competition, to allow anyone from everywhere in the Greek world to come and take part. It was a moment when sport and fair play trumped self-interested military conflicts and disputes.As with most stereotypes, there are some grains of truth here: there were no medals and no women at the ancient Olympics; the contests were keenly fought, man against man, ostensibly for nothing more than glory for oneself and for one's city; and the whole thing was done under the watchful eye of the ancient gods. But taken altogether, as a picture of what the ancient Games were really like, this tissue of clichés is deeply misleading. In fact, it owes more to the preoccupations of the founders of the modern Olympic movement – through whose sometimes frankly warped vision we now look back to the original Games – than it does to the ancient Greeks themselves. Men such as Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who successfully relaunched the modern Olympics in 1896, systematically projected their own obsessions – from their disapproval of alcohol to their rather woolly ideas of world peace and harmony – on to the early centuries of the ancient Games and their participants.

One particular obsession of those in charge of the modern Olympics – until as late as the 1980s – has been the cult of the amateur. Coubertin, and later A very Brundage, the tyrannical president of the International Olympic Committee between 1952 and 1972 ("Slavery Bondage", as he was nicknamed), sometimes cruelly policed the frontier between the amateur contestants – who were warmly welcomed as modern Olympians – and the professional interlopers, who were most definitely not. One of the most mean-spirited incidents in modern Olympic history is the story of the brilliant American athlete Jim Thorpe, who won both the pentathlon and the decathlon at the Stockholm Olympics of 1912. He was an ordinary working man, part native-American, and a famously down-to-earth character: on being presented with a commemorative bust of himself by King Gustav of Sweden, he is supposed to have replied "Thanks, king." But there was a bitter sequel. It later came to light that he had received some trivial payments ($25 a week) for playing a bit of minor league baseball in the US; he was reclassified as a professional, stripped of his medals and asked to return the bust. A change of heart did not come until 1983, when his family was sent some replica medals. For Thorpe it was too little, too late. He died in 1953, in utter poverty.

For Coubertin and his like, the Olympic Games of classical Greece made their total ban on professional athletes legitimate. The great competitors of the fifth century BC, they would have insisted, were noble amateurs, not vulgar money-grubbers selling their athletic prowess for cash. Well, yes and no. The competitors at the classical Olympics were certainly not "professionals" in the sense that we (or Coubertin or Brundage) would understand the term. But that is largely because our own familiar divide between "amateurs" and "professionals" did not operate in classical Greece. To put it another way, if we approach the ancient Games armed with modern categories of sporting competition, we do not find many "grubby professionals", but we don't find much "noble amateurism" either.

For a start, the winning athletes may not have received cash prizes at Olympia for their performances, but many of them did very nicely when they got back home. It wasn't just a question of honorific statues. The various Greek cities offered all kinds of rewards to their athletics stars, from free meals for life at the state's expense to cash handouts and tax exemptions. And just under the surface of the surviving evidence, there are hints of something rather closer to a professional athletics circuit than the founding fathers of the modern Games would have liked. According to the ancient lists of Olympic victors, between 588 and 488 BC, 11 winners in the short sprint race ("stadion") – that is, about a third of the total number – came from the not particularly large, or distinguished, town of Croton, one of the Greek settlements in southern Italy. Maybe the people of Croton just got lucky, or maybe they lived in some fanatical athletics boot-camp. But much more likely they were buying in top talent from other cities, who then wore the colours of Croton. Great Britain has, of course, got form in this area. Long before the recent convenient change of allegiance of long-jumper Shara Proctor and the other so-called "plastic Brits", we had had welcomed the South African runner Zola Budd – who competed for us in the 1984 Olympics, disastrously as it turned out.

But no less damaging to the idea of the ancient world's pure amateurism is the fact that some of the most prestigious wreaths of victory went not to the athletes themselves but to men whom we would call "sponsors". The grandest event of the Games was the chariot race, but the official winner was not the man who actually did the dangerous work, standing in the chariot and controlling the horses, but the king, princeling or plutocrat who had funded him and paid for the training, at no doubt vast expense – not unlike the Queen's winners in modern horse-racing. In fact, this was the only Olympic event at which a woman could claim victory – as one Spartan princess did in the fourth century BC. So far as we know, she did not get a victory ode (though she did get a statue at Olympia). But some of Pindar's best-known Olympian poems were written to celebrate not athletes at all, but these rich grandees who had for the most part shown no sporting prowess whatsoever, just a deep pocket.

The other main myth about the ancient Olympics that Coubertin and his colleagues promoted was their contribution to world peace and understanding (or at least, back in the classical period, Greek peace and understanding). This centred on the so-called "Olympic truce", which has increasingly been turned into the model for our own ideal of a gathering of all nations, friend or foe, under the Olympic banner (an ideal challenged several times over the last few decades, and under strain again this year with the question of what to do about Syria). Ancient Greek politics may not have been quite as messy or confused as the modern version of Messrs Samaras and Tsipras, but the conflicts of antiquity tended to be waged more in the style of the Arab spring than of the smoke-filled rooms of Brussels and Strasbourg. In fact, the ancient Games were by no means consistently marked by an atmosphere of national or international harmony.

There are, it is true, some ancient references to a cessation of hostilities to ensure that competitors and their trainers could reach the Games safely, and in one of the temples at Olympia you could still see, in the second century AD, a supposedly very early document – almost certainly a later forgery – that referred to the origins of this "truce". But how it was enforced, and by whom, is anyone's guess. It was a nice symbol, but athletes travelling across enemy territory to get to Olympia wouldn't, I imagine, have got very far by appealing to the "truce" if they were confronted by a squadron of hostile soldiers. On one occasion, in the fourth century BC, there was actually a full-scale battle in Olympia itself during the Games. A force from the nearby town of Elis (which traditionally ran the ancient Olympics, and no doubt profited from them) invaded the site, right in the middle of the pentathlon, to get control back from the rival town of Pisa, which had temporarily taken them over. And the truce certainly didn't prevent people exploiting the Games for violent power struggles back in their own cities. In the 630s BC, there was a coup in Athens against one of the leading families while they were away competing in the Olympics (though it was brutally quashed when the competitors returned home).

In general, the real-life experience of competing in – or, for that matter, just watching – the ancient Olympics was a far cry from anything that Coubertin had in mind. The modern Olympics are (officially at least) committed to the ideal of fair play. However much rivalry there is about national positions in the medal table, participation is still supposed to be more important than winning. That is nothing like the ancient Games, where winning was everything, where there were no prizes for runners up (no equivalent of silver and bronze medals, that is), and no such thing as honourable losers. Contestants fought viciously, and cheated. When one Athenian contestant in the fourth century BC was caught red-handed attempting to bribe his rivals in the pentathlon, a fine was imposed. The Athenian authorities thought this so unreasonable that they threatened to boycott the Games in future – though they were forced to give in when the Delphic oracle refused to give them any more oracles until they coughed up the money. The point was that for the ancients the only thing that mattered was coming first, using any method you could get away with. Pindar even hints (writing of another set of Games held at Delphi) that the losers sloped off home in secret, for fear of the taunts and abuse they were likely to receive from their disappointed supporters or contemptuous rivals.

So, if the ancient Olympics were a rough and sometimes brutal experience for the competitors (deaths in the boxing and wrestling contests were not uncommon), they were a decidedly uncomfortable one for the spectators too. The Games seem to have attracted crowds of visitors, but there were hardly any decent facilities for them: it was blisteringly hot, with little shade; there was no accommodation for the ordinary visitor (beyond a no doubt squalid and overcrowded campsite); and the sanitation must have been rudimentary, at best, given the inadequate water supply to the site, which could not even guarantee enough clean drinking water to go round.

But this is where the Romans come in. The likes of Coubertin lamented the Roman influence on the Games; they deplored the growth of a professional (and lower) class of competitor, as well as the malign influence of the Roman emperors themselves (who were occasionally known to take part in events and were supposed to have had the competition rigged so that they could win). For the spectators, though, it was the sponsorship of the Roman period – some of it devoted to "improving" the facilities for visitors – that made the Olympic Games a much more comfortable and congenial attraction to visit. True, as Lucian attests in his story of Peregrinus, the Romans did not solve the problems of traffic congestion, but they installed vastly improved bathing facilities, and one rich sponsor laid on, for the first time, a reasonable supply of drinking water. Herodes Atticus, a Roman senator who was Athenian by birth, built a whole new conduit to carry water from the nearby hills, leading into a large fountain in the middle of the site. Predictably, perhaps, some curmudgeons thought this was spoiling the Olympic spirit. According to Lucian, Peregrinus in some of the speeches he made on a previous visit to the Games, denounced Herodes Atticus. In a typically ancient misogynist vein, he accused Herodes of turning the visitors into women, when it would be better for them to face thirst (and the possible diseases that came with it) like men. For most visitors, though, an efficient Roman fountain must have been a blessed relief.

For much of the period of Roman rule, Roman grandees and their friends bankrolled the Olympic enterprise (which seems to have eaten money in the ancient world, too, even without any ridiculously expensive opening ceremonies or security operations). Nero, who has had a bad press for, among other things, shifting the date of the Games so that he could conveniently compete himself, subsidised new facilities for athletes, and King Herod (the infamous one) is known to have come to the financial rescue of the Olympics in 12BC. In some ways the character of the Games continued with little change. Roman princes safely entered the chariot-racing competitions, just as the princes of the Greek world had half a millennium earlier. Great athletes may well have outstripped the achievements of their predecessors. In AD69, for example, a man called Polites from modern Turkey won the prize for two sprint races and the long distance – a considerable achievement given the different musculature required. Apparently it was the first time it had been done in almost a millennium of Olympic competitions. And there was the same disdain for losers. One poem of the Roman period pillories a hopeless contestant in the race in which everyone ran dressed in armour. He was so slow that he was still going when night fell, and got locked in the stadium overnight – the joke was that caretaker had mistaken him for a statue.

But in other respects the Romans worked towards an Olympics that is much more like our own than the earlier "true Greek" version. Whatever his other faults, Nero tried to introduce some "cultural" contests into the Games. The Olympics had always been (unlike other Greek athletic festivals) resolutely brawny, with no music or poetry competitions. Nero didn't succeed in injecting much culture for very long (it soon reverted to just athletics) but, knowingly or not, the 19th-century inventors of the modern Olympics took over his cultural aims. It's easy to forget that in the first half of the 20th century, Olympic medals were offered for town planning, painting, sculpture, painting and so on (they have long since entered the ranks of "dead" Olympic sports, along with tug of war and running deer shooting). Coubertin himself, under a pseudonym, won the 1912 gold medal for poetry with his "Ode to Sport". It was truly dreadful: "Sport thou art Boldness! / Sport thou art Honour! / Sport thou art Fertility!" …

The most lasting contribution of the Romans, though, was to make the Olympics, as we now think of them, truly international. That was, in a way, a byproduct of the Roman empire and the (more or less compulsory) internationalism that came with it. But if the classical Greek Olympics had been rigidly restricted to Greeks only, Roman power opened up the competition to most of the then known world. It is a nice symbol of this that the last named victor at Olympia in 385AD, the prizewinner in the boxing contest, was a Persian from Armenia called Varazdates.

But there is a sting in the tail of this Greek vs Roman story of the Olympic Games. For it was not only the hopelessly confused Baron de Coubertin who lionised the Greek achievement in the Olympic Games; nor was he the first to do so. At the same time as the Romans were ploughing money into the Olympics and making it effectively an international Roman celebration, authors of the Roman period were already inventing the romantic image of the great old Greek days of Olympic competition. Writing in the second century AD, Pausanias – a Greek born under the Roman empire – devoted two volumes of his 10-volume guide to the noteworthy sites of Greece to the monuments of Olympia. He sees the place almost entirely through classical Greek spectacles. He is the source of most of our stories about the notable Olympic achievements and heroes of centuries earlier. He doesn't even mention Herodes Atticus' splendid and useful Roman fountain, which he must have seen as he walked round the sanctuary. Even Peregrinus, when he was speechifying near Olympia in 165AD, about to throw himself on the pyre, was comparing himself to the great tragic heroes of "classical Greece", centuries earlier. The Games have been a nostalgic show for longer than we can imagine. It has probably always seemed that they were better in the past.

FC Bayern Munchen Club History

                                     Football Club Bayern Munchen e.V., commonly known as FC Bayern Munchen, FCB,Bayern Munich or FC Bayern, is a german sports club based in Munich, Bavaria Germany. It is best known for its professional football team, which plays in the Bundesliga. The top tier of the German football league system abd is the most successful club in german football history having won a record 26 national titles and 18 national cups. FC Bayern was founded in 1900 by eleven football players led by Franz John. Although bayern won its first national championship in 1932, the club was not selected for the bundesliga at its inception in 1963. The club had its period of greatest success in the middle of the 1970s when under the captaincy of Franz Beckenbauer, it won the European cup three times in a row (1974-76). Overall, Bayern has reached ten European Cup / UEFA Champions League finals, most recently winning their fifth title in 2013 as part of a continental treble. Bayern has also won one UEFA cup, one European cup winner's cup, one UEFA Super cup, one FIFA club world cup and two Intercontinental Cups, making it one of the most successful European clubs Internatinally. They have a nicknames of The FCB, The Bavarians, The Reds, Star of the south, FC Hollywood. Since the formation of the bundeliga , bayern has been the dominant club in German football with 26 titles and has won 8 of the last 12 titles. They have traditional local rivalries with TSV 1860 Munchen and 1.FC Nurnberg, as well as with Borussia Dortmund since the mid 1990s. Since the beginning of the 2005-06 season, Bayern has played its home games at the Allianz Arena. Previously the team had played at Munich's Olympiastadion for 33 years. the team colors are red and white and the team crest shows the white and blue flag of Bavaria. In terms of revenue Bayern Munich is the biggest sports club in the world,generating 487.5 million euro for the 2013-14 season. Batern has over 270,000 members. There are more than 4,000 officially- registered fan clubs with over 314,000 members. The club has other departments for chess, handball, basketball,gymnastics,bowling,table tennis and senor football with more than 1,1.. active members. FC Bayern is ranked second in the current UEFA club coefficient rankings and second in IFFHS's latest IFFHS club world ranking. Amongst Bayern's chief European rivals are Real Madrid, A.C.Milan and Manchester united due to many classic wins, draws and losses. Real Madrid versus Bayern is the match that has historically been played most often in the champions league with 14 matches and the european cup with 19 matches. Real's biggest loss at home in champions league came at the hands of Bayern on 29 February 2000 (2-4). Due to Bayern being traditionally hard to beat for madrid. Madrid supporters often refer to Bayern as the Black Beast. Despite the number of duels, Bayern and Real have never met in the final of a champions league or European cup. The two teams met in the 2011-12 champions league semi-finals which resulted in 3-3 on aggregate forcing extra tie and penalties. Bayern won 3-1 on penalties to reach their first ever home champions league final. They then again met in 2013-14 UEFA champions league semi-finals a rematch of the 2012 semi-finals with Real Madrid winning 5-0 on aggregate.