The new third soccer jersey has a black background with blue horizontal stripes on its front side. Bimbo (Sponsor) runs across the middle of the shirt below the chest line, and just above the BBVA Bancomer in white letters. The white Nike logo is on the top right while on the opposite the club’s badge. It has a black round collar neck. There are no details on its shoulders, and they are followed by black with no hems sleeves.

Do you like this soccer jersey? Please rate Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Lionel Messi of Argentina, one of the nominees for the football player of the year, speaks prior to the FIFA Ballon d'Or 2011 gala held at the Kongresshaus in Zurich, Switzerland, Monday, Jan. 9, 2012.... (Associated Press)

ZURICH — Already considered one of soccer’s greats at age 24, Lionel Messi on Monday became the first to win FIFA player of the year three times in a row.

The Barcelona and Argentina forward received the FIFA Ballon d’Or award for 2011, beating club teammate Xavi Hernandez and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

“It’s a huge honor,” Messi said after accepting the trophy from retired Brazilian great Ronaldo.

The only other three-time winners are Ronaldo (1996-97, 2002) and Zinedine Zidane (1998, 2000, 2003). The FIFA award was renamed last year when it merged with France Football’s Golden Ball.

On a night of Barcelona dominance, Pep Guardiola was honored as men’s coach of the year. He was chosen ahead of Real Madrid’s Jose Mourinho and Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson.

Among the women, Homare Sawa of Japan ended Brazilian forward Marta’s five-year reign as the top player. American Abby Wambach was a finalist. Sawa led Japan to win the 2011 Women’s World Cup and adds the FIFA prize to those as the tournament’s best player and top scorer.

Messi scored 55 goals in 2011 for Barcelona, which won its third Champions League title in six seasons, and he had four goals for Argentina’s national team. Barcelona won five trophies last year,

Messi received 48 percent of the points in votes cast by national team coaches and captains plus selected reporters. Cristiano Ronaldo finished second with 22 percent and Xavi had 9 percent to finish third for the third straight year.

“This one is very special because I want to share this with my friend and teammate Xavi. He deserves it,” Messi said.

A major international tournament victory is all that now eludes Messi. Guardiola and Ferguson agreed at an earlier news conference that Messi should be considered in the same elite category Pele, Diego Maradona and Alfredo di Stefano.

“Now he can sit beside them,” Guardiola said.

Messi joined Michel Platini in winning the Ballon d’Or for three consecutive years, though the France great won from 1983-85 when only European players were eligible. Platini called Messi “a pearl,” but said he must win soccer’s biggest prize to rival Pele or Maradona.

“Messi will always be great with or without (winning) a World Cup - but the World Cup, it’s something special,” Platini said. “I think the World Cup will stay in the mind of the people.”

Dutch forwards Johan Cruyff and Marco van Basten also received three Ballon d’Or awards. Before starting his victory streak, Messi was runner-up twice behind Brazil’s Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Messi was outscored by Ronaldo in the Spanish league last season - 40 to 31 - but elevated his game in the biggest matches. Xavi described his teammate as “one of the best footballers in the history of the sport.”

“He’s still young. I think he’s probably going to break all the records that exist in the sport,” Xavi said.

U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann voted Messi first, followed by Ronaldo and Diego Forlan. American captain Carlos Boacanegra had Messi first, followed by Xavi and Ronaldo. Paul Kennedy of Soccer America, the U.S. media voter, had Messi first followed by Ronaldo and Xavi.

Messi missed a second trophy for the year’s most beautiful goal. Fans voted online from a list of 10 and chose the goal by Brazil forward Neymar in his club Santos’s 5-4 loss against Flamengo last July.

Ferguson received the FIFA presidential award from Sepp Blatter in recognition of his 25 years as manager at Old Trafford. The 70-year-old Scot has won 12 English League and two Champions League trophies.

“It is an honor for it to be given me in the twilight of my life,” he said.

Norio Sasaki was honored as best coach of a women’s team for guiding Japan to its World Cup title. Pia Sundhage, whose U.S. team lost in the final, and France’s Bruno Bini were also on the list.

The Japan Football Association received FIFA’s Fair Play award for its response to the earthquake and tsunami last March.

All three Ballon d’Or nominees were part of the 2011 all-star lineup chosen by the FIFPro group of players’ unions comprising 50,000 members worldwide. They selected a team entirely of Barcelona, Madrid and Manchester United players:

Goalkeeper (Iker Casillas); defense (Dani Alves, Gerard Pique, Sergio Ramos, Nemanja Vidic); midfield (Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Xabi Alonso); forwards (Messi, Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney).

By GRAHAM DUNBAR, AP Sports Writer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkbsENyG7b0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=16HUamnrOnY

But before we see the two teams on the field, Audi’s marketing time wanted to give fans an automotive perspective of the match with a special spot titled “La pasión vuelve a dejar huella”.

The video shows two Audi A1 hatchbacks dressed in the colors and liveries of Real Madrid and Barcelona battling it off on the tarmac. You can watch the duel in the video after the break.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvQL8rO7scg

Source: carscoop.blogspot.com

With a UEFA Champions League winners’ medal on the line, Ibra now goes head-to-head with the team he once called his own. 

Check out Ibra’s Nike Sportswear Bespoke Destroyer jacket, inspired by his own iconic tattoos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIpdnmKGDgk

Google+, recently released social network, will be added to the social networks FC Barcelona currently uses to disseminate content about the Club worldwide. With this agreement FC Barcelona will join other prestigious organizations on Google+ such as UNICEF and become the only club in the Professional Football League (LFP) with an official presence on the social network.

Google+ users will be able to stay up to date with Club news by adding FC Barcelona’s Google+ pagedirectly to their circles. In addition, business pages will be indexed in Google+ searches with the functionality of connecting directly to the page from the search results.

According to FC Barcelona’s New Technologies Director, Dídac Lee, “it’s good news that FC Barcelona is present at the worldwide launch of Google+ Pages.” Lee added, “this strategic agreement with Google+ is further proof our commitment to Barça’s global audience.”

The Club Director in charge of New Technologies praised the new deal signed between FC Barcelona and Google+ and stressed that “Barça should be the leaders and pioneers, a reference point and a symbol of excellence. Whenever there are fans of ours across the world on social networks , we must reach out to them. We can’t just wait for them to visit our web –we have to be present wherever they are – be that on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.”

With its strategic understanding of the role of new technologies, the Club will maintain its leading role in this area: “we have signed a global agreement with Google+, which means we are the first sporting institution on this new social network,” explained Lee.

Google+ thus joins the family of social networks the Club uses to communicate with its supporters and promote the Barça sensibility throughout the world. FC Barcelona are the only Spanish Club who currently have a deal with Google and join a select group of prestigious institutions on the network.

Source: fcbarcelona.com

The 19-year-old striker from a poor family had just signed a lucrative new contract with Santos, the team where soccer legend Pele spent most of his career, that will keep him there until at least 2014 when Brazil hosts the World Cup.

For years, Brazil exported most of its best young players, especially to European clubs.

But as the country’s economic power catches up with its time-honored soccer talent, celebrated players like Neymar are shunning big European teams and enjoying the comforts of home for similarly fat salaries.

Real Madrid, Barcelona and Chelsea are among the teams that tried to tempt Neymar to Europe, the traditional route to success, wealth and recognition for Brazilians over the years.

But Santos put an end to months of speculation over Neymar’s future by announcing a package worth about $20.4 million a year in salary and sponsorship that vaulted the attacker into the ranks of the world’ best-paid players.

“Today Brazil is a different world economically speaking. Clubs know how to make money now and can pay the best players well. You only go to Europe now when you really want to,” Neymar’s agent Wagner Ribeiro told Reuters.

When Brazil claimed its fifth World Cup victory in 2002, few could have imagined its top players like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo wanting to play in Brazil, whose teams’ financial clout reflected an economy that was only just emerging from years of instability.

While Europe struggles through a deepening economic crisis, Brazil’s economy is still growing relatively strongly after a long boom and its soccer league appears to have woken up to its own potential for profit.

Deals for television rights to matches played by Brazil’s biggest clubs like Flamengo and Corinthians were signed this year at up to 15 times the sums they fetched a decade ago, reaching 85 million reais ($48.4 million) for each team.

Some teams have also seen revenues balloon ten-fold from sponsorship and the sales of club merchandise.

Hanging on talent

The doubling in the value of Brazil’s currency, the real, against the dollar since 2003 has also increased the appeal of staying at home.

Neymar is the only player among 23 nominees this year for the FIFA Golden Ball award who does not play in a European team, but his decision is the latest in a trend of Brazilians electing to stay put or return home. Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Adriano, Fred and Elano are among the big-name players to have made the homecoming recently.

As foreign interest rises in the national league with the approaching World Cup, Brazil looks likely to hang on to more of its home-grown talent.

“These are choices that we have to make in life and mine was to continue in Santos,” said a smiling Neymar, announcing his decision to stay on at Santos on Wednesday. He wore a baseball cap and T-shirt that read “It’s good to be the king”.

Barely out of adolescence and close to his family, the player said his three-month-old son, born out of a short-lived fling, was an important consideration in sticking with Santos.

Some Brazilian players in the past have returned home from Europe having failed to live up to the early promise they had shown, saying they simply missed home. But the successful ones have typically spent most of their careers abroad.

Brazilian fans cheered Neymar’s decision to stay put this week, plastering his image over social networks, and his contract renewal also caught the attention of big business, eyeing marketing opportunities.

State-owned companies Banco do Brasil and the postal service Correios are close to sealing sponsorship deals with the player, according to sources involved in the deals.

“Neymar is one of the main idols of the sport in Brazil, which has the potential to mobilize youth and has a great ability to communicate in mass marketing campaigns,” the bank told Reuters by e-mail.

More sophisticated sports marketing deals — a crucial component of the Neymar package — have been important in pumping up players’ salaries to attractive levels.

Two-time FIFA World Player of the Year Ronaldinho returned to Brazil in January to join Rio de Janeiro team Flamengo in a deal that sees his salary mostly footed by an investment fund that has the right to exploit his image.

Ronaldo, who was World Player of the Year three times, returned to Brazil in 2009, joining Sao Paulo team Corinthians under a similar deal.

The president of Santos, Luis Alvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro, was delighted by Neymar’s decision to stick with the club.

“Neymar is following in Pele’s footsteps,” he said.

Source: reuters.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=olRXtsePegY

The strategic agreement between the Club and the Chinese company Intersports to promote the Barça brand and the Club’s values in the Chinese market was signed this Saturday. During the signing, which was attended by Club President Sandro Rosell and the Intersports President Heifeng Xia, as well as the Club’s marketing director Laurent Colette and Jun Chen, the general manager of Intersports, the strategic priority of the Chinese market for the Club was stressed.

Trip to China in November

According to Sandro Rosell, the deal aims to: “create a permanent link with the Chinese society, so that all who wish to can share with us the values of FC Barcelona”. The President also announced that a delegation from the Club would be visiting China at the end of November: “we will take it a step at a time, so that the new generations of Chinese citizens understand what the Barça feeling is. We hope that the Chinese boy and girls’ feeling for football will be based on Barça”.

The trip will take in a gala benefit dinner for the Chinese Handicap Association, an agreement between the two organisations and meetings with local businessmen and media.

Training Camp for five summers

Laurent Colette explained that the first fruits of this agreement would be seen in Northern China where a training camp would be held at the Beijing Olympic Stadium –the Birds’ Nest Stadium – for the next five summers for children aged between 6 and 14, with a total of 180 children a week expected to take part under the supervision of a team of Barça coaches and 25 local coaches: “it is very important to transmit the Barça philosophy to local coaches, because sooner or later China will be a world footballing power”, the Club’s marketing director commented.

“The best team in the best stadium”

Heifeng Xia explained that his organisation had chosen FC Barcelona as a partner because: “ for us, FC Barcelona is the best team in the world and the Birds Nest Stadium is the best ground in the world, we wanted the best team in the best stadium. Barça is the most influential club in China and we hope this will be a long term collaboration between us”.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=imUpS43y7aU

Source: fcbarcelona.com

FC Barcelona first-choice and world Champion with the Spanish team in South Africa in 2010 the athlete signed with a truly Brazilian football brand a valid contract for the next five years that includes exclusive material of the professional line Penalty S11, like gloves and cleats. “I am happy and satisfied with this agreement with Penalty, a legitimately Brazilian brand and of international projection, which I will be together in the coming seasons,” said Valdés. The goalkeeper starts using Penalty products in September, in the Spanish League.

Since the beginning of the year, when it presented its repositioning, Penalty has been investing heavily in the brand internationalization project. For this, it has opened an office in Spain, in order to assist in expanding and strengthening the brand in Europe, which since the beginning of 2010 is also a partner of Futsal National League (LNFS). “The sponsorship of Víctor Valdés, one of the greatest current football idols, is for Penalty an important accomplishment, the result of the great project of brand repositioning and internationalization. The endorsement of a player like him adds high value to Penalty and its products“, says Alexandre Estefano, Director International and R & D Penalty.

Víctor Valdés Arribas is one of the major references in the world of football. With over 400 games for Barcelona and four trophies Zamora conquered, which awards the best goalkeeper of the Spanish League, Valdés became a model for novice
players from around the world who dream of a goalkeeper career.

Source:Penalty

But, this new partnership is different to most others. We are going to provide Yaya Touré with a treasure trove of PUMA products, all of which will be distributed to under-privileged children in West Africa. Yaya is well known for his involvement in projects that give children in his homeland the opportunity to play the beautiful game and given our rich history in Africa, we thought we’d make the perfect team. The first delivery of PUMA Football apparel, boots and equipment will be delivered just in time for the 2012 Orange African Cup of Nations in January.

Speaking of the new partnership Yaya said; “I am very excited about this new partnership with PUMA and the work we will be able to do together to give children in Africa the chance to play football. I have chosen to partner with PUMA because of the strong ties the brand has in Africa, they are the best company to help me provide these projects with football equipment. In under-privileged areas of Africa, football is a way for children to enjoy themselves and be healthy, for some it is also a way to a better life as it was for me. I am very happy to be working with PUMA on this.”

Yaya started out in his homeland, but soon made a name for himself in Europe and has gone on to enjoy a fantastic career representing Barcelona, Manchester City and Monaco amongst others. Touré has also done his fair share of touring around the continent and the midfielder is fondly remembered in the Belgian, Greek and Ukrainian leagues – where he set them alight with his pace, power and technique.

After getting his hands on last season’s FA Cup, we’re sure the African ace won’t have to wait too long for even more silverware.

Source: Puma