Claude Arpi captures the fan's passion for football in an ongoing e-mail exchange with Ivan Crasto, Rediff.com's Sports Editor.
Given the security dilemma prevailing between India and China, India should curb the operation of Chinese telecom companies in India, asserts Dr Rup Narayan Das.
The Portugal-Brazil was dull, with both teams having already qualified. The players were mainly interested to evade yellow cards which could bar them for future matches and most importantly avoid injury.
'France and Italy were finalists in 2006, but both left at the end of the first round in 2010. It is only the third time that a champion has said bye before the knockouts.'
'Maradona, who had the unique 'privilege' of having been expelled by his federation as a player and as a coach, seems to be doing well with his players. And they have a genius amongst them. It makes the difference.'
Leander Paes and Martina Hingis beat Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig to win the French Open mixed doubles final at Roland Garros on Friday.
Banksy fans are flocking to the Welsh town of Port Talbot to see a new mural by the elusive British street artist depicting a child covered in snow that is in fact ash from a burning bin. Now metal barriers and traffic wardens have been brought in to manage crowds around the new Bansky artwork that was painted on a Welsh garage.
Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada produced a spirited fight back to win 6-4, 5-7, 10-3 and book their place in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles event at the season-opening Australian Open in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Mahak Jain suffered a tame defeat to crash out of girls singles event of the junior Wimbledon championship while Zeel Desai got lucky as she lost the first set but still advanced to the pre-quarterfinals after her opponent retired mid-way into the contest, in London, on Monday.
Images from soccer matches played across different leagues in Europe on Sunday
IMAGES from Serie A matches played in Italy on Wednesday.
Real were smarting from a surprise 1-1 draw at struggling Elche in their last match and were missing captain Sergio Ramos, who was out with a stomach bug.
Barca lead the standings on 39 points from 18 games, three clear of second-placed Real Madrid who host Athletic Bilbao on Sunday.
Barcelona crashed out of the Champions League following a 3-0 defeat at Bayern Munich on Wednesday, failing to make it past the group stage of the competition for the first time since the 2000-01 season.
Barcelona thrashed Sporting Gijon 6-1 to go top of La Liga on a dramatic night in Spain on Wednesday as Luis Enrique announced he was stepping down as the Catalan club's coach at the end of the season.
The New York Film Festival served an amazing plate of films. Aseem Chhabra picks the best ones.
The result moves Chelsea up to eighth in the Premier League table with 30 points, while Wolves are 13th with 23 points.
Champions Barcelona came through a gruelling La Liga test at a rainswept San Mames on Sunday, beating Athletic Bilbao 1-0 thanks to Ivan Rakitic's first-half header.
Red Star Belgrade, who won Europe's premier club competition in 1991, engineered a 2-0 home victory against HJK Helsinki thanks to a Richmond Boakye header and substitute Milan Pavkov's sweeping 90th-minute finish.
Bulgaria's weightlifters will be absent from next year's Olympics after the sport's governing body banned the country's athletes following a high number of doping cases, it said on Friday.
The home side spurned two chances to extend their advantage before the break but Barca levelled in the 52nd minute when Luis Suarez glanced in Lionel Messi's free kick.
Indian tennis stars Sania Mirza and Leander Paes will battle it out for the French Open mixed doubles title with their respective partners, having won their semi-final matches on Thursday.
Super sub Ivan Bukenya's strike a minute before the regulation time saved East Bengal the blushes as they managed to hold minnows Aizawl FC to a 1-1 draw in the opening match of the 10th I-League football tournament in Barasat (West Bengal) on Saturday.
One goal determined the outcome of the Champions League final on Sunday but there could be no doubt that Bayern Munich deserve to be crowned European champions for the sixth time. With a 1-0 victory over Paris St Germain courtesy of Kingsley Coman's header, Bayern have achieved what no team have managed in Europe's elite club competition -- win every game.
Images from the opening game of the FIFA World Cup, between Brazil and Croatia, at Sao Paulo.
IMAGES from the English Premier League matches played on Sunday.
Brazilian Neymar is set to become the next best player in the world after Argentina's Lionel Messi, according to Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic.
Lionel Messi scored two spectacular free kicks as Barcelona thrashed local rivals Espanyol 4-0 in Saturday's Catalan derby to move three points clear at the top of La Liga.
Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna set up a mixed doubles quarter-final clash against each other at the Australian Open after winning their respective matches, in Melbourne.
Barcelona were hailed as La Liga champions-elect in the Catalan media after their 1-0 win at Real Madrid on Saturday, while the capital's press called for sweeping changes at Real after another domestic failure.
Ivan Lendl has opened up about splitting with Andy Murray, citing extra family commitments and the difficulty of matching the emotional high of the Briton's Grand Slam breakthroughs as factors in his decision.
They have been drawn in Group Ashe-Smith along with John Peers/Jamie Murray and Simone Bolelli/Fabio Fognini.
A makeshift England side beat Romania 1-0 in their final Euro 2020 warm-up game, while Belgium's Romelu Lukaku underlined his status as one of the world's top strikers with his 60th international goal to secure a 1-0 win over Croatia.
Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert made sure of that with a gripping doubles win that keeps France's hopes against Croatia alive in the last final to be staged in the event's traditional format.
The footprints of Indian-origin corporate executives at multinationals is expanding, with Sandeep Kataria taking over the reins of footwear major Bata as its global chief executive officer. From FMCG majors to IT titans, Kataria joins the league of Indian-origin executives who have climbed the highest echelons of corporate across diverse sectors globally. From Nooyi to Pichai to Nadella, the list of such people at the helm of multi-billion dollar enterprises is long.
Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic embraced the art of winning ugly after they beat 10-man Real Betis 2-0 to move closer to retaining their La Liga title.
Barca are also planning to offer new deals to forwards Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, and midfielder Ivan Rakitic before the end of the year.
He led the takeover of Vijay Mallya's United Spirits.
Paes-Shamsasdin also in last four
With Satya Nadella becoming CEO at software giant Microsoft, 10 Indian-origin persons holding top posts at global corporations manage businesses worth about $350 billion.
