Markus Heikkinen
Markus "Mako" Heikkinen (born 13 October 1978) is a Finnish former professional footballer who played as a centre back or defensive midfielder. Club career An integral part of the Luton side that finished 10th in The Championship in the 2005–2006 season, Heikkinen collected four awards – the Player of the Year trophy, Players' Player of the Season, Internet Player of the Season and the Luton News Player of the Season. His previous clubs include OPS, TPS Turku, MyPa, HJK, Portsmouth, Aberdeen and Luton Town. Whilst at Portsmouth he contributed two appearances as they won the First Division Championship and promotion to the Premier League. During his two years with Aberdeen, Heikkinen was popular and important player, who usually featured in central midfield, where he had a reputation as a tough tackling and dependable player. Despite repeated attempts by Aberdeen manager Jimmy Calderwood to get the player to sign a new deal, he indicated that he was unsettled at Aberdeen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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SK Rapid Wien
Sportklub Rapid Wien (), commonly known as Rapid Vienna, is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid has won the most Austrian championship titles (32), including the first title in the season 1911–12, as well as a German championship in 1941 during Nazi rule. Rapid twice reached the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985 and 1996, losing on both occasions. The club is often known as ''Die Grün-Weißen'' (The Green-Whites) for its team colours or as ''Hütteldorfer'', in reference to the location of the Gerhard Hanappi Stadium, which is in Hütteldorf, part of the city's 14th district in Penzing. History The club was founded in 1897 as Erster Wiener Arbeiter-Fußball-Club (First Viennese Workers' Football Club). The team's original colours were red and blue, which are still often used in away matches. On 8 January 1899, the club was (thanks to Wilhelm Goldschmidt ), taking on its present name of Sportklub Rapid Wien, follo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Association Football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposition by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular framed goal defended by the opposing side. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45 minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries, it is considered the world's most popular sport. The game of association football is played in accordance with the Laws of the Game, a set of rules that has been in effect since 1863 with the International Football Association Board (IFAB) maintaining them since 1886. The game is played with a football that is in circumference. The two teams compete to get the ball into the other team's goal (between the posts and under t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hannu Tihinen
Hannu Tihinen (born 1 July 1976) is a Finnish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. He has worked since January 2014 as a sports director at the Football Association of Finland. He has played for clubs in Finland, Norway, England, Belgium and Switzerland. Tihinen achieved five championships in three countries in a career that ended in 2010, a cup title in two countries and captained almost all of his club teams. Club career Born in Keminmaa, Lapland, Tihinen started his career with KePS in the lower divisions before moving to Veikkausliiga club HJK for the 1997 season. He won both the Finnish championship and Finnish Cup once with HJK, and also earned UEFA Champions League experience with the club in the 1998–99 season. Tihinen then joined Norwegian club Viking in November 1999. He scored a decisive own goal in the final of the Norwegian Cup in 2000, but won the Cup championship the following year and headed the goal into the right goal. Tihinen spent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bahrain National Football Team
The Bahrain national football team ( ar, منتخب البحرين لكرة القدم) represents Bahrain in international football and is controlled by the Bahrain Football Association, which was founded in 1951 and joined FIFA in 1966. They have never reached the World Cup, but have twice come within one match of doing so. Bahrain won the FIFA's most improved team award in 2004, and finished fourth in the 2004 Asian Cup, beating Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals but losing to Japan in the semi-finals 4–3. Bahrain then lost to Iran in the third-place match, thus finishing in fourth place overall. Bahrain had a golden year in 2019, winning both the WAFF Championship and the Arabian Gulf Cup for the first time, under the stewardship of Hélio Sousa. History Early time Even though the first national team was founded in 1959, Bahraini team was only first officially assembled in 1966 where they played a friendly game against Kuwait, where they drew 4–4. At that time, de ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tippeligaen
Eliteserien () is a Norwegian professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the Norwegian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Norwegian First Division. Seasons run from March to November with each team playing 30 matches (playing each other home and away). Most games are played on Sunday evenings. Eliteserien was founded in 1937 as Norgesserien (English: ''The League of Norway''), and the first season was the 1937–38 League of Norway, 1937–38 season. The structure and name of Eliteserien, along with Norway's other football leagues, has undergone frequent changes. The top level was renamed ''Hovedserien'' in 1948, ''1. divisjon'' (now used by the second level league in Norway) in 1963, then ''Tippeligaen'' (named for the main sponsor) in 1990. Starting with the 2017 season the league adopted the current ''Eliteserien'', after Norges F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency of Norway; it also lays claims to the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. The capital and largest city in Norway is Oslo. Norway has a total area of and had a population of 5,425,270 in January 2022. The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden at a length of . It is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast and the Skagerrak strait to the south, on the other side of which are Denmark and the United Kingdom. Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. The maritime influence dominates Norway's climate, with mild lowland temperatures on the se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stoke City F
Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom. Stoke may refer to: Places United Kingdom The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below. Berkshire * Stoke Row, Berkshire Bristol * Stoke Bishop * Stoke Gifford * Bradley Stoke * Little Stoke * Harry Stoke * Stoke Lodge Buckinghamshire * Stoke Hammond * Stoke Mandeville * Stoke Poges Cheshire * Stoke, Cheshire East * Stoke, Cheshire West and Chester, a civil parish Cornwall * Stoke Climsland Devon * Stoke, Plymouth * Stoke, Torridge, in Hartland, Devon, Hartland parish * Stoke Canon * Stoke Fleming * Stoke Gabriel * Stoke Rivers Dorset * Stoke Abbott * Stoke Wake Gloucestershire * Stoke Orchard Hampshire * Stoke, Basingstoke and Deane * Stoke, Hayling Island * Stoke Charity * Basingstoke, Basingstoke and Deane * Alverstoke, Gosport Herefordshire * Stoke Bliss * Stoke Edith * Stoke Lacy * Stoke Prior, Herefordshire, Stoke Prior Kent * Stoke, Kent Leicestershire ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fabrice Muamba
Fabrice Ndala Muamba (born 6 April 1988) is an English former professional footballer who played for Arsenal, Birmingham City and Bolton Wanderers as a central midfielder. Born in Zaire, Muamba moved to England at the age of 11 and subsequently played for England up to under-21 level. Muamba began his career in 2002, joining Arsenal's youth academy. After three years, he turned professional in 2005. He made his debut for Arsenal in the League Cup, but played only one other professional match for the club. Following a loan spell with Birmingham City, he made the move permanent in 2007. He stayed with Birmingham City for one additional year, and left after making more than 70 appearances and making his England under-21 debut while with the team. He joined Bolton Wanderers in 2008. In March 2012, Muamba suffered a cardiac arrest during a televised FA Cup match between Bolton and Tottenham Hotspur, from which he recovered despite his heart having stopped for 78 minutes. Following m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birmingham City F
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the wider metropolitan area. It is the largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom. Located in the West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn, approximately west of the city centre. Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midlands ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jimmy Calderwood
James Calderwood (born 28 February 1955) is a Scottish former football player and manager. Calderwood played for Birmingham City and Dutch clubs Sparta Rotterdam, Willem II Tilburg, Roda JC and Heracles Almelo. After retiring as a player, Calderwood stayed in the Netherlands and became a coach, becoming a manager of Willem II Tilburg and NEC Nijmegen. He returned to his native Scotland in 1999 to become manager of Dunfermline Athletic, guiding them to the 2004 Scottish Cup Final. Calderwood left Dunfermline that summer to become manager of Aberdeen, a position he held for five seasons. Aberdeen performed relatively well in the SPL under Calderwood and reached the last 32 of the 2007–08 UEFA Cup, but suffered a number of domestic cup defeats by lower league opponents. He then had brief stints with Kilmarnock and Ross County, helping each club retain their league status. Calderwood returned to the Netherlands in March 2012, with Go Ahead Eagles. In January 2014, Calderwood spe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football League (EFL). Seasons typically run from August to May with each team playing 38 matches (playing all 19 other teams both home and away). Most games are played on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, with occasional weekday evening fixtures. The competition was founded as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from the Football League, founded in 1888, and take advantage of a lucrative television rights sale to Sky UK, Sky. From 2019 to 2020, the league's accumulated television rights deals were worth around £3.1 billion a year, with Sky and BT Group securing the domestic rights to broadcast 128 and 32 games respectively. The Premier League is a c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Football League Championship
The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the English football league system, after the Premier League. The league is contested by 24 clubs. Introduced for the 2004–05 season as the Football League Championship the division was previously known as the Football League Second Division (1892–1992) and Football League First Division (1992– 2004). The winning club of the Championship receives the EFL Championship trophy, the same trophy that was awarded to English First Division champions from 1892 until 1992. As in other divisions of professional English football, Welsh clubs can be part of the division, making it a cross-border league. Each season, the two top-finishing teams in the Championship are automatically promoted to the Premier League. The teams that finish the season in 3 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |