_The home stadium of the Vietnam football team is the My Dinh National Stadium located in the city if Hanoi. It was opened in the September 2003. It is in the center of the Vietnam National Sports Complex. The Stadium is owned by the Vietnam Football Federation and operated by the Vietnam National Football Team.

In 2003, the South East Asian Games were held on this ground, with the opening and closing ceremony as well as the football tournament and the athletics part taking place. The Vietnam national football team plays all of its international and home matches on this stadium. The Cong Veittal Football Club has also been playing all their Home games on this ground since 2005.

The Stadium has a present capacity of 50000 people. It is the biggest Stadium in the country, costing $53 million for construction. The Stadium gets its name from the area that is it situated in Hanoi. The only problem with the Stadium is that most of it is exposed to sun, wind and rain, as only part of it has a roof.

The Stadium is situated in the Tu Liem District of Hanoi, just about 10 Km from the center of Hanoi. There are very easy routes to and from the Stadium, but the safest and easiest way is by taxi. From the Hoan Kiem Lake it takes just 20 minutes to the Stadium at a cost of about US$6.20.

_About the Team:
The Russian National team is considered the descendant of the USSR national team by the FIFA. Previously they were the Russian Empire and have fared very well in the past. Russia’s home uniform is red socks, red shirt and red shorts. And their away kit is white socks, white shirt and white shorts.

Some of Russia’s top [goal scorers are Vladimir Beschastnykh (26 goals), Valeriy Karpin (17 goals), Dmitriy Sychev (15 goals), Andrei Arshavin (15 goals), and Aleksandr Kerzhakov (13 goals).

The top five players with the most caps are Viktor Onopko (109 caps), Valeriy Karpin (72 caps), Vladimir Beschastnykh (71 caps), and Dmitriy Alenichev, Yuriy Nikiforov, Aleksei Smertin, & Sergei Semak, all four with 55 caps.

The current squad of the Russian Team is as follows: Goalkeepers - Igor Akinfeev, Vyacheslav Malafeev, and Sergey Ryzhikov; Defenders - Sergey Ignashevich, Aleksandr Anyukov, Vasili Berezutskiy, Aleksei Berezutskiy, and Renat Yanbayev; Midfielders - Sergei Semak, Igor Semshov, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Yuri Zhirkov, Vladimir Bystrov, Konstantin Zyryanov, Dmitri Torbinski, Ivan Saenko, Igor Denisov, Alan Dzagoev, and Denis Glushakov; and Strikers - Dmitriy Sychev, Andrei Arshavin, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Pavel Pogrebnyak, and Aleksandr Prudnikov.

Some of Russia’s legends are Fyodor Cherenov, Oleg Blokhin, Lev Yashin, Viktor Onopko, Igor Belanov, Valery Voronin, Igor Netto, Viktor Ponedelnik, and Egor Titov.

_Country:
The national football team of Russia is the Russian National Football Team.
It has been many names prior to this like Russian Empire, USSR National Team, and the CIS National Team.

Home Stadium:
Russia’s Home Stadium is the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. It is known as the largest stadium in all of Russia and is associated with the Spartek and Torpedo clubs.

Association:
The Russian Football Team is governed by the Football Union of Russia, and comes under the UEFA Confederation.

Manager:
Guus Hiddink is the present manager & head coach of the Russian side. Russia also has an assistant coach Aleksandr Borodyuk.  Sergie Semak, a winger, is the present captain of the side.

Trophies & Titles:
Russia played its first international match on August 16th 1992, beating Mexico by a score of 2-0.  Their biggest victory till date has been in June 1995 against San Marino, showing a score of 7-0. And their biggest loss has been against Germany in 1912, losing 0-16.

Currently the Russians are ranked 9th in the FIFA World Rankings. They have reached a maximum rank of 3rd position from April-June 1996. Their lowest rank has been a 40th in December 1998. Russia has made 2 appearances in the World Cup, 1994 & 2002, reaching only Round 1 in both. They have fared better in the European Championship, having reached the semi-finals in 2008, their best out of 3 appearances.

_The Home Ground of the RCD Espanyol football club is the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, situated in the city of Barcelona. The Ground has been named after a former President Generalitat de Catalunya Lluis Companys I Jover. The Stadium was originally built in the year 1927, and was called Estadi Olimpic de Montjuic. However, it was renovated in 1989, and then renamed to its current name.

The RCD Espanyol football club plays all their league matches on this ground. Also, the opening and closing ceremony of the 1992 Summer Olympics were held here, plus the Olympic Athletics competition. The Stadium is scheduled to host its final match in the 2008-2009 La Liga season. Occasionally the Rugby League also takes place here.

The current capacity of the stadium is 55926 people. However, during the 1992 Olympics, the capacity was a huge 70000, especially during the football tournament. The Stadium has only 7 yards zones at the end, and is said to be 3 yards less than the required NFL size.

The Ground is situated in the hills overlooking the harbor at Montjuic, exactly in the centre of the Anella Olympica. The nearest airport to the Stadium is the Barcelona International Airport. The city also has a bus network, a metro service, trams and various cable cars that will get you to the stadium. The city also has a night bus service called the Nitbus.

_The two teams at the bottom of the top league make place for the top two teams of the lower league. The most popular clubs in Qatar are Al Sadd, Al Arabi, Al Rayyan, Al Shamal, Qatar Sports Club, Al Ahli, Al Khor, Umm Salal, Al Wakra and Al Gharrafa. Among these, Al Sadd (named after a street in Doha), which has won the Q-league eleven times and the winners of the Continental cup, are the best with a close competition from Al Arabi.

Due to its low native population and a high foreign population, it has been forced to import players from other countries. In this country, oil money is being poured into football. Reportedly, each football team in Qatar was given ten million dollars to employ some big foreign names in the year 2003. Thus, the Qatari clubs now boast of names like Gabriel Batistuta (Argentinean striker), Jay-Jay Okocha (Nigerian who played for the Bolton Wanderers in the English Premier League), Tony Popovic (Australian) and Bill Tchato (Cameroon).

Some local events like Qatar Crown Prince Cup, Emir of Qatar Cup, Qatar Stars League, and Sheikh Jassem Cup have been instrumental in providing exposure to the vast local talent.

The public support for the game has been very disappointing. In stadiums with huge capacity (Khalifa with 50,000 seats) the maximum turn up would only be 10,000. This was attributed to a low native population.

_Qatar's achievements in sports have been very less. Being a country with a small geographic area and population, they are known to use several foreigners in their teams. However, the results have not been very impressive.

The national men's team played its first international against Bahrain in 1970, losing 2-1. Since then, their achievements have been very few and lacking consistency. However, their performances in youth events have been very irregular. They shocked everyone by advancing to the finals of the 1981 FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia where they were beaten by the then West Germany. It belongs to the Asian Football Confederation, one of the continental confederations of FIFA. Qatar had performed exceptionally well in the 1980s winning the second place in 1980, third place in 1988 and fourth place in 1988 and 1990 AFC Youth Championship. However, they haven't won the cup till date and right now they are the bottom performers in the group.

However, there have been some hopes with players like Khalfan Ibrahim who won the Asian Football Confederation 'player of the year' award becoming the first Qatari and also the youngest player (18 years) to win the award.

The local clubs are looking promising with a pool of talent. The country has twenty clubs among which ten clubs play in the higher league known as the Q-league and the remaining ten play in a lower league. All teams in the higher league play a total of eighteen games each.

_A new occurrence came in the form of Coach Gigi Cagni, who led the team to being promoted into Serie A for the first time ever in the year 1993. With footballers like Francesco Turrini, Giampiero Piovani and Daniele Moretti in the side, the club performed well in the tournament, and held a decent middle position at the final ratings. However, they did not manage to retain their position, and were relegated back to Serie B. but after they decided to keep Coach Cagni and many of the players from the squad, the club bounced back into Serie A in the 1995 season, after having won the Serie B tournament the previous season.

The Piacenza Calcio football club has won the Anglo-Italian Cup once in the year 1986; and they were champions of the Emilian Championships in the 1919/20 season. Some of the top footballers who have been part of this club are as follows: Italians - Davide Baiocco, Sandro Cois, Eusebio Di Francesco, Alberto Gilardino, Dario Hübner, Filippo Inzaghi, Simone Inzaghi, Marco Marchionni, Dario Marcolin, Enzo Maresca, Antonio Nocerino, Simone Pepe, Flavio Roma, Giuseppe Signori, Francesco Statuto, Giovanni Stroppa, Massimo Taibi, Pietro Vierchowod, and Sergio Volpi; Sergei Gurenko (Belarus); Brazil’s Francelino Matuzalem and Amauri; France’s Houssine Kharja; Romanian Bogdan Pătraşcu; Uruguay’s Leonardo Martín Migliónico; and Italy’s Massimo Margiotta.

_The Piacenza Calcio football club was founded originally in the year 1919. Football had been a popular sport in the area since the 1800’s, and after a student competition of the sport was held in the city in 1908, there arose the need to form their own football team.

The club’s early years were spent playing only in regional leagues and local competitions like their first school tournament. Most of these games were friendly matches between the teams of the cities close to one another.

In the 1935/36 season, the club made their first entry into the Serie C division of the Italian League. In 1938, the club almost made it into Serie B, but after a thrashing loss to Fanfulla, they had to remain in Serie C. then came the World War II, after which the club finally got a chance to compete in Serie B. but after just two seasons here, the club had to be relegated back to Serie C, owing to a very poor performance.

In 1956, the club got involved in a scandal to do with dishonest sportsmanship, and this led to their being relegated further down into Serie D of the Italian League. But finally in the 1969/70 season, with Tino Molina as their coach and under Vincenzo Romagnoli’s Presidency, they made it back into Serie B. for the next few years, the club kept skipping between Serie C and Serie B, without any major changes in performance.

_COUNTRY:
The Montpellier Herault Sport Club of simply Montpellier HSC is one of France’s football clubs playing in the Ligue 2 Division of the French League. The club was established in the year 1974. It is currently ranked 8th in the Ligue 2 ratings and the club is under the ownership of Louis Nicollin.

HOME STADIUM:
The Montpellier HSC club uses the Stade de la Mosson situated in the city of Montpellier as their Home Ground. It was officially opened in the year 1972, is owned by Louis Nicollin and has a capacity of 32900 people.

ASSOCIATION:
The Montpellier HSC football club is governed and organised by the French Football Federation or the FFF. It was established in the year 1919, received FIFA affiliation in 1907 and UEFA affiliation in 1954. The President of the association is Jean-Pierre Escalettes.

MANAGER:
The present Head Coach and Manager of the Montpellier HSC club is former French defender Rolland Courbis. He has been coaching the club since the ear 2007. The present Chairman of the club is Frenchman Louis Nicollin.

TROPHIES & TITLES:
The Montpellier SC club has won the Ligue 2 tournament 3 times so far, in 1946, 1961 and 1987; and were runners-up in 1952, 1981 and 1993.

The club was also winner of the Champion DH Sud-Est 3 times, in 1928, 1932, and 1976. They won the Coupe de France tournament two times, in 1929 and 1990, and were runners-up in 1931 and 1994.