Not many people know this, but Aston Villa is a proud 7 times FA Cup winner. The team won the FA Cup in 1887, 1895, 1897, 1905, 1913, 1920, and 1957. Although the achievements were made a long time ago, it showed just how good this team can be. Aside from the FA Cup wins, Aston Villa also won the League Cup in 1961, 1975, 1977, 1994, and 1996 as well as the Charity Shield in 1981. The Charity Shield was shared with Tottenham Hotspur at the time.

Aside from the mentioned wins, Aston Villa was also a great team in the European competitions. They have won the European Cup in 1982, along with European super Cup in 1982-1983. Their latest great achievements were winning the InterToto Cup in 2001 and 2008. In the domestic league, Aston Villa collected no less than 7 First Division Champions’ trophies.

Although the team’s last major win was in 1996, there is no doubt that fans and management of the team are still expecting a nice comeback. The team is improving, adding quality players and improving the used strategies; expect a lot of surprises from the team real soon.

The City of Manchester Stadium was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The total cost needed to build this stadium was £110 million, which was a staggering amount at the time. Manchester City moved to this stadium just one year after, signing a cool 250-year lease and calling this stadium their home.

It is no surprise at all that this stadium is the fourth largest stadium in the FA Premier League and the 12th biggest in the United Kingdom. With over £100 million used to build it, the City of Manchester Stadium can hold up to 47,726 people — fully seated — with the groundbreaking record of attendance now at 47,348.

The City of Manchester Stadium was first designed back in 1990. The original plan was to build a stadium that can hold up to 80,000 people for the 2000 Summer Olympics. After the 2000 Summer Olympics were awarded to Australia, the Manchester City Council made a successful bid for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and began building the stadium in 1999. Most of the required funding was provided by Sport England.

City of Manchester Stadium has one of the highest league average attendances for the past couple of years, and it is among the best stadium in the country.

Goalkeeper Víctor Valdés is the man responsible of keeping Barcelona’s last defense line safely guarded. Valdés is showing superb performances the past couple of matches, so it is safe to say that the goalkeeper will continue to block any ball being shot to his direction. To make scoring a goal through Barcelona’s defense line even harder, Éric Abidal, Carles Puyol, and Rafael Márquez along with several other defensive players are forming a solid line in front of the penalty area.

In the midfield, you can see amazing players such as Andrés Iniesta, Xavi Hernández, and Seydou Keita constructing attacks and breaking barriers of opponents’ defense line. Barcelona’s midfielders are known to be fearsome even under pressure.

Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimović, and tons of other sharp attackers are scoring goals for the team. These players are very smart in making good use of every opportunity they have to score a goal, making Barcelona a very sharp team in terms of attack and defense alike.

Zinedine Zidane, Fabien Barthez, Claude Makelele and Lilian Thuram — all start players of the team in 1998 — are all officially retired, so this year’s France is being backed by strong young players along with experienced Thierry Henry leading as the team’s captain. Still we can expect to see great players such as the defensive William Gallas, Jeremy Toulalan, Yoann Gourcuff, and of course Franck Ribery as well as another experienced player Nicolas Anelka along with several other quality players should be more than enough to construct a strong team for the championship.

Raymond Domenech, the team’s coach, is highly motivated to succeed in this year’s World Cup, especially after performing poorly at the 2008 UEFA Euro. The team is hungry for a win indeed, with formations and strategies working out well. French is up for a strong start, but the competition is nothing to be considered light at all. Aside from 2010 World Cup host, South Africa, France is up against Mexico and Uruguay.

Will this year be France’s year? Will they be the next World Cup champion? Only time will tell. With the 2010 World Cup just around the corner, France is a strong contender for sure.