UEFA European Football Calendar 2011/2012

UEFA have released the 2011/2012 Champions League schedule around which you can plan all your viewing of the tournament.

The Champions League fixture list for 2011/2012 has been released and now that the tournament has reached the group stage every match takes on extra importance. Teams like Barcelona, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are all looking to both signal their intentions to win the tournament and qualify for the knockout stages early, so that they can rest some star players for the later matches.

June 20, 2011	draw for 1st and 2nd qualifying round Champions League draw for 1st and 2nd qualifying round Europa League
June 28/29 2011	1st qualifying round Champions League, 1st leg
June 30, 2011	1st qualifying round Europa League, 1st leg
July 5/6, 2011	1st qualifying round Champions League, 2nd leg
July 7, 2011	1st qualifying round Europa League, 2nd leg
July 12/13, 2011	2nd qualifying round Champions League, 1st leg
July 14, 2011	2nd qualifying round Europa League, 1st leg
July 15, 2011	draw for 3rd qualifying round Champions League draw for 3rd qualifying round Europa League
July 19/20, 2011	2nd qualifying round Champions League, 2nd leg
July 21, 2011	2nd qualifying round Europa League, 2nd leg
July 26/27, 2011	3rd qualifying round Champions League, 1st leg
July 28, 2011	3rd qualifying round Europa League, 1st leg
August 2/3, 2011	3rd qualifying round Champions League, 2nd leg
August 4, 2011	3rd qualifying round Europa League, 2nd leg
August 5, 2011	draw for 4th qualifying round (play-off round) Champions League draw for 4th qualifying round (play-off round) Europa League
August 16/17, 2011	4th qualifying round Champions League, 1st leg
August 18, 2011	4th qualifying round Europa League, 1st leg
August 23/24, 2011	4th qualifying round Champions League, 2nd leg
August 25, 2011	draw for Champions League group stage
August 25, 2011	4th qualifying round Europa League, 2nd leg
August 26, 2011	draw for Europa League group stage
September 13/14, 2011	1st match Champions League group stage
September 15, 2011	1st match Europa League group stage
September 27/28, 2011	2nd match Champions League group stage
September 29, 2011	2nd match Europa League group stage
October 18/19, 2011	3rd match Champions League group stage
October 20, 2011	3rd match Europa League group stage
November 1/2, 2011	4th match Champions League group stage
November 3, 2011	4th match Europa League group stage
November 22/23, 2011	5th match Champions League group stage
November 30/December 1, 2011	5th match Europa League group stage
December 6/7, 2011	6th match Champions League group stage
December 14/15, 2011	6th match Europa League group stage
December 16, 2011	draw for 2nd round (round of 16) Champions League draw for 2nd (round of 32) and 3rd round (round of 16) Europa League
February 14/15/21/22, 2012	2nd round Champions League, 1st leg
February 16, 2012	2nd round Europa League, 1st leg
February 23, 2012	2nd round Europa League, 2nd leg
March 6/7/13/14, 2012	2nd round Champions League, 2nd leg
March 8, 2012	3rd round Europa League, 1st leg
March 15, 2012	3rd round Europa League, 2nd leg
March 16, 2012	draw for quarter-finals and semi-finals Champions League draw for quarter-finals and semi-finals Europa League
March 27/28, 2012	Quarter Finals Champions League, 1st leg
March 29, 2012	Quarter Finals Europa League, 1st leg
April 3/4, 2012	Quarter Finals Champions League, 2nd leg
April 5, 2012	Quarter Finals Europa League, 2nd leg
April 17/18, 2012	Semi Finals Champions League, 1st leg
April 19, 2012	Semi Finals Europa League, 1st leg
April 24/25, 2012	Semi Finals Champions League, 2nd leg
April 26, 2012	Semi Finals Europa League, 2nd leg
May 9, 2012	Final Europa League (Bucuresti)
May 19, 2012	Final Champions League (München)

Nasa Satellite Finally Plummets to Earth in Ball of Fire

Debris from the falling Nasa satellite has been spotted crashing to Earth by amateur skywatchers across the world.

A series of videos purportedly showing the UARS spacecraft entering the atmosphere have emerged, with a sightings in Texas and California caught on film by news stations.

In a clip shown on Good Morning America, the satellite can be seen streaking across the sky somewhere over California.

Another video, lasting 46 seconds and taken by local news station KSAT, shows a bright light shooting past stars over San Antonio, Texas, with the cameraman only just able to keep up with its speed.

A video posted on YouTube captures what could be the satellite crashing to Earth at 3.55am local time in Maro Valley, near Imperia in north Italy.

It shows a vein of light flashing downwards and the poster writes the object made a loud noise and bounced once in the valley. Reports suggest the satellite could have been in the area at the time.

The out-of-control satellite probably crashed to Earth today, splitting up into dozens of fragments as it entered the atmosphere over the Pacific, Nasa has revealed.

But experts at the space agency still do not know exactly where pieces, which plummeted towards our planet at 18,000mph, landed - except that it did not touch U.S. airspace.

A Tweet on Nasa's official Twitter account this morning said debris from the six-tonne Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite had landed.

And if they hit land at all, it is likely to have come down in Canada or Africa. But the agency said it is seeking official confirmation with the United States Strategic Command.

And it added, on another Tweet, that anyone who finds a piece of debris would have to hand it over.

The agency said: 'Any pieces of #UARS found are still the property of the country that made it. You'll have to give 'em back to U.S.'

The craft was being tracked by all available equipment, including a giant radar at RAF Fylingdales on the North York Moors, England, on its path towards our planet.

NASA said it would only know two hours before impact where it would land – and even that prediction would only be accurate to the nearest 6,000 miles.

The agency said it could be anywhere between the 57th parallel north, which crosses Britain at around Inverness, and the 57th parallel south, which passes just below South America.

Global interest in the satellite grew yesterday: a website set up to 'track' the falling satellite was constantly crashing under incredible demand, and an app for Android smartphones, Satellite AR, allowed people to 'see' where it was at any moment.

An incredible video captured the doomed Nasa satellite earlier this week as NASA experts slowly narrowed down the area where it could strike.

Astrophotographer Thierry Legault's clip, shot in northern France, shows the 20-year-old UARS satellite, appearing as a beaming mass of light as it careers to Earth.

The station at RAF Fylingdalers was originally built at the height of the Cold War to track any incoming ballistic missile attack - a role it still performs.

An RAF spokeswoman said: 'The Space Operations Room at Royal Air Force Fylingdales is manned 24 hours a day by specialist Royal Air Force and civilian personnel, and its operators will be working to track the UARS object as it returns to the atmosphere.

'The Solid State Phased Array Radar is being tasked by the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force to concentrate its radar energy towards the object in order to track its final orbit.'

'This information will then be used by various different agencies to predict the path of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.'

The 20-year-old Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was the biggest Nasa spacecraft to fall uncontrolled from the sky in 32 years.

It was expected to break into more than 100 pieces as it enters the atmosphere, most of it burning up.

The heaviest metal parts were expected to reach Earth, the biggest chunk weighing about 300lb. It was thought the debris could be scattered over an area about 500 miles long.

Mr Legault's footage of UARS was captured through the lens of his Celestron EdgeHD 14in Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope in Dunkerque, France on September 15 - eight to nine days before its estimated re-entry.

Filmed at an altitude of only 250km, the body of the UARS is visible, as are its solar arrays.

Mr Legault told the skywatching website Spaceweather.com at the time: 'The satellite appears to be tumbling, perhaps because a collision with satellite debris a few years ago. The variations in brightness are rapid and easily visible to the human eye.'

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, ran out of fuel in 2005. Nasa spokesman Steve Cole said: ‘Anybody who finds a piece of the satellite should stay away from it and call the police and let them deal with it.

‘It could be very hot or it could be dangerous. It depends on what speed the debris is going, but it could go be going fast enough to go through a house.'

It was falling to Earth at five miles per second, faster than previously thought and experts said there was a one in 3,200 chance of someone being hit by debris – more likely than getting a hole in one during a round of golf. The 35ft Nasa craft was put into space in 1991 to monitor climate change.

In 1979 Skylab, which was 15 times bigger, rained charred chunks on the Indian Ocean and western Australia after Nasa said it would land in South Africa.

In 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia exploded upon re-entry killing its entire crew, large chunks of its shell landed across Texas.

Source

Mancini now a hostage to fortune on Manchester City's good ship Venus

By going public on the Carlos Tevez no-show, the manager will be under increasing pressure as long as the Argentinian is around

Carlos Tevez sits behind the Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini during this month's 2-2 draw at Fulham, where he replaced Sergio Agüero for the final seven minutes. Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images

Troublesome footballers are rarely sacked. More often than not they are sold or in extreme cases given free transfers. Either way there is almost always another club willing to take them on, baggage and all.

But who on earth would want to buy Carlos Tevez after the Munich business? Probably the same people who have shown an interest in him before, except that they would now expect to get the player at a much reduced price.

Tevez may not be a fan of the Marx Brothers but his theme song could well be Groucho's old number Hello, I Must Be Going. That employers have been prepared to accommodate his whims and mood changes is in its way a tribute to what he offers on the field, which is total commitment and the knack of winning matches. His combination of skill, pace and a strong physical presence has made him admirably suited to the intensity of the Premier League.

Which is why Manchester City signed him from Manchester United, where he had won Premier and Champions League honours before the feet began to itch. At Eastlands City's habit of signing up every gifted footballer going had forced Tevez down the pecking order before he remained rooted to the bench at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday as his manager, Roberto Mancini, tried to salvage something from an evening that had gone badly wrong, Bayern having led 2-0 at half-time.

What actually happened after Mancini had told Tevez to get warmed up has become obfuscated in the mists of assertion and denial. Mancini said after the match that the player had refused to go on. Tevez has since claimed that he did nothing of the kind and that the incident arose out of a misunderstanding due to language difficulties.

Even if the exchange involved Italian, Spanish and broken English it is hard to see how an instruction to warm up could be misinterpreted. Tevez's plea that he was already warmed up, whereupon Mancini is supposed to have said that if he did not warm up he could not play, recalls Basil Fawlty's dealings with Manuel: "This ball, that pitch, this smack on head!"

City's decision to suspend Tevez for a fortnight, the maximum allowed in the Premier League, shows the club believe the player has a case to answer. Mancini's priority is to repair the mood in the dressing room which even without the Tevez affair would have been in danger of fracturing following Edin Dzeko's petulant reaction to being substituted.

Before City went to Munich the English season was enjoying the prospect of the two Mancunian dreadnoughts slugging it out for the Premier League title. At the moment Manchester City would appear to possess the might of that old favourite with bawdy balladeers, The Good Ship Venus.

Ructions between managers and players tend to be kept in-house and by going public on Tevez so soon after the game Mancini has made himself a hostage to fortune, whatever the rights and wrongs. The longer Tevez is still around, the greater will be the pressure on the manager's authority.

The reaction of the football public and pundits towards Tevez has generally been scathing and nobody has summed things up better than Graeme Souness: "He epitomises what the man in the street thinks is wrong with modern footballers." When George Eastham went on strike at Sunderland in the early 1960s as a protest against the retain-and-transfer system, he enjoyed the nation's sympathy. Tevez has earned its condemnation.

In football, however, it is dangerous to assume that words will be backed by deeds. Towards the end of 1974 Keith Weller refused to take the field after half-time for Leicester City, then managed by Jimmy Bloomfield, against Ipswich and left the ground before the end of the game, which Leicester lost 1-0. He was put on the transfer list and fined two weeks' wages.

John Bond, in charge at Norwich, wrote to other managers asking them to blacklist Weller. "Here is a chance for managers to unite," he declared. "If Weller is allowed to get away with this there is nothing to stop any other player who fancies a move doing exactly the same." In the event Weller stayed at Filbert Street for another four years.City could do worse than erect a billboard by the westbound carriageway of the M56 depicting a rear view of Tevez above the words: "You are now leaving Manchester."That would tickle Sir Alex Ferguson.

Source

Carlos Tevez: Manchester City bans journalists' questions

Manchester City tried to prevent any further speculation about Carlos Tevez by warning journalists not to ask the manager, Roberto Mancini, about the issue at a press conference

Source : www.guardian.co.uk