Termine » se again in the 2007 BCS title game, to LS

NYON, Switzerland -- The Champions League final could be contested outside Europe for the first time, new UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said Thursday.In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Ceferin said he will revive an open bidding process for the right to host the climax to the European club season and is open to the game being staged in New York.Iit might be an idea in future but we have to speak about it, Ceferin said, highlighting how travel times across Europe can be as long as flights to the United States. To go from Portugal to Azerbaijan for example is almost the same or the same as if you go to New York. For the fans its no problem but we should see. Its a European competition so lets think about it.UEFA could gauge the appetite for taking its major finals beyond Europe by first experimenting with the less-regarded Super Cup, which is played in August between the winners of the Champions League and Europa League.UEFA has until now been awarding the honor of staging its showpiece finals without any tendering process, with stadium hosts decided in secret by the leadership.The bidding process should be very clear because if you get the Champions League finals or Europa League finals as a political favor then its not OK, Ceferin said. With a clear bidding procedure I will protect also the administration and myself because whoever tries to call us, to push us, to ask us for such a favor we will have a clear answer, `Sorry, there are clear rules we cannot do it.In his first major interview since succeeding Michel Platini as UEFA president last month, Ceferin displayed a willingness to innovate while not damaging the organizations lucrative competitions.The Champions League is the best sporting product in the world, Ceferin said at UEFA headquarters in Nyon on the banks of Lake Geneva.And the former Slovenia federation president will not sacrifice the success of the competition by shifting kickoff times to pander to expanding soccer markets in Asia just to sweep up more television viewers or sponsors in the region. Games are always played in the evening in Europe, when much of Asia is asleep.From a financial point of view its not ideal, Ceferin said. We should think also about other markets, but how to do it exactly Im not sure yet. China is financially interesting and the U.S. is not just financially interesting, but football is growing there.Only the final is played on a Saturday, but one option would be to also move the semifinals from their current midweek slot.There are some ideas about that because then China is not asleep because its Saturday and they can watch, said Ceferin, whose presidential term runs until 2019. But there are many problems concerning that with the calendar of the leagues. National leagues are too important.You have the Premier League which is very strong. Its an idea (semifinals at the weekend) that came out but its too early to say anything concrete on it.While mulling modifications to the Champions League, Ceferin is also involved in talks on whether to expand the World Cup. In his first FIFA Council meeting last week since becoming one of the governing bodys vice presidents, Ceferin heard President Gianni Infantino propose boosting the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams.We didnt want to vote on it as it was too early, Ceferin said. We simply didnt get any information about it. Nothing. Just shall we expand or not. We said we cannot say.Ceferin is awaiting proper analysis on the merits of such a significant overhaul of the tournament. He is already certain Europe should gain a fair share of the additional 16 places rather than expansion being used to correct disparities between how the slots are currently split between the six confederations.Thirteen teams qualify for the World Cup from the 55-nation UEFA region and Ceferin believes that fans in North America and Asia prefer to watch our teams.If you put it to a vote (on the number of additional UEFA places) we might lose but we are the strongest confederation, nobody should forget that -- strongest in quality and all other aspects, Ceferin said. We have the best national teams. So I doubt they will outvote us.Ceferin said UEFA doesnt want to hurt the other confederations but sees additional European teams as adding to the quality of the World Cup.I know everyone is afraid of playing Europe in the playoffs, he said. I can understand them but if you are afraid of playing someone that team is probably better so that team deserves to go (to the World Cup).UEFA has already ceded ground on the 2026 World Cup, with Ceferin approving FIFA blocking Europe from bidding given the 2018 tournament is in Russia. North America is now the favorite to host the event for the first time since the 1994 World Cup in the United States.It would really be hard for me to say it would be good if it goes to North America or Africa, Ceferin said. But given the infrastructure possibilities, probably Africa will have a hard time to place a serious bid.---Rob Harris can be followed at www.twitter.com/RobHarris and www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports Air Max Outlet Sale . The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Lions have not announced the hiring, which was first reported by ESPN. Lombardi, the grandson of former Green Bay Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, has been an offensive assistant on Sean Paytons New Orleans staff since 2007. Nike Air Max Cheap Wholesale . It might not have mattered. While the Dodgers are preparing for the playoffs, the Padres showed their future has promise behind two rookies. http://www.airmaxoutletcheap.com/ . -- Jacksonville wide receiver Cecil Shorts will likely be a game-time decision whether hell play Sunday in the Jaguars home game against the San Diego Chargers. Cheap Nike Air Max China Wholesale . Howard Ganz, an MLB lawyer, said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos that Rodriguezs claims do not come "remotely close" to what is needed to overturn an arbitration decision in federal court. Cheap Nike Air Max Clearance . -- Matt Kuchar and Harris English ran away with the Franklin Templeton Shootout, shooting a 14-under 58 on Sunday in the final-round scramble to break the tournament course record. John Davis still owns a physical piece of the Big Tens Game of the Century. It sits in a plastic baggie in his mothers closet.Davis was a high school senior in Columbus, Ohio, in 2006, when he worked all summer in a TV repair shop to afford tickets to the Michigan-Ohio State game that season. After the No. 1 Buckeyes held off the No. 2 Wolverines 42-39, Davis and thousands of other fans ran onto the Ohio Stadium field and dug up their own souvenir patches of grass.Davis grabbed a hunk of turf near the 50-yard line. Ten years later, that once-pristine soil has degraded to become a few clumps of dirt, but the memories remain fresh. Hands down the best game Ive ever seen and the best game Ive ever been to, said Davis, now 28.No. 3 Michigan and No. 2 Ohio State look headed for another potential classic in the Horseshoe on Saturday (noon ET, ABC/ESPN App), and it naturally conjures up thoughts from a decade earlier. This will be the first top-five matchup between the two schools since Nov. 18, 2006, which featured the only showdown of Nos. 1 vs. 2 in 112 versions of the series.Even if Saturdays game turns into an instant classic, it would have a hard time matching its 2006 predecessor in hype, drama and circumstance. That game came before the College Football Playoff and Big Ten division era, meaning the winner would head straight to the national title game. It carried the tinge of tragedy, as Michigan legend Bo Schembechler died a little more than 24 hours before kickoff. The outcome decided the most recent Big Ten Heisman Trophy winner. And the game itself so thoroughly lived up to expectations that some called for a rematch in the BCS championship.It was one of those moments when you knew and you could feel that everybody in the entire country was watching you, said Doug Datish, the starting center for Ohio State in 2006. You could feel the enormity of it.It was a moment when two old archrivals stood atop the college football world.Ive never seen anything as big as this gameThe collision course between Ohio State and Michigan became apparent early on in 2006.The Buckeyes entered the season ranked No. 1 in both major polls and dispatched No. 2 Texas 24-7 in Austin in Week 2. The Wolverines, who were 14th in the preseason, beat the new No. 2 team, Notre Dame, 47-21 in South Bend in Week 3. From there on, each ripped through the Big Ten schedule.Maybe four or five weeks into the season, guys in our locker room started talking, said David Patterson,?who played defensive tackle for the Buckeyes. Hey, Michigan might be undefeated. We might both be undefeated.The Wolverines climbed to No. 2 in the second week of the BCS standings on Oct. 22, and the two teams would stay 1-2 until their season-ending clash the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It was the first time since 1973 that the two teams entered The Game undefeated. ESPNs College GameDay headed to Columbus, along with an HBO documentary crew. Ohio State issued a record number of media credentials, and the traditional noon kickoff time was moved to 3:30 p.m. ET to increase exposure.Ohio State fan Austin Capell, who was in sixth grade at the time, remembers his elementary school outside of Dayton playing Buckeye Battle Cry over the loudspeakers the Friday before the game and O-H-I-O chants breaking out all during recess.Ive never seen anything as big as this game, said Bruce Madej, who served as Michigans sports information director from 1982 to 2010. It was wild.Michigan-Ohio State week is always intense on both sides. Buckeyes head coach Jim Tressel had former coach Earle Bruce deliver a fiery address to the team on Sunday night, and former star linebacker Jack Tatum gave a speech on Thursday night. The Wolverines had their own motivational speaker lined up for a Thursday talk: Bo Schembechler.The legendary coach was in poor health, and he skipped an appointment with a cardiologist to speak to the team, said his son, Shemy Schembechler. As late as Thursday afternoon, Shemy Schembechler said, Michigan coach Lloyd Carr tried to talk Bo out of the speech and to visit his doctor instead.But Bo said, Im speaking to the team if its the last thing I do, Shemy recalled.Tom Slade, a Michigan quarterback from the early 1970s, had just died of leukemia a few days earlier. Schembechler told the Wolverines about the bond he still had with Slade and stressed how loyalty and brotherhood defined a Michigan man.It was a heartfelt speech, a pretty amazing speech, said Leon Hall, former Michigan cornerback now with the NFLs New York Giants. A lot of the reasons we are who we are at Michigan is because of him. The next morning, Schembechler died of a heart attack while preparing to tape his weekly TV show. Carr called a team meeting to break the news to the players.He told us that it doesnt change anything, said Garrett Rivas, the place-kicker for the 2006 Wolverines. We werent going to go Win for Bo, because thats not the way he would have wanted it. He wouldnt have wanted to take anything away from the rivalry. Suddenly, the immensely hyped game took on new meaning for the Wolverines.There was a pall over the game, just because he was such a significant part of not just Michigan but the Big Ten and nationally, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said. I remember there was kind of a depressed feel about it, a sadness.Youve got to win that last game of the yearThe bus ride from Ann Arbor to Columbus for a Michigan-Ohio State game is always interesting. Madej remembers rocks being thrown at the team bus, and one year a stone shattered a window. On a later trip, Madej and offensive lineman Jeff Backus decided to count how many middle fingers they saw aimed at them from Ohio State fans.We stopped counting when it got over triple digits, Madej said.The 2006 trip, though, brought a different feel. For one, former Michigan quarterback Chad Henne recalls, there was a TV news helicopter following the bus all the way down U.S. 23. Fans lined the sides of the highway and overpasses with banners cheering the team on. Even Buckeyes fans held signs of support for Schembechler, who after all was from Barbeton, Ohio, and got his coaching start at Ohio State. With Michigans help, the Buckeyes put together a pregame tribute to Schembechler, followed by a moment of silence.The reception we got was amazing, Hall said.A spot in the BCS title game was on the line, but Tressel didnt talk about that all week with his team. He remembered the 2003 Michigan game, when the defending national champion Buckeyes, ranked No. 2 in the BCS standings, lost their chance to repeat when they fell to the Wolverines. Tressel thought they had focused too much on the bigger picture before that loss.We didnt make that mistake the rest of the time we were there, he said. So really in 2006, we didnt talk about the championship game at all. We talked about the Ohio State-Michigan game.The Wolverines and the Buckeyes had two of the best defenses in the country that seeason, and their games over the years were known for being low-scoring, physical affairs.dddddddddddd The first signs that things would be different this time came early, as both teams marched for touchdowns on their opening possessions.The Buckeyes took a 14-point lead in the second quarter on a trick play. Wideout Ted Ginn Jr. lined up as a tight end on second-and-inches and streaked free for a touchdown pass after a fake handoff.We had worked on that play all year and we had never run it, Datish said. I remember when that play call came in, I thought, I guess thats why we put that thing in.Michigan answered every big Ohio State play and cut the lead to four points twice in the third quarter. The Buckeyes, though, had Troy Smith.Smith had been nursing a sore thumb for a few weeks and didnt play well the previous week against Illinois. Against Michigan, he threw for 316 yards and four touchdowns, wrapping up the Heisman in the process. Tressel recalled Smiths performance as one for the ages.I was able to channel some of my teammates energy and their vigor in wanting to get the game going, Smith said. I used that to block out whatever I was going to think about my thumb.Michigan looked to have gotten a crucial third-down stop in the fourth quarter, but Shawn Crable was called for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Smith as the quarterback ran out of bounds. The penalty gave Ohio State a first down, and theyd go on to score for a 42-31 lead.The Wolverines would score again, but the onside kick failed and Ohio State ran out the clock.We all had a sick feeling in our stomach, knowing we had let an opportunity slip away, Rivas said. I had a sour, disgusted taste in my mouth.Ohio State fans jubilantly rushed onto the field, many of them like Davis taking chunks of grass home as mementos. The school switched to synthetic Field Turf before the 2007 season.It was an amazing sight, said Malcolm Jenkins, an Ohio State DB now with the?Philadelphia Eagles. Fans literally tore up square footage of grass, threw them over their shoulders and walked out of the stadium. It was a magical day.How magical? The numbers 4-2-3-9 -- the same as the final score -- were drawn in the Ohio Lotterys Pick 4 game that evening. The Buckeyes were going to the national title game. Even more important, to them, they had beaten their rival.Whenever you get a chance to play in a national championship, its always cool and fine and dandy, Smith said. But Im from Ohio. If you want to feel safe around these parts, youd better pull out all of your tricks for that game, because its pretty important. Youve got to win that last game of the year.But should that have been the last Ohio State-Michigan game that season?Ohio State and Michigan were thisclose to a rematchTalk of a potential rematch began soon after the final horn. Recent precedent existed. Florida State beat Florida in its 1996 regular-season finale, and then the Gators got a rematch and downed the Seminoles 52-20 in the Sugar Bowl for the national title. Five years after the 2006 game, LSU and Alabama would stage a second meeting in the BCS championship game.Michigan had an argument, having lost to the No. 1 team on the road by three points. But neither Carr nor the Big Ten publicly lobbied for the Wolverines.There was a system in place, Delany said. That would have been a mindless waste of energy, I would think.Urban Meyer had no such qualms. The day after the Michigan-Ohio State game, the then-Florida coach called the idea of a rematch unfair and said, If they do that, we should go to a playoff next year.Urban Meyer, he campaigned pretty much, Henne said. Coach Carrs a traditionalist and he did it his way. Thats the only thing that kind of bugged me, that we kind of sat back and let it go on and we got pushed out.Back in 2006, the Big Ten still finished its schedule before Thanksgiving week and did not have a championship game. Michigans season was over a full two weeks before Florida bolstered its case by beating Arkansas in the SEC title game. That lag was one of the reasons the Big Ten eventually extended its season past Thanksgiving and expanded to form divisions and a title game, said Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith.It was hard to break away from that tradition, but I think its better for our league, Smith said. We needed to have a presence in that same window of time.In the end, the Gators edged out Michigan for the No. 2 spot by 0.0101 points in the BCS formula.Florida was a good team but it was kind of like, well, we probably deserved it, Henne said. But we had our one opportunity and we lost.Ohio State players had no interest in playing Michigan again.That game went down to the wire, Jenkins said. It was emotionally draining, and it would be hard to get another game to replicate that.I dont think the fans or anyone wanted to see that, Patterson said. But looking back, maybe that would have worked out better for us.The BCS system was vindicated when Florida clobbered Ohio State 41-14 in the title game and Michigan lost by two touchdowns to USC in the Rose Bowl. That also would begin the decline of the Big Ten as a whole and signal the ascendance of SEC dominance. The Buckeyes would lose again in the 2007 BCS title game, to LSU, and the Big Ten went through a national championship drought until Ohio State won it all in the 2014 season.Michigan, meanwhile, took nearly a decade to fully recover. The Ohio State game was the first of four straight losses, as the Wolverines were stunningly upset by Appalachian State to open 2007 and then fell to Oregon. Carr resigned after that season, and the program then wandered the wilderness under Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke until favorite son Jim Harbaugh came home.Can any game ever top The Game from 2006?There are significant differences between this years game and 2006 because of the playoff and Big Ten divisional system. Both teams have a loss this time around, and its highly unlikely anyone will call for a rematch.Still, the echoes are there.You have two iconic head coaches and unbelievable talent on both teams, Gene Smith said. The fandom will probably be the same, at the highest level, and the demand for tickets will be the same. As far as the game itself, the magnitude will be very similar.You cant get more electric than The Game, Tressel said. This week will probably be 2 against 3. You cant get much bigger than that. It will be a special day.John Davis will be there again. While he wont be taking any of the playing surface home this time, Davis is hoping The Game he witnesses in 2016 lives up to the one in 2006. We all are.Without a doubt, looking back now, that game was in line with the hype, Rivas said of the 2006 classic. It was all that and then some.Michael DiRocco, Tim McManus,?Jordan Raanan and?Adam Rittenberg contributed to this story. cheap falcons jerseys cheap ravens jerseys cheap bills jerseys cheap bears jerseys cheap bengals jerseys cheap cowboys jerseys cheap lions jerseys cheap texans jerseys cheap colts jerseys cheap jaguars jerseys cheap chiefs jerseys cheap rams jerseys cheap dolphins jerseys cheap vikings jerseys cheap saints jerseys cheap giants jerseys cheap jets jerseys cheap eagles jerseys cheap steelers jerseys cheap 49ers jerseys ' ' '