Stockholm (AFP) – Erik Hamren will be bidding to bow out on a high as Sweden coach when he leads the Scandinavian nation into Euro 2016. Hamren, who will turn 59 on June 27, five days after Sweden's final Group E game, announced that he will depart after the European Championship ending a six and […]

Paris (AFP) – Zlatan Ibrahimovic has one of the hottest shots in football and he is not at all modest about it. "One thing is for sure, a World Cup without me is nothing to watch," said the Swedish superstar after his country failed to qualify for Brazil 2014. So it is just as well […]

Milan (AFP) – Antonio Conte has established himself as one of the continent's top coaches going into Euro 2016, but he is a hated figure in his home town of Lecce and prosecutors had chased him with jail threats. After three successful years as Juventus coach, Conte takes the 'Azzurri' to France looking for redemption […]

Lisbon (AFP) – With the rare experience of having coached all of Portugal's big three Porto, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon, Fernando Santos has returned from exile in Greece to try and win the country's first international tournament at Euro 2016. Even a looming touchline ban, reduced from eight games to two on appeal, from an […]

Lisbon (AFP) – For a player that has won almost everything on an individual and collective level, the one honour that agonisingly evades Cristiano Ronaldo is an international trophy with Portugal. Euro 2016 will be Ronaldo's fourth and at 31 possibly last European Championship finals. The previous three have all promised much only to end […]

Milan (AFP) – His trademark stubble shows the odd fleck of grey, but the advancing years are having no effect on the reflexes, and ambition, of evergreen Italy and Juventus captain Gianluigi Buffon. At 38 years old, Buffon’s status as one of the greatest goalkeepers ever means he is a key figure for a redemption-seeking […]

Reykjavik (AFP) – With his status as the star player of his country's golden generation and his prowess from a dead ball, it is no surprise that Gylfi Sigurdsson has been labelled the Icelandic David Beckham. The 26-year-old attacking midfielder with a fierce right foot shot admits that he loved watching England stars Beckham and […]

ESPN has moved the opening game of the Euro 2016 game between France and Romania from ESPN to ESPN2 due to its coverage of the Muhammad Ali memorial service. The Euro 2016 Coverage will begin at 2pm ET Friday with a one-hour pre-game program leading into kickoff at 3pm ET. France vs. Romania will originate […]

Reykjavik (AFP) – "I know international football", says Lars Lagerback and it is hard to disagree with such an assessment from a man who is about to lead Iceland into a major tournament for the first time. The 67-year-old took his native Sweden to five major finals and coached Nigeria at the 2010 World Cup […]

Budapest (AFP) – As managerial gambles go, it was a high stakes play by Hungary's German coach Bernd Storck. In the Euro 2016 qualifying play-off against Norway in November, he handed an international debut to 21-year-old Laszlo Kleinheisler, who had hardly played a game all season at his Hungarian club. The gambit paid off. The […]

Budapest (AFP) – Balazs Dzsudzsak roared the words that inspired Hungary to a play-off win and a place in a major tournment for the first time in three decades. "We might never have this chance again, no-one's going to stop us qualifying! Not Norway, not even the best team in the world!" Dzsudzsak (pronounced 'Joo-jak') […]

Vienna (AFP) – Appointed to little fanfare and a great deal of scepticism, Marcel Koller has transformed a struggling Austrian team remarkably during his four-plus years in charge. A former midfielder who spent his entire playing career with Swiss side Grasshoppers and turned out 55 times for Switzerland, Koller was installed as Austria coach in […]

Vienna (AFP) – Born to a Nigerian father and a Filipino mother, David Alaba is an unlikely poster boy for an Austrian national team soaring unprecedented heights. Raised in Vienna, Alaba left his hometown just after turning 16 to join Bayern Munich's youth academy. As a youngster he idolised Patrick Vieira and dreamed of playing for Arsenal, […]

Paris (AFP) – Kevin De Bruyne's rise to become one of the world's best attacking midfielders mirrors that of a Belgium team which surged to the top of the global rankings in 2015. De Bruyne struck a team-leading five goals -– along with Eden Hazard -– to fire Belgium to the country's first European Championship […]

Paris (AFP) – In a country where linguistic and political divides are the norm, managing the Belgium national team is no simple task, but Marc Wilmots is probably better prepared than most to handle the job. Wilmots travelled to four World Cups as a player and was a key figure in Belgium's midfield when the […]