The performance of the developmental team in their recent joust in the gulf city somehow provides a glimpse of where the program is at right now. This program is aimed to restore basketball supremacy in Asia that we Filipinos had been enjoying for decades. It was patterned after the Northern Cement team of the eighties where a foreigner was tasked to do the coaching chores, beefed up with naturalized players and with a financial backing of a mogul with a vast interest in basketball. That formula came up with a gold medal finish in the 1986 ABC, the forerunner of the FIBA-Asia. Had it not been with the political instability right after EDSA I, Northern Cement-backed team should have played in the 1986 World Championship in Madrid, Spain. In short, the formula is effective. That is why, I am confident that Smart Gilas can duplicate the feat of the Northern Cement back in the eighties. And I believe that Gilas is on the right track.

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Japan’s high school baseball sensation Yusei Kikuchi finally reached a deal with Seibu Lions. The 18-year old left handed pitcher will receive Y100 million upon signing and Y15 million on his first year with the team.

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LA Tenorio of the Alaska Aces and Kelly Williams of the Sta. Lucia Realtors are named Co-Players of the Week November 16-22 in the ongoing KFC-Philippine Cup in the Philippine Basketball Association. Tenorio has been leading his team to a league-best 8-1 record midway in the elimination round. Williams, on the other hand, leads the league in rebounds at 13.1 a game and is one of the top scorers with 17 an outing.

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Atletico Madrid president  Enrique Cerezo appealed to its fans to be patient with the team’s dismal performance in the Spanish La Liga. The team has already been eliminated from this year’s Champion’s League and is in their worst start in over 56 years.

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FIFA president Sepp Blatter has called on an extraordinary general meeting on December 2 in Cape Town, South Africa. The meeting will tackle issues concerning irregularities in the football betting market and controversies in the qualifiers for next year’s World Cup especially the match of France against Republic of Ireland recently.

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World Series MVP Hideki Matsui has officially become a free agent. Together with five Yankees and one hundred fifty more in the MLB, Matsui can now accept offers from any team following the end of his contract.

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Chan Ho Park of this year’s runner-up Philadelphia Phillies has joined three other teammates in filing for free agency.  It is expected that a handful of teams will chase the right-handed Relief Pitcher from Gongju, South Korea.

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Real Madrid winger Christiano Ronaldo has accepted the libel damages from Daily Mirror.  The tabloid newspaper was sued after it reported that Ronaldo drank heavily and danced in a night club in Los Angeles while he was recovering from his injury.

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Wayne Rooney of Manchester United has been warned of his future conduct after he criticized game officials following their loss to Chelsea.  He was seen of his remarks on television cameras intended primarily on referee Martin Atkinson.

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Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez refused to concede their team’s title hopes even though trailed in the standings and hounded by injuries to key players.  In an interview last Monday, November 9, he told scribes that they are taking one game at time and a championship dream is still realistic at this stage.

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LA Dodgers pitcher Vicente Padilla is now recovering in Metropolitan Hospital in Managua, Nicaragua after he was accidentally shot in the leg by his instructor in one of his target shooting sessions last Tuesday, November 3.

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Vergel Meneses was recently named as the new head coach of the Jose Rizal University Heavy Bombers basketball team in the Philippines’ National Collegiate Athletic Association after former coach Ariel Vanguardia’s contract was not renewed.

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Christiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid will continue to be sidelined and will miss this Saturday’s game against Atletico Madrid following reports that his ankle injury showed no signs of progress.

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Greg Norman will miss this year’s Australian Open after his doctors advised him not to play competitive golf within the year as he recovers from the arthroscopic surgery he underwent last September.

PHOTO COURTESY: VINICIUSLENNERT AND MEDIA.PHOTOBUCKET.COM

In one in a hundred probability, Brazil has secured to host two of the world’s biggest sporting events in a span of two years. On October 30, 2007, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) announced that Brazil will stage the 20^th FIFA World Cup in June – July 2014. And just this weekend, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) likewise declared the City of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil as the winning bidder to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

PHOTO COURTESY: FACEBOOK.COM

Brazil was virtually unchallenged in its attempt for 2014 FIFA World Cup host as Columbia withdrew its proposal months prior to the official selection.  It was earlier decided by the highest governing body of soccer that the 20^th staging will be on the South American continent.

A total of 64 games will be played in 10 cities during the tournament. The ten cities are Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Cuiba, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Sao Paulo.

PHOTO COURTESY: MIGRE.ME

As for the bidding of the 2016 Olympic games, Rio de Janeiro was strongly challenged by four other cities – Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo.  In the end, the members of the selection committee of the IOC finally gave in to the pressure of the South Amercian countries to award the staging in their continent for the very first time. Never in the Olympic history that such event was held in South America.