World important news by Rosio

By Philip O’Connor Sweden’s 3-2 victory over the Netherlands to qualify for Euro 2012 may have surprised many observers, but Swedish footballers have a long history of success against Dutch opposition. The home of “Total Football” has for many years been something of a finishing school for Swedish footballers, and five of the players in the victorious Sweden squad play their club football in the Netherlands. Many others have passed through Holland on their way to better things. “Holland is not unlike Sweden. When they get there, Swedish players are well-schooled and it’s a good country to go to, especially as a first stop (in their career),” Henrik Larsson told the Reuters Sports Blog the day after the Swedes handed the Dutch their only defeat of the qualifying campaign. “They play good football and most people there speak English, so you can make yourself understood much easier than in a league that has a more difficult language,” Larsson said. It’s an atmosphere that Swedes seem to thrive in. Larsson made a name for himself at Feyenoord in Rotterdam before going on to play for Celtic, Barcelona and Manchester United, and his former international strike partner Zlatan Ibrahimovic joined Ajax from Malmo FF before moving to Juventus in Serie A. Many of those who did the most damage to the Dutch in Stockholm play for clubs in Holland. Ola Toivonen, who scored the winning goal for Sweden, is at PSV Eindhoven together with goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson, who did his best to keep them out at the other end. On the bench sat Emir Bajrami of Twente, and defenders Andreas Granqvist and Jonas Olsson have both played in Holland before moving to Italy and England respectively. But it was former Feyenoord and NAC Breda striker Johan Elmander that did the most damage. Now at Galatasaray in Turkey, Elmander tore the Dutch defence to shreds and despite not scoring himself, he was behind all three of Sweden’s goals. Despite being so familiar with their Dutch opponents, few expected the Swedes to beat a team that had previously hammered them 4-1 in the qualifiers, and coasted to nine victories in their first nine games of the campaign. “You would never have tipped 3-2, 1-0 to Sweden maybe. But Sweden did well, and it’s brilliant for Swedish football and the national team. I’m happy for the boys,” Larsson said. One of “the boys” intends to put the famed Dutch sense of tolerance to the test on his return. A euphoric Rasmus Elm told Reuters after the game that he would wear his Swedish shirt to AZ Alkmaar training on his return to the Netherlands later in the week. Asked if the reaction might not be entirely positive, Elm gazed into the distance, enjoying the moment of victory. “We’ll see. We’ll see,” he said, before heading to the team bus and the inevitable celebrations. PHOTO: Sweden’s Ola Toivonen (bottom) celebrates with teammate Sebastian Larsson after scoring during their Euro 2012 Group E qualifying soccer match against the Netherlands at Raasunda stadium in Stockholm October 11, 2011. /Scanpix

The programing deal, for shows from the current schedule through 2014-15 season, is the latest in a string of deals Netflix has been reaching to bulk up its streaming service and convert more subscribers from its more costly DVD mail delivery service.Programmers had initially appeared hostile to what appeared to be Netflix’s threat to the lucrative cable TV programing ecosystem but have recently been reaching new deals. Warner Bros. is owned by Time Warner Inc, whose chief executive Jeff Bewkes had been one of Netflix’s loudest critics until a few months ago.In the past few months Netflix has reached programing deals with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp and Sony Pictures Entertainment for award-winning shows “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad”, as well AMC Networks for “Walking Dead” and other shows.The new deals with Netflix appear to have tighter restrictions such as when they can first be shown, for example.In The CW pact, older-season episodes of some shows, including “One Tree Hill” and “Nikita”, will available October 15 while others are set for January.But episodes of all scripted shows of The CW this season will only be available to Netflix subscribers in the fall of 2012. Other shows through 2014-15 will have about a year’s delay before running on Netflix.Netflix has inked the CW deal in the wake of a major fallout with its subscribers after a series of missteps by Chief Executive Reed Hastings in the last few months.Last week, in response to a subscriber uproar, Netflix was forced to drop a plan to split off its DVD business with a new Qwikster brand.Before that the company had already raised its prices by 60 percent for many customers who want to get both online streaming and DVDs, leading to hundreds of thousands of subscribers dropping the service.Netflix shares have dropped more than 60 percent since early July when it first announced the price hikes.Netflix shares rose 2.7 percent to $116.75 on Nasdaq at mid-afternoon.

The programing deal, for shows from the current schedule through 2014-15 season, is the latest in a string of deals Netflix has been reaching to bulk up its streaming service and convert more subscribers from its more costly DVD mail delivery service.Programmers had initially appeared hostile to what appeared to be Netflix’s threat to the lucrative cable TV programing ecosystem but have recently been reaching new deals. Warner Bros. is owned by Time Warner Inc, whose chief executive Jeff Bewkes had been one of Netflix’s loudest critics until a few months ago.In the past few months Netflix has reached programing deals with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp and Sony Pictures Entertainment for award-winning shows “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad”, as well AMC Networks for “Walking Dead” and other shows.The new deals with Netflix appear to have tighter restrictions such as when they can first be shown, for example.In The CW pact, older-season episodes of some shows, including “One Tree Hill” and “Nikita”, will available October 15 while others are set for January.But episodes of all scripted shows of The CW this season will only be available to Netflix subscribers in the fall of 2012. Other shows through 2014-15 will have about a year’s delay before running on Netflix.Netflix has inked the CW deal in the wake of a major fallout with its subscribers after a series of missteps by Chief Executive Reed Hastings in the last few months.Last week, in response to a subscriber uproar, Netflix was forced to drop a plan to split off its DVD business with a new Qwikster brand.Before that the company had already raised its prices by 60 percent for many customers who want to get both online streaming and DVDs, leading to hundreds of thousands of subscribers dropping the service.Netflix shares have dropped more than 60 percent since early July when it first announced the price hikes.Netflix shares rose 2.7 percent to $116.75 on Nasdaq at mid-afternoon.

Cairo giants Al Ahli’s elimination from the African Champions League at the weekend is the latest blow for soccer in Egypt and their golden generation. Al Ahli failed to reach the semi-final stage after drawing 1-1 at home with Esperance of Tunisia in their final group game in the Egyptian capital on Friday. It was Egypt’s last chance of salvaging some success from what has been a terrible year for their football. They have gone from an unprecedented three successive African Nations Cup titles to missing out on defending their title at the next edition, to be hosted in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon early next year. Al Ahli’s long-standing dominance at club level is also at an end while Egypt’s other major club Zamalek surprisingly did not even make the group phase. In all likelihood, it signals the end of an all-conquering generation who rewrote the continent’s record books. Egypt’s national team, close to officially naming American Bob Bradley as coach, and Ahli have perhaps kept faith for too long with players like Mohamed Aboutrika, Mohamed Barakat and Wael Gomaa who ruled the roost for almost a decade, but no longer have the aura of invincibility they so long enjoyed. Gomaa won three Nations Cup titles and four Champions League winners’ medals in an astonishing feat of personal success unlikely to be matched again. The best player of the generation has been Ahmed Hassan, now in his mid-30s. He is in the national side for the sole task of breaking the world record for the most number of caps. Ahli did not renew his contract in May. The signs of demise have been evident for a while. Egypt peaked with a win over Italy at the 2009 Confederations Cup but then missed out on a 2010 World Cup place, losing a playoff game to Algeria. Their 2012 Nations Cup qualifying campaign started with a dreadful loss at minnows Niger and then the Pharaohs were outplayed by South Africa in two matches this year and will astonishingly finish bottom of their group. Former U.S. coach Bradley,  who will succeed Hassan Shehata when he is appointed as expected in the coming days, will find he has to start building almost from scratch. *Mark Gleeson covers African football for Reuters