Australia coach Pim Verbeek told Viduka he could join the squad if he was willing to make a full commitment to the side.

But the striker, out of contract after his English club Newcastle United were relegated from the Premier League last week, told Verbeek he had decided to skip the qualifiers while he contemplated his future.

"He told me that after a difficult season he needed a break from football to consider his future plans," Verbeek said in a statement.

"Mark is currently out of contract and, while he is deciding what to do next, it would be difficult for him to fully concentrate on these important matches for Australia."

Viduka captained Australia at the 2006 World Cup in Germany but has not played for his country since the 2007 Asian Cup and missed all the qualifiers so far for the 2010 World Cup.

Australia need one point from their three remaining matches to qualify for the finals in South Africa. They play Qatar away on June 6 before home games against Bahrain on June 10 and Japan a week later.

Viduka turns down Australia

Midfielder Frank Lampard capped a dominant display with a stunning second half goal to win Chelsea’s first piece of silverware since 2007.

Lampard’s goal on 72 minutes put his side ahead after Didier Drogba had equalised in the first half after Louis Saha’s stunner opener for Everton after just 25 seconds.

After two previous goalless draws this season in the English Premier League, a tight encounter had been forecast, but a frantic start to the game saw the fastest ever goal in FA Cup final history from Everton’s Saha to put the Toffees straight in the driving seat.

The former Manchester United striker smashed home a left foot drive after Marouane Felliani had teed him up with a header.

However, Chelsea quickly regained their composure and equalised through Drogba on 21 minutes after the Ivorian striker headed home after a cross from Florent Malouda.

The London team continued to dominate proceedings for the rest of the game and it seemed a winning goal was only a matter of time away.

The crucial goal arrived on 72 minutes after Lampard showed a cool head under pressure to beat Tim Howard from distance.

The brilliant Malouda was unlucky not to be awarded a third as his stunning 35-yard strike hit the underside of the bar and crossed the line but the linesman disagreed.

In the end that didn’t matter though as Chelsea comfortably saw the game out to give Guus Hiddink the perfect send-off and to leave David Moyes still looking for his first trophy as a Manager.

Fantastic start

Everton kicked off and immediately went on the attack. The ball came to a possibly offside Stephen Pienaar on the left side, whose cross was weakly headed away by John Obi Mikel. Marouane Fellaini nodded the ball down to an on-rushing Louis Saha who caught the ball beautifully with his left-foot and powered the ball past Cech to make it 1-0 with just 25 seconds on the clock.

Chelsea immediately threw men forward and came close a few times from Michael Essien and Frank Lampard.

Chelsea’s pressure eventually paid off after 21 minutes when Florent Malouda found himself on the left of the Everton penalty area with too much time and space. He measured a perfect cross for Didier Drogba to head into the bottom right-hand corner of the Everton net past a motionless Tim Howard.

That was Drogba’s fifth goal in five domestic finals for Chelsea and his fourth in four appearances at Wembley.

Domination

Chelsea continued to enjoy the lion’s share of the possession after equalising, and Malouda soon found himself all alone on the left-wing again. He decided to go alone this time but his attempt was blocked.

Malouda ran Everton’s Tony Hibbert absolutely ragged for the entirety of the first-half so there was no surprise to see Lars Jacobsen come on for him after the interval.

The Chelsea midfield started the second half as they finished the first, in control. Slick passing continually put pressure on the Everton defence in the early stages and it nearly paid off.

The ever-comfortable Lampard played an inch-perfect pass over the Everton defence, and English Premier League top-goalscorer Nicolas Anelka ran onto it and attempted a deft lob over Tim Howard, but the Frenchman put slightly too much power on the shot and it just cleared the crossbar.

The near-miss seemed to give Everton the impetus to find a goal of their own.

A slip by John Terry gave Tim Cahill a long-range effort, but the Australian shot straight at Petr Cech.

Still Everton continued to push. Chelsea’s first substitute Michael Ballack, who replaced Michael Essien, gave away a free kick which was played to Leighton Baines out on the left and from his cross Louis Saha flashed a header just over.

Again the tide turned and this time the team pushing made it count.

Game over

On 72 minutes, Michael Ballack collected the ball in midfield to find Nicolas Anelka and the slick passing continued to find Frank Lampard. Lampard attempted to round, Everton’s captain, Phil Neville and it doing so cut the ball back, slightly slipped and then smashed the ball home from 25 yards beyond the outstretched arms of Tim Howard.

There was no holding Chelsea back from this point onwards.

Everton’s defence yet again went missing and Chelsea again passed the ball around with all the freedom of the Wembley pitch. Frank Lampard found himself in another shooting opportunity but chose to slip the ball through to the ever-present Florent Malouda, who blazed the ball over after being one-on-one with Tim Howard.

Yet again Chelsea drove forward.

Minutes later Malouda once again found himself without an Everton defender closing him down, but this time in the centre of the pitch. He continued to drive forward, with Everton defenders backing off, inviting him to shoot. And shoot he did. Malouda let fly from 35 yards and the ball cracked against the underside of the bar and bounced down across the line with Tim Howard, again, soundly beaten.

In an attempt to find an extra-time forcing equaliser Everton threw on 19-year-old Dan Gosling, who scored the extra-time winner against Liverpool in the fourth-round, but him and his Everton teammates were helpless as Chelsea comfortably saw out the remainder of the game to win their fifth FA Cup.

Interestingly, Ashley Cole today also claimed his fifth FA Cup winner’s medal, after winning three with Arsenal and now two with Chelsea. No-one has managed that in over 100 years.

Guus has gone

The Chelsea players hailed departing Manager Guus Hiddink as the main reason by this latest success.

"We went 1-0 down within a minute or so but showed a lot of character to come back. After getting the first we dominated the game and I’m just pleased to get the goal that wins the game. Guus has been amazing and he’s a great man, we’ve loved working with him and he deserves this victory," said Frank Lampard.

About Hiddink, Drogba added, "If you don’t have discipline and friendship in the team you can’t win anything. Guus gives us that."

David Moyes, rightly so, didn’t seem too disheartened from his team’s performance today. "I look back with a lot of pleasure in getting the team to the final. Chelsea were the better team on the day, I can’t argue with that. Lampard is a big player who scored big goals and that’s what he’s done today. Our team has made progress year on year and we’ll try to keep that going."

Chelsea wins FA CupAl Jazeera English – Sport – Chelsea wins FA Cup

Iniesta returned from a right thigh injury to star in Barcelona’s 2-0 Champions League final win over Manchester United on Wednesday.

Guardiola is worried the Spain international may be rushed back too soon for the tournament in South Africa. Barcelona said their medical staff was already in contact with the national team to oversee a training plan for the coming weeks.

"Be careful with Andres’ injury. It’s a dangerous situation with him having just recovered for the final. We have to take great care of his professional future… because neither the national team nor Barca can afford to lose him," said Guardiola.

Iniesta was a key player as Barcelona became the first Spanish club to win the treble following Spanish league and Copa del Rey triumphs. The 25-year-old Iniesta was also a regular starter during Spain’s European Championship-winning run last summer.

Spain opens against New Zealand at Rustenburg on June 14.

Iniesta and captain Carles Puyol (ankle) will miss Saturday’s meaningless league finale against Deportivo La Coruna, a fact that left Guardiola clued in on what needed to be done in the offseason: Bring in more players.

"The team will have to be deeper. Next year will be much more complicated for us," the 38-year-old rookie coach said after completing Barcelona’s most successful year in club history.

Busy schedule

Barcelona will also play for the Club World Cup and Spanish Supercup next season.

Guardiola said the club would be speaking with Samuel Eto’o in the coming days since the Cameroon striker is out of contract after next season.

"He’s a very important player and the entire coaching staff and myself are overjoyed with his work, his effort and his goals," Guardiola said.

Eto’o, who has scored 35 times in all competitions this season, became only the second player to score in two Champions League finals after opening the scoring at Stadio Olimpico in Rome.

Guardiola said the club would also be looking at whether to retain 35-year-old Sylvinho, who is out of contract after this season.

Guardiola told his team to enjoy the upcoming vacations since next season was likely to be even more difficult.

"Everybody, and it’s normal, will want to beat us," Guardiola said.

Guardiola warns Spain over Iniesta

“I think the first goal was a killer for us,” Ferguson told ITV. “We started brightly too. We got a bit nervous after that.”

United did make a good start but Samuel Eto’o netted after 10 minutes and the English side faded badly, with their defence looking especially shaky, and Lionel Messi wrapped up victory midway through the second half.

“The first goal didn’t help that’s for sure,” Ferguson said at a news conference. “It gave them the opportunity to keep possession, which they do well.

“We didn’t deal with it well enough. That really was the story. I think there’s a disappointment in the performance and some individuals will say that themselves.”

The Scot, who lashed out at a reporter for asking if he still had the desire to win, could only marvel at Barca’s passing ability.

BAD GOAL

“At the start of game we did really well,” he said. “It was a bad goal to lose. You’ve got to give credit to a very good Barca team. If they get in front of you they’re difficult to beat.

“All the midfield players got possession of the ball and made it very difficult for us to get it back. When we did get possession after the goal we didn’t do well enough with it.”

He added: “They are among the best at what they do. They pursue their philosophy and don’t change.”

United rarely fail to score and Ferguson had no explanation.

“We had plenty of time,” Ferguson told ITV. “We had some half-chances in the second half but in fairness we were beaten by a better team.”

He also told Sky Sports: “They were two bad goals to lose at this level especially when we have really excelled defending this season.”

United central defender Rio Ferdinand said his team, who failed to become the first to defend the trophy in the Champions League era, had not produced their best football.

“I don’t think there’s one of us out there can say we played well to be honest, as individuals or collectively,” he said.

“(The first goal) was a bit of a sucker punch. We’d had a few good chances before that.

“But no excuses, not on today’s performance. They were the better team. Special moments decide these games and they were deserved winners today.”

Defeated Ferguson praises pass masters Barcelona

Barcelona controlled the ball for long stretches with its unhurried and clever passing, attacked incessantly, held tight with a patchwork defense and made a tactical switch at forward, placing Lionel Messi as a central striker and shifting Samuel Eto’o to the right wing. Eventually, Messi drifted into midfield to secure possession. Both he and Eto’o delivered goals as Barcelona won its third European title and second in four years.

It will be left to Barcelona’s supporters to gleefully debate whether this is the Catalans’ greatest team, now that the first-year coach Pep Guardiola has guided his squad to the Spanish League title, the Spanish Cup and now the European Cup with a style that is familiarly elegant and ebullient. For a night, it was enough for Barcelona fans — seemingly the vast majority among 72,000 at Olympic Stadium — to celebrate with cameras that flashed like fireflies as the trophy was held aloft in a shower of confetti.

“We are not the best team of history, but we have played the best season in history to win three titles and the way we won,” said Guardiola, 38, who has won a European championship both as a Barcelona player and coach.

Manchester United, meanwhile, lost for the first time in 26 Champions League matches and failed to defend its 2008 title. Even with four attackers in the second half, the English Premier League champions often seemed lethargic, uninvolved — at times unrecognizable — after missing several chances in the early minutes of the game.

So strong and constrictive on most nights, the Manchester United defense was unable to subdue the organized and creative Barcelona attack, which flowed with the inevitability of water through any available crease. Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester manager, dismissed his defense as “shoddy.”

Guardiola had urged his Barcelona players to be daring, and after the victory said, “We wanted to say we played and were not being cowards.” He added, “There’s nothing more dangerous than not taking risks.”

Barcelona’s one apparent weakness, a depleted defense, never became a liability. Dani Alves and Éric Abidal were suspended and Rafael Márquez was shelved with injury. But Guardiola found a reliable solution, placing Carles Puyol at right back, Yaya Touré in central defense alongside Gerard Piqué and Sylvinho at left back. They remained impenetrable.

Guardiola made another adroit move up front. Last year in the Champions League semifinals, Manchester United’s left back, Patrice Evra, had handcuffed Messi on the right wing. On Wednesday, Guardiola countered with Messi as a central striker, moving Eto’o outside. Later, Messi retreated into midfield and, along with Xavi Hernández, helped Barcelona control the ball as if it were tethered to his foot. Sometimes, it seemed minutes passed before Manchester United could regain possession from the smaller, more dexterous Barcelona players.

“If they get in front of you, they’re very difficult to beat,” Ferguson said. “They can keep the ball in areas of the field where it is difficult to protect.”

Early on, it was Manchester United that threatened to dominate. After missing several inviting opportunities, though, the team deflated, never regaining its spirit and vigor.

In the second minute, forward Cristiano Ronaldo drove a low, hard free kick that bounced and could not be smothered by Victor Valdés, the Barcelona goalkeeper. Park Ji-sung, Manchester United’s tireless winger and the first Asian player to participate in a Champions League final, pounced on the rebound, but a Barcelona defender slid across his path. The shot deflected high over the crossbar. Ronaldo later lashed two shots wide, unfulfilled chances that Manchester United could not afford.

“Losing that first goal was decisive for us,” Ferguson said. “We couldn’t recover from that.”

Barcelona quickly struck back. In the 10th minute, midfielder Andrés Iniesta, recovered from a thigh injury, played the ball to Eto’o on the right flank. Eto’o, a Cameroonian forward, cut sharply inside, turning the defender Nemanja Vidic, leaving him corkscrewed and helpless. Eto’o punched the ball into the net off the left hand of Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, giving Barcelona the only goal it would need.

After halftime, Manchester United clearly needed an infusion of energy, but neither the replacement forwards Carlos Tévez nor Dimitar Barbatov could kick-start a somnolent engine.

And soon the game fell out of reach.

In the 70th minute, Puyol stole a pass for Barcelona, beginning a magical sequence that finished with Xavi chipping a superb pass from outside the area to a waiting Messi, six yards from the goal, unattended by two defenders. He headed the ball over van der Sar’s head and Barcelona took an insurmountable 2-0 lead. Now it is Messi, not Ronaldo, who is certain to gain favor as the world’s greatest player.

“We didn’t have to win to know he’s the best,” Guardiola said.

In the end, though, Barcelona did win, primarily by getting the ball and refusing to give it back.

“For us, we are a horrible team, a disaster team, when we don’t have the ball,” Guardiola said. “We need the ball. We got it.”

Mesmerizing Barcelona Beat Manchester United With Style in Champions League Final

Witnesses said more than 20 Protestant supporters of Rangers, many of them wearing team coloured jerseys and scarves, drove into a Catholic district of the town of Coleraine after Rangers clinched the Scottish Premier League championship on Monday NZT.

Billy Leonard, a former policeman and politician from the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, said several carloads of anti-Catholic extremists came armed with clubs “and literally attacked the first person they came across”.

Kevin McDaid, 49, was fatally bludgeoned and his wife, Evelyn, and a 46-year-old Catholic neighbour, Damien Fleming, were injured.

Fleming was reported in critical condition.

A Presbyterian minister in the town, the Rev Alan Johnson, said Rangers supporters were drinking heavily while watching the Rangers victory at pubs in central Coleraine and then drove across a bridge to the Catholic area, Somerset Drive.

A Catholic politician in the town, John Dallat, accused an outlawed Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, of responsibility.

Rangers enjoys support exclusively from the Protestant side of the community in Northern Ireland and archrival Celtic draws support only from the Catholics.

Those allegiances fuel street fighting in both Glasgow and across Northern Ireland, particularly when the two teams play each other or when the annual league championship – typically won by one of the two – is determined. Celtic, league champions the previous three years, finished second this year.

Near the spot where McDaid died someone had tied a green-and-white Celtic scarf to a pole, and teenagers wearing Celtic clothing huddled on corners drinking beer and shouting anti-Protestant slogans.

The officer leading the murder investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Frankie Taylor, appealed to the Catholic minority in the town not to retaliate.

Taylor said the dead man had four children, did volunteer youth work in the town, and had been encouraging local Catholics to co-operate with Northern Ireland’s traditionally Protestant police.

Many Belfast pubs refuse to admit customers if they are wearing football jerseys or scarves because of the likelihood it will spark a fight.

Football mob beats Catholic to death in random attack

Stirring finale

Two of European football’s most evocative names, the newly crowned champions of England and Spain, cross paths at the Stadio Olimpico with United aiming to become the first team in 19 years to successfully defend the European Champion Clubs’ Cup and the first in the UEFA Champions League era. Having already lifted the Liga and Copa del Rey this month Barcelona have the chance to claim an unprecedented Spanish treble. It promises to be one of the more stylish gladiatorial contests staged in the city of the Colosseum, with Sir Alex Ferguson saying simply: “It has the capability to be a fantastic final.”

History help

United have never lost a European Cup final while two of this competition’s three previous showpiece matches in Rome ended in an English victory. According to Sir Alex, another success is essential to justify his club’s ever-growing stature. “I’ve repeated many times we should have done better in Europe. To be in the pantheon of great teams, the prerequisite is to win this cup. It’s an opportunity for us to go alongside a lot of the great teams. This team has that type of future – it’s a young squad with the right type of experience which can do well in the next few years. Hopefully we can endorse that.”

Ferdinand return
Captain Rio Ferdinand is fit again after a calf injury, although United will be without the suspended Darren Fletcher as they bid to become the first side since AC Milan in 1989 and 1990 to land back-to-back European Cups. “We’re good at doing things for the first time,” Sir Alex added with pride. “It’s interesting and unusual that no one has defended the trophy since the Champions League started, because in the history of the European Cup it was done regularly. We have an opportunity to change that and hopefully we can take it.”

Glorious campaign
While the United boss is at the end of his 35th season as a manager, Josep Guardiola is concluding his first and, though two trophies are already in the Camp Nou cabinet, the 38-year-old – 29 years Sir Alex’s junior – is not finished yet. “It’s been a great season but it can still finish badly, there’s a lot still to do. In football things can change very suddenly. I’ve been very lucky to have a squad of players who are very good tactically and technically. We want to show how good we are and how hard we’ve worked by winning tomorrow.”

Defensive reshuffle
Barcelona’s usual full-backs Daniel Alves and Eric Abidal are suspended and Rafael Márquez has a knee injury so Yaya Touré will drop back to central defence with captain Carles Puyol filling in at right-back, Seydou Keita on the left and 20-year-old Sergi Busquets replacing Keita in midfield. Andrés Iniesta and Thierry Henry should be fit after thigh and knee problems respectively, with Guardiola adding: “If they’re OK they will play – if they’re not, they won’t. I think they’ll be there. I would have liked to have more players at my disposal but that’s how it is. It’s going to be a great final.”

UEFA Champions League

Busacca was the official in last season’s semi-final first leg between both sides and was criticised by Ferguson for not awarding a second penalty after Cristiano Ronaldo missed an earlier one.

The United boss had raged after Ronaldo appeared to be up-ended inside the area in the first half during the goalless draw at the Nou Camp: “I thought it was a penalty. The world and his wife would think that.

It’s hard enough to ask for one penalty. You’re doing well if you get one. To ask for two…well, I wasn’t surprised that we didn’t get it.”

The hope, this time, is that the centre of attraction would not be the officials but the footballing spectacle that will be put on show when world club champions, Manchester United face Barcelona in Stadio Olympico in Rome.

UEFA name Massimo Busacca to referee finals