Spain
Soccer
Spain is quite well-known when it comes to sports. And when it comes to sports, football is king in Spain. There have been a lot of variations in the kind of football that has been played in Spain but recently, the most dominant is the English style of soccer or associated football. As a matter of fact, of the most dominant football clubs in the whole world, two came from Spain, the FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF.
Ireland
Gaelic Football
Irish usually call it simply football, but it is different from what you are used to.
The main difference is that they carry the ball with their hands. Players can catch the ball in the air and and keep it whenever they take less than four steps, but they can’t throw it. They can only throw it with a kick or a punch.
The All-Ireland Football Championship is the most prestigious and oldest tournament (1887) of the sport. The championship final held in September in Dublin is one of the main events and it attracts a great number of fans. Traditionally teams from Cork, Kerry and Dublin are the ones who most often contest the coveted title.
Austria
Winter sports
Due to the mountainous terrain, alpine skiing is a prominent sport in Austria. Similar sports such as snowboarding and ski jumping are also widely popular, and Austrian athletes such as Annemarie Moser-Pröll, Hermann Maier, and Toni Sailer are widely regarded as some of the greatest alpine skiers of all time. Austria has been the number one nation in alpine skiing and leading nation in ski jumping in the Winter Olympics, FIS Alpine World Ski Championships and FIS Ski Jumping World Cup. At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2011, it took all 5 gold medals. The Winter Olympics here held in the town of Innsbruck in the years of 1964 and 1976.
There are 12 professional ice hockey teams in the Austrian Hockey League, which also features one team each team from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia
