FC Shakhtar Donetsk

Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukrainian: Футбольний клуб «Шахта́р» Доне́цьк [fudˈbɔlʲnɪj klub ʃɐxˈtɑr doˈnɛt͡sʲk]) is a Ukrainian professional football club from the city of Donetsk.

Shakhtar has appeared in several European competitions and is often a participant of the UEFA Champions League. The club became the first club in independent Ukraine to win the UEFA Cup in 2009, the last year before the competition was revamped as the Europa League. FC Shakhtar Donetsk is one of two Ukrainian clubs, the other one is Dynamo Kyiv, who have won a major UEFA competition. The club normally plays its home matches at the Donbass Arena. However, because of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, this season home games are being played more than 600 miles to the west in Arena Lviv. Shakhtar Donetsk is Ukraine's second most popular football club. The club is the sole favorite of football fans in the Donbas.

The club draws its history from the very start of the Soviet football league competitions and is one of the oldest clubs in Ukraine. The club was a member of the Soviet Voluntary Sports Society of Shakhtyor, having connections with other Soviet teams from Karaganda (Kazakhstan), Soligorsk (Belarus), among others. In the late Soviet period, Shakhtar was considered a tough mid-table club of the Soviet Top League and a cup competition specialist after winning the Soviet Cup two years in a row in 1961 and 1962.

Donetsk

Donetsk (Ukrainian: Донецьк Ukrainian pronunciation: [doˈnɛt͡sʲk], translit. Donets’k; Russian: Доне́цк, tr. Donetsk; IPA: [dɐˈnʲɛtsk]; former names: Aleksandrovka, Yuzovka, Stalino (see also: cities' alternative names)) is an industrial city in Ukraine on the Kalmius River. The population was estimated at 953,217 (2013 est.) in the city, and over 2,000,000 in the metropolitan area (2011). According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, Donetsk was the fifth-largest city in Ukraine. Since April 2014, the city is the administrative centre of and effectively administered by the Donetsk People's Republic.

Administratively, it has been the centre of Donetsk Oblast, while historically, it is the unofficial capital and largest city of the larger economic and cultural Donets Basin (Donbas) region. Donetsk is adjacent to another major city of Makiivka and along with other surrounding cities forms a major urban sprawl and conurbation in the region. Donetsk has been a major economic, industrial and scientific centre of Ukraine with a high concentration of companies and a skilled workforce.

Real Madrid C.F.

Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (Spanish pronunciation: [reˈal maˈðɾið ˈkluβ ðe ˈfuðβol]; Royal Madrid Football Club), commonly known as Real Madrid, or simply as Real, is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain.

Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the team has traditionally worn a white home kit since inception. The word Real is Spanish for Royal and was bestowed to the club by King Alfonso XIII in 1920 together with the royal crown in the emblem. The team has played its home matches in the 81,044-capacity Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in downtown Madrid since 1947. Unlike most European sporting entities, Real Madrid's members (socios) have owned and operated the club throughout its history.

The club is the most valuable sports team in the world, worth €2.5 billion ($3.4 billion) and the world's highest-earning football club for 2013–14, with an annual revenue of €549.5 million. The club is one of the most widely supported teams in the world. Real Madrid is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division, along with Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona. The club holds many long-standing rivalries, most notably El Clásico with Barcelona and the El Derbi madrileño with Atlético Madrid.

UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League, known simply as the Champions League, is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs. It is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football, played by the national league champion (and, for some nations, one or more runners-up) of each UEFA national association. The final of the 2012–13 tournament was the most watched UEFA Champions League final to date, as well as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide in 2013, drawing 360 million television viewers.

Introduced in 1992, the competition replaced the European Champion Clubs' Cup, or simply European Cup, which had run since 1955, adding a group stage to the competition and allowing multiple entrants from certain countries. The pre-1992 competition was initially a straight knockout tournament open only to the champion club of each country. During the 1990s, the format was expanded, incorporating a round-robin group stage to include clubs that finished runner-up of some nations' top level league. While most of Europe's national leagues can still only enter their national league champion, Europe's strongest national leagues now provide up to four teams for the competition, and will provide up to five teams from the 2015–16 season onwards. Clubs that finish next-in-line in each nation's top level league, having not qualified for the UEFA Champions League competition, may be eligible for the next level UEFA Europa League competition.

Talking point

A talking point in debate or discourse is a succinct statement designed to support persuasively one side taken on an issue. Such statements can either be free standing or created as retorts to the opposition's talking points and are frequently used in public relations, particularly in areas heavy in debate such as politics and marketing.

A political think tank will strategize the most effective informational attack on a target topic and launch talking points from media personalities to saturate discourse in order to frame a debate in their favor, standardizing the responses of sympathizers to their unique cause.

When used politically in this way, the typical purpose of a talking point is to propagandize, specifically using the technique of argumentum ad nauseam, i.e. continuous repetition within media outlets until accepted as fact.

The framing of political discourse in terms of simple talking points has been criticized by media personalities such as comedian Jon Stewart for being a superficial examination of issues.