Nothing surprising here, but Arsenal are being linked with another young striker - Mauro Zarate. The Argentine spent the second half of the season on loan at Birmingham City and could attract Premiership interest after playing well during his time...

Swedish club IFK Norrköping gained promotion to the Allsvenskan for the 2008 season. The club enjoyed their first league victory this past weekend on May 11th. The match was against Ljungskile SK. Two goals were scored by IFK Norrköping including one from Swedish national team prospect Imad Khalili.

For the very first time I had the oppurtunity to watch RSL play in HD Thursday night against Colorado. It has never been more clear that we can't play on the road...or in the final third. While the first half wasn't horrible, it wasn't pretty either. The second half was all Colorado. - Mantilla was absolute garbage.

The Rapids looked pretty good overall tonight in their win against RSL. I'm starting to think, against my better judgment, that they might just be for real this year. Is 2008 the year Clavijo finally gets over the hump? What happened in the offseason?

Christian Gomez has instantly made this team better.

Friday's print story is on D.C. United's early struggles. The question: How would you reverse it, if you were coaching or general managing?

Last year, Tom Soehn shook up the formation, and newcomers Luciano Emilio caught on to their roles. This year's team is more dramatically different, with a new playmaker (Marcelo Gallardo), goalkeeper (Zach Wells), forward (Franco Niell) and central defenders (Gonzalo Martinez, Gonzalo Peralta).

"Dream Big" es la nueva campaña de Adidas que se lanzó recientemente, en donde se encuentran futbolistas de renombre, y anima a los futbolistas a conseguir su gran sueño. La campaña incluye televisión, Internet, prensa y puntos de venta.   El propósito de ésta campaña es motivar a los niños de países muy pequeños o modestos a [.

Hoy es cumpleaños de Adolfo "Bofo" Bautista.  Y por éste medio lo quiero felicitar y le deseo muchos éxitos en la Liguilla con su equipo Jaguares de Chiapas. FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS. imagen/esmas  Compártelo

Damaged Goods The most notable thing about the ever-lengthening Galaxy injury report is that David Beckham, sore foot and all, isn't on it:

OUT - Charles Alamo (R-Knee Surgery)

DOUBTFUL - None

QUESTIONABLE - Ely Allen (R-Hamstring), Edson Buddle (R-Hamstring), Landon Donovan (R-Calf), Alvaro Pires (L-Knee), Carlos Ruiz (R-Knee Surgery), Peter Vagenas (R-Quad)

PROBABLE - Ante Jazic (R-Ankle Surgery)

Jazic played for the first time since December on Tuesday against Vancouver and will continue to train this week.

Wandering through the Strange Maps site, found this map of a Balkanized North America...

Ozark Tigers - 3 (PK's)
Kickapoo Chiefs - 2
The Tigers opened the scoring this evening in the 2nd minute, sending a message to their Northern neighbor about what to expect. The Chiefs were able to tie the score in the 37th minute via a corner kick, with x scoring on the set piece.

I won't even try to explain, just watch Maradona show you how...

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San Lorenzo wanted a sizeable win on Thursday night against Liga de Quito, Estudiantes' conquerors in the previous round of the Copa Libertadores. Knowing they'll have to travel to the Ecuadorian capital to play a high-altitude second leg, Ramón Díaz's team needed to attack and get a couple of goals ahead for their fans to [.

Stuff to read while you get shocked attempting to steal live power lines........ Porto's CL spot not assured anymore. (Portugal Offside) Sky Sports Euro promo sponsored by Prozac. (Euro 2008 Blog) What would the EPL table look like if refereeing was 100% correct? (SoccerLens) Ronaldo's leaving gaps in his "I'm happy here" comments.

He has won all of the awards in England and in Moscow Ronaldo hopes to add a gold Champions League winner medal. Here are his top ten goals of the season.


Some of Ronaldo's best tricks


Thanks to footytube.com for the videos

The J. League gears up for a five week recess following this weekend's round of action, with plenty at stake for clubs at both ends of the table.

Consadole Sapporo kick off the weekend against Nagoya Grampus, and the two sides could hardly be experiencing more contrasting fortunes. Sapporo remain second-from-bottom despite their most recent 2-1 win away at Omiya Ardija.

After reading this I simply had to ask the question. Nauseating as it might be to some.

Me? I'm truly sick and tired of the seemingly constant speculation.

No player is bigger than the club. I don't care who he is. In a decade, Ronaldo's career will be close to being over, while Manchester United will go on and on.

The EU and UEFA have launched an information campaign and helpline to advise fans travelling to Euro 2008 on their consumer rights and to provide support for those who run into problems. The campaign deals with consumer issues ranging from fake match tickets to transferring tickets in the case of illness, to air travel, roaming [.

Bit of a shock to hear of the death of Tommy Burns today. I'm too young to really remember him as a player although I do recall a classy veteran in his later years at Celtic and at Killie. As a manager he didn't excel at either Celtic or Reading. But he did provide entertainment with his style of play at Parkhead and signed some real quality.

Ayer nos informaron que en la versión electrónica de El Porvenir se habían "pirateado" una nota de nosotros. En efecto, el 17 de Abril publicaron una nota de José Eduardo Bontti que es totalmente idéntica a la que publicamos nosotros el 10 de Marzo. Y cuando digo idéntica, es IDENTICA. No le cambiaron ni una sóla [.

Real Salt Lake versus the Colorado Rapids has as much deep-down animosity as any local rivalry MLS can muster.

I'm calling this one 2 -0 for the home team, because the MLS trend for teams at home has been pretty good. Gomez and Gomez with the goals.

Predictions open until kickoff.

Ya me lo esperaba, Chivas quejandose a más no poder y poniendo en marcha el inmenso aparato mediático que posee para meterle presión Comisión de Arbitraje y al árbitro que dirigirá el partido de vuelta. Lo que no me imaginaba era que su entrenador utilizara argumentos tan tontos y absurdos, se nota que ya sabe lo [.

This is Sven Goran Eriksson and Phantongtea Shinawatra (son of City owner Thaksin) at the launch of Manchester City's post-season tour of Thailand. First of all, post-season tour? Madness. Second, Sven looks about as happy as you can look standing next to the offspring of the man who's about to fire you.

Frank, dear Frank, talking on Total Football last night spoke about the A-League getting to TWELVE teams. He didn't say 14, or 16. He said 12.

Four new clubs will take a long long time to bed down. And it is doubtful, in my view, that we will go beyond that. Ever. Certainly not for ten years.

Ah, Rangers. Let's just admit that we would have been surprised if all had been sweetness and light, eh?

As I write this Newsnight Scotland is about to begin promising discussions about the violence in Manchester last night and the disastrous state of Scottish newspapers. They could combine the two and mention Gerry Duffy, Nick Sharpe, Kenny Angoye, Brian Lewis and Robert McAulay. They were the "journalists" who combined their rich talents to write the main story in today's Scottish Sun.

Cesc should get on the phone, dial David Villa's number and get Villa to do whatever is necessary for Valencia to sell him to Arsenal.

Go do some tapping up Cesc.

Villa wants to join, Cesc wants him to join, does Le Boss want him to join? Hopefully.

This might sound like double standards after Hleb being tapped up by Inter, but fuck it, it happens to our players all the time.

Brazil has announced their team and the good news is that Kaka, Alexandre Pato and Robinho are all on the roster for upcoming exhibition games in the United States. The bad news is that Ronaldinho did not make the team. Brazil plays Canada at Seattle on May 31 and Venezuela at Foxborough, Mass., on June [.

On episode 23 Ian interviews Neil Dunkin, author of "Anfield of Dreams." Topics include the many highlights of supporting Liverpool over the last 50 years, including the genius that was Kenny Dalglish and the goalscoring machine that is Fernando Torres. Also discussed: Sepp Blatter's 6+5 proposal and the state of the England national team who [.

The Futsalroos lost their Quarter Final AFC Asian Cup tie to Thailand 5-2yesterday. Not only are they out of the Asian Cup, they also miss out on the World Cup in Rio in October.

With Coach Scott Gilligan off to Tahiti, and unsure of his Aussie Coaching future, the popular code could be in for a time of further instability.

As mentioned in an earlier post, it's that time of year when sports writers hand out their awards for the season's best and worst, look back at some of the preseason predictions, and of course lampoon those they feel deserve it. At least for this year. Here at the Shed, we're bringing [...]

Missed this yesterday from Goff. Apparently some Toronto FC fans are contemplating staging a protest at this summer's MLS All-Star Game because they're not happy about the idea of the CFL's Argonauts potentially moving to BMO Field. Now, I really like the city of Toronto. How they've taken to their team and supported it loudly and [.

Liverpool are to launch a £10 million bid for Chelsea winger Florent Malouda. (the sun)

The French international has had a poor first season in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge which has led to speculation he will move abroad.

But it appears as though now that Rafa Benitez is keen o bring him to Anfield.

And so the impregnable quadrilateral of Scottish and European football has eluded Rangers. We shouldn't be surprised Rangers got to the final despite their limitations. The defensive game (which, love it, loathe it, worked) was borne from the failings of the squad. Finally the luck ran out. Zenit were just better.

After a rough two-loss week, Ruud Gullit's squad are preparing for its match against FC Dallas sunday. The Galaxy has 8 points, FC Dallas 9 after day 7 in the championship. Kenny Cooper, has netted 5 times for Dallas this season, while LA Galaxy forward Landon Donovan has made 7. Donovan may be an important man again for [.

Alright... as promised, here's the defense and goalkeeping analysis. Click to enlarge. You know the drill. All the data is here, sorted alphabetically. It's the same as before, only it's goals by opponents, shots by opponents... you know the deal. You can basically say that the Chicago defense has faced 87 shots, for instance, or that [.

The other day I posted a spot of the Portuguese dancing Jason Taylor style. My friend over at EPL Talk found the rest of 'em so enjoy!.


ITALY


GREECE


GERMANY


SPAIN

Don't by into the silly rumors that the former Seattle Sounders coach is gonna call it quits after this weekend's FA Cup final.

It's being called "an unbelievable load of rubbish, complete and utter make believe."

• Some W.C. qualifying info. [Goff]
  
  
• Barca to tour the U.