Cheryl Cole has revealed that she lost her virginity at the age of 15:

"I was 15 when I lost my virginity, but I made my boyfriend wait three months, so I am really proud of myself for that."

Three whole months!? Yeah Cheryl, that's worthy of pride waiting until you're 15 to pop your cherry is a mark of real class.

Rogelio Funes Mori is a 19-year-old striker who has recently been linked with a move to United. The Argentinian, who has been offered trials by Chelsea in the past, has lived in the States since he was 10-years-old but moved to River Plate last season. He won a football reality TV show, Sueño MLS, when he was 16.

Sir Alex Ferguson has watched with interest the rise of Major League Soccer – and now the United boss is predicting a golden era for football across the pond.
Speaking ahead of Wednesday night's friendly against Philadelphia Union, Sir Alex said: "The MLS has improved a lot over the last few years.

Ryan Giggs has revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson has mellowed over the years, but that he spent the first ten years of his United career avoiding the intimidating manager.

"Over the years he's mellowed," said Giggs. "Maybe the dynamics of the game has changed but it comes from experience, the success he's had and the enjoyment he gets out of it.

Arsene Wenger gave an interview about Paul Scholes offering plenty of praise, claiming he wished he played for Arsenal and that he has been integral to United's success over almost two decades.

Wenger was then asked whether he thought Scholes was a fair player. I think any United fan would be happy to admit that Scholes' tackling can be suspect at times, with him flying in on an opponent and not always coming away with the ball.

They had to wait until Arsenal put out a team with six first team regulars missing, and a team for most of the game including our 4th and 5th choice centre backs, but it had to happen one day. After 10 years of waiting, after the endless defeats and humiliations, Tottenham finally managed to beat a [.

I'm no huge MLS fan. I'm glad it's there, and I respect the fact that some clubs such as the Revolution, Seattle and Toronto have rabid supporters who care about soccer the U.S. I've been to games and they're fun. But the quality ain't there, and there's no reason to rehash the wheres and whys. A single-entity ownership system notwithstanding, MLS is just below a second-tier European league in my opinion.

The top team in the Eastern Conference will meet the league cellar dwellers in RFK Saturday night and for the first time in 10 years it's a complete reversal of roles as the league's oldest rivalry gets going with the perennial underachievers from NY dominating the East while once proud DC United is anchored to the bottom.

I recently reread Simon Kuper's column about statistics in soccer, in which he quotes Mike Forde, Chelsea's Performance Director, who has worked hard to find ways of making statistical analysis useful for his club. It's an interesting piece, but what struck me as particularly interesting for soccer analysts was this quote:
"The holy grail would be discovering the key to victory.

Manchester United left back Patrice Evra has launched another scathing attack on Arsenal ahead of Monday's crucial Premier League clash between the two heavyweights at Old Trafford.

The French international, who has previously dubbed Arsene Wenger's team as "babies" and "shameful", suggested that "nobody will remember them in 10 years time" due to the recent lack of silverware in the Emirates Stadium trophy cabinet.

According to Sports Business Journal, the Philadelphia Union have sold their waterfront stadium's naming rights to a local power company called Philadelphia Power & Lights (PPL). The deal will be for 10 years, $20 million.

Not bad at all for the Union considering Rio Tinto Stadium in Utah was for roughly $1-2 million a year for ten years.

Via Shawn Mitchell, Mike Malo joins the Crew front office after 10 years with the Arizona Diamondbacks and 4 with the Philadelphia Eagles as Director of Marketing.
Malo is a central Ohio native, which probably played a role in his returning to Columbus.
This could be a very big win for Columbus.

Helen Svedin, one-half of the pretty power couple that is Mr. and Mrs. Luis Figo, revealed how she and her retired footballer hubby maintain their healthy marriage of more than 10 years:

"The secret is passion, which is what makes it work with a partner"

That's easy for her to say look what she gets to crawl into bed with every night.

In the 10 years I've been attending Timbers matches, I wanted to share some of the events I've witnessed over the USL Timbers era as the team moves to MLS next season.

Michael Gyasi joined Chelsea today from Northampton Town for an undisclosed fee. Shock signing, indeed. He is expect to slot staight into the side that will travel to Aston Villa this weekend.
Not really. Perhaps in 6-10 years? Hopefully.
Gyasi, you see, is 11 years young. The German-born Gyasi has been a part of the Cobblers Centre of Excellence for the last three years.

Although Wesley Sneijder is enjoying his time with Serie A giants, Inter Milan, you couldn't possibly say the same about the Dutchman in his 2-year stint with Real Madrid. With Sneijder not able to find a regular starting role with Los Blanco's , the club decided to let him depart which turned out to be the best choice Sneijder could have made, or really forced into.

Check out this ESPN interveiw by Jeff Bradley with Mike Ammann, founder of local goalkeeper trianing company 247gk and Virginia Online Soccer News sponsor. (my daughter also trains with Mikes company)
Keeping score by Jeff Bradley of ESPN
Hard to believe 10 years have passed since I witnessed perhaps the bravest goalkeeping performance in MLS history.

As we say goodbye to another decade many images will remain with us for the rest of lives. We all have our favorite's for many reasons.

We've put together our top 11 footballing moments of the last 10 years. It's down to you to pick your top 5. We'll send the lucky winner a packet of Peggy's lovely homemade sausages.

Every season without fail, there's always the rumours and transfer stories relating Cesc Fabregas' return to Spain. While I'm sure that none of the Arsenal fans would not want to see that day coming in the next 10 years, it is something that is to be expected. For a player of his calibre and his [...

Golasa is better looking than Ribery and has similar pace
We've brought up future (Fantasy Premier League) stars in the past, usually focusing on teenagers getting tracked by the Big 4 clubs - but today we'll focus on a barely known Israeli stud Eyal Golasa.
We first mentioned Golasa back in August, but today we link to this very in depth profile of the young Israeli up and comer by our buddies at A Football Report.

You may have heard the phrase before, "Behind every great man there's a great woman." Or as Jim Carrey said, "Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes."

While we're rolling out of bed at indecent hours or sacrificing a part of our life in the name of football, there is often a girlfriend, wife or significant other who is left wondering what this whole soccer madness is all about.

Quite a bit of player news from the Wizards today involving different players coming to and leaving Kansas City. First the Wizards have signed one of their latest trialists to a contract. While the rumors had been that Sunil Chhetri would be signing with KC, he's not the latest signing. Instead it's Craig Rocastle, the midfielder who came into camp around the same time as Chhetri.

Ryan Giggs broke Sir Bobby Charlton's appearance record when coming off the bench for Manchester United in the victorious 2008 Champions League final, where he scored our final penalty in the shoot out.

Whilst Charlton still holds the record for the number of goals scored for the club, 249, Giggs has now played in 70 more games than any other player.

When Jamie Carragher made his Liverpool debut more than 13 years ago, he could only dream of one day being spoken of in the same breath as Alan Hansen.
As two very different defenders, it is unfair to compare them.
What is clear, though, is that they've both produced the quality required to join an elite band of players who can say they've played over 600 times for Liverpool.

SAINT LEO, Fla. - Saint Leo University head women's soccer coach Ged O'Connor has announced the addition of five new players for the 2010 season as they submitted National Letters of Intent committing to attend SLU during the last signing period. One tranfer and four incoming freshmen, the additions include one goalkeeper, two forwards, one midfielder, and one defender who will add to an already deep, talented and experienced squad.

It looks like Newcastle will have a tough game tomorrow night at the Madejksi Stadium in Reading. The Medejski Stadium at Reading Since Newcastle were promoted, we've been looking at the various final Championship tables of the last 10 years or so, and would you believe the team with the most number of points in a season [.

Barca fans have not forgiven Luis Figo when he left Camp Nou for the Bernabeu 10 years ago. Yesterday, he returned with the Inter team at the invitation of president Massimo Moratti. This incident happened before entering the restaurant. Wonder whether they served a pig's head.

Fulham's amazing transformation under Roy Hodgson just keeps reaching new heights and sending their fans in to raptures. I know I've written about Roy Hodgson and the fact that the British press have virtually ignored his career until he took over at Fulham, but no-one could have expected this level of improvement from the Cottagers.

Miguel Calero has been Pachuca's goalkeeper for 10 years and has won just about everything to be won on this continent -- four Mexican league championships, three CONCACAF club titles, a Copa Sudamericana, and a SuperLiga. He's about to turn 40 and retirement is something that is becoming more real. After tonight's Superliga match he was asked by Mexican sports daily Medio Tiempo if he felt tempted to join the influx of foreign players into MLS.

Yup, you're a footballing God. Unless you're playing Algeria
Editor's Note: This is a lengthy but important article if you are a fantasy football manager. It's the age-old "strikers" quandary - let's take a deeper look:
If you're a fantasy football veteran, then you remember the days when it made absolutely no sense to buy expensive strikers.

Javier Hernandez has revealed that he has loved watching Manchester United since he was a little lad seeing Eric Cantona and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wear our jersey. They were his heroes and he wants to become just like them.

"It is like a dream," he said, a broad grin spread across his face.

After scanning the under 21 squad list for the upcoming fixtures against Portugal and Lithuania, I realised that we have a fantastic group of young players. Look at them: Wiltshire! Smalling! Albrighton! Rodwell! Carroll!

All these youngsters have shone in the Premier League for their respective clubs, so why can't they make the step up to senior level and replace the displace Lampard, Gerrard and Beckham- relics of an already forgotton age?

Hercules striker David Trezeguet has revealed that he snubbed an offer from Premier League outfit Liverpool in the summer to join the newly promoted Spanish Primera Division side instead.
The former World Cup winner joined Hercules on a free transfer after mutually terminating his contract with Juventus.

mesi
It's been 10 years since the 17th of September 2000 when a 17 year old called Lionel Messi touched down at Barcelona's El Prat airport for a trial. He scored five goals and hit the crossbar twice in his first display and hasn't looked back since.

Our latest signing gets acquainted with the Cobham training facility.

Our replacement for the injured Yossi Benayoun has been found.

Michael Gyasi joined Chelsea today from Northampton Town for an undisclosed fee. Shock signing, indeed. He is expect to slot staight into the side that will travel to Aston Villa this weekend.

Rooney released a statement in response to Sir Alex's comments from yesterday. In a nutshell, he said that he wants to leave because David Gill would not give him assurances about the future squad. Rooney essentially questioned our ability as a club to sign big name players. It's hard to tell what exactly transpired in that conversation.

There is a lot of pressure being placed on Manchester City to replace their manager Roberto Mancini, following two mind-numbingly dull no score draws at home last week.Sacking a manager should always be the last resort for any football club, whatever situation they happen to be in. Replacing the man in charge with someone new to the club in the middle of a season doesn't often have a positive influence on the team.

The Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association changed the format of its all-state boys soccer team.

But under any setup, there was little doubt who the state's top player was this fall.

Milwaukee Marquette senior forward Patrick Hodan, who led the Hilltoppers to an unbeaten season and their second consecutive WIAA Division 1 state championship, headed up the new-look WSCA all-state teams as the Player of the Year.

Many would argue that the last genuine "Mr Arsenal" we had was TA06, that rare breed of a one club man, while others would say that PV04 and TH14 were club heroes in their own equally memorable way. To me such a player is someone who you cannot imagine playing in any kit other than our red and white, can we say that of any of our current squad?

Not quite but the back of a fag packet but pretty close Not too many used paper napkins have a lifespan of 10 years. But the one signed by Lionel Messi on December 14, 2000, to secure his move to Barcelona is still going strong and takes pride of place in the office of his [...]