Santos Laguna beat Monterrey 2-1 in the second leg of the Mexican Primera Division final to win the clausura on an aggregate score of 3-2. Last month, it was Monterrey who beat Santos on a 4-3 aggregate score in the CONCACAF Champions League final, so these two sides have played four matches with the titles on the line in about as many weeks.

As promised I've made a swift return to the halcyon pages of Albion Road.
This week I'm taking a look at the outstanding SPL issues of the season as four go mad for Europe and two are driven crazy by relegation pressure:

Just five games left now in the 2011/12 SPL season.

Soccer is and always will be one of the most participated sports in the world. You have fans from all corners of the globe supporting different clubs and national teams and it doesn't matter what color your skin is, what culture you believe in or what language you speak, people can always talk to each other in a universal language which is soccer.

John "Clarkie" Souza (center) played for the U.S. Men's National Team in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Former U.S. Men's National Team forward John "Clarkie" Souza, a starter on the famous USA team that upset England during the 1950 FIFA World Cup, passed away Sunday at the age of 91, his family confirmed Tuesday afternoon.

1. On that short evidence we can deduce that Stuart Pearce's England would involve the same end result but with a dash more heroic defiance along the way. 2. Talk about conforming to national stereotypes. Klaas Jan Huntelaar is waking up with a sore head this morning after consuming too much grass last night.

I grew up during a period of near total domination for Liverpool Football Club but one thing I shall always remember is a notebook my Dad had stored away in which he had kept a record of all the FA Cup results for several seasons in the early 1950s. Poring through this, I recall my shock at reading the score line, ‘Gateshead 1-0 Liverpool' - to such an extent that I suspected my father had been engaging in some earlier fantasy game – a homespun forerunner of Football Manager.

On the twelfth of June 1980, England played Belgium in the finals of the European Championships their first match in the finals of a major tournament for ten years. It turned out to be a match that acted as a barometer for the state of the game in England in several different respects, and none of them were particularly positive.

It's clear that Michel Telo's Brazilian hit song 'Ai Seu Te Pego' is still popular within the Italian football scene, or at least to Milan's 'Carioca' Club of Robinho, Thiago Silva and Pato.

During Milan's 3-0 defeat of Novaro last night, Robinho did the famous dance move after netting the second goal.

Lionel Messi has been named by FIFA as the best player of 2011 for the third straight year. Messi equals Platini, Cruyff and Van Basten, the only players to ever win three Ballon d'Or titles.

Messi took almost 48% of the vote, with Ronaldo second with less than 22% and Xavi was a distant third with just over 9%.

Lionel Messi has been named by FIFA as the best player of 2011 for the third straight year. Messi equals Platini, Cruyff and Van Basten, the only players to ever win three Ballon d'Or titles.

Messi took almost 48% of the vote, with Ronaldo second with less than 22% and Xavi was a distant third with just over 9%.

This is Bosuilstadion in Belgium, home to Royal Antwerp Football Club. It was once a grand home of European football, with a capacity close to 60,000 and the venue for West Germany's 2-1 win over Belgium in the 1972 European Championship semi-final. It also hosted dozens of eagerly-anticipated friendlies between the Netherlands and Belgium.

This photo of Zentralstadion (Central Stadium) in Leipzig, Germany, was taken in December 2005, a little over a year following the opening of the stadium. It was built within the site of the huge original Zentralstadion, built in the 1950s, one of Europe's largest venues holding over 100,000 spectators.

For Jack Taylor, the referee for the 1974 World Cup final, handling players was much like handling the clientele at the Wolverhampton butcher shop he worked at throughout his career.

"I think my experience behind the counter at the butcher's shop helped because it made me fairly good at chatting people up," he wrote in his 1976 autobiography, Jack Taylor: World Soccer Referee.

Non-league football has experienced a culture of boom and bust for as long as it has existed. From the shamateurism of the 1950s and 1960s, through to more recent vanity projects, there has never been a completely level playing field in the semi-professional football, and what becomes troubling about this is, of course, what happens to a club when the money runs out.

I have always suspected Pele of being slightly overhyped. The Maradona v Pele debates always seemed interesting enough, but I don't know how many of the people involved had actually watched the latter playing, and if they had, how they were able to make those performances stand up against Maradona's extraoardinary genius.

Laszlo Kubala: Played for three countries while becoming a Barca legend in the 1950s

With two goals scored in the 38th and 56th minute against FC Bate Borisov, the little maestro joins Hungarian born Czech legend Laszlo Kubala, with 194 goals as second highest goalscorer in Barca's history.

How Leandro Damiao became Brazil's latest superstar striker

For the new season, MirrorFootball is teaming up with some of the blogosphere's best new writers to bring you even more great football reads every single day. Saturday is South America day, and here's I Like Football Me's Euan Marshall with his take on the week's big issues in the region.

By Chris Wright

This photo just landed in Pies' inbox and we felt we had to share it...

What we have here is an image of Aston Villa's matchday mascot throughout the early 1950s 'Darkie' to his friends (and his tailor) who is, unmistakably, a white fellow 'blacked-up' to look like a gollywog, minstrel or some such other casually racist stereotype that used to fly back then.

Nice blog post by Keyvan Heydari in the NY Times regarding the recent rise of Venezuela's men's soccer team:

Economic policy was a cornerstone in this process. In the 1950s, as Chico Carrasquel became the first of many Venezuelan shortstops in the major leagues, the president Marcos Pérez Jiménez promoted highway and large infrastructure projects in Venezuela financed by the nation's oil revenues.

By Tony Attwood If you are old enough to remember, or if you have an interest in 20th century history, you may know that televised football back in the 1950s was a very different creature from that which we have today. It wasn't just that there was hardly any televised matches (just the FA Cup [...]

The Ameobi brothers were the first brothers since the 1950s to play a competitive game for Newcastle, when they both appeared at Chelsea in that fine 2-2 draw last May. Sammy Ameobi - on loan next season? The other brothers of course were the famous George and Ted Robledo from Chile. George was the better [.

Got an email from Friz, who is a DJ of Rediffusion Radio that he would like to feature me on their morning show on SYNC - Your Lifestyle Radio.
With DJ Friz (pictured right) who is the host of "SYNC - Your Lifestyle Radio"Rediffusion has been in Singapore since 1949, during its heyday from 1950s to late 1970s it was a common everywhere in Singapore to have its trademark "box" receiver strategically located at places like kopitiams, shophouses to allow listeners to tune to their programs with Chinese Dialect Operas and Story-Telling segments by the legandary Lee Dai Shau being the mainstay of the station from decades.

There was a time when Hong Kong used to be the envy of Asian football. The territory hosted the first Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup in 1956 with its team finishing a creditable third. This was followed with a fourth place in 1964 and, from the 1950s to the 1980s, the Hong Kong team was one of the highest ranked teams in Asia.

Liverpool are looking forward to a bright future, but their new third strip is very much a nod to the past.
The Reds today unveiled their brand new third kit for the 2011/12 season, featuring an eye-catching white, blue and black design.
The inclusion of blue - 'cyan', say kit-makers Adidas - on the shirt will raise one or two eyebrows across Merseyside, but Adidas have revealed that the colour scheme is in tribute to the first-ever strip worn by the club following its formation in 1892.

My business is prone to hyperbole. It's like the troublemaker you once ran with in high school; you try to stay away from him, but he's your pal, and he still gets you in trouble every now and then.

Seriously, it's just part of the human condition, I think. We all enjoy the thought that we might be living an important moment of history.

I am here to save your life, and I'm not kidding. This isn't about the state of discourse on the internet, or nostalgia for some imaginary pastoral of 1950s civility, or making sure I don't get yelled at in blog comments. This is about you, and how you are going to live in the world. I mean how you're going to live as a sports fan, but let there be no limit to the revelation: I mean how you're going to live in every other way, too.

One of the peculiarities of the history of Wembley Stadium is how few derby matches have been played there. Before we go on to look at the derby matches that have been played there, however, it is important to distinguish how we are going to define that phrase in itself. Like many phrases that have entered the terminology of football, the phrase "local derby" has come to have something of a fluid meaning, but we are clamping down on that sort of thing for the purposes of this article.

Images via Facebook/David Beckham.

David Beckham graces the cover of the Spring/Summer issue of the semi-annual men's fashion mag, Fantastic Man. After seeing these pics we think it's advisable for Fantastic Man to change its name to Super Smokin' Hot Man.

Has Becks ever looked better?

POSTED: February 3rd 2011 NewsUpdate LONDON, Feb 03: Andy Carroll skipped nimbly around questions about whether he is worth £35m with an ease which Liverpool hope he will display against opposing defences after his English-player-record move from Newcastle on the eve of the transfer deadline. Carroll, 22, has taken over the No9 shirt abandoned by [.