FOXBOROUGH, Mass. After Wednesday's practice, Jay Heaps took a moment to reflect on where he feels his team is six games into the season.

Sure, there are still improvements to be made. After all, the team's 2-4-0 record would seem to indicate that they're far from from becoming a finished product.

With a return to Wembley to face rivals Everton coming up in a few days, it was probably inevitable that most of the Liverpool news floating around the interwebs would be more worried about the near future than the immediate past. That's not entirely a bad thing, though. Because, you know, Liverpool are facing Everton on Saturday.

There have been 217 Merseyside derbies in total. I limited this remembrance to the previous 122, those played in the last 50 years. Which is actually a handy dividing line, as Liverpool and Everton only met once between 1951 and 1962, in the '54-55 FA Cup (which Liverpool won), because of Everton then Liverpool's relegation to the Second Division.

Monday March 26th

Woke up beat to hell but forced myself up and skipped breakfast (no time). Left hotel at 9:30 am to walk to turf field across the street from Camp Nou for coaches course with Jordi Vinyals and Arnau. Coaches ran sessions and they critiqued them to improve. Paul and I went to Barca offices to secure tickets for Stadium Tour, Athletic Bilbao game, and Milan game.

A good time alternative to the FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer simulation in the 2000s, EA Sports FIFA Street is back after a four-year absence with a reboot of the...

Towards the end of BBC Radio 5 Live's Rangers – What Next?, my attention was flagging.
A worthwhile broadcast descended into soppy sentiment as listeners were told of the 11-year-old boy asking his dad to cancel the family holiday to Florida and give the £2,000 cost to Rangers "Fighting Fund" instead (and Mickey Mouse was more likely to be in the Ibrox boardroom, anyway).

John Murphy (right), seen here with former Revolution goalkeeper Adin Brown, served as an assistant coach for the Revs from 2000 till February of 2004. (Photo by Art Donahue/artdonahue.com)

Taylor Twellman, Sharie Joseph, Pat Noonan, Clint Dempsey – four stars of the New England Revolution in the 2000s that came through the MLS SuperDraft thanks in part to John Murphy's input into the team's draft decisions.

Plenty of former and current professional athletes have found their way to the poker tables but few can match the success that Teddy Sheringham has had. The star striker retired from competitive football at the end of the 2007-2008 season, giving him the perfect opportunity to get serious about another favorite pursuit: playing poker.

A Campeonato Brasileiro Série A regular for much of the 2000s and the 1999 Copa do Brasil winner, Esporte Clube Juventude, also known as Juventude, is a Brazilian soccer team in Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul. Following its relegation at the end of the 2007 season, the club has been in a freefall [.

Date: Saturday Aug 27 2011
Ground: Evans Park
Comp: West Midlands Regional League (step six)
Match: Stafford Town 4 Dudley Town 1 HT: 3-0
Sequence: 1-0,2-0, 3-0, 3-1, 4-1
ATT: 35 (headcount)
Additional: Entrance £4.00, Programme £1.00

Evans Park in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 7, Structures/Terracing 7, Hospitality 8, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 7
Total 29

Stafford Town, founded 1976, are in only their second season back in the pyramid at step six or above.

Date: Saturday Aug 27 2011
Ground: Evans Park
Comp: West Midlands Regional League (step six)
Match: Stafford Town 4 Dudley Town 1 HT: 3-0
Sequence: 1-0,2-0, 3-0, 3-1, 4-1
ATT: 35 (headcount)
Additional: Entrance £4.00, Programme £1.00

Evans Park in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 7, Structures/Terracing 7, Hospitality 8, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 7
Total 29

Stafford Town, founded 1976, are in only their second season back in the pyramid at step six or above.

As I'm sure every Liverpool fan remembers, Steven Gerrard almost became a Chelsea player on two separate occasions during the mid-2000s. Thankfully, he decided to stay at Anfield, but almost 7 years later, Gerrard still hasn't won what he desires the most: the league title.
Time is running out for Liverpool's captain, and former Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers midfielder Robbie Savage believes that Gerrard must leave Anfield if he is to achieve that goal:
"I'm sure Gerrard doesn't regret turning down Chelsea and Real Madrid in summer 2005 to stay with Liverpool.

It didn't take long for Adam Cristman to realize that he was in the midst of something special this year.

Only weeks into his first season as a member of the Los Angeles Galaxy, the fifth-year striker witnessed something he hadn't seen since his rookie year: the hallmarks of a team destined for greatness.

The starting all-around forward for the Rapids All-Time Team is John Spencer.
How Acquired: Transferred for free from Scottish side Motherwell.
Years In Colorado: 2001 through 2004
How Departed: Retired after the 2004 season.
For the final player pick on the All-Time team I went with possibly the biggest heart the team has ever had (though Kimura gives him a run for his money) the wee Scotsman John Spencer.

Andy Johnson's hat-trick and ongoing contract talks got me thinking. Should we renew? Tough call, but my instinct is that if we do it should be very much on our terms. He's been a good player to have around, but the time he's spent off the pitch should be a red herring flag (herring indeed!

It's been a summer marred by disappointment for U.S. Soccer. Most notably there was the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final collapse against Mexico by the U.S. Men's National Team and the loss to Japan in the Women's World Cup Final by the U.S. Women's National Team.

But while those two defeats may have garnered the most attention, the youth national teams on the men's side were also falling well short of expectations.

You can stick your Chelseas, Arsenals, Liverpools and 500 dollars for a take away with Manchester Uniteds pro on holiday, Indonesia have out trumped the lot of them.
Jakarta is going to host a game featuring Indonesia and AC Milan early next month.
The official title is the Asia Disaster Relief Tour 2011 and the game will be between Top Skor Indonesian All Star Legends and Milan Glorie.

ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as simply Fiorentina or La Viola, is a professional Italian football club from Florence, Tuscany. Founded by a merger in 1926, Fiorentina has played at the top-level of Italian football for the majority of their its existence. After climbing back up the Italian football system in the early 2000s from Serie [.

One of the difficult parts of the whole three games in six days is trying to keep up with our regular features. But, we're on a great network, and in this case The Bent Musket reminded me of the Sunday 1PM game against the New England Revolution. Let's just ignore the future game for a moment and pay some attention to the whole issue concerning their supporters' groups battling with the front office.

Inter have been coach-less for little under a week since Leonardo's official departure from the club last Friday (June 17, 2011). An outsider may look at Inter's recent coaching trend and make a false assumption that the club has returned to the frequent coaching turnover of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

I remember when I was first getting into football back in the mid-2000s. I started watching Manchester United and didn't know whether I would take to the sport. In the first years of following United, there were three players that made me instantly...
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- Maxi Rodriguez

The first soccer jersey I purchased was as stereotypical as it was ill-advised. Like most barely-adolescent Americans attracted to football in the early 2000s, I faced the difficult task of keeping abreast of a sport in a country where domestic media coverage began and ended with blooper reels.

A fixture in the English Football League Championship in the 2000s, Preston North End will compete in the third tier of soccer in England, League One, following its relegation at the end of the 2010/11 season. As the club prepares for next season, Preson North End has launched its PUMA 2011/12 home and away kits.

América Futebol Clube (also known as América Mineiro, América or América-MG) is a Brazilian soccer team from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, founded on April 30, 1912. The club is back in the top tier of Brazilian soccer, the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, after a lean period in the 2000s that saw them fall as far down [.

The Philadelphia Union officially signed former MLS Most Valuable Player Carlos Ruiz before departing for Greece. Ruiz arrives on a free transfer from Aris FC. He has scored 82 goals over 155 games in his MLS career.

Ruiz gives Peter Nowak another offensive option to support Danny Mwanga and Sebastien Le Toux.

Gav Stone is the editor of Les Rosbifs a fantastic site dedicated to English footballers playing overseas. You can follow him on Twitter @LesRosbifs .. Here is Gav's favourite goal (it's No.1 at the end of the video below):

Being a Gillingham fan is something of a labour of love.

The derby with no history?
In a weeks time European Football Weekends will join 75,000 fans in the Olympiastadion to watch Hertha take on Union in the Berlin derby. David Tunnicliffe, an Englishman living in Germany, gives us the heads up on the history, or lack of it, between these two great teams.

WASHINGTON, DC D.C. United going to Baltimore? Not if real estate firm Akridge can help it. The owners of the D.C. United soccer team have spent several years searching for a new soccer stadium deal, including sites in the District, Virginia and Maryland. In the early 2000s, then Mayor Anthony Williams sought to have [.