Adidas' latest effort at promoting soccer in USA.Website.Beckham conspicous by his absence. Website here...
Dream MLS from Jason Zada on Vimeo.

England face Andorra today in Fabio Capello's first competitive game in charge as England manager as England look to qualify for the South Africa World Cup. Rio Ferdinand appears to be the only absence from the squad, but there will be more-than-capable replacements with Terry, Lescott, Brown and Upson all looking to be given a chance [.

Another day, another video clip.
Take a look at Yossi Benayoun's superb curling effort in Liverpool's 1-0 victory over Tranmere yesterday. The Israeli international will be making a push for more playing time in midfield with the likely departure of Xabi Alonso, Ryan Babel's recovery from injury, and Javier Mascherano's absence to play for Argentina in the upcoming Olympics.

Barcelona are wrapping up their tour of Chicago and New York tonight against the New York Red Bulls. Kick off is at 7:00PM and for those of us who don't splurge on deep cable coverage, the match will be broadcast live on ESPN2!
It should be a lot of fun, and in spite of Lionel Messi's absence from the team, we'll get to see some of Barcelona's finest, including future Red Bull Thierry Henry (ok ok, I'm just kidding, sort of).

Can Roma and AC Milan turn things around this week?  I think Roma will and must as Mourinho and Inter already have that 3 point lead which cost Roma the title last season.  AC Milan are having injury trouble already so Clarence Seedorf will have to fill the absence of Andrea Pirlo in the midfield and [.

Liverpool defender Daniel Agger has moved to quell speculation that he and his manager Rafa Benitez have fallen-out.
Agger has struggled to break back into the Liverpool first-team after nearly a year out through a metatarsal problem.
During his absence, Rafa Benitez signed Martin Skrtel as a replacement and the form of the Slovakian has seen Agger relegated to the bench this season, unable to force his way into the team.

I knew eventually this game would get played but I can say no one certainly expected so many issues with RFK's lighting system and I'm assuming the absence of a back-up generator because once again the game came to a halt in the 54th minute due to....you guessed it the lights went out! Besides that the [.

Former Portugal manager Felipe Scolari taking over the Chelsea helm could prove to be the most crucial move of this summer, although in a different way than you may think. Scolari leaving the Portuguese post means that the Portuguese FA is now trying to convince Manchester United assistant manager Carlos Queiroz to take over.

We have 17-year-old wunderkind investigative reporter Jamie Lynn Spears (right) on the story.
Spears, who recently had a kid and got $1 million for a photo shoot, has had her dreams of being a soccer mom shattered. The absence of the beautiful game in her home state of Louisiana has forced her to search for something else.

If you don't want to buy fancy socks from mega companies like Adididas and Nike, you can always improvise. Like these folks in South Africa who are using condoms to hold up their socks.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=vn20080722120309482C350765

As part of their pre-match kitting up, some Cape Town soccer players are slipping on condoms on their feet, so that their socks can stay up longer during matches.

Tuesday's soccer-shaped smorgasbord Real Madrid midfielder Wesley Sneijder's knee injury will rule him out for three months, a relief to the player who had feared a longer absence. Tests showed Sneijder did not tear ligaments when he was challenged by...

Who says that Spain can't win a title?

Watching Spain throughout this competition, one couldn't sit back and not be amazed at how well they played. Even when challenged by Sweden (which in all honesty could have been a draw) and Italy (they tried to attack but when your opponent plays everyone behind the ball, breaking them down is next to impossible), they still found a way to win.

San Jose, Calif., native Jesus Padilla had a once-promising career at some point. But now, he seems firmly entrenched in the second division. That much was evident last season when he spent all but a brief moment of his time with Tapatio.
How much has changed entering the Apertura 2008 season?

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Just a nice little pre-season snippet!
Chelsea U-18 3 QPR U-18 3
- Match Report (from a Chelsea perspective) - QPR wearing their sparkling new away strip.
- Match Photos
Meanwhile QPR Reserves/U-21 Play Yeading Tonight
QPR Official Site - IN RESERVE
A QPR Under-21 and Reserve side take on Hayes & Yeading this evening at Church Road, kick off 7.

Remember a few days back when we were talking about Mo Edu possibly making his Rangers debut this Saturday vs. Celtic? Dude, might not be the only European débutante this weekend as a couple of injury's to the attacking portion of Villarreal's side may leave the door open for The Boy King of New York & New Jersey™ to see the field vs.

Singapore international,Noh Alam Shah, bagged two goals yesterday to help his side beat Balestier Khalsa 4-1.He has shown that he is ready to lead the Singapore strikeforce again in December after a long absence due to his worldwide seven month banned.The Lions will be defending their title when the Suzuki Cup kickstart that month.

Champions League debutants CFR 1907 Cluj came from behind to beat Roma and record a stunning 2-1 victory at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Beyond the absence of Totti, Roma had a strong squad out on the field and will be disappointed with their performance. There has been a bit of turmoil off the field [.

Tim Candon over at SWakeChat blog has a bunch of interesting notes on tonight's matchup against the PDL Brooklyn Knights including:

• Stokes, Antoniuk, and Edozien are all suspended for tonight's match due to 2007 card accumulation
  
• Expect Coggins and Watson to start up top, with Ryan Solle slotted into the midfield
  
• Richard Perdomo will likely deputize in Stokes' absence from the backline
  

>> Read Tim's full post over at SWakeChat.

Alpha Dog 1. New England Revolution (WDLWW) Nobody did much to threaten the Revs lofty position atop the Dogpile, despite their absence from the MLS fixture list due to SuperLiga. Only United and the Crew were really in any position to do so, and United faces SuperLiga as well, while the Crew went down to RSL.

LIVERPOOL The good: Fernando Torres continues that grand tradition of Liverpool strikers, which has been notable only for its absence since Michael Owen's departure. And if Rafa stops resting Torres unnecessarily (unlikely), they might even be in with a shout of challenging Manchester United and Chelsea for the top spot.

Juventus marked its return to the European Champions League after an enforced two-year absence with a stylish 4-0 win over Slovakia's Artmedia on Wednesday night. Goals from Camoranesi, Del Piero, Chiellini and Legrottaglie made the return  leg in Slovakia all but academic for the Italian giants. At Turin, Juventus got goals from Mauro.

And so, after a year-long absence from a soccer stadium (the last live match I watched was Chile vs. Nigeria, FIFA U-20 World Cup Quarter-Finals, and only because the tournament took place in Canada), I courageously donned my "soccer fanatic" shirt and went to see Paris Saint Germain vs. Bordeaux Saturday, Day 2 of the [.

And so, after a year-long absence from a soccer stadium (the last live match I watched was Chile vs. Nigeria, FIFA U-20 World Cup Quarter-Finals, and only because the tournament took place in Canada), I courageously donned my "soccer fanatic" shirt and went to see Paris Saint Germain vs. Bordeaux Saturday, Day 2 of the [.

Simple and straight-forward, "disaster" is the only way I can describe the unexpected collapse as Lithuania defeated Romania 3-0 in Cluj. The absence of Cristian Chivu, Adrian Mutu, Razvan Rat and Florentin Petre was obviously too much for Victor Piţurcă's squad to deal with as the visitors completely dominated play.

The People is reporting this morning that Terry Venables has turned down the manager's job at Newcastle United. Terry Venables - praying while assistant to England's Steve McClaren Venables was reportedly made an offer by owner Mike Ashley but refused the opportunity to end his five-year absence from management.

Sevilla defender Aquivaldo Mosquera will be out for three weeks due to an ankle sprain.  In the MRIs that were done Mosquera's absence will allow Ivica Dragutinovic to once again be a part of the nervionense  Starting XI. The Colombian international was carried off the pitch after a hard foul by Chica should have earned Espanyol [.

Let's start with the prediction: DC will win tonight against New York. Missing Gallardo and Namoff will be tough, and I am curious to see how Soehn elects to arrange things in their absence. I'd like to see Fred in the No. 10 role, which is where he spent most of his time in Melbourne. [...]

I was thinking of continuing my Guardian Reports from the Alternative Universe with 100% more EnglandTM, but the success of Euro 2008 in recent days has taken all the fun away. Based on what we've seen in the past week, why bother even cheekily mourning England's absence? England has had enough reminding why they weren't good enough for this tournament.

I can't make any particular excuses for the lack of biting analysis and stunning insight into Euro 2008 on this site of late. Such as that was likely, obviously.
The simple fact is that it is, as I predicted before the tournament began, the first World Cup/European Championships I haven't watched avidly in two decades.

Here's David Beckham after today's Galaxy practice.
On the return of Landon Donovan: ``It's always great to have all of your teammates back. It's important to carry on this run.''

On being able to score goals in Donovan's absence: ``That was one of the worries, but not from the players or the team.

Its been a difficult afternoon to digest today's loss to Spain.I don't feel cheated or denied in any way.In many ways i am pleased for the Spanish.What hurt to watch was our lack of imagination and Roberto Donadoni's inability to judge the match and make the proper changes that needed to happen.His initial game plan and squad selection was solid but it became obvious when we needed to test Spain's steady but not spectacular back line we continued to target Luca Toni as if the game rules specified that for Italy to score it must only come from Luca Toni,otherwise the goal would be null and void.

Huge thanks to Jen for all her hard work in keeping this blog going in my absence! Our Euro coverage is winding down the semifinal today, the final this weekend, and then life returns to normal. I think I've counted 25 complete games that I've watched in the month of June. Great fun, yet I am suffering from a serious case of SIFF.

Hands up if you hate food shopping.
Me too.
It's a miserable fact of life though isn't it. It's got to be done.
That task and a variety of others are the reason I didn't get time to post yesterday.
My lover says I have a "supermarket face" (which coincidentally is very similar to his "going up hills face").

Nate Jaqua has returned to Houston after a half season in the Austrian Bundesliga that saw him score six goals and increase his profile. Jaqua even earned a call up to the US National Team after an almost three year absence for the match against England at Wembley. I've seen some other publications hail [.

A reflective moment for all Gunner fans as Gilberto, our stout hearted defensive specialist departs for Panathinaikos. He spend many seasons shielding Arsenal from quick counterattacking teams while providing invaluable goals through set pieces.

His calm leadership during Thierry Henry's injury absence in the early half of 2007 steadied the ship and his ten goals scored through a bunch of penalties and headers kept Arsenal ticking.

With a series of bids for Marius Niculae being rejected by his present club, SPL's Inverness CT, it is quite possible that we'll see him return to Dinamo Bucureşti, where he started his professional career. The twenty-seven year-old native of Bucharest was given a weeks leave of absence from Inverness, noting

Sorry everybody for my absence of non-writing like I stated in my previous post there was a company shake-up and my work load has increased significantly. So lets get down to it..sha'll we? During the time gone I have attended both Superliga matches with the utter and peer joy of seeing us demolish Atlante F.

New Mexico native Edgar Castillo took a shot with Santos Laguna as an 18-year-old. Winning an open tryout, he eventually earned a chance at playing in the first division. At the age of 22, Castillo is an established member of the reigning Mexican league champion and a budding star with the national team.

The Ghanaian international, Sulley Muntari , has been presented as an Inter player. The former Portsmouth midfielder is making his return to Serie A after a years absence. Muntari started his club career at the top tier level with Udinese before being transferred to the English Premiership League side Portsmouth for a record club fee, believed to be around £7.

New qualifiers and a new team? Not exactly, but there are some changes in Poland's squad after Euro 2008. The most noticable is the absence of our captain Maciej Zurawski. Jacek Krzynowek, on the other hand, remains a member of the team.