By Chris Wright

It's fairly common knowledge that Rafael van der Vaart and Zlatan Ibrahimovic despise each other, stemming back from an incident years ago during an international friendly in 2004 where the latter went through the former with a horrendous tackle that left the pair teetering dangerously on becoming 'mortal enemies' with Zlatan even once going on record as saying he 'wished he'd broken Van der Vaart's legs.

The Revolution took to the pitch at Gillette Stadium tonight looking for their first victory of the 2012 season against an Eastern Conference opponent. In the end, they settled for a point-undone yet again by poor defending on set pieces and a late goal. Tonight's result brings the Revs to 4-6-1 on the season, with 13 points, tied with Houston (3-3-4) in the standings.

Cristiano Ronaldo vs Online Football Fans: A Live Football Skills Challenge - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Last year Castrol EDGE presented Ronaldo Tested to the Limit, an award-winning documentary that showed the Portugal and Real Madrid forward showcase his strengths in a series of captivating challenges in the most scientific examination of a player ever undertaken.

Seattle it is, and we couldn't be more proud. Montero, Alonso, Rosales, and the league's biggest fan base? This isn't a desperation pick. This is destiny.
And if we're wrong – if you show us up, Seattle – there are 18 other teams more than willing to carry this flag. We'll change this up as needed (accuracy is our prime value).

A picture tells a thousand words

If John Henry is as serious about Liverpool being successful as we want him to be, he needs to be stark raving mad by now.During yesterday's match, I was in the middle of a conversation with a friend who asked what happened to the Liverpool that ended last season (2010-11).

Adidas Predator Lethal Zones Football Boot - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Earlier this week, adidas finally launched the Predator® Lethal Zones boot after weeks of teasers and sneak previews. The new Predator® Lethal Zones boot, designed to be a complete ball control boot for shooting, passing and dribbling, is composed of five, super-light (SL) rubber and memory foam 3-D zones, each designed to support perfect ball control.

El Clasico Stats: Messi v Ronaldo, Valdes v Casillas and Mesut Ozil - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Ahead of Barcelona v Real Madrid this Saturday, we look at key stats and performers that will feature in El Clasico. The analysis looks at Messi v Ronaldo, Valdés v Casillas and Mesut Özil.

The top 3 NBA free-throw shooters of all-time are white guys, Steve Nash, Mark Price and Rick Barry. Five of the top 10 overall are white, with Larry Bird and Scott Skiles as part of the list. Many people would consider Peja Stojakovic as white; he is also in the top 10.

Photo: Earl Gardner

Yesterday we looked a basic passing statistics over the first four games. In the scatter plot below, we can see a simple pattern emerge along positional bands, much as Rolando De Aguiar demonstrated in a post last December looking at passing statistics from 2011.

Since MLS made available detailed match statistics provided by OPTA early in the 2012 season, PSP has published a number of posts in which we try to better understand what was happening on the field with the Philadelphia Union through the use of various statistics. These posts have been something of an evolution, ranging from a closer examination of what happened in a particular match in order to better understand what went right or wrong, to trying to understand larger trends, be they for the team as a whole, across positions, or for individual players.

A lot has been said these last few days about the apparent "implosion" of Manchester City's title quest this season. And if The Guardian is to be believed, Roberto Mancini has six games to save his job. So what went wrong for Mancini and the Citizens?
Data can help settle arguments, so I thought I'd take another look at some basic performance indicators to see how the City's performance developed over the course of the season.

The study of football, and its players, is perhaps best accomplished by evaluating efficiency. Of course there are many methods of such evaluation – ranging from weekly player ratings on the typical "start at 6" scale to full scale statistical analysis.

In this article we look at football clubs in Europe's top four leagues the English Premiership, La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga and analyse their offensive and defensive efficiency so far this season.

By Chris Wright

During an Asian Champions League match last night, Al Jazira 'keeper Ali Khaseif managed to ping a clearance off the 'spider' camera winching away overhead.

The game was duly restarted with a drop-ball, with an Esteghlal player returning the ball to Khaseif in a sportsmanlike fashion, only for the dead-eye 'keeper to pick out the spider cam again!

Real Madrid dismantled Osasuna, winning 5-1 with two goals from Cristiano Ronaldo. His first was an absolute rocket blast from considerable distance and, in one of the most Cristiano Ronaldo goal celebrations ever, he pulled up the leg of his shorts and pointed to the thigh that just generated that impressive display of power and accuracy.

You've probably read a hundred times by now that the MLS Western Conference is 9-2 versus the East so far this season. It's been less remarked that the two wins are by the Houston Dynamo and that Houston is a pretty tenuous Eastern Conference team. They're the westernmost team in the conference, are only a few miles east of the Western Conference's FC Dallas and they were in the West up until last season, when the MLS head office made the perverse decision to 'balance' the conferences by giving them an equal number of teams for exactly one season before the addition of Montreal unbalanced it again in favor of the East.

Well, that wasn't very pretty, was it?

What can we learn using the match stats from the Chalkboard at mlssoccer.com's Match Center about the Philadelphia Union's 3–1 loss to Portland Timbers in Monday night's season opener?

Passing and shooting

Portland had a greater number of passes and a better passing accuracy percentage with 482 passes with a passing accuracy of 72 percent.

Untold Referees

Untold regularly publishes reviews of the effectiveness and accuracy of referees in the Premier League, giving each referee a percentage mark for his performance.

In addition we also publish regular articles on refereeing in the Premier League which have led us to the view that there is something not quite right [.

You can deride stats all you like but sometimes they tell you things your eyes missed.

Take the following, for example:

Aerial duels won per game:

Hangeland 2.7
Hughes 2.1
Senderos 0.4

Weird. This isn't headers per game, merely what happens when two players contest a ball in the air.

In terms of the technical quality of games, the data taken from the Russian Premier League again shows few disparities between performances on the different surfaces. Critics of artificial turf often hold that players are not comfortable in possession on artificial pitches, yet the average number of touches per player remained steady (2.

As a team, Liverpool's passing accuracy in the Premier League so far this season is 81%, which is fairly good, but it means means that 19% of passes are being misplaced in every league game. Who are biggest culprits when it comes to giving the ball away?Before you read any further, try and guess who are the worst offenders.

Trademark volley from the non-flying Dutchman Bergkamp still got it by soccermr Ajax's coaching team like to roll back the years from time to time. Take this video, for instance. Frank De Boer play a lovely Hollywood pass, Dennis Bergkamp gets on the end of it and works his magic by firing in a glorious [.

Trademark volley from the non-flying Dutchman Bergkamp still got it by soccermr Ajax's coaching team like to roll back the years from time to time. Take this video, for instance. Frank De Boer play a lovely Hollywood pass, Dennis Bergkamp gets on the end of it and works his magic by firing in a glorious [.

It's been awhile since I trawled through the Guardian chalkboards for interesting items. I know, we all missed it.
I remain convinced that Liverpool changed tact in midfield during the interval. The key seemed to be Spearing, more willing to stay in his own half and shield the defense rather than pressing higher up the pitch and leaving gaps.

Gabriel Gomez was signed by the Philadelphia Union in late December. Last night was the first chance Philly fans have had to examine the versatile Panamanian.

In a 1-0 friendly loss to the United States, Gomez played as a calming link between Panama's back four and skittish front five.

The good news: He was fantastic.

As we enter the 2012 season, there are many questions surrounding the Union, but one of the biggest is what to make of our young striker, Danny Mwanga.

After a fantastic rookie year, Mwanga seemed to regress in 2011. He started fewer games and scored fewer goals than he did his rookie year, and his appearances were inconsistent: during some games he looked like an absolute world-beater, while more often he was anonymous.

Former Barcelona defender and current New York Red Bulls player Rafael Marquez has hit the streets for Red Bull literally. The Mexican international took to the streets of Mexico City to show off his accuracy and football talent as he performed trick shots throughout the capital.

Check out the video below, and leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Editor's note: The MLS partnership with Opta Sports has resulted in richer ways to understand the performance of the Philadelphia Union and its players through statistical analysis. PSP's efforts to collect and share match statistics have been enhanced by the deeper analysis offered by Ford Bohrmann.

Jonjo Shelvey is hoping his display in his first ever top-flight start for Liverpool at Villa Park alongside Luis Suarez will be the springboard to future success with the Reds.
Kenny Dalglish handed him a role playing just off Suarez through the centre - a position he excelled in during his loan spell at Blackpool, and the No.

Mario hates poor passing The training ground scrap between Manchester City team-mates Mario Balotelli and Micah Richards was started by a stray pass from the England international, Mirror Football reports. Balotelli was unhappy at the accuracy of Richards' passing and told him: "If you won't pass to my feet, I won't move.

Featured image: Paul Rudderow

When I was gathering the season stats for all of the Philadelphia Union players to share with the PSP writers for our forthcoming 2011 season review series I realized no passing stats were available, either for the club or for individual players. Actually, that's not precisely true; you can find passing percentages for the team on a game-by-game basis by clicking on the Stat tab for each game's MatchCenter page at MLSsoccer.

Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva has polarised opinion ever since he arrived at Anfield, and he's often been on the receiving end of unwarranted criticism. One of the recurring criticisms levelled at the Brazilian is his lack of attacking impact in the final third of field, but club legend John Barnes insists that he should not be judged along those lines.

Bellamy and Mata top pass stats

Craig Bellamy and Juan Mata topped the accuracy charts for their respective sides. Keep reading for more on this and the rest of the stats from Liverpool's 2-1 triumph at Stamford Bridge courtesy of Opta.

View the full story here: Liverpool FC

A news article on 2011-11-21 12:33:12 from: Liverpool FC

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Will Liverpool add to their 242 goals against Chelsea? Ten key stats for this weekend's Premier League action

Goal.com takes a look at 10 key stats ahead of the weekend's action in England's top flight including Aston Villa's poor defensive record and Mikel Arteta's passing accuracy

View the full story here: Goal

A news article on 2011-11-18 20:24:00 from: Goal

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

You may well have already seen this, but on the off chance you've been off the grid, as I have, in the last 24 hours or so, here's the extended highlights of England's 5-0 win over Iceland in the 2013 European U21 Championships qualifier in Colchester.

Nathan Delfouneso was in the starting eleven, but left the pitch with the game barely 10 minutes old after pulling up chasing a ball into the box.

In the world's leading football (soccer) leagues pinpoint accuracy, speed and intensity can make the difference between a top flight place in the standings or relentless pressure to avoid league and cup disappointment. With the stakes so high, players look for a ball that gives them unrivalled touch and feel to ensure it goes exactly [.

One of the persistent (and unfair) criticisms of Charlie Adam this season is the alleged 'fact' that he can't tackle, and that he's poor defensively. Lucas is widely accepted to be Liverpool's best defensive midfielder, so I've compared Adam to Lucas in a bid to show that the criticism of the Scot's defensive ability is completely unwarranted.

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has suggested that Luis Suarez may be feeling the strain over Patrice Evra's recent allegations.
In a post-match interview, Dalglish again made it clear that the club is 100% behind Suarez, but he also seemed to suggest that the the stress from Evra's unsubstantiated allegations may have been playing on the Uruguayan's mind during the game:
"Sometimes you don't finish [chances], but that doesn't take away from him [Suarez], his ability, and his integrity and everything else as a footballer.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

It was as poor a performance as we've seen from the Philadelphia Union this season against a New York team that, with rare exceptions, did not look at all good.

With the obvious exception of the number of goals, when looking at the match statistics, there appears to be as much parity to be found as there is advantage.

Scousers' skill school (not that there's any Scousers involved) Liverpool stars Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Jonjo Shelvey and Martin Skrtel were put through their paces as they faced off in a skills challenge. The players competed in a crossbar challenge, extreme keepy-uppies and a trial of shooting accuracy in the 188BET Skills Challenge.

Rooney v Suarez stats going into the Liverpool v United game - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

We compare two main striking threats for Manchester United and Liverpool, Wayne Rooney and Luis Suarez, and look at their stats for the start of the Premier League season.

ROONEY MAN UTD'S MAIN THREAT

Wayne Rooney has started the season in blistering from.