By Chris Wright

Back in 1988, when football was a man's game, Real Madrid's Juanito was (perhaps unsurprisingly) banned for five whole years for this brazen double-whammy, back-stamping, cheek-mashing assault on Bayern Munich's Lothar Matthaus as the German midfielder lay pole-axed between the legs of the referee.

As the statue of Sir Bobby Moore looks on, London burns in the distance behind a desolate Wembley Stadium. The scenes across England this week have been devastating and surreal. These images have brought to mind the sectarian unrest I witnessed as a child when the IRA and Loyalists committed weekly acts of bloodshed.

The upcoming Real Madrid defender David Mateos was banging heavily on hercules hurting FC Barcelona on the Saturday night. The truth was Hercules definitely tried, they played well, were very organised but this Barca side was too muchb for them to handle in the end. But the question in everybody's mind is whether the newly promoted recruit from Real Madrid B team was expecting too much from his senior side to keep on the tail of this exceptional Barcelona side.

In what is a terrible acting performance, unless it was on a Brazilian soap opera maybe, Brazilian defender Erika acts like she's been stabbed in the back.

This is how a true teammate acts. I wonder if Beckham had this written in his contract.

Big names and bad jokes ruled the day in Nyon as the Euro names were announced. And given that it's the Euros, where the quality has a higher density, Groups of Death are often just the groups. However, Group B is a clusterfuck of quality and Group C, should Bilic's boys get their acts together as they can, aren't tremendously far behind.

Hmmm, bank holiday here and in the UK, I believe. Which is kind of annoying because I wanted to ring up my bank today and complain about something but I suppose it'll have to wait.

It means things are fairly quiet with not much in the way of fall-out from the Birmingham game and little written about City just yet.

The other day I made a funny image about Arshavin and his goal face. I said it made him look like he was constipated. Loyal readers commented that generally speaking I was a terrible human being for that. In response, over a twitter conversation with arseblogger, I ended up joking about making Arhsavin riding a unicorn, as though that would make Arsenal supporters happy.

This week on the show, resident diva Sarah Wilson and star of the silver screen Brian Bentley are joined by Around the League star ELAC who makes his show debut. Many topics are covered and as is tradition with a Sarah and Brian show, Sarah learns new terms to describe various...acts. CSRN MEDIA PLAYER

The Mirror got jokes.

Ashley Cole shot my mum last week. The drama has since been immortalized in digital form, first by Taiwanese television and now by some crafty fucks with degrees in software engineering.

No disrespect, of course. This is good, real good.

Episode 109: "Two Aliens and an A-Hole"
Host: Scott Bornstein
Panel: Sarah Wilson, Brian Bentley, ELAC
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This week on the show, resident diva Sarah Wilson and star of the silver screen Brian Bentley are joined by Around the League star ELAC who makes his show debut.

If a new American Rules Soccer League was formed, what single event could guarantee an excess of publicity to thrust the league further to the forefront of the minds of sports consumers? What single event could accompany the league and strengthen it every 4 years with the biggest bang for the buck?

This is an absolute winner for women and football! Last night, 41,663 women and children filled the stadium to watch Turkish side, Fenerbahce play against Manisaspor. The Turkish Football Federation recently took up a decision to ban male supporters from attending games following their acts of hooliganism against Shakhtar Donetsk.

Brendan Rodgers says he was "honoured" by the congratulations Swansea received from Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish after their Premier League promotion.
Dalglish was among the first to congratulate the Welsh side after their Championship play-off win over Reading.
As the Swans prepare to travel to Anfield on Saturday, Rodgers said he still treasures Dalglish's letter.

After the 1-1 draw at Anfield yesterday, Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini accused Liverpool players of getting Mario Balotelli sent off, and having examined the incident several times - and being completely objective - I have to agree with his view.
Mancini was clearly disappointed with the decision:
"It was not the correct decision.

Scheming for support and ticket sales is one of sport's greatest traditions. Most of them take a more traditional route, such as standard marketing. None of those methods likely involve bringing Akon to Blackburn.

But give those chicken men some credit, because they tried to try. And clearly failed.

The latest edition of our new NSC custom acts as annex to today's Postcard From Europe with Big Bad Brad.On whether he could take over as cup goalie should they reach the late stages or a final:"That hasn't been discussed. We have a great group of goalkeepers, so there's no way that would be discussed.