Imagine this: Your company tells that because times are tough they haven't been able to pay your salary for three months. But because you love your job so much, and are so lucky to take part, you decide to stick it out. Then your company goes and announces they're going to sign one of the [...]

About ten years ago Nick Hancock co-wrote a book called What Didn't Happen Next, which was an amusing look at the butterfly effect in football and those little changes which might have rewritten the annals of football. What if Southgate had scored his penalty at Euro 1996? What if Gordon Banks hadn't had food poisoning [.

"Football defeated anti-football," raved the Catalan press on Wednesday night. "Pain and recrimination," cried the English. In one of the most bizarre Champions League matches in recent memory, Barcelona managed to draw 1-1 with Chelsea and advance to the final in Rome on the away goals rule.

Darius Vassell is more than a player Kaka might have attracted 50,000 to the Bernabeu, but Darius Vassell brought in a respectable 3,000 punters to urge him to sign for Turkish outfit Ankaragucu. The fans came armed with banners, placards and a level of vocal support more befitting the Second Coming than the arrival of a [.

It almost seemed as if Real Madrid were human when they failed to plant any goals into DC United's net during the first half of the match last night. DC goal tender Josh Wicks made some amazing saves that stunned both fans and Real Madrid strikers alike.

Real Madrid's Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo (L) vies with DC United's Chris Pontius (2nd L), Christian Gomez (2nd R) and Ben Olsen (R) during a friendly match on August 9, 2009 at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, as part of Real's pre-season tour of Canada and the US.

What motivates a supporter to spend every game with his back turned to the action on the pitch? To spend the game imploring other supporters to sing, chant, jump in unison? To be the man on the stand, above the fray, to be recognised by all in his end of the stadium?

Capo, Zenit Saint Petersburg

That man (I've yet to hear of a female capo worldwide) is typically known in ultras circles as the capo, which is (roughly speaking) Italian for "leader".

El Sábado anterior en el partido Tigres Vs. Morelia, se dió un hecho que ya se había presentado en el Estadio Universitario, en la misma portería sur. El Sábado 21 de noviembre de 1987, Tigres enfrentó al América, partido correspondiente a la fecha 12 del Torneo 87-88, que terminó empatado a un gol.

In a ground breaking ceremony today construction officially began on the new Hiddink Soccer Stadium in South Korea.

Ground broken for Hiddink soccer center

The stadium will be named after Guss Hiddink (who stands fifth from the left), former head coach of the South Korean national team.

The first Saturday of August in England and it's raining; football weather. Normally this would be time to look forward to the new season but when the news broke yesterday that Sir Bobby Robson had passed away it was time to stop and reflect on what an outstanding career he had as a player, coach and manager not only in and for England but also abroad with some of the heavyweights of European club football; he always came across as being a good bloke and one of the last 'old school' football personalities too, something that came across yesterday in the many tributes that were paid to him.

This commentary originally appeared in The Amoias of the Americas. My cousin, Oscar R. Amoia, grew up in Buenos Aires near the Boca district. He has supported his beloved Club Atletico Boca Juniors for his entire life. He had a very distinct memory of one of the most famous derbies in the world. He was only [.

I'm pretty sure I know where everyone was the afternoon of recovery Sunday – and it wasn't down Tesco buying orange juice and ibuprofen. No, we were all getting square eyes, because it was the big one, the race for the top... the race for the Kop. For the best part of 90 minutes I wish [...]

Marseille man takes to the pitch in scrum cap Rugby is a pretty popular sport in the south of France, and Marseille's Baky Kone has emerged from hospital seemingly unsure what shape his balls are. The Ivory Coast international has had to don the old Petr Cech after being taken out by Lyon goalkeeper Hugo Lloris [.

National Pride! La Liga Fans defend its brilliance, backed by the National success of Spain in Euro2008. Added to the technically driven shows of its elite clubs, beside the host of talents Spain exports to the elite clubs in Europe, by well or with no way to avoid. And while the Calcio Fans hail the world cup [.

"Cookie, Cookie, Cookie! Cookies don't do that to people."
-Dave Chappelle

Coventry manager Chris "Cookie" Coleman is monstrously excited about the visit Chelsea are to make to Ricoh Arena on March 7 for an FA Cup sixth-round tie.

"It's fantastic. I can't wait," said Coleman, whose Coventry side advanced thanks to a 1-0 win over Blackburn on Tuesday.

The first noises started when Real Madrid were humbled at Anfield.  Then Liverpool managed to make up ground on United since what seems like the first time since the winter break with a thumping of the champions at Old Trafford.  It got noisier still.  Then, what seemed like an impossibility happened: Man U dropped three [.

I'll have the schedules in my Google calendar before lunchtime is over so if you are out this weekend enjoying the weather, you can find a game in your area and at a time that is convenient.

The big tournament, bringing in state-ranked programs, is the Kickapoo Shootout now in it's 14th year.

Compared to the other Nordic countries and indeed any other nation it's reasonable to compare with, the stadia in the Norwegian top flight really are shiny and impressive. Within the last ten years, most teams in the Tippeliga have either built a new ground or had theirs heavily refurbished. And it shows.

What was Guus Hiddink thinking?

Yes, clean sheet at the Camp Nou is a commendable achievement, and I still feel Chelsea are the more likely to go through to the final. But after promising that the Blues would try to score in the away leg, Hiddink's tactics against FC Barcelona show he had absolutely no intent of doing anything but protect his own net.

For a moment, I thought today's was a Carling Cup game, not only because of the line-up Wenger started with but for how relaxed each and every player seemed to be out there, as if there was no pressure at all.

The second half saw Pompey trying to reopen the contest by making a number of substitutions including Nigerian John Utaka who went close in a number of occassions but was very wasteful in his efforts.

Well...crap. One of my favorite players is now off to Real Madrid. Although, I'm not totally surprised after the signing of Glen Johnson. The fee is reported to be around £3.5million which seems really low to me and makes me really worried about the Xabi Alonso situation.

Arbeloa was heavily rumored to be part of Real's raid on Liverpool and this might be related to that.

A good game to start the season proper, against opposition who should be challenging for the promotion places at the end of the season. Despite the the current chaos behind the scenes, including an exodus of top players, we actually played quite respectably for a well deserved draw, with some very good passages of play [.

A striker who knows how to steal the headlines? Manchester City's players got ready for Christmas by donning Santa hats to sing Jingle Bells for a festive video. Ironically, the only player who didn't bother to don St Nick's headwear was his namesake, Roque Santa Cruz.

27 February 2009, Real Salt Lake goes into the final game of the team's pre-season trip to Tampa, Florida with an impressive 14 goals scored and 0 goals given up so far in pre-season. While this is impressive on the surface, and reason to hope that RSL has brought the magic of its 2008 playoff [...]

Resident sooth-sayer Madam George with tomorrow's results today... sort of.

Player 4 Just wanted to slip in here at MLS Offside before Travis comes back and starts talking about actual games. I've got my Weekend Quiz up over at The Offside's Main Page. This week is the MLS version. Since our normal Main Page crowd is a little Eurocentric, I'm hoping [...]

The name Federico Macheda has been bandied around a lot lately, and not just because of his two stunning late goals against Aston Villa and Sunderland. Macheda has been the object of an international tug of war between Manchester United, his current club, and SS Lazio, the club that nurtured and developed him as a boy.

Browsing through the online sports pages (well, what else are we to do to kill time at work??), we spotted this article over at OurSportsCentral that we thought deserved a bit more publicity related to this Sunday's game against Colorado.

Dynamo to pay tribute to fallen Houston firefighters

Once again the Dynamo leads the way in community relations around the city, way ahead of the more established sports franchises in both thought and delivery.

When it all gets to much

If I don't watch, then everything will turn out okay. And so it proved for the second year running as Chelsea edged past Liverpool in the Champions League. And for the second year running I spent the majority of the game in blissful ignorance of the drama that was unfolding.

This Thursday night on ESPN the country will get its first nationally televised view of the Wizards temporary home, Community America Ballpark, also known by Wizards fans as "The CAB".

The team coming to visit the CAB, the New York Red Bulls, with an offense that woke up last weekend and scored twice as many goals as they had scored all season with a 2-0 home win against Real Salt Lake (their only goal in the first 4 games came from an own goal).

The Outdoor fields are CLOSED this weekend, May 2nd and 3rd, due to weather and field conditions!

Due to current and forecasted weather conditions for this weekend, Lake Country Soccer has CLOSED all outdoor fields. All scheduled games for the Under-7 and OLDER age groups have been canceled for this Saturday May 2nd.

Columbus and KC battle it out this weekend at the CAB. KC is coming from giving up a tie vs. a 10 man Galaxy team while the Crew tied its away game vs. a 10 man Seattle team.

The big story this weekend, as the Crew try to sweep the season series, is if the Crew will be able to overcome the international absences of Alejandro Moreno (Venezuela), Duncan Oughton (New Zealand) and Frankie Hejduk (USNT) for this game at Community America Ballpark.

The sensation of the first part of Bundesliga this season were certainly the debutants, Hoffenheim, led by three excellent Brazilian players, as well as equally important Bosnians, Vedad Ibisevic and Sejad Salihovic. The best striker in the first part of the season was Ibisevic with 18 goals scored and there would probably have been even more if he didn't earn a serious injury that saw him out for the season.

Even the strayed Argentinean sailor will probably be compared to Maradona in Naples. In this part of Italy Diego is the measure for everything, bigger than life and yet sometimes despised like the trash, piling up by the gate of the magnificent bay.

Such comparison didn't pass Lavezzi by either, but unlike some of his previous colleagues, he managed to mark one part of Napoli history just like Maradona did.

Announcement: Due to the overwhelming interest in the club, we are extending our tryout age groups to include U15 through U17 players.

Open House style training/tryout session for U9-U17 players to be held June 16th & June 22nd 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM at Ozark High School grass soccer field.

D.C. United survived a furious rally from shorthanded Harrisburg in the second half and advance to the semi-final round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.

Ya tenemos los cuatro ganadores de la promoción adidas-solotigres.com y los afortunados son:

De el Rally adidas - solotigres.com :

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Y de la trivia adidas - solotigres.com :

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Como ya les habíamos comentado los cuatro jerseys van autografiados por el jugador Lucas Lobos y serán entregado en "Locos X el Fútbol" éste Martes 21 de Julio a las 8 de la noche.

What has struck me, and I'm sure so many others over the past few days is not just the huge deluge of tributes from professional footballers, managers, big wigs, journalists and commentators, but also the universal response and outpouring of love from fans of all clubs, demonstrating the immense affection and esteem Sir Bobby was [.

Good

Well, at last UEFA has shown some sense and overturned the ban on Eduardo for diving. A couple of week's ago we featured that decisions in our Ugly section - it just seemed crazy to start handing out bans for simulation - a can of worms. It seems that UEFA has agreed and backed down after Arsenal protested.

Arsenal go into this game tomorrow buoyed by the acquisition of their Russian Striker and midfield playmaker Andrey Arshavin. Having got his work permit and following a gruelling flight to Moscow and back, today Arsene Wenger will put Andrey through a series of fitness tests to see if he could make [.

Announced as a huge signing from Spartak Moscow, Roman really turned out to be a class striker landing in London on 1st, September, 2008 for a fee of £14 million. Juande Ramos hit a bull's eye bringing the Russian international who has blossomed in Tottenham and both men had a special connection. When Juande Ramos [.