A number of fairly random things that had been swirling around in my head all came together a bit for me this past Saturday night. A few friends and I had just come from the DC United match against the Philadelphia Union and were hanging out for a beer or two post-game at the Capitol Lounge. If you'd have asked me, I'd probably have told you than if/when my mind wandered at that point, I'd be

The Laszlo Kubala Influence, Part One, 1951-58

On June 15, 1950, two Hungarians joined Barcelona to signify the beginning of yet another transformation: Laszlo Kubala and new manager Ferdinand Daucik. They were the masterminds of the success to come.

In 1951, Kubala scored 26 goals in 19 games, breaking the La Liga's record for most scored in a single match with seven against Sporting de Gijon.

Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish has confessed he may have pushed Luis Suarez too far by making him play 90 minutes in the 1-1 draw against Wigan.
Dalglish had hoped to withdraw Suarez, a £23 million signing from Ajax in January, but Liverpool's need for a goal forced him to leave the Uruguayan on the pitch.

Today we begin a great new feature on the Free Beer Movement site. In collaboration with the quality soccer site, "The Other 87 Minutes" we present the "Tuesday Ten" (and sometimes the "Tuesday XI") a thoughtful list on a variety of topics in the world of soccer.
What is this new site we're exposing you too?

By Chris Wright

Comments allegedly made by Liverpool winger Ryan Babel in the Dutch press have sparked speculation that toothy Ajax forward (and Uruguay 'keeper) Luis Suarez may be on his way to Liverpool, with Babel returning to his former club on loan for the rest of the season as part of the deal.

After a couple of seasons of wondering whether Roman Abramovich has still passionate about Chelsea the Blues owner has answered his critics by making offers of over £110million this month. Unfortunately for Chelsea fans, none of their offers for players have been accepted yet.

The latest Chelsea target is Liverpool's Fernando Torres and newspaper reports say that Chelsea have had a £40million bid for the Liverpool striker turned down.

Written by mickydidit89

Over the last day or two, I have been alluding to the latest of my brilliant ideas. The beauty about this one is that I have unearthed not only the cause of our troubles but also the solution. The other day Mike talked about Eto on RA's excellent post about Wengerball, and between them, I thought they were going to steal my thunder.

FC Twente believes it can lure Co Adriaanse back into the Eredivisie. It would be a surprising comeback of the man - 63 years old now - who did have conversations with Ajax and Feyenoord in the last couple of years but at the end of the day decided to [read more]

Some 78 clubs currently comprise US Soccer's Development Academy and three of those clubs—FC Delco, PA Classics and Players Development Academy—are part of the Philadelphia Union's Youth Development Affiliate program.

Evaluations of these clubs were first started by US Soccer in 2007 with the founding of the Development Academy.

The former Tottenham and Middlesbrough striker, Egyptian international Mido, is now a free agent after he agreed to cancel his contract at Ajax, by mutual agreement. Mido now a free agent And the 27 year-old player has said that he has a number of offers with reports that one of them is from [...

Maurice Edu returned from injury to score the final goal as Rangers hammered Hamilton Academic yesterday. Edu had been down since November, but he has featured regularly for the Scottish side this season and should be the American every team scrambles to pick up.

The MLS Supplemental Draft will help teams fill out their reserve team rosters.

Ryan Babel signed for Liverpool from Ajax and immediately made an explosive impact in his first season. His 10 goals in 49 appearances for the Reds earned him the adulation of the Liverpool fans. He was named the Liverpool Young Player of The Season in 2007-08.
He had a bit of everything as do all Dutch players.

Transfer rumours today link Spurs with players that would provide either a last line of defence or a first line of attack and while the name of Klass-Jan Huntelaar has emerged again, one of his Schalke 04 team mates could be unexpectedly available.

It was firmly believed that goalkeeper Manuel Neuer would be leaving his present club to join Bayern Munich at the end of the season, but the Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had this to say:

"I don't really think we are going to find a quick agreement.

Wait a second! Didn't someone just drop a trophy from a bus already this season? Surely it couldn't happen again right, especially not to a goalkeeper? I mean, if anyone on a football team should have good hands and a firm grip, it's the only guy on the field allowed to actually touch and hold the ball.

Wait a second! Didn't someone just drop a trophy from a bus already this season? Surely it couldn't happen again right, especially not to a goalkeeper? I mean, if anyone on a football team should have good hands and a firm grip, it's the only guy on the field allowed to actually touch and hold the ball.

Robin van Persie has been a consistent bright light in the poo-coloured gloom of our end-of-season collapse.

The man who has endured more impact injuries than a crash test dummy has finally managed to have a campaign in which he has been largely fit to play.

And what a player he has turned out to be.

No changes in the Bonus Points this week so there aren't any huge moves in the rankings. That may change this week after the Copa Libertadores reaches the semifinal stages and the South American clubs hit the Super Bonus Point stage, but again, that's next week.
This week is a celebration of championships.

The parallel between the start of the 2010/11 season for Liverpool Football Club was drastic, immense and vast. Starting the season with a new manager who was completely unwanted by the majority of supporters, who were still angry at losing fan favourite Rafael (Rafa) Benitez and having seen club icon Kenny Dalglish been looked over by the clubs decision makers.

By Babette van Haaren, writing from Holland. We started our tribute to Edwin with Mohamed Moallim's biographical piece on VdS and now we finish with a wonderful piece from Babette, one of the most passionate and knowledgeable Ajax fans around...

Despite Edwin van der Sar never won a European Championship or World Cup with Holland, he enjoys the status of a secular saint in his country.

By Chris Wright

Huzzah! Martin Jol's big lovely Dutch face will be back in the Premier League next season!

After Mark Hughes reneged on the option of extending his rolling contract and walked away from the club with one eye on the Villa job last Thursday, Big Martin has been handed the reigns at Fulham this morning signing up on a two-year deal with the option of a third.

Putting the snippets together into a small home-made blanket:

It appears that Mark Hughes very nearly didn't survive 2010. After the West Ham defeat he was in big trouble, but senior players persuaded MAF to put his axe away. This was partly because they understood how important Bobby Zamora was to the team, and partly because of a general belief in what they were doing under the new manager.

31st January 2011 was an eventful and stressful day for Newcastle United forward Andy Carroll. He started the day as normal, still being Newcastle's main front man. He ended the day making a £35 million pound move to North West heavyweights Liverpool. The 22 year old Geordie had left his home city and his boyhood heroes and set up on a new adventure with 18 times league champions and 5 time European champions Liverpool.

All of a sudden, Spurs are being linked with a choice of defensive midfielders and after the Jack Rodwell rumours of earlier this week, stories are emerging of the club's interest in Ajax's Dutch international Vurnon Anita.

Anita was a product of the famous Ajax academy and made his first full appearance for the club while still only 16.

The only way is up for star striker Luis Suarez, according to Liverpool captain Steve Gerrard.
The Uruguayan proved a smash hit at Anfield in the second half of last season following his January arrival from Ajax.
Suarez also lit up the Copa America as his country won the competition this summer, and Gerrard thinks his club-mate can prove to be an even better player than Carlos Tevez.

Clint Dempsey and Fulham kickoff their 2011 EPL campaign with Aston Villa. (Getty Images)

By: Geoff Reid

Editor's note: This is a new addition to WVHooligan, starting this week. Each week, Geoff Reid will preview the upcoming EPL games and give you his prediction to each.

By Chris Wright

Ajax whooped Group D stragglers Dinamo Zagreb 4-0 in Amsterdam last night, with Danish tyro Christian Eriksen providing the lion's share of the craft and invention including this borderline pornographic backheel assist for Gregory van der Wiel's opener.

By Chris Wright

Here's a little firecracker to start the morning off. Last night's last-16 tie in the KNVB Cup between Ajax and AZ Alkmaar had to be abandoned after just 38 minutes (with Ajax leading 1-0) after an incident involving a pitch invader caused the away side to leave the field in protest.

Liverpool and Arsenal are confirmed challengers in the race to sign Daniel Opare.
The Ghanaian international defender has been linked with a number of Barclays Premier League clubs in recent months, and the player's agent has confirmed interest from Liverpool, Arsenal and a number of top English sides.

January Transfer Window: 5 potential last minute deals is a post from: Just Football

With just over a week remaining of the January transfer window 2011, teams around Europe are busy scrambling around looking for the last big purchase or bargain buy of the season, desperately grabbing onto whatever they can and shoving their fellow shoppers out of the aisle like contestants on Supermarket Sweep.

Keeping goal is former Guatemalan international Edgar Estrada. He picked up 80 caps for the national side between 1995 and 2003. A back four of Emmanuel Eboue (Ivory Coast and Arsenal), Erik Edman (Sweden and Helsingborg), Emad El-Nahhas (Egypt and Al-Ahly) and Nigerian Eric Ejiofor.

Por que usted lo pidió aquí todas las transferencias,fichajes,contrataciones, rumores,altas y bajas del fútbol en la espectacular liga Premier inglesa

Premier League inglesa

El Liverpool rechaza una oferta del Chelsea por Fernando ¨el niño¨ Torres que fue de 40 millones de euros por parte del multimillonario Roman Abramovich.

Liverpool have confirmed they have reached an agreement with Ajax to sign Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez for a fee of £22.8million, becoming the club's new record signing.

read more

By Chris Wright

Whereas it's easy to dismiss them as being futile exhibitions of nothing in particular, international friendlies do serve a purpose they provide a platform for experimentation in a competitive (if not by name) atmosphere, and afford national managers the stage to tinker with the personnel at their disposal with the safety net of being assured that the outcome will be completely non-decisive.

After Wayne Rooney reminded us all that he used to be a fairly decent professional footballer with his derby day belter against Manchester City last Saturday, the received (Sky Sports-infused) wisdom seems to be that the decidedly off-colour striker's effort was, without need for second thought, the greatest overhead kick ever scored by anyone, anywhere, ever.

There has been a lot of media attention this week around the David De Gea to Manchester United deal, and the Daily Mail this morning are reporting that De Gea has agreed to personal terms with United.

According to the article United will pay Atletico Madrid £17.8million for the 20-year-old, who is viewed as the best young goalkeeper in Europe.

By FRANCO PANIZO

The Los Angeles Galaxy's defense just got a little deeper.

Los Angeles picked up former U.S. U-20 national team defender Kyle Davies, who was placed on waivers by FC Dallas on May 5. The 22-year-old Davies will provide cover at centerback for Omar Gonzalez and A.

Hubcaps are more indestructible as trophies, we learn.

• Barca have spicy balls. (Dirty Tackle)
• No idea how to feel about any of this. (Football Fashion)
• Click on this and ignore AVB's hair. Just try. (SB Nation)
• A Spanish civil disagreement. (Phil Ball)
• This list is alarming.

Championship trophies seem to be flying off buses a little too often nowadays . Less than a month after Sergio Ramos dropped the Copa del Rey, Ajax keeper Maarten Stekelenburg has managed to... Read more »

[Photo: Ajax.nl]Much of the championship Ajax squad is flying over today for games with D.C. United and the Portland Timbers, but there are a handful of explained absences.Mounir El Hamdaoui and Rasmus Lindgren are remaining in Amsterdam to heal injuries, while Christian Eriksen and Nicolai Boileson are sitting back to rest up before heading off to Denmark U-21 European Championship duty.

Photo by Nick Turchiaro/ISIphotos.com

By THOMAS FLOYD

If one thing has become clear during Aron Winter's tenure in charge of Toronto FC thus far, it's that the stern Dutch coach is hardly ever pleased with his side.

After Toronto used a Maicon Santos equalizer to pick up a 1-1 draw at Vancouver in the first leg of the Canadian Championship on Wednesday, Winter conceded he was satisfied with the outcome -- even if he wasn't in his team's overall play.