The star player on defense for the Sounders. He was used primarily as a man marker or as a kind of sweeper shutting down the second ball. Solid lateral quickness and good speed means that even though he makes mistakes, he can recover.

Currently only on loan, Sounders FC have to use some of their remaining allocation dollars in order to lock him in for one more year at the least.

Liverpool

All Liverpool wants for X-mas is to keep Fernando Torres happy. A lot of rumors have recently circulated suggesting that the Spanish great may be one of the biggest names on the transfer list come this January, but Rafa knows that the only hope Liverpool has of finishing in the top four spots is if their key striker is healthy and on the pitch for the Reds.

It's a battle of the semi-confirmed bumps, Kickettes.

We've got two Los Blancos wives out with their hubbies for the Chocron jewellery presentation in Madrid last week.

Xabi Alonso's wife Nagore (left) has gone public with her pregnancy (the couple is expecting a girl), but we've not heard anything formal from Alvaro Arbeloa's other half, Carlota (above) about her expanding midsection.

Much has been made of Liverpool's catastrophic start to the season; out of the European Cup; out of the Carling Cup, and in danger of finishing outside the top four. As they would if any of the top four were doing badly, the media has overreacted and (predictably) come up with age-old clichés to explain Liverpool's problems.

So what makes a great goal? I know it seems a easy question but honestly, what makes a goal truly great? Is it the goal that keeps a side up or a lob from the half way line? The goal that drags a side back in to a game when they're 2-0 or a last minute winner in injury time? Everyone has a different variation on what they judge to be a great goal or what the ingredients are that makes some goals stand out above all others.

Speculation is hot from England that LIVERPOOL FC is negotiatingwith REAL MADRID the possible loan of Dutch forward RUUD VANNISTELROOY. One would suspect that Liverpool expects "a favour"from the Spanish team after they managed to pull away their keymidfielder Xabi Alonso this season.Liverpool Coach Benitez sees in Van Nistelrooy the prefect substituteto Fernando Torres whose injuries are causing

Real Madrid misfit Gago was late for training yesterday and when he turned up, all his teammates and even manager Manuel Pellegrini gave him a rousing round of ironic applause.

Meanwhile, Xabi Alonso must have been quietly reconsidering just how happy the squad was to see him show up for his first training session earlier this summer, which they also applauded (pictured above).

Liverpool have undoubtedly suffered as a result of the dual loss of Sami Hyypia and Xabi Alonso over the summer, but which player does the club miss the most?
Sami Hyypia was my favourite Liverpool player for years; a superb footballer and a real gentleman, he embodied everything that was great about the club.

What are your memories of our matches with Liverpool? Hopefully these pictures will remind of the good, the bad and the ugly. Here are the pictures that sum up our last 5 league encounters at Anfield.

Fatboy Mellor was the slim shady in November 2004 with his last minute winner.

Con la participación de España en su propio Mundial, continuamos con el serial que comenzamos la semana pasada en Retrofootball.

España organizaba por primera vez el evento más grande del mundo en lo que a fútbol se refiere. Todo el país estaba volcado con nuestra selección.

El Mundial se disputó del 13 de Junio al 11 de Julio de 1982 y lo disputaron 24 selecciones.

Just over a year ago it was announced that Marshall was acquired from Toronto by Seattle for allocation money (salary cap exempt monies). Generally TFC fans were giddy, they loved that they were going to cast aside a veteran centerback for free money. Yesterday, the Sounders announced that Marshall was named the team Defender of the Year as voted on by his teammates.

Previous posts: Formation | Keeper | Right Back | Centerback | Left Back
As a reminder, the formation we're using for this competition is 4-2-3-1. I probably should have titled this "Team of the Decade – Defensive Midfield," but that seemed too limiting, even if it's an adequate summation of the formation under Benitez this season (okay, I may still be bitter over Saturday).

It uses a different methodolog than I do (only counts 11 v 11, no extra penalty for Own Goals), but it does it for all 15 teams in League play. He provides the counting and rate stat, as well as adjusting for the team to reduce the impact of being on a great team.

Most notabaly different player due to methodology is Seb Le Toux.

After beating Drebecen and Everton in away games, we could only 'manage' to hold Blackburn to a 0-0 draw at their turf. The last fixture was a disappointing game for Liverpool fans because clearly we could have won that game if only lady luck had decided to throw even a wee bit of the Mona Lisa smile towards us.

Alonso's gone all "Damn gurrrl, you're marking me to death" in that photo but of course, everyone knows that if you shut him, Diarra (and probably Greasy Babe) down, you effectively pull out the life line that is Real Madrid's attacking midfield. A few of you may think they play as if they're training with clowns at Ciudad Real Madrid in Valdebebas but we assure you that it's only a matter of time, and the only clown on the field is probably one of Potter Perez's experiments.

It's a battle of the semi-confirmed bumps, Kickettes.

We've got two Los Blancos wives out with their hubbies for the Chocron jewellery presentation in Madrid last week.

Xabi Alonso's wife Nagore (left) has gone public with her pregnancy (the couple is expecting a girl), but we've not heard anything formal from Alvaro Arbeloa's other half, Carlota (above) about her expanding midsection.

My concerns for Aquilani are three-fold. First of all, he is not Xabi Alonso and, in a team where a loss of defensive nous has been the main effect of the Spaniard's departure to Real Madrid, the immediate priority must be to play safe. Second, some excellent Italian players have struggled to adapt to the physical demands of the Premier League, where the prerequisite for any central midfielder is not to play or even to think, but to run.

Por Lola Dirceu Almorzaba hace un par largo de años en el restaurante Esteban (Cava Baja), cuando por arte del Ribera del Duero nos enredamos a charlar con la mesa de al lado. Tras discusiones de fútbol, sistemas y tácticas y debilidades personales (que si Maradona, que si Di Stefano), me presentaron a una señora educadísima, de verbo justo y modales equilibrados.

Javier Mascherano admits he is growing tired of talk that Liverpool are missing Xabi Alonso and has given his full backing to Alberto Aquilani to shine at Anfield.
Alonso joined Real Madrid in the summer in a £30million move that saw the Reds use two thirds of that sum to purchase Roma's midfield maestro Aquilani.

Espanyol

All Espanyol wants for X-mas is for someone other then Ivan Alonso to score a goal. So in other words Espanyol isn't being a brat or over-demanding this X-mas and this gift is something that they really do deserve. And the club has had a tough season with the sudden loss of their team captain, Jarque, right before the grand opening of their new stadium and the beginning of the La Liga season.

This will be a quick one. You can point at the early missed chances, you can point at Mascherano's red card and you can point at the slices of fortune in Portsmouth's goals: the truth is that Liverpool were extremely poor.
What's more, there was absolutely no belief in them when Liverpool went behind.

This season's been utterly inexplicable. Confidence is smashed, the team is an utter shadow of itself, and everything seems to be imploding. So, naturally, I feel the need to explain it. Time to list every difference I can think of, as if that'll help. I should have just titled this post "Blame Everybody.

By a cruel irony, the midfielder who could have saved Liverpool from their recent defeat at Anfield by Arsenal, and so much else, was watching from the stand, while his supposed deputy struggled on the field as a substitute. Xabi Alonso, the Spanish international sold expensively last summer to Real Madrid, had been the inspiration of the Liverpool midfield, much admired by the local hero, Steven Gerrard.

La nota la ha dado el América con la confirmación de la llegada de Alonso "Negro" Sandoval a sus filas al igual que Miguel Angel Layún tras un discreto paso por el fútbol italiano con el Atalanta.

Esas dos llegadas anunciaron sirvieron de preámbulo para anunciar que el colombiano Andrés Chitiva sale de las Aguilas para enrolarse con los Zorros del Atlas en una salida más que inminente, puesto que Chitiva no fue considerado regularmente por Jesús Ramírez.

Me llama la atención que la gente americanista no está muy de acuerdo con la llegada de los tres refuerzos para esta campaña.

Primero Alonso Sandoval, posteriormente Migue Layún y hoy fue oficializada la llegada de Alfonso Blanco a las filas del equipo azulcrema.

Early in the season Seattle fans went from wondering who the Cuban exile is, to instead knowing that not only was he a solid player from the USL-1 but another great defensive midfielder in the league. While yes, MLS has a lot of good holding/defensive midfielders, Alonso is one that still managed to stick out from that crowd.

Reina (96.2%)
Finnan (62.8%) Carragher (84.1%) Hyypia (87.1%) Riise (88.1%)
Alonso (90.6%) Hamann (35.9%)
Kuyt (46.7%) Gerrard (96.6%) Benayoun (55.6%)
Torres (86.6%)
Bench: Dudek (3.8%), Johnson (15%), Agger (9.

For the third successive year, I figured I'd do a midseason comparison to previous league campaigns. This ought to temper the good feelings after yesterday's match. I'm running late; the totals don't include yesterday's win at Villa, just the first 19 games. Which, as you may remember, haven't been that stellar.