The whispers of an Alessandro Del Piero transfer to Major League Soccer are once again being heard.

Del Piero, the face of the Juventus organization, has been rumored to leave the Italian side multiple times in the past, including a rumored switch to the New York Red Bulls in 2010.

The Italian ace left his club in style, lifting the Serie A trophy at home, giving the Juventus supporters a memorable farewell.

I don't care if there's no 'end product'. I've honestly never seen a footballer who's as fun to watch as Mousa Dembele.

We sit in what I used to think of as "Paintil Corner", the area of the Riverside where John Paintsil was most active when defending the Hammersmith End. The thing with being that close to the action is that you lose a lot of perspective, but you do grow to appreciate the speed and nimbleness of top level football.

I don't care if there's no 'end product'. I've honestly never seen a footballer who's as fun to watch as Mousa Dembele.

We sit in what I used to think of as "Paintil Corner", the area of the Riverside where John Paintsil was most active when defending the Hammersmith End. The thing with being that close to the action is that you lose a lot of perspective, but you do grow to appreciate the speed and nimbleness of top level football.

I recently read somewhere (I wish I could remember where so that I could link to it) that OPTA uses the amount of passes in a game to determine possession. This surprised me. Basing possession on passing has the potential to produce some skewed results. The most obvious argument against this is that a team that uses the short passing game is going to have a larger portion of possession regardless of the actual amount of time that they truly have possession.

Ok then, after a relatively quiet week it all kicks off again today against Stoke.

Their season is more or less complete, they're in no danger of relegation but you can be quite sure they'll be up for this one today. Their fans don't like us very much after we hurt their feelings by being upset that one of their players smashed Aaron Ramsey's leg in two.

7 Spectacular Non-Football Chokes - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

It isn't often that you'll see a team throw away a three-goal lead in the second half as Chelsea did earlier this season in their 3-3 draw with Manchester United. But as wild as this English Premier League season has been, from 8-2, 1-6, 3-5, and beyond.

Kelyn Rowe (left) launches a free kick during the Revolution Mar. 3 preseason match against Los Angeles (Photo: Joshua Pearson).

If there was any thought that Jay Heaps would turn the Revolution into a team on the rise overnight, the last 180 minutes proved that the "under construction" sign isn't ready to be taken down.

Would have been a more appropriate brand Toronto
Despite last Wednesday night's crowd at SkyDome creating a banner night for North American football, only one annoying aspect of the evening caught the world media's eye. Instead of 47,000 attending a CONCACAF Champions League match being the story, a foolishly tossed can of beer landing in the general vicinity of the world's most famous footballer grabbed headlines.

File photo: Nicolae Stoian

Philadelphia Union

On Thursday night, the Union held a town hall meeting with invited season ticket holders among the top 100 loyalty reward accounts. The discussion featured Nick Sakiewicz, Dave Rowan and Bob Rigby. Based on information from season ticket holders who were in attendance, as well as tweets from Union fan extraordinaire BarbCV from the event, here are some of the topics that were discussed:

• The Union is very sound financially with a very healthy coffer for improving existing player contracts and new player acquisition.

Yes, I admit that I enjoyed American Football today, Super Bowl Sunday, but in the rest of the world, Association Football was played as usual. Especially in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, co-hosts of the 2012 African Nations Cup.Yesterday, powerful co-favorites Ivory Coast defeated co-host Equatorial Guinea 3-0.

Like many Americans of my generation, I fell in love with football at age 14 during the 1994 World Cup.
Prior to 1994, I did not even realize that you could play football professionally. I figured it was something to do for fun. It was nothing more than a PE activity to do in between American football and basketball seasons.

Something has always flummoxed me in sports. It's the propensity of lesser informed fans and a few media blowhards to stand on high, reeking of tough-minded and righteous superiority, and label some professional athletes as "soft."

This is especially bothersome in American football.

In honor of the fact that the U.S. is playing Venezuela the University of Phoenix Stadium, and that the stadium staged Super Bowl XLII, and that it's playoff time in the NFL, we decided to look at the USA's record in venues that have hosted the Super Bowl.
The U.S. has played in 13 stadiums that have hosted the domestic American Football championship, one as many as 15 times (Rose Bowl).

The day after a match typically means a regeneration session for players that involves some version of hydrotherapy, which usually takes place pool workout. After all, pools are usually the most accessible for a team, especially one on the road. But if there happens to be water nearby ...
And so it was that the U-23 team found themselves on the beach in Sarasota, doing stretching and other exercises in the Gulf of Mexico.

Date: Saturday Sep 03 2011
Ground: Atkinson Construction Bowl
Comp: FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round
Match: Borrowash Victoria 1 Carlton Town 3 HT: 0-2
Sequence: 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 1-3
ATT: 132
Additional: Entrance £4.00, Programme £1.00

Atkinson Construction Bowl in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 8, Structures/Terracing 7, Hospitality 7, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 7
Total 29

Borrowash Victoria are one of two teams who play next to each other in the Derby suburb of Spondon.

Date: Saturday Sep 03 2011
Ground: Atkinson Construction Bowl
Comp: FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round
Match: Borrowash Victoria 1 Carlton Town 3 HT: 0-2
Sequence: 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 1-3
ATT: 132
Additional: Entrance £4.00, Programme £1.00

Atkinson Construction Bowl in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 8, Structures/Terracing 7, Hospitality 7, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 7
Total 29

Borrowash Victoria are one of two teams who play next to each other in the Derby suburb of Spondon.

Make some tea or crack a can of lager, and read the preview.

Our kids and fringe players (and Vermaelen and Santos) are in Greece, looking to get some experience against a good side that needs to win to ensure they get anything out of the group stage.

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (not to be mistaken for Coquelin), Frimpong and Coquelin, as well as Yennaris and Miquel, who I thought played fairly well out-of-position against a strong City side in the Carling Cup.

Fight! Fight! Fight! The beautiful game's biggest punch-ups on video

Now, this isn't football. It's not even American football. But it is hugely entertaining... footage of two 73-year-old Canadian football legends, Joe Kapp (on the left) and Angelo Mosca, attempting to settle their decades-old feud with not entirely successful results.

Some follow-up observations:

The team was hell-bent on keeping shape, which gave us some perhaps surprising (but perhaps not) tackling information. Etuhu and Murphy, and the entire back four, really didn't go for many tackles. Instead Dempsey, Dembele, and to a lesser extent, Ruiz, were doing a lot of the actual harrying.

Con esta entrada algunos la odiaran. John Cleese es un excelente comediante britanico que participo con el legendario grupo de comedia inglesa Monty Python que es considerada una comedia inteligente.

Hace tiempo que se realizo un documental llamado "The Art of Football from A to Z" en español llamado ¨El arte del futbol de la A a la Z¨, en el cual tiene una aparición y suelta todas las verdades sobre lo que piensan los aficionados al fútbol sobre como lo llaman los estadounidenses , el famoso soccer.

A version of this post originally was previously published Nov. 26, 2009 and Nov. 25, 2010.

Episkyros

Before soccer there was football. Lots of different kinds of football, many of which also involved handling the ball: Episkyros in ancient Greece; Harpastum in Rome; Zhu Qiu in China; Sepak Raga on the Malay Peninsula, Kemari in Japan, Calcio in Italy (which was revived by Mussolini), not too mention the various kinds of folk football that could be found throughout the Celtic world, some of which survive as the Shrovetide games of Britain.

By CALEB SONNELAND

With his contract set to expire at the turn of the year, David Beckham is allegedly in talks with Ligue 1's Paris Saint-Germain, according to the clubs sporting director Leonardo.

The 36-year-old was a staple in the LA Galaxy midfield this year and played a massive part in the team's successful campaign toward a MLS Cup.

The New England Revolution have announced today that they will be revealing their new 2012-2013 kit at an event on December 3rd at the Gillette Stadium ProShop. The event will unveil the new threads that the Revs will be wearing for the next two seasons, but will not be the first look that fans can get of them.

Article By Lee Camblin
MLS is a league that is in its infancy compared to many other Soccer leagues around the world. When you think that other league structures found in England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany have been around 40,50and even over 100 yrs.
MLS started back in 1993 as part of the USA bid to host the 1994 world cup, which they did host.

Why anyone still clinging onto the 39th game proposal should heed lesson of NFL's London leg

Whenm in 2007, America's National Football League first announced that it was coming to the United Kingdom, the league's website was swamped with more than a million requests for tickets.

This may seem blasphemous on its surface. I mean, who doesn't love Kasey Keller? Who doesn't think he isn't the greatest American keeper, and maybe best U.S. player of all time? He is a legend, an American Legend. He is one of the greatest keepers in his MLS play (playing time caveat). Tens of thousands showed up to see him off, enough to make it the 4th largest soccer crowd in the world.

You could make a case that the key moment of the Houston Dynamo's 2-0 victory over the Portland Timbers on Friday came in the 51st minute. After a hard collision between Danny Cruz and Timbers defender Mike Chabala, match referee Baldomero Toledo elected to give Cruz a yellow card for a reckless foul.

If you're the sort of person who likes to discuss the history and future of the US National Team, you know you're never far from a discussion about the quality of the US player pool. Specifically, people want to understand - and argue about - why the leading economy in the world (at least for now) with the fourth largest population doesn't have a more successful international soccer pedigree.

Dead weekend in the MLS. Really dead.

What did we have to choose from? A Flounders game and a match between two non-contenders, played on what looked an awful lot like the converted American football field of some New England high school, whose mascot appeared to be the Patriots. Pawtucket HS, perhaps?

Hope Solo und ihre US-Nationalmannschaftskollegin Alex Morgan sind seit dem Ende der Frauen-Weltmeisterschaft 2011 in Deutschland gefragte Damen. Aber nicht nur Männerherzen lassen die beiden Schönheiten höher schlagen, sie verzücken ganz Amerika, vom American Football bis zum kleinen Manager im Großraumbüro.

I was recently in Florida and went to see my first American football match, from the North American Soccer League, one of the final league matches before the play-off, between the local side, Ft. Lauderdale Strikers and the Atlanta Silverbacks. It was a horrible match until the last few minutes when Atlanta underservedly went ahead, but the Strikers managed a late equalizer.

Hey everybody, I hope things are going well as you scrounge around the ESPN3 replays and ready yourself for international friendlies during the upcoming week and a half. I'm pretty excited about the USMNT friendlies coming up; it's always nice to see what a fresh pair of eyes can do for a team, and I want to see if they can continue to build off of the momentum from the second half against Mexico a few weeks back.

Thats right we are back and the converts are chomping at the bit to let you guys know how they have been doing over the break and letting you guys know how much the MLS means to us all the way across the water.
So without further hesitation here they are....



SAM BARKER(Philadelphia Union)
So I've not written anything, or followed the Union as well as I could have, for the past few weeks.

Frequent contributor and weekly recap writer Pedro Gomes comes off the bench to deliver a truly unique comparison between soccer and NCAA Football. The MLS Super Sub offers some striking similarities between the two. Pure genius or crazy weird, leave us your comments below or on twitter. Pedro can be found on Twitter @MLSSuperSub
Soccer and NCAA Football – The Odd Couple
"Hey are you pumped about football season starting soon?

Whenever you follow multiple different professional sports, you inevitably start to notice the unique aspects of each of them. For instance, I remember Martin writing a while back about how odd it would be for an NBA basketball fan to endure various different international breaks during the middle of the regular season.

From footballwallpapers.biz

Liverpool-based Everton FC will begin their brief United States Preseason Tour tomorrow night, as they face the Philadelphia Union at PPL Park. In a blow for fans of the US Men's National Team, it was reported this afternoon by Steven Goff (Twitter @SoccerInsider) that goalkeeper Tim Howard would not be appearing for Everton in their friendly against the Union.

Sam's Army growing..and going co-ed

At sports bars and gyms and generally anywhere Americans congregated Sunday, people celebrated soccer like it was the national sport. Until last week, I doubt if hardly anyone knew a Women's World Cup even existed, let alone any player's name, from any country.

There's a new soccer brand on the scene with a focus on player protection. It is New York-based Storelli Sports. Storelli's initial range consists of a series of soccer-specific products similar to the Nike Pro Combat protective baselayer gear for American football and basketball. According to the firm their products are designed to maximize protection, flexibility [.

Football, originally known as Association football and commonly called soccer, has no real origin. There are records of the Chinese around second century B.C. playing a game called Tsu' Chu that involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a silk cloth strung between two large poles. This was believed to help train the military.

La Copa Oro de la CONCACAF es el torneo de naciones que se lleva a cabo cada dos años para Norte, Centroamérica y el Caribe, y es el máximo torneo de la Confederación. La Copa Oro evolucionó de una serie de campeonatos en la región desde 1941.
Antes de fundarse la CONCACAF, fútbol en la región se dividió en pequeñas zonas.