by Robert Jonas - Center Line Soccer
With much anticipation, the inaugural MLS re-entry draft arrived this week with a varied assortment of players available for selection. Big name veterans like Guillermo Barros Schelotto and Juan Pablo Angel and modestly paid options like Luke Sassano and Joseph Ngwenya populated the initial list of 35 players that went un-tendered by their original teams.

Having seen all five of yesterday's 2022 World Cup bid presentations, I have to admit that I am extremely excited about today's huge announcement. As an American that supports the beautiful game at all levels and in all nations, any news of an impending World Cup stirs up an enormous amount of anticipation.

By Chris Wright

After five weeks on the sidelines, Liverpool are ready to welcome Joe Cole back to the first-string for their Europa League tie with Steaua Bucharest tonight though, having contributed the sum total of sweet Fanny Adams to the Anfield cause since joining in the summer, it's fairly hard to imagine that anyone will be overly excited by the winger's return.

I've seen this debate rage on for months on various Manchester United forums, so I thought I'd have a crack at it myself.

To establish who is the better defender we have to assess their various strengths and weaknesses

The categories will be:

• Aerial abilty
• Positional sense and anticipation
• Recovery
• Speed
• On the floor
• Strength
• Errors
• Leadership

Aerial ability

Given that Vidic's main strength is his ability to connect head with ball like a magnet, it's no surprise that he comes on top in this battle.

Who in the flippin' fluff cares about 2018 & 2022 anymore?

This is sort of like getting a new toy: the joy is in the anticipation, but once the toy arrives, within 48 hours it's tossed into the once-desired toy graveyard.

So while Russia and Qatar spend the next few years deflecting criticism over the progress of their World Cups – there's no honeymoon period here – we'll be busy fumbling around for the next (next, next.

By Ollie Irish

Barcelona were forced to make a four-hour dash to Pamplona to fulfil their Liga fixture at Osasuna on Saturday evening. Barca officials were convinced the game would be called off because of the air traffic controllers' strike in Spain, but the Spanish Football Federation told Barca – at the eleventh hour – that they would forfeit the points if they failed to turn up.

Who needs the Ballon d'Or when you can hand out a little garbage?

Overshadowing the shortlist announcement of the biggest award in world football yesterday is the announcement of the best: the Bidone d'Oro (Golden Trash Can), for Serie A's most useless player.

It's a joke, but damnit does it say so much.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates Asian champions Seongnam Ilhwa of South Korea crushed local side Al Wahda 4-1 on Saturday to set-up a Club World Cup semifinal showdown with European champions Inter Milan. The Korean champions turned out to be too strong for the local side despite the vocal support of more than 30,000 [.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates Asian champions Seongnam Ilhwa of South Korea crushed local side Al Wahda 4-1 on Saturday to set-up a Club World Cup semifinal showdown with European champions Inter Milan. The Korean champions turned out to be too strong for the local side despite the vocal support of more than 30,000 [.

SPANISH FOOTBALL Sunday Round 15 action with six games , & as Saturday, with some surprise results that keeps the Spanish League - La Liga bubbling with anticipation & talk. Here is a brief run down of events with the results & the scorers. At. Bilbao stops the Espanyol run of wins Playing a match at ATHLETIC DE BILBAO is always a difficult affair as the "Lions" roar with the support of their

Arsenal play a game based on attack, attack... and attack. Our aim is to create and then convert more chances than our opponents.

A decent defence is always a nice back up plan.

Our problem is not being clinical enough with the chances we get, by increasing the number of goals we tuck away as a percentage of the chances we create overall.

In anticipation of today's highly anticipated and promoted match between Manchester United and Arsenal, I wanted to post a promo video I found to really get people excited. This match is sure to be a thriller. While I don't think it will be as lopsided as Barcelona's demolition of Real Madrid a couple of weeks ago it also won't be as boring as the over hyped Manchester Derby earlier in the