Since Thierry Henry's handball on Wednesday, the former Arsenal striker's reaction has gone from arrogance, to indifference to being contrite. From where I sit, this simply proves that Henry is a Public Relations driven phony. He's cultivated an image for over a decade in conjunction with his handlers and now sees the possibility it can all come undone.

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Man City striker Carlos Tevez has bought a massive version of the famous Manchester poster. Tevez has paid £2000 the ‘Welcome to Manchester' poster which caused an uproar.
Tevez left Man United during the summer following a two-year loan, he then decided to turn down an offer from Old Trafford and join their City rivals Manchester City. Click to continue reading...

The same way the U20 World Cup generated some analysis, the failure of the U17 deserves even more talk. First of all, being eliminated in group that had Mexico, Switzerland and Japan is a shame. There is simply no excuse.

This pathetic elimination was so bad that no projections for the future can be made.

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People are surprised and angry he got fined? What was it he said again?

"We don't want to play like Colorado or New England, which most of the season sat with eight or nine guys behind the ball. How many people go to watch Colorado or New England play? That's a problem for our league.

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No honestly, I really do. I mean he's clearly absolutely crackers. What, you think all of this apparent contempt towards Newcastle fans and his bad behaviour is all down to arrogance and spite? No man, he's nuts. How else do you explain his actions and this reckless and continual 'p*ssing on his own chips'? Click to continue reading...

There's something afoot in the court of Chelsea. After a start to the season that carried on the way that last season ended (high octane football mixed with the arrogance of the club that knows that it is amongst the best in Europe), they have started to look just a little bit ropey of late.

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Crocked Real Madrid star's pompous message of support to Portugal squad We know that arrogance isn't usually a trait you would associate with Cristiano Ronaldo but it seems his big head has got the better of him on this occasion. The self-appointed king/saviour/general of the Portuguese people/national team has felt the need to release a statement [. Click to continue reading...

Whether it is player rotation, Steven Gerrard's best position or how much was spent on transfers, there has always been press criticism of Rafa Benitez's decisions. And with Liverpool conceding a number of goals from set-pieces this season, the tiresome 'zonal marking' myth has been resurrected yet again. Click to continue reading...

England, the home of football, had refused to participate in the first World Cups of the 1930s due to disagreements on their qualification as part of the British championship (where they competed against Scotland, Wales and Ireland) as well as some arrogance that England was the "King of football" anyway. Click to continue reading...

'yeah so; turns out i'm brilliant and will score as much as aaron if you play me regularly and i'm pretty much better on the left hand side that the skipper if you'll let me have a crack. you don't understand a word i'm saying do you? i'll get my coat.

Right so; it's apparently clear that we're not exactly Manchester United of Chelsea quite yet.

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The 25th round of Brasileirao had all the elements to belong one more time to Sao Paulo. Inter visited Vitoria always a tough match. Sao Paulo "visited" Santo Andre (piece of cake) and Palmeiras will visit Cruzeiro on Wednesday. But the tricolor round ended up to be a green round.

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"It showed an arrogance," Ferguson said. "It was naughty. It showed a cockiness that wasn't required at the time because they hadn't done anything. The season hadn't even started."

These comments by the manager about the Carlos Tevez poster have upset City fans. How dare Sir Alex Ferguson brand another team cocky and arrogant, when United have shown themselves to be both those things on numerous occasions under Fergie's reign.

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Manchester City may have spent £120million on new players - but Sir Alex Ferguson will always regard Liverpool as Manchester United's true local rivals.
Not since 1968, when United won the European Cup and City finished top of the old Division One have Manchester's two giants met on anything like an equal footing. Click to continue reading...

I wish I was writing this blog whilst sipping a cold one in Liège. My bank manager won't stand for it unfortunately. Good luck to all those citizens of the Gooner Republic who are. Watch out for that bière trappiste. It's lethal. No wander the Trappist monks who brew it have no troubles with their vow of silence.

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With the upcoming opening round of Champions League fixtures imminent, perhaps the most mouth watering tie will see Inter Milan face the current Champions Barcelona. An intriguing contest on so many levels, not least to assess how the contrasting styles of both teams will fare, nor how the cross Mourinho seems to carry from his days with Chelsea will manifest itself when it comes to facing the Catalans once again in European Competition.

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On the list of people you're embarassed to admit you share a species with, alledged human Kim Jong Il, North Korea's Lunatic-in-Chief, is certainly way up there.
When the Dear Leader is not busy kidnapping actresses or SCORING FIVE HOLES IN ONE whenever he plays golf, or building nuclear weapons while millions of his countrymen quite literally starve to death, Kim seems to be something of a football fan. Click to continue reading...

Welcome to this week's edition of TGIF, where FTK takes a look at some of the stories that have energised Insiders on the site this week. International weeks are always frustrating because of the risk of injury to our key players. This week was no exception and without further ado, let's dive straight in.

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With Brazil qualified to the World Cup, the match against Chile was going to be important for 2 reasons: 1)add another victory to the incredible sequence of 18 undefeated matches; 2) test new players to join the group of 23 going to South Africa.

For that, Brazil came with the following formation: Júlio César; Maicon, Luisão, Miranda, André Santos; Gilberto Silva, Felipe Melo, Daniel Alves, Júlio Baptista; Nilmar, Adriano.

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Persela Lamongan are not one of Indonesia's glamour clubs. Far from it. I once described them in this here blog as the Middlesbrough of Indonesian football.
Yet over there in East Java a quiet revolution is taking place. Guided by former Indonesian assistant coach Widodo Cahya Putra the Las have been quietly making some very astute signings to prepare them for the new season. Click to continue reading...

View from the crowd...
There was a lot of trash talking in the month or so in the run up to this game by fans, and owners of both teams but in the end the game was decided on the pitch.
If there was a defining moment in this game it was the first Seattle goal and Josh Wick's losing his cool once again after it. Click to continue reading...

The following was sent to us by email from the DC United front office with the title: "D.C. United's next trophy has arrived at RFK."

United takes on Seattle Sounders FC at RFK Stadium next Wednesday, September
2 in the U.S. Open Cup final. Should United win, it would become the first
team to win the tournament back-to-back since MLS began.

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The Ferguson-Wenger relationship has changed and mellowed as the years have gone by, with our manager seeming to chill out and Wenger's team not posing the same threat to our Premiership title. They've even appeared to be friends at times.

Before we won the title, Wenger was pull of praise for us and conceded there was no shame in saying we were the best team.

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While Brazilian clubs struggle to pocket any money, CBF made US$ 2 million to take the Brazilian squad to Estonia, as a "celebration for the 100th anniversary of the first football match in the country". And if That was to be a celebration, it felt more boring than Monday morning work meeting.

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Nick Green stole my takes.
As always, by "stole," I mean, "wrote it down before I did."
Here's how good Green's analysis is. We've been reading all week about how the US will deal with the incredible, intolerable heat of the Mexican summer. Huge factor, we were told.
So what does Nick do? Click to continue reading...

I recently had the opportunity to speak to Ian Cheeseman, who commentates on City for Radio Manchester ahead of the launch of his new book 'Best Job in The World: From Football Specials To The Press Box'.
For anyone who has caught his commentary, it is evident how much of a huge City fan he is (describing himself as a City 'idiot'), but it was only after interviewing him did I get a feel for how deep his passion and commitment for the club is. Click to continue reading...

How do you feel Chelsea have performed in the transfer market this summer?

I wouldn't call what we've done in the transfer market this summer ‘performing' exactly. We were supposed to have had a ‘marquee' signing but unless Buck was on about the circus surrounding our captain, I haven't seen anything resembling an erection around Stamford Bridge yet.

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If you've been following me in the past week or so, or are a poster on BS or BTB, you might know that I was a tad infuriated with the team selection last Tuesday at RFK against Firpo. I thought that it was pure evidence that the team didn't take the tournament seriously, despite lip service to the contrary.

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Sir Alex set sights on biggest of prizes!

MANCHESTER UNITED are set to launch a £35million bid for Franck Ribery.
But the Premier League champions will wait two weeks before weighing in so that a clause in Ribery's Bayern Munich contract is active.

The French winger is due a loyalty bonus on August 14, after which he is expected to request a transfer.

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I've been trying my best to sidestep the 'intelligent' mudslinging happening between the two Manchester clubs.[I am of course talking about this] It could be passed off as 'passion', and 'banter', but really it has got a lot more mileage than it deserved. But since Tim Rich continuing in what seems like a rather productive-looking Asian assignment for him pulled off a fantastic interview with the manager, I think I'll have to allow myself to be sucked into this.

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"He [Rafael Benitez] called them [Everton] a small club which points to his arrogance. They are a big club and David Moyes is doing a great job."
Alex Ferguson, 17 April 20009
"It's [Manchester] City isn't it? They are a small club with a small mentality."
Alex Ferguson, 26 July 2009
Need I add anything to that? Click to continue reading...

When the advertising campaign was launched in town, I wasn't alone in pointing out how small time it was for City to attempt to wind up United fans. Had a fan got out a pot of sky blue paint and made the same point you would have to applaud them for it. But for a football club to sink to such behaviour highlights more strongly than ever just how small time Manchester City is.

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Grant Wahl's The Beckham Experiment is an incredible behind the scenes look at Beckham - the brand, MLS - the struggling US soccer league - and is a tale of footie adventure in the US recounted through Wahl's amazing unprecedented access to players, coaches, staff, and handlers.
Wahl is in the locker rooms, on the field, in the hotel room lobbies, at dinners, at parties- you name it - but his work is more than just an inside look at Beckham's brief stay in the US. Click to continue reading...

Remember the days when it looked as though Chelsea's reign would last forever more? They were an efficient machine, powered by the mighty captaincy of John Terry with all the arrogance in the world provided by Jose Mourinho. When we beat them 1-0 in 2005, during a season where they would go on to finish eight points above us in the league, we had Richardson, Bardsley and Rossi on the bench, whilst they had Gudjohnsen, Carvalho and Wright-Phillips.

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The year is 2003:

We were the best team in the league. We knew it. We played in a way that was almost disrespectful to the game. Arrogance epitomised by Henry and Pires week after week. They knew they were superior. Sol get's sent off v Man Utd and suddenly that confidence crumbled.

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Spain. Spain started out cool, calm, and collected, tiki-taka-ing right on over poor New Zealand with a 5-0 blowout. Here I confess that it really never occurred to me that they wouldn't be in the final. They entered the tournament with a winning streak of more than 30 games; who was going to defeat them en route? Click to continue reading...