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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.