Liverpool midfielder wants a move to Real Madrid sorted out before July 19 according to reports.

Xabi Alonso has flown back to Spain after the Confederations Cup in South Africa and immediately went into talks with his representative Inaki Ibanez, to have his future sorted out before he is due to meet up with his team-mates ahead of a tour of Asia.

[Photo: Sĩ Huyên/HAGL]U.S. international Lee Nguyen scored both goals to spark Ho ng Anh Gia Lai to a sorely needed 2-1 home win over Thể Công. The win snapped a four-game league victory drought and moved to the preseason title contenders up to eighth (and to within three points of second place).

Manchester United has announced that the club will be playing several friendlies in Asia during the summer of 2009. The projected dates for the summer tour, as of press time, are: China - Date, city to be confirmed Korea - July 20, Seoul, Korea Indonesia - July 24, Jakarta versus an Indonesia Super League Select, Malaysia - July 26, Kuala [.

Believe it or not, but USA-Costa Rica is the only qualifier going on in the entire world on Wednesday. The rest of the action picks up on Saturday.
Let's start closest to home in Concacaf and then move furthest away to Asia:

El Salvador-Mexico (Telemundo, 9 p.m.

The above strike from Al-Hilal midfielder Nawaf Al-Abid (or Alabed, you choose) is said to be the fastest goal in world football. It came just two seconds into Al-Hilal's Prince Faisal bin Fahd Cup (a U-23 tournament) game vs Al- Shoulain in Saudi Arabia this weekend. No doubting the fact that this goal was quick.

As the Reds get back to training at Melwood this week, a certain Glen Johnson has shown up to the club, and if I do say so myself, he looks good in red!

Gerrard is enamored by his new team-mate!

Johnson's arrival is one of several of players who took part in World Cup qualifiers, as he was joined back in training with Stevie G and others.

Xabi Alonso's move to Real Madrid is back on the cards, with Liverpool reportedly willing to consider a deal if Wesley Sneijder is included.
Alonso is seemingly intent on a move to the Bernabeu, but thus far the two clubs have failed to reach an agreement over a transfer fee.
According to The Times, however, Liverpool are now willing to accept a cut-price deal, if Wesley Sneijder is included in the package.

Take a look at this J-League goal from Jubilo Iwata's South Korean attacker Lee Keun-Ho. Dribbling along the touchline Lee goes around the keeper and then back inside before slotting it home to make it six goals in six games for the 24 year old since he traded K-League for J-League. Lee is part of an [.

South Korea, Japan and Australia may have filled three of Asia's four automatic World Cup qualification spots with two rounds still to play, but the battle for the last slot will be fiercely contested between Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Iran.
Hoping to get that last spot.

Manutd.com will unveil the new kit on July 1st, but we already have it here.

As you could see from the Rio and Rooney pictures, AIG is still the front shirt sponsor. You could also see the black V across the chest

The players will don the kit for the first time during their pre-season tour of Asia next month.

In dress shoes, even. With a wet ball.- Greg Seltzer

With Australia playing Qatar on June 6 in Doha I have had some e-mails asking about tickets for the match.

Tickets to matches are the responsibility of the host nation. When we played in Qatar last year the tickets were not on sale until a few days before the match, and only available in Qatar.

Este es el estadio de TASHKENT en Uzbekistan donde Japón consiguió su boleto directo para el mundial de Sudáfrica 2010.
Faltando dos juegos para terminar su eliminatoria los nipones ya están clasificados a su cuarta copa del mundo en forma consecutiva con un gol de Shinji Okazaki de una manera trompicada.

Just a quick peek at some January window happenings... Former Duke striker Mike Grella netted a dazzling hat trick in his Leeds United trial friendly debut. The League One's B+ team took out Burnley Reserves 4-0, with the young American setting Whites fans abuzz. I can hope for video to surface on this (and from what I've heard of his performance, it would be worth the trouble) - but don't hold

A tummy ache has befallen The Distracter. Seventeen countries have their flags at half-mast. I must do this quickly, so I can make it to the magic unicorn shop before they close...#1 - Don't look now, but Eddie Johnson has suddenly followed up a Man of the match show with his first Cardiff City goal.

The Profitable Group have been linked with Newcastle before as they have been interested in making Newcastle United, Asia's most popular club. Steve McMahon -interested in Newcastle Here's a story we ran on Steve and the Profitable Group on August 8th of last year, although at that time Steve was denying the Profitable Group wanted to buy [.

Asia
As we've just mentioned in our TV Preview, Asia is awash with three new countries that have qualified for the Finals in South Africa next year.
From Group 1, Australia and Japan are assured of occupying the top two places after the Aussies played out a goalless draw against Qatar and Japan won 1-0 away to Uzbekistan.

Real Madrid have sent representatives to England to conclude the transfer of Xabi Alonso from Liverpool.
The saga has played out all summer, but Los Merengues finally appear to be closing in on their man.
According to Sport, Madrid have sent representatives to Merseyside to seal the deal, with the intention of paying €36 million for Alonso's services.

Ryan Giggs displays a rather impressive side-eye of judgment at the start of Manchester United's pre-season tour of Asia. July 16, 2009. Perhaps someone asked him to pass the salt and pepper. Geddit? Hello? Anyone? Is this thing on?

Manchester United take on Boca Juniors tomorrow in the opening game of the Audi Cup in Munich. Sir Alex has today revealed that Valencia will start in that game, making his début, after missing out on the tour of Asia.

"Valencia didn't join us in the Far East because he was behind the rest of the squad in terms of his fitness," Ferguson said.

VS. ,,
In the modern world of football, Europe is the most powerful confederation in FIFA and its a shame that FIFA's most powerful confederation doesn't lead the way in how it runs its World Cup qualification.
When it comes to World Cup qualifying, Europe can look to other FIFA confederations on how it should be done.

Ya no hay excusas. Manuel Ruíz de Lopera tiene la oferta que esperaba para vender el paquete mayoritario de acciones del Real Betis Balompié. La proposición viene a cargo del jeque Humaid Bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, emir de Ajmán (uno de los siete emiratos que conforman los Emiratos Árabes Unidos), que estaría dispuesto a abonar [.

You know, ever since China pulled its domestic competition from terrestrial television for too cozily resembling martial arts and bringing in a strict disciplinarian to clean up the league, the only thing Chinese football makes the news for is....resembling martial arts. Though I suppose that's typically the case with second (or third.

Hi insiders after six weeks in the making we can present below the results of the 2008 Arsenalinsider survey. Firstly many thanks to all 25,000 of you who took the time to enter our survey. The information you have given us will help Arsenalinsider to be even bigger and better for the 2009/10 season here in blog land.

AFC Futsal Champs will be held in Iran this year.
NSW Thunder will represent Australia this year having defeated Canberra in the final.
Given the strength of ACT Futsal it wouldn't be hard to see Canberra in the AFC Final...and this tournament held in Canberra.
With the TV viewing figures for Futsal across Asia this is a tournament that could make money.

ESPN International will provide live coverage of the 2009 UCL Final in the regions of Africa, Australia, Canada, and Latin America. ESPN STAR will televise the Final in English, Cantonese and Mandarin across Asia. On-site studio and match production teams will provide content to a variety of ESPN outlets around the world, including ESPN's pan-regional [.

Nationally Russ, Paddy and two of the Socceroos biggest fans, Jezza Butler and Matt MacDonald talk Qatar, Bahrain and what it means to qualify again. And Jezza already has three tickets for all the Aussie games.
And apologies to Young Matildas fans, CD didn't work so we'll play that interview with Alen Stajic next week.

Socceroos have qualified for the third time at the biggest tournment in World sport and the Daily Telegraph's Ben English is criticising the attendance at tonights game.
Now that is a bigger crowd than the League Centenary test, promoted just a tad, bigger than the Wallabies v Baa Baa's, promoted widely with SBW and co, and bigger than the AFL v Ireland, but the guy wants to have a go.

Name: Daniel Hammond Date of Birth: 08/04/1985 Place of birth: Kings Lynn, Norfolk Position: Central Defender Previous clubs: Norwich City, Cambridge United, Kings Lynn, Young Lions Present club: Woodlands Wellington Daniel Hammond is one of the contingent of Englishmen playing their football in Singapore.

Back in 2006, I interviewed Steve Tew at the New Zealand Rugby Football Union. At the time, he was the second most important person in All Blacks rugby. Now he's the first. We were talking about the impact the Pacific Islands have on New Zealand rugby, and he made a pretty convincing case for players from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga looking to come and play for the All Blacks as a way of improving their lifestyles while giving something back to their adopted homes.

First Stop On The Tour:
United kicks off its tour of Asia this summer when the club faces a Malaysian XI on July 18th at the magnificent Bukit Jalil National Stadium at the country's National Sports Complex near Kuala Lumpur.
Kick off is 10:30 BST.
Eight Years Later:
United's last venture into the country was eight years ago.

"Are you sure these are all yours, sir?" Alternative caption: Michael Owen is forced to ditch his collection of pet passports after learning his horses will not be allowed to accompany him on Manchester United's tour of Asia. Got a better caption? Let us know below.

Liverpool and Manchester United continued their tours of Asia with friendly matches on Sunday. Man U played Chinese Super League side Hangzhou Greentown while Liverpool took on the Singapore National Team. Here's a recap of both matches along with video highlights.

Manchester United beats Hangzhou Greentown 8-2 Video Highlights Man U easily defeated Hangzhou Greentown 8-2 in their last game in Asia during their preseason.

You won't ever really know how much you hate the sound of a phone ring until you've heard it a thousand times in two days. Let's pop a cool one and watch some TV...HAGL's Lee Nguyen smashed home a free kick 4-3 winner on the weekend.Claudio Reyna joins the ESPN crew to preview the Bundesliga season, which starts Friday.

There was a very quiet start to the Premier Soccer League season for Moroka Swallows, who drew 0-0 with Golden Arrows. Technical Director Eddie Lewis, formerly of West Ham United and Leyton Orient, was said to be have been pleased with the clean sheet, if not the result. Another former West Ham player who is [.

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World Cup qualifiers are back, and we take a look at games from five of the FIFA qualifying regions: Europe, South America, North and Central America, Asia and Africa. Some teams have already qualified, but who will join Holland, Japan, South and North Korea, Australia and hosts South Africa?

Sadly, I am beyond swamped with work, so I won't go into great detail explaining my prediction for today's game. I will keep it simple.The Baby 'Nats will win a tough scrap and finish second in the group. Bam.The reading room awaits:- U.S. U-20 match notes- FIFA match preview- FIFA profiles So. Korea F Cho Young Cheol- Cameroon v Germany match preview- U.

Again, pardon my sudden departure. We had something of a "broken glass oops" here which required attention. Everything is fine, though, and thanks for the concern notes. Didn't mean to frighten anyone. Since you all were still chatting on the comments, I'll leave that post up and get by to answer your questions when I get a chance.

‘If they (New Zealand) can come back from Asia (Bahrain) with anything better than a two goal deficit then they can sneak a victory on home soil' is what I wrote in my first article. Over the weekend, New Zealand duly obliged. As with some good goalkeeping, solid defence and ...

They Think It's All Over... presents a WDKF Wednesday column which looks at the sinister motives behind FIFA's peculiar decision to change the workings of the away goals rule for the upcoming Asia/Oceania World Cup Playoff.