Etienne Barbara officially joins the Whitecaps. (Photo via Vancouver Whitecaps)

I won't go too much into this signing. The Vancouver Whitecaps have signed their 7th, yes 7th striker for the 2012 season in the form of Maltese international Etienne Barbara.

Barbara rejoins head coach Martin Rennie, the two were together in the NASL with the Carolina RailHawks.

Since its founding in 1907, Al Ahly S.C. has been known as ‘the people's club,' representing resistance against the many forms of colonialism that have long plagued the African continent. Initially the first sporting club to allow Egyptians to join, Al Ahly remains the most popular of Egyptian teams, wearing to this day the red kits that honour the pre-colonial Egyptian flag.

Welcome to the Friday Crackovia Club, our weekly special on Catalonia's wacky football sketch show! This week, a member of Barcelona's staff accidentally disassembles the magnets on Pep Guardiola's tactics board.... which spells a big dilemma. Will Barca now field an absurd 1-9-1 formation, with Messi as the sole striker?

In the preview I wrote, "there will be goals in this game for sure". I don't know how, but both sides managed to keep the ball out of their opponents' nets when scoring would have seemed like the easier option. Arsenal had a lot of chances, very good ones. And they missed them all.

Twitter went mad after the game, as it usually does after a disappointing result I guess.

The NASL expansion San Antonio Scorpions club added four more players, including long-time MLS vet Ryan Cochrane, along with one of the top NASL attackers last season, Pablo Campos of the Carolina RailHawks, in addition to signing two young players with local ties. The RailHawks, meanwhile, will have Chris Nurse back in the fold for [.

Spurs played for a scoreless draw, Spurs got their scoreless draw.
While Liverpool's attackers could and should have done more, Tottenham's defending merited the scoreless draw. King and Dawson were outstanding, with Parker almost as important. After a paucity of clear cut chances for both sides, each could have scored the winner in the last five minutes, with Friedel and Reina making huge saves on Bale and Suarez.

In the first part of our FM scouting series, we looked at United's new DP forward Hamdi Salihi. Now it's time to turn our attention to central defender Emiliano Dudar...

click to enlarge

What jumps out immediately is Dudar's marking ability and aerial power, the later of which, given his size, was to be expected.

It's been 17 years since Rene Higuita executed his audacious scorpion kick to block a weak shot from Jamie Redknapp in a friendly between England and Colombia at Wembley. Since then, it's become one of the most iconic in the sport's history and has been attempted by goalkeepers and attackers alike, some more successful than others.

Arsenal traveled north to face a Sunderland club that has seen a resurgence since installing Martin O'Neil as their manager and it took a two late goal by impact substitutes to come away with the three points. Keep reading for all the glorious heart-stopping action.

Arsene Wenger chose to start the same squad that demolished Blackburn last week with the exception of Francis Coquelin as Bacary Sagna was drafted in for his 2nd start since his broken leg.

AC Milan

Position 1st, 14-5-4 (47 points, +25 goal differential)

Home Record: 7-3-1, +19 goal differential

Recent Form: WWLDW

Last Meeting: AC Milan 0 Arsenal 2 (March 4, 2008)

Tomorrow brings a trip to one of Europe's great venues to play one of the greatest, if not the greatest, clubs, historically, in all of European football.

Did Juventus throw away the title by drawing 0-0 in Parma after the scorless home draw with Siena? The Bianconeri continue to struggle in front of goal at an alarming pace which could cost coach Antonio Conte and his players the dream of winning the Serie A title. There are a number of factors but below is a list of some of the major concerns which were on display against Parma:

1) Vucinic: For the umpteenth time summer signing Mirko Vucinic failed to score while making wrong decisions or rushing his shots.

Big, big match for us. Let's hope we can get back on track and arrest what could be a worrying downturn in our season.

Sunderland
Recent Form: Very, very good. If the League started on the day O'Neill became manager, they would be top. We did beat them in the same stadium a weak ago, doe.

Newcomers Fernando Cardenas (pictured) and Saër Sène will boost the competition for spots in the starting XI. (Photo: Chris Aduama/aduama.com)

When Jay Heaps took over as head coach of the New England Revolution in November, the rookie tactician had a host of issues in front of him that needed to be addressed for the team to be competitive in 2012.

Apologies if this is a bit scattershot, but the web feed was pretty rough (though much appreciated) and I'm enjoying some Cabernet Franc with my footie tonight...
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Chicago controlled much of the possession and had more and better chances, but Hamdi Salihi did what he's been paid the DP cash to do.

Timbers fans saw a lot of sights many thought they might never see on Monday night. John Spencer played something other than a 4-4-2 to start the match, Jack Jewsbury got into a shoving match with a San Jose player who thought he could get away with something, and Kalif Alhassan scored a goal in a two-tone timbers kit.

When Joe Mason slotted Cardiff's first goal of the night through Pepe Reina's legs, putting the underdog Championship side up 1-0, it may have in fact been the worst goal conceded by Liverpool this season. Past contenders for worst of the year have come when a series of individual mistakes over a fairly short period of time have conspired to hand an opponent a goal, and as bad as the markers given up against the likes of Stoke and Norwich may have seemed at the time, as with most any side will concede they came from a series of minor mistakes that slowly added up to the ball hitting the back of the net.