So guys, unfortunately our Sellecao has limped into the finals following a disappointing 0-0 draw with Macedonia and a frustrating 3-1 loss at the hands of Turkey. I understand our fans pessimistic attitude, but we have to look on the bright side of things.

Paulo Bento for the most part [read more]

By Alan Duffy

While a number of Liverpool's younger stars have been called up for Roy Hodgson's Euro 2012 squad, one older head at Anfield has packed his bags for good. Dutch attacker Dirk Kuyt is the biggest Liverpool name to leave the club under Brendan Rodgers' new regime, with the hard-working wideman moving to Fenerbahce in a three-year deal.

Dirk Kuyt has today ended a 6 year association with Liverpool football club with the news that he will be signing for Turkish giants Fenerbache for £1 million. The 31 year old is leaving just as new manager Brendan Rogers arrives, but he has assured fans that it is nothing to do with the change in management.

Photo by John Todd/ISIphotos.com

By AVI CREDITOR

LANDOVER, Md. -- In the middle of his post-game comments following Wednesday night's 4-1 loss to Brazil, Jurgen Klinsmann let slip what has been speculated for some time: That the U.

Serbia lost 2-0 in a friendly against Spain on Saturday, but 20-year-old Serbian midfielder Adem Ljajic committed an offense before the match even began that would get him kicked off the team. According to the Football Association of Serbia, Ljajic breached their code of conduct by not singing the national anthem with his teammates prior to kick off due to "personal reasons.

By Alan Duffy

Linked with a move to Arsenal in recent weeks, Fiorentina's Serbian midfielder Adam Llajic has felt the wrath of national team boss Sinisa Mihajlovic after being caught out not singing the national anthem before his side's friendly fixture with Spain on Saturday.

The final game of the year in Italy didn't play out as many had hoped. It was supposed to be a glorious send off for Alessandro Del Piero, but although Juventus tasted defeat, it does little to change the attitude towards ADP's departure. In what was most likely Del Piero's last game for Juventus, the Coppa Italia final went the way of their opponents from the south as Napoli prevailed 2-0.

Ultimately, the feeling that Arsenal's 2011/12 season left you with was that of the team salvaging a draw having been behind. 1-0 down early on, then a recovery to pull level by the halfway mark. A disastrous start to the second period, with another conceded, before leveling the scores with time still on the clock.

Some teams are defined by a key player or two, others by a system that lasts between coaches, in the Columbus Crew there is a team that was once a system/player team, but is now defined by its coach. No player sticks our as an anchor, particularly with their injuries. Robert Warzycha takes a little bit of tactics from his time with Sigi Schmid and supplements those with an attitude that is pure Crew - hard working team on a budget.

Antonio Cassano spent the bulk of his AC Milan season "high-fiving" players during training sessions, dancing TO "Ai Seu Te Pego" with Robinho, cracking jokes at everyone's expense all the while recovering from his heart operation. So of course (naturalmente), his call-up to Prandelli's Azzurri squad was highly unexpected and had more to do with his bubbly personality than his goal average.

Patrice Evra has criticised former United team mate and best friend, Carlos Tevez, following his decision to hold up a 'RIP Fergie' poster last weekend.

"I was very surprised by Tevez's attitude against Sir Alex Ferguson," said Evra. "I'm not sure how the manager feels about it but I'm sure he won't be impressed.

I have been reflecting on yesterday's firing of Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish and I was struck by the contrasting comments made by Liverpool Chairman Tom Werner and Dalglish yesterday.

Werner basically said that KD was fired because of the team's poor league form:

"However, results in the Premier League have been disappointing and we believe to build on the progress that has already been made, we need to make a change.

I had spent a lot of time the past couple of months thinking about the power of positive energy, and how your own attitude can positively or negatively affect the group of people you interact with each day.
Mac Anderson of Simple Truths sent along an excerpt from 'The Strangest Secret' by Earl Nightingale in his email newsletter, and it's pretty amazing and simple to see how you reap what you sow.

Holding up that sign earned Carlos Tevez a slap on the wrist. It's all a bit ironical considering Tevez's own career was almost over 6 months ago after he refused to play Bayern.

An enraged Mancini vowed he would never play for City as the club readied his transfer in the January window.

In the US, people point to "culture" as our fundamental impediment to excellence.

And the arguments come in many flavors. But what they say essentially boils down to one theme:

Numbers

We don't have the numbers, they say.

• Numbers in terms of audience
• Numbers in terms of consumers
• Numbers in terms of money
• Numbers in terms of "best athletes" (whatever that means)
• Numbers in terms of how many years MLS (or any infrastructure) has been around

They argue that if we did have the numbers (always sold out stadiums, NFL level TV audiences, MLB level player salaries, a 70 year old league instead of 19, etc .

Ahead of Saturday's FA Cup Final with Chelsea, Manager, Kenny Dalglish opted to give a run-out to some of the squad members for the game against Fulham at Anfield.
In came Doni, Coates, Kelly, Shelvey, Maxi and Aurelio.
After Captain for the night, Martin Skrtel's unfortunate own-goal, the game never really got going.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

Philadelphia Union

Check out PSP's match report, which also contains a number of illuminating quotes from the coaches and players.

John Hackworth said after the game, "It was really tough loss to lose a game like that in injury time after fighting so hard to come back and equalizing.

After Dani Alves and Thiago Alcantara combined to help Barcelona thump Rayo Vallecano they were feeling rather pleased with themselves. So pleased, in fact, that they couldn't contain the samba rhythm within them. But their impromptu dance class was brought to a premature end when His Curly Highness Carlos Puyol decreed that this was not [.

After Dani Alves and Thiago Alcantara combined to help Barcelona thump Rayo Vallecano they were feeling rather pleased with themselves. So pleased, in fact, that they couldn't contain the samba rhythm within them. But their impromptu dance class was brought to a premature end when His Curly Highness Carlos Puyol decreed that this was not [.

Manchester United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, doesn't seem to believe that Manchester Roberto Mancini already gave up on chasing the premier league title and isn't considering the upcoming derby as an important fixture.

Ferguson simply think that Mancini is just doing some mind game with the purpose to take the pressure away from City players and transferred them on United's shoulders, a very common thing that usually happen during direct title battles.

Liverpool forward Dirk Kuyt could well return to Feyenoord at the end of the season after admitting to his former teammate Salomon Kalou that he would like to head back to Holland.

'Dirk told me he wants to return now,' said Kalou on Dutch TV. 'Dirk said to me that I also must come, that we both have to return to Feyenoord.

Sir Alex Ferguson has today reflected on the four goals we gave away against Everton last weekend which meant we lost our five point lead at the top of the table.

"We're smarting from the four goals we gave away last week," he told the official site. "We tend to make it hard for ourselves.

Jack Jewsbury, Portland Timbers vs Chivas, Photo: Gary Sheldon | ProstAmerika.com

Coming off their 1-0 win over Sporting KC last week, the Timber's will face the Montreal Impact on Saturday at 1:00 pm in Montreal. The expansion Impact are 9th in the Eastern Conference, with a single win in eight games played.

Professionalism is an odd topic. It can be as simple as "Does one get paid?" The NCAA has hundreds of pages and dozens of people dedicated to codifying the differences between amateur and pro status. Yesterday, after the Portland Timbers debuted their new dedicated training facility some on Twitter were claiming that the Timbers are still not a fully professional organization because they play on artificial turf.

Well done, Chelsea. Sorry, but it felt like it needed saying. Barcelona are very good, transcendentally good (whatever I mean by that they're elite, though, one of the best teams ever). Chelsea, as we saw at our place, are a creaking, slightly one-dimensional side who have players famous for their 'do-or-die' attitude (if ever something has held back a nation's football it's that attitude, that 'our spirit will see us through' 'we'll come up big when it matters' 'oh, we've let another one in').

Well done, Chelsea. Sorry, but it felt like it needed saying. Barcelona are very good, transcendentally good (whatever I mean by that they're elite, though, one of the best teams ever). Chelsea, as we saw at our place, are a creaking, slightly one-dimensional side who have players famous for their 'do-or-die' attitude (if ever something has held back a nation's football it's that attitude, that 'our spirit will see us through' 'we'll come up big when it matters' 'oh, we've let another one in').

By Alan Duffy

Galatasaray wingback Emannuel Eboue has once again borne the brunt of some pretty horrible abuse from fans during a Turkish League game.

The former Arsenal man suffered some serious abuse from Besiktas fans back in November, and it's apparent that the club's supporters haven't softened their attitude to the Ivorian star.

Argentinian side Racing Club have vowed that their striker Teofilo Gutierrez will not play for them again after he allegedly threatened team-mates with a paintball gun. The Colombian forward was sent-off for mouthing off at the ref during his side's 4-1 defeat to Independiente, leaving his team-mates to play out the last 21 minutes with [.

Argentina Primera Division side Racing Club kicked striker Teofilo Gutierrez off the squad after he allegedly threatened his teammates with a paintball gun. Gutierrez was sent off in the 67th minute of Saturday's 4-1 loss to Independiente (he also scored Racing Club's only goal), leaving his side to play with nine men when they were still just 2-1 down.

Concerns about the striker's future were raised after his suspension following the Patrice Evra affair, especially as Paris St Germain made their interest known.
Suárez's contract negotiations are continuing with the club and he was emphatic when asked about his future.
"Yes, yes I will continue at Liverpool," he said.

Morning all, a new week begins and begins with Arsenal looking to stretch their lead in third place to a healthy 8 points, despite the fact that T*ttenham will have a game in hand.

Starting with the team news and we've lost nobody since Wolves and there may be a couple of additions. Arsene says Gervinho is 80:20 to make the squad tonight while Kieran Gibbs is 50:50.

Kenny Dalglish praised the 'attitude, application and intent' of his Liverpool players after hitting back to beat Everton 2-1 in the FA Cup semi-finals.
The Reds fell behind to a Nikica Jelavic goal in the first half before equalizing through Luis Suarez just after the hour mark and then securing victory when Andy Carroll headed home in the 87th minute.

Kenny Dalglish praised the 'attitude, application and intent' of his Liverpool players after hitting back to beat Everton 2-1 in the FA Cup semi-finals.
The Reds fell behind to a Nikica Jelavic goal in the first half before equalizing through Luis Suarez just after the hour mark and then securing victory when Andy Carroll headed home in the 87th minute.

It was a record breaking night in La Liga on Saturday when both Real Madrid and Barcelona won their respective matches to keep their title hopes alive. Madrid were 3-1 winners over Sporting Gijon while Barcelona needed two goals from their sensational forward Lionel Messi to beat Levante 2-1.

By Alan Duffy

Norwich City Manchester City Premier League 14th April 2012

The Argentine duo of stocky Carlos Tevez and silky Serio Aguero were in inspired form at Carrow Road on Saturday, with the resurrected Tevez bagging a hat-trick.

Newcastle's manager Alan Pardew keeps getting asked if he thinks Newcastle can qualify for the European Champions League this season. Alan Pardew applauding fans before the game on Monday And of course the real answer is that he doesn't know, but the way Alan runs Newcastle, he's only concentrating on the next game, and try to win it.

By Alan Duffy

Cheer up, Kenny, you've just watched your team win for the first time in yonks, courtesy of a dramatic last-gasp goal from a much-maligned player! Surely you can see the joy in that?? No?

Andy Burton was the man on the receiving end of yet another tetchy interview from Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish after his side's dramatic 3-2 win at Ewood Park.

Manager Kenny Dalglish admits paranoia could start to set in at Anfield following Liverpool's recent poor run of form.
The Reds ended a run of three successive defeats as they were held to a surprise 1-1 draw at home by Aston Villa on Saturday.
They have won just five times at home in the Premier League this season, drawing nine matches and dropping 24 points in their 11 other games.

Comparing the run-ins: by SV We are at a stage of the season now where the ‘every game is a cup final' attitude could not be more useful. We are in what I see as a three horse race for the 3rd and 4th spots; with the other two horses being Spuds and Chelsea. The [...]

Brazil coach Mano Menezes has made it clear that he intends to give Flamengo captain a chance to prove himself at the summer Olympics in London by including him in the Selecao squad.

Menezes who was being interviewed about Brazil's preparations for the World Cup also revealed that Dinho's performance and history for Brazil must be considered regardless of his current form.