SoccerBlogs

Earlier this month Megan Rapinoe came out and discussed her sexuality in Out Magazine. She has been in a relationship with an Australian soccer player for three years.

"I feel like sports in general are still homophobic, in the sense that not a lot of people are out," she says.

The humidity and a very damp pitch got to the Roar.

Perth relied on bashing the ball forward and, when Brisbane drew level, bashing Brisbane's front line. And it worked.

In this game, Brisbane missed Franjic. Brisbane was left with a left sided advance that Andy Todd smacked out.

I understand comments like 'Clive Palmer is out of line but his points are right on... ' But this viewpoint misses the point.

It was always going to be very difficult for soccer to survive in Australia as anything more than the largest participatory sport.

When I saw the start-up marketing strategy for the Melbourne Heart, I could have rolled on the floor laughing.

MELBOURNE, Australia -Â Melburnians might think they live in Australia's sporting capital but the city has missed out on hosting the Asian Cup soccer final in 2015. However, Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu insists he is not worried that Sydney is likely to host the final after it was announced in the early hours of Thursday that [.

The Football Federation of Australia (FFA) on Thursday formally handed over its bid for the AFC Asian Cup 2015 finals at a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur in AFC House.

AFC President Mohammed Bin Hammam received the bid book from FFA Chairman Frank Lowy in the presence of AFC Vice President Zhang Jilong, AFC General Secretary Alex Soosay and FFA CEO Ben Buckle.

A-League: It's all about Harry Kewell - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Harry Kewell.

A show-pony. A drama queen. The best football player to come out of Australia.

Just the mention of his name prompts the football fan to offer their opinions. It's impossible not to, given his remarkably high-profile successes and failures.

DOHA, Qatar – Socceroo striker Tim Cahill is racing the clock to be fit for Australia's Asian Cup semi-final against Uzbekistan next Tuesday. Asked yesterday if he would play, Cahill said only: "I hope so." Cahill was touch and go for the Iraq match, after badly bruising a thigh against Bahrain. He managed to play [.

You have to think that Gary van Egmond had endured enough turmoil in his 32-month stint at the helm of the Newcastle Jets.

To some, it was no huge surprise when Van Egmond, an affable 44-year-old and former A-League coach of the year, this week handed in his resignation to outspoken Jets owner Con Constantine.

The move into the Asian confederation has created so many possibilities for the World Cup-bound Socceroos, but it has unexpectedly robbed them of something - a proper climax to qualifying.

Few punters will forget that November night in 2005 when a bare-chested John Aloisi wheeled away after scoring the decisive penalty in Australia's shootout victory over Uruguay, a goal, which combined with Mark Schwarzer's heroics, confirming only the country's second appearance in a World Cup finals.

The displays in this week's AFC Champions League openers have prompted much speculation about whether Australian clubs can reproduce Adelaide United's 2008 form and progress all the way to the '09 final.

In fairness neither the Central Coast nor Newcastle convinced in their maiden continental outings.

The A-League's season-ending decider has once more been hijacked by contentious decision-making from the men in the middle.

Melbourne Victory won this season's grand final by virtue of Tom Pondeljak's second-half strike, but were helped immeasurably when referee Matthew Breeze decided to send off Adelaide United's Brazilian striker Cristiano with just 10 minutes on the clock.

Australia's courageous Socceroos will wait until after their April World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan before undergoing the kind of self-interrogation critics of the national side suggest might be needed right now.

Pim Verbeek's side dug deep in Yokohama against Japan on Wednesday night, exhausting even more luck from their depleted reserves to salvage a 0-0 draw.

Socceroo David Carney has reunited with former Sydney FC assistant Ian Crook after agreeing a deal to join Norwich City on loan until the end of the English domestic season.

He becomes Crook and new manager Bryan Gunn's first signing since they took charge of the Carrow Road club last week.

How the saga involving Jason Culina ends will take its natural course. But the fact an A-League side is holding its own in negotiations with the current PSV and Socceroos midfielder is being lauded as a milestone for the domestic game.

Culina is a first choice for national team coach Pim Verbeek and arguably plays at the highest standard of any of Australia's overseas stars in Eindhoven after appearing for PSV in this year's Champions League.

New world clubs couldn't care less if the Club World Cup is derided by Europe, or the rest of football's established order.

That's the message coming loud and clear from Aurelio Vidmar, a former Oceania player-of-the-year and current coach of Adelaide United following the A-League's club's fairytale final third of 2008.

Mark Viduka and Craig Moore, two of Australia's stalwarts from the last World Cup in Germany, continue to refuse to commit to South Africa 2010.

But Pim Verbeek's confident progress in charge of the Socceroos is allaying fears Australia still rely on a handful of big name players to advance their international cause.

Last weekend's string of unpredictable results in the English Premier League has been mirrored in Australia proving the A-League remains as competitive as ever.

While Hull City were shocking Arsenal and Wigan upsetting big spending Manchester City, closer to home joint league leaders Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory both lost matches they were widely anticipated to win.

It's been an emotional couple of weeks of Adelaide's Robbie Cornthwaite.

The club's foundation defender has not only found himself unwittingly dragged into a spitting storm but he's also been the target of abuse from his own supporters for scoring a horror own goal in the away leg of the AFC Champions League quarter-final against Kashima Antlers

But on Wednesday night in Adelaide, Cornthwaite banished all those demons with a tie-winning headed goal which secured a 2-1 aggregate win over the 10-time Japanese champions and a passage into the final four.

Weekend Six Pack Bolton, Brisbane and the Britannia are A rated is a post from: Just Football

Each week Rob Hartnett from 188BET.com will bring you six of the best football betting opportunities from the weekend action. Rob is the public face of leading the leading In Play betting specialists and appears regularly on the Bolton, Wigan, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Everton websites doing betting previews.

Australian Memories

One of the rewards I've enjoyed since beginning Jakarta Casual has been the opportunity to run into familiar names and faces from my time down under following St George in the now defunct National Soccer League. Steve Darby, Abbas Saad, Darren Stewart, Scott O'Donell, Scott Ollerenshaw, Les Murray, Francis Awartefe etc were known to me, though I wasn't to them, through the NSL.

The Fairfax press might have its moments, but for real football refuser frothing, you can't beat the Murdoch stable. And this morning, they have been at it full bore.

The touchpaper? An incident involving Tim Cahill, at a Kings Cross nightclub. It's a calamitous day for football in this country, I tells ya:

A blind drunk Tim Cahill has shamed Australian soccer.

We asked four Soccerphile writers for their picks for the 2011 Asian Cup, which kicks off today.

First Seoul-based K-League cognoscente John Duerden: It's an open competition but I have a feeling for Saudi Arabia.

This is a team that could either do terribly or go all the way.

by TRAVIS CLARK

One game, everything to play for. When tonight's World Cup playoff between Bahrain and New Zealand (2am, FSC) kicks off, the winner claims a spot in South Africa, while the loser faces the prospect of missing the tournament once again.

Neither side is a prominent soccer nation, yet the underlying feeling is that the winning nation's program would receive a much-needed shot in the arm.

Kevin Muscat wants to be coach of Melbourne Victory.

Just what he is prepared to do to ensure he gets there is unclear. It is also unclear who his powerful backers are. But they are there and as ABC Offsiders sports commentators noted last week, they or Muscat directly are influencing the Melbourne Victory Board.

I just came across this fun little interview CNN conducted a few days back with Tim Howard. Not only do the questions touch upon soccer, but also seek to reveal a bit of Tim's personality. You'll probably find funny what Howard misses most about America... On a side note, I was recently interviewed by an online Australian soccer magazine to give them some perspective on the USMNT and the World Cup.

This subject, I will admit at the outset, since first writing about it in September last year, has continued to absorb me. I see material everywhere, constantly, and have taken to making sure I have a notebook so I can at least partially document the extent of the absurdity. This material has overwhelmed me in fact, to the extent that it has held me back writing about it at all.