Originally posted at SBNation.com/Soccer

Come Saturday night Chelsea will either be the holders of the 2012 Champions League title or they won't. Either way, the club will go on and the business of building for the next campaign will begin in earnest. How well Chelsea is able to perform in the transfer market and find the players they need to rebuild their ageing roster could be greatly effected by Saturday's final in Munich.

By Alan Duffy

Manchester United 2-0 Swansea City Premier League 6th May 2012

First-half goals from Paul Scholes and Ashley Young secured three points for United against Swansea, points which see the destination of the title still undecided ahead of the final day of the season.

1,774 posts have been published to this blog, Pitch Invasion, since its founding in 2007. In late 2011, I decided to collect the very best of those posts in book form, in the unimaginatively titled The Very Best of Pitch Invasion. 39 essays were selected for it, and 39 very good ones they were, by two dozen writers exploring soccer culture around the world in long-form.

When I started writing about American soccer I didn't tell very many people my thoughts on the game. Now, about a year later, as someone who is rational enough to see that the game here is getting better (albeit at a slow pace) I feel more tempted to stick my neck out a bit and ask questions like 'Did anybody hear about the U.

By Joel Greenwaldt
Baltimore Blast (11-4) vs. Norfolk SharX (3-13)
Game Time: 1/27/2012 7:35 PM
http://www.misllivesoccer.com/
Keys to victory for the Blast:

• Stick to the up-tempo pace: I think the Blast played one of their best games of the season last Friday in their 18-2 victory over the SharX.

There are an avalanche of Arsenal transfer rumours around saying that the Gunners have already signed a pre-contract with the Belgian giants Anderlecht to ensure that their pursuit of the Argentinian striker Matias Suarez cannot be hijacked before the summer transfer window. A respected Argentinian football journalist Javier Perez has announced via his twitter account [.

By the way in case you didn't know Rafa Marquez is a crazy person. I would love to write something interesting and funny about this but at this point taking the 5 minutes to pen something to the effect " Rafa Marquez at the center of 'Dramatic Event X' in NY" just seems unnecessary. Not because I'd be piling on to the avalanche of missive's already devoted to yesterday's post-game "incident" but because Rafa Marquez has been at the center of 9 out of 10 dramatic events in NY this year.

Denied the opportunity to gain revenge on West Ham for a couple of poor results last season, a Spurs XI hosted a side from our championship near-neighbours at Chadwell Heath yesterday and ran out comfortable winners by five goals to two.

With the need for a Europa League understudy squad, there are fewer loan deals at the Lane for some of our younger players, so it was a chance for many to get some much needed action.

Another American Owner in the EPL
by Thomas Atzenhoffer on The Bleacher Report
April 11, 2011
Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesLondon based Arsenal have become the latest English Premier League club to come under the control of American Owners. Long-time shareholder Stan Kroenke, Owner of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, secured a deal with the Gunners board of Directors to take majority control of the side.