Simon Kuper and Stefan Syzmanski titled the American version of their new book Soccernomics (review is here), but their title for the release in the UK is Why England Lose. In the book, Kuper and Syzmanski identified the US as a rising power in soccer and England as a permanent disappointment to their rabid fans.

Let's bring December in with a bang:

• New L.A. deal for Landon Donovan.
  
• MLS might get Michael Ballack?
  
• Aguero set to leave Atletico.
  
• City still trying to be taken seriously.
  
• Pavlyuchenko and Roma.
  
• United's Nani saga continues.

"I wanna have sex on the beach, woah woah woah..."

After Barcelona's 1-0 win over Real Madrid last Sunday, Barca president Joan Laporta (pictured above, right) let his hair down by partying HARD at the exclusive Luz de Gas nightclub.

AS reports that Laporta danced with a string of young women and swigged from €100 bottles of MUMM champagne not all of the bubbly ended up in his mouth, as by the end of the night his suit was liberally covered in the stuff.

Lionel Messi rocks a casual look attending a press conference earlier today, and we are absolutely loving that converse on him. He was there to talk to the world after the big news has been announced that he's won the Balon D'or! Yeah, we're not surprised. Is there a single individual on this planet who even dared to believe Leo would not win it?

Barcelona came through and won the Copa del Rey last season after a drought and now to defend their title they will need to go through some very murky/shark-infested waters to even get back to the final. As the draw came out the Catalans found that repeating is MUCH harder than winning.

Standing in their way is Sevilla and Valencia.

Yep, we're at it again:

• Club America and Landon Donovan? What?
  
• Wenger expects to make a January splash.
  
• Perhaps to get an RVP insurance plan.
  
• Yaya staying at Barca, or going?
  
• Gunners warned off Chamakh.
  
• Drogba no longer cares about Italy.

Bojan and Toure are two contarsting case. One is eager to prove his talent but has no oppurtunity and the other one has showed the world his worth but still won't get a decent playing time. It wasn't a secret that Guardiola never preferred Yaya Toure as the defensive midielder in his setup.

Ruud van Nistelrooy

A bit of good news everyone, although some may beg to differ with me. Arsene has ruled out a move for one of the 'Greatest Cheats' in the history of the Premier League. We are in dire needs of an established hit-man to marshal our attack, but not at the cost of buying has-been's.

Ola Futbolitas! Many of you may not know this (and a few amici still tease us about it) but last December, we interviewed Greaseano himself aka Cristiano Ronaldo via phone from Japan). And yes, he was nice and sent us his autographed book so we've been pretty mean calling him names.

The agent of Barcelona midfielder Yaya Toure has told Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal to make them an offer.
The midfielder, 26, younger brother of City's Kolo, has failed to nail down a regular spot in Barca's first-team this season and could be on his way for £10million.

Barca president Joan Laporta sat beside Real Madrid president Florentino Perez during his side's El Clasico win on Sunday, so he had to be somewhat respectful during the match. But as the picture above shows, he apparently partied his balls off afterwards popping bottles like P. Diddy on a bender.

Not that there was ever much doubt but once his brilliant header flew past Edwin Van Der Sar in the European Cup final Lionel Messi was always going to be this years recipient of the Balon d'Or. The little genius from Argentina lit up European football throughout season 2008-09, playing an instrumental role in Barcelona becoming the first Spanish club to do the treble.

FC Barcelona hosted Xerez in a midweek game in the Spanish Primera Division (La Liga) on Wednesday, December 2, 2009. The match was played on this day because Barcelona will be competing in the FIFA Club World Cup in a few weeks. Here's a recap of the match along with video highlights.

FC Barcelona beats Xerez 2-0 Video Highlights

Barcelona once again dominated possession and chances in the match as they extended their lead in La Liga.

Name: Andoni Goikoetxea, nicknamed The Butcher of Bilbao

Club career: Athletic Bilbao, Atletico Madrid

Position: Centre-back

Why so hard? The Butcher of Bilbao earned his nickname for an infamous scything tackle from behind on Diego Maradona, who was playing for Barcelona at the time.

FC Barcelona went five points clear of Real Madrid at the top of the Spanish La Liga with goals from Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in a 2-0 win at Xerez last night. Under fire France captain Henry opened the scoring 58 seconds into the second half via a well-placed header before substitute Ibrahimovic scored his [.

Signs of our times.Preparations for today's World Cup finals draw in Cape Town were disturbed by two separate bomb scares....
To keep our minds on football here's a look at some great skill from Ibrahimovic during Barca's recent 2-0 win over Xerez.

There's no rest for Barca as they continue the campaign to defend their Liga title, as they're set to face Deprtivo La Coruña tonight. The boys departed earlier today for Coruña, but just-in reports are that the team's plane had to return to El Pratt airport in Barcelona due to technical problems - hopefully whatever's going on will be cleared up in time for the boys to make their match.

In their last game before heading to the FIFA World Club Cup in the UAE, FC Barcelona defeated Deportivo La Coruna 3-1 on a brace from Lional Messi and a late goal from Zlatan Ibrahimovic. FC Barcelona now leads the La Liga table with 36 points. Archrival Real Madrid is in second place with 31 having played a game less than [.

If you would have told me in August that Group F would be the most competitive in this year's Champions League I would have laughed in your face. But the Champions from Russia and the Ukraine have made life miserable for two of Europe's best sides creating all the drama a football fan could wish for.

In case you missed it, yesterday was not without an incredible amount of drama. Well, drama so long as you find it synonymous with "unexpected results". Today isn't quite on par with Juve Barca or the central pairing of Michael Carrick & Darren Fletcher locking down Dzeko & Grafite, but it does have Group [.

(Champions League, December 9, 2009)
Dynamo Kiev 1 Barcelona 2
Dynamo empezó ganando gracias a que el portero Valdez se comió un gol de tiro libre, de todo mundo es sabido que el portero del Barca no esta a la altura de sus compañeros, por mas que Laporta lo defienda.

With the end of the decade upon us and lists popping up everywhere, I thought it might be fun to have a series of polls for us to determine Arsenal's all-decade team.

Today, we start with goalkeepers. Arsenal really haven't had that many # 1 keepers this decade, so our options are limited.

El Atlante futbol club salio concentrado y con un bonito uniforme azul cielo, para no confundirse con los colores del Barcelona, los dos equipos azulgranas, el Atlante tuvo 30 minutos de gloria, Guillermo Rojas anoto apenas iniciado el partido y sorprendio al estadio completo, Pep Guardiola no lo podía creer y el ¨Profe¨Cruz no gritaba un gol así desde la final con Pumas UNAM.

photo credit: Crystian Cruz

The knockout stage of the Champion's League was drawn the other day and now we've got some clubs with big, fat smiles on their faces while others can already feel the doom and gloom of an impending loss to a VERY powerful club.

Internazionale drew Chelsea in a crapper that is going to sting all the way until the 90 minutes ends on the field.

You could argue that the World Club Cup stage belonged to the Messiah after that fitting extra-time goal last night, but futbolitas, without that moment of brilliance from Pedro, Barca could've well handed victory on a plate to Estudiantes.

iker-casillas-wallpapers-real-madrid-1, originalmente cargada por YBoNiLLItA.

Lionel Messi fue el mejor jugador del 2009 y Cristiano Ronaldo recibió el premio al mejor gol del año Ferenc Puskas.
Pero ¿Cual fue el 11 ideal de estos 365 días?
La international professional footballers' union FIFPro, fueron los que escogieron al dream team de entre todos los futbolistas profesionales del mundo aquí esta la lista con un impresionante 4-3-3:

Portero
Iker Casillas (Real Madrid)

Defensas
John Terry (Chelsea)
Nemanja Vidic (Man Utd)
Patrice Evra (Man Utd)
Daniel Alves (Barcelona)

Mediocampistas
Xavi (Barcelona)
Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)

Delanteros
Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
Fernando Torres (Liverpool).

En el 2008/2009 Barcelona se llevó la Liga, La Copa y la Champions.
"Si perdemos, continuaremos siendo el mejor equipo del mundo. Si ganamos, seremos eternos". Este Barca, es eterno. Fueron las palabras de Pep
Sin duda este 2009 Pep el mejor DT, Barcelona el Mejor Club, Messi el mejor jugador.

Lionel Messi festeja, originally uploaded by prismatico.

Triplete para el Barcelona y un balón de oro para su jugador consentido, la pulga se ha levantado con el preciado trofeo mundial como el mejor jugador del año.
El año pasado la polémica se armo por saber quien seria el mejor del mundo pero en este 2009 por calidad y victorias Leo gano por goleada con el triplete (Liga, Copa y Liga de Campeones).

Early Tuesday, Messi was a near-unanimous pick to win the Golden Ball, or Ballon d'Or for you traditionalists.
Out of 480 possible points, the Argentine wonder got 473.
After the triple-trophy winning season Barca had in 2008-09, it was all but locked up months ago. He's the sixth Barca dude to win and first since Ronaldinho four years ago.

Barcelona come out of the Classico as winners, just as we expected they would! It was a great match, with both teams coming out to play for the win, but the Madridistas were no match for the Blaugrana in the end.
Upon seeing the formation, we had our misgivings because we were really hoping to see Iniesta in midfield forming that brilliant alliance with Xavi, instead of where he was positioned on the left wing alongside Henry and Messi.

Remember the movie There's Something About Mary? If you haven't seen the film it is about a guy that pines for his old high school love interest many years later. His wish for a second chance with the potential love of his life is eventually granted and hilarity ensues.

Well similar to that storyline Barcelona just can't get over the fact that Cesc Fabregas is no longer in love with their La Liga squad.

An unhappy end to Arsenal's Carling Cup run. Their defense was shambolic.Tomas Rosicky lost two balls that led to two goals, the first by Carlos Tevez who ran around Song and Eboue before unleashing a shot to put City ahead and the second by Shaun Wright Phillips whose pace was too torrid for Armand Traore and Mikel Silvestre.

UEFA has started the process of selecting UEFA Team of the Year on their website. You can pick your best Eleven ast UEFA Team of the Year. Eleven Barca players have been nominated for this year's award. Manchester United has six players in the list. The Barca players on the list are Valdés, Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Txigrinski, Abidal, Touré, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi and Ibrahimovic.

Barcelona's star Lionel Messi has capped his great week with two goals to lead the Catalan side to a 3-1 victory over Deportivo La Coruna. Several days ago he was named the Ballon d'Or winner after a stunning year during which he led Barca to three titles- Champions League, la Liga and Copa del Rey.

Leo Messi heads a Barcelona contingent to the top five world players of the year category with Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez. The others are Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka. It is heavily Eurocentric. No player from outside the European leagues has ever won the award.

That's the rumor, anyway. According to Pavlyuchenko's agent, Arsenal are among the teams bidding for the lanky Russian striker, who has thus far been a massive disappointment since arriving at Spurs from Spartak Moscow.

It seems pretty unbelievable. (A) He plays for Spurs, our arch-rivals, and (B) he hasn't been good enough to hack it there, so why would we go out and buy him?

If FC Barcelona manage tp avoid a defeat by two goals or more against Dynamo Kiev, they will qualify for the knockout stage of this year's Champions league. With the victory against Inter, Barca leads the group by two points. But that will count for nothing if they lose at Kiev by two goals or more.

- First and foremost: congrats to Leo Messi for officially recieving his well-deserved Ballon D'or, and looking hot doing it! More pictures at the bottom.
- Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is dreaming of signing Bojan come the winter transfer period. And he'll continue to do just that: dream. In more agreeable transfer reports, the club is said to be after David Silva.

Xavi spared Barcelona's blushes by scoring a crucial equalizer away in Kiev and Barca clinched qualification to the knockout stage when Leo Messi scored a late winner.

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Group E
1. Fiorentina, 2. Lyon, 3. Liverpool, 4. Debrecen
This one was all but settled before yesterday, but the Reds went and lost again, 2-1 at home to the group leaders to finish 2-3-1. The French club had the biggest result of the day, rolling into the second round with a 4-0 win.
Group F
1.