What: Union at Toronto FC

When: 4:30pm ET

Where: BMO Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV: Comcast Network

Referee: Juan Guzman

It has been a season of surprises and disappointment for the Philadelphia Union.

The Portland Timbers played against the Houston Dynamo yesterday in their brand new, sparkley stadium BBVA Compass Stadium. The good news here is that the Timbers did not, in fact, lose which is great! A draw away from home is actually an alright thing to get. Granted a win is always better and the Timbers are definitely in need of a solid three points from a game, but given the circumstances with the new stadium and everything I'll notch this closer to the "win" column.

Aymen Abdennour "the Tunisian beast" – By JG For a short while a couple months ago, Aymen Abdennour was at the top of Arsene Wenger's transfer list (in relation to defenders). This was exciting news because I had been watching his games for months and was extremely impressed. Abdennour was named defender of the season [.

Valencia star Mehmet Topal decided to try his luck as matador Topal... but was soon regretting his decision. Although faced with just a young bullock, Topal soon lost his nerve when the beast was eventually coaxed into charging at him. In other words, he dropped everything and run. The bull caught him easily and gave [.

It's almost game day. Unfortunately, we still have to suffer through Friday to get there, though. There wasn't a whole lot of Revs news to get out to you, but there's plenty of other links for your to peruse. Also, if you haven't already, check out yesterday's content brought to you by The Indirect Kick.

Union Tally: FARFAN'S BAN LEADS TO TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT IN WEAKENED UNION BACKLINE

"I think Ray does a great job, but he's still a kid and he's still got a lot of inexperience and he shows flashes of being a brilliant player, but he needs more games," Danny Califf said. "When we lose Sheanon on the right and an attacking guy on the left, it hamstrings us when we're trying to play out of the back.

With the 4 game losing streak finally broken the Portland Timbers can now look to earning their first away win of the year. Getting that away win is always a big step and Portland didn't get that last year until late over halfway through the first season. If they can get it earlier then last year it will be a big step in recovering from the early funk they were in.

Let's play a little game, since it's a bye week. Imagine for a moment that it's July and the Sounders are healthy and their new players have been integrated into the fold. One way of gauging the strength of a team is to look at its potential for growth and improvement using just the players it currently has on the roster.

Andy Carroll started the last two Liverpool games, and they were important games in some respect. Liverpool ended a four game win-less streak with a hard-fought 3-2 win over Blackburn Rovers. The Reds followed that up with a come-from-behind FA Cup victory over Everton, thus maintaining their hoodoo spell over the blue of Merseyside.

I'm gonna be super quick on this one, today is another day where the day job has me swamped.

One MLS game tonight (yes there is a CCL game with Toronto and Santos too), as the Montreal Impact play at Real Salt Lake for the first time. Jesse Marsch's club is going through all the usual expansion club pains and going to Salt Lake won't be an easy thing after coming off a 5-2 beating in New York last weekend.

Rafa gets beat by Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open marathon for his third straight Grand Slam loss and then Cristiano Ronaldo bests him at tennis using only his Mercurial Vapor shoes. What's he supposed to do to win?

If the message is that the Mercurial Vapour VIII can switch on mad soccer skills just by wearing them they could not do better than Nadal.

That was something different, wasn't it?! After a record run of come-from-behind victories, Arsenal showed they could also hold on to a lead under pressure against a side that had a very good home record in recent weeks.

This was a curious game in many ways. Arsene started with Ramsey and that too on the left side of the attack.

The offseason is a brutal mix of rumor, speculation, and roster rebuilding. If you checked out after November, we understand. But here is some PSP original content you might have missed: Eli examined possible Union formations, focusing on the 4-4-2, the 4-3-3, and the 4-2-3-1. We also looked at Union players with the most to prove and came together for a two-part (part 1; part 2) roundtable to talk about the upcoming season.

Did the Tottenham players miss the lesson about what they say about wounded animals? I am just asking as we had a fantastic opportunity on Sunday to kill off the beast and their shadow that has been on our shoulder for many a year now, well for this season anyway! Alas that fell by the wayside and in a momentous fashion too.

Sir Alex Ferguson has today claimed in an interview with Radio 5 Live that he has never discussed which manager will replace him when he's ready to retire.

"Never discussed it it is a dangerous game," said Ferguson. "At this moment in time there are about half-a-dozen managers doing very well in the Premier League, all the others are fighting for their lives.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

The lack of reliable options at forward makes Jurgen Klinsmann's decision for which strikers to bring to Genoa for the match against Italy on Feb. 29 a pretty basic exercise.

With a pair of entrenched players at the position and Klinsmann potentially opting for a one-man forward line anyway, he won't be pressed into bringing a slew of players to compete for minutes up top against the Azzurri.

This just has to be one of the great photos about fans being arrested by mounted policeman near sex shops in the Amsterdam Red Light District as Manchester United is visiting in the Europa League, doesn't it?

From the presence of the large beast under the "Live Sex" sign to the rather angry gentleman in front losing his marbles to the frightened onlookers finished off by the gentleman in the bottom right coolly drinking his suds while it all transpires, this is just wonderful all around.

First there was Joe Jordan Facts. Then there were the Scott Parker Facts. Then Danny Rose posted the video below on twitter, and Sandro Facts were born. Beast! The best are below the vid!
Read more »

The beast from the North East

Prologue: Salvador, up in northern Brazil, is so unlike Rio and Sao Paulo, the rest of the country refers to Bahiaians rudely as "slow". As I trudged through the late afternoon sun looking for the Newcastle Man Utd game, it struck me that the heat may have something to do with it.

The Philadelphia Union announced on Wednesday that they have signed Panamanian international Gabriel "Gavilan" Gomez.

The press release says "the central midfielder will be eligible to join the Union upon receiving his P-1 Visa and International Transfer Certificate. Per MLS and Club policy, terms of the agreements were not disclosed.

"The measure of greatness is not how many you win, but how you react to defeat". Or something along those lines. In fact, AANP may have invented that just now.

Anyway, the point is that the epithet has been fairly redundant for as far back as I can remember, as we would generally fail to win in the first place, and then react to defeat with another defeat, or a two-goal lead thrown away late on, or whatever.

Most of us have been quietly, and painfully, waiting for the day when Barcelona shows up at Cobham with a few million euro and trudges back to Catalonia with a monster of a holding midfielder named Oriol Romeu in its pocket. As it happens, that's probably not going to happen. Not unless Chelsea loses its mind in the near future that is.

Beauty v the beast: Stoke v Spurs, LFC v Wimbledon, Arsenal v Bolton the best and worst footballing sides

talkSPORT listeners suggest some of the best footballing sides they've seen and some of the worst!

View the full story here: Talksport

A news article on 2011-12-10 08:45:00 from: Talksport

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Scott Parker. Man. Beast. Legend.
Scott Parker doesn't sleep, he waits...There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Scott Parker allowed to live.Giraffes were created when Scott Parker uppercutted a horseM.C. Hammer learned the hard way that Scott Parker can touch this.When the boogeyman goes to bed at night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris, Chuck checks his for Joe Jordan and Joe Jordan checks his for Scott ParkerScott Parker can slam a revolving doorScott Parker was once stabbed by a knife.

By Chris Wright

Want to achieve that thick, lustrous, healthy 'Brendan Rodgers' look that all men are striving for this season? Fetch your old school uniform out of the attic, get your see-through protective face mask on and WORK IT GIRLFRIEND...

Want to know what else went on at Newcastle training this afternoon?

Porto's Brazilian beast Hulk has been targeted by Wenger as a new powerhouse up front. Now called up into his country's full squad, the striker has been in decent form yet again this season with 3 goals from 6 games already. However, is the Portuguese league big enough to prove that he is good enough [.

Some notes on the game that recently end:

• What a win for the Philadelphia Union. Ignore the fact that the Seattle Sounders were missing three of their best players, including striker Freddy Montero. Seattle needed this win to stay in the Supporters Shield hunt, coming off of a third straight United States Open Cup (USOC) victory.

1. Find Abou Diaby
He's gone missing. Injurepol have been alerted but there is still no sign of our no-minutes-on-the-pitch midfielder. If spotted, feel free to approach him. He's completely harmless.

2. Avoid what Denilson's been drinking
Six appearances for Sao Paolo, three red cards.

It hasn't always been about the Champions League and domestic doubles for Chelsea Football Club. The club's saga over its ownership of Stamford Bridge was at a time during which it had nothing like the status that it has today one of the ongoing crisis stories of the 1980s, but the club was (after the collapse of Marler Estates in 1992) reunited with the freehold to the ground and subsequently set up the Chelsea Pitch Owners, a non-profit organisation which took ownership of this freehold and the name of the club, and granted it a 199-year lease on Stamford Bridge, which secured the club's future even though the ground stands on one of the more sought-after areas of London a city that has seen a fair few football grounds disappear in the name of property development in recent years.

I wrote recently that the MVP chase in Major League Soccer is a slippery, elusive beast. Things tend to shift quickly in this thing, I wrote.

So, I'll try not to bust my arm patting myself on the back for this one, but, uh ... nailed it!

Two weeks ago, Dwayne De Rosario was an "also ran" at best in the MVP sweepstakes.

Europa League or Carling Cup, which ought we to want less? It's a tricky one. The Europa League trophy is a sizeable beast, and its lack of handles gives it a pleasingly Neanderthalic edge – one cannot help but handle it in rough, uncouth manner when raising it aloft, which is rather apt after 90 minutes of blood and thunder.

The Philadelphia Union lost another Reserve League game, falling to the Columbus Crew's reserve squad 2-1. However, the Union played better than they have in the past, managing to create many scoring opportunities in the first half before becoming mediocre in the second half.

For the first time in the history of the Brotherly Game, a correspondent was present at a Reserve League game to take notes.

Dalglish promises not to tame the beast in Bellamy

'I can't believe I haven't signed him before' says Liverpool boss

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-09-09 21:30:18 from: The Mirror

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Dwight Howard en la Gira adidas por China compartió el entarimado con aficionados

Esta es la primer gira adidas Basketball por Beijing y contó con Dwight Howard que estuvo conviviendo con fanáticos.

Próximamente Dwight lanzará los nuevos adiPower que llevan su nombre y logotipo "dh"
Cientos de aficionados se reunieron en el Parque Di Tan en Beijing y formaron el logotipo "dh" de Dwight Howard (DH Beijing Ditan Park-11)

Dwight Howard usó una máscara en alusión a la Ópera de Pekín (foto DH Beijing Ditan Park-14)

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It was an El Clasico: Real Madrid vs. Barcelona.
.One team, pressed, controlled possession and created chances, while the other one tried to keep up and with their first 2 opportunities to strike, scored 2 goals on the back of the super talents of their players. Which one was Real Madrid?

Welcome to the Premier League, AVB.

Is this seat taken?

First: That shot from Mikel. Brilliant. I told you, the man is going to score this season.

Now as Jack said, a draw away at Stoke isn't exactly a bad result. Especially as we seemed to start a bit slow and Kenwyne Jones was winning headers all over the place against our defenders as Stoke lumped the ball forward.

Our next View from the Enemy on our final day is with Jon Owen from Why Delilah who has spoken to us about the highs and lows of last season.

Scott the Red: Were you happy with your team's performance last season?

John Owen: Very. It was disappointing not to finish in the top half, but it was another season of progress for us.

The Blues provided another 4-0 performance in preseason, this time against Hong Kong champions Kitchee in the Asia Cup. We will now go on to play Aston Villa in the final while Kitchee will take on Blackburn for third place in the competition.

Chelsea dominated proceedings from the get-go with the usual problem of failing to test the goalkeeper enough during the first half except when Benayoun broke into the Kitchee box, was tripped and Lampard smashed home the penalty.

Arsenal signings 2 1 Arsenal sales

Arsenal: Specialists in snail-paced transfers. The good news is that Gervinho has definitely signed or at least, he'll "shortly join" us "subject to a regulatory process". If Cesc and Nasri's summer represents the longest goodbye Wenger disagrees on this point, vehemently then Gervinho's has without doubt been the longest hello.

Eric Brunner knows kung-fu. Dude's got a red belt. Game of the Week Seattle 3, Portland 2 What. A. Game. I'm glad the USWMNT's thriller Sunday morning went the way it did, because who knows if I'd have been willing to put in two hours to watch this beast in a disheveled mindset. As it was, I was so amped after Wambach & Co.