Gianfranco Zola, fresh from appearing in the Chelsea Legends side that beat Spurs 4-0 in the local tournament at Craven Cottage the other week, has spoken of how football has changed since he finished playing.
Zola was asked about the game how much it has changed and said:

"There's no doubt that the pace is higher now, even in the last few years.

Paul Gardner hit another home run in his 'The Barcelona Way - Part II'.
Aspects of 'the Barcelona Way' that I definitely agree with are:
* What are normally not associated with teams that stand out for thir ability to keep possession and ball control - work ethic and defending when the other team has the ball - are what makes Barcelona so unique.

Calling all supporters groups! Calling all Miami Ultras, Southern Legion, South Florida Football Fanaticos, Hooligans, Striker Likers, anyone who loves Soccer in South Florida!
It's time we all get together and meet each other. No matter if we don't agree and want to be different entities.

Written by mickydidit89

Over the last day or two, I have been alluding to the latest of my brilliant ideas. The beauty about this one is that I have unearthed not only the cause of our troubles but also the solution. The other day Mike talked about Eto on RA's excellent post about Wengerball, and between them, I thought they were going to steal my thunder.

There are a lot of things I love about The Beautiful Game. One thing in particular I find great is how short the off-season is. Soccer goes on for ten months which is so gratifying considering, in contrast, the extended breaks of all American sports. However, two months is still plenty of time and nothing takes it up quite like the transfer market.

Going into the Gold Cup two years ago, Mexico was a team on the brink of disaster. Now, of course, they are not.
Amazingly, the player most closely associated with Mexico's revival wasn't even on the 2009 Gold Cup roster - yes, Mexico tuned us up 5-0 without Javier Hernandez. Something to think about when we say we started a B-team.

Dance. The essence of movement. The embodiment of rhythm. A fine, practiced discipline designed for entertainment and expression. Football, it's own form of dance. Two teams, two styles. Style deeply rooted in culture, passion, and attitude. An attitude that defines the way in which we play and perform.

Frankfurt, Germany. Sunday, July 17, 2011.

FIFA Women's World Cup Final: Two stories. One dream.

Story 1:

Japan. A thriving culture devastated by unstoppable power. A once strong body now undergoing the most meticulous reconstruction.

With actual MLS clubs involved in competition for the first time in months, we got to wondering whether the Champions League, which has struggled to capture even hard care MLS supporters, could ever be a draw European soccer fans. Out of town with only intermittent internet access, we thought now would be a good time to re-run Part III from our 2009 Bringing the Fans series.

Soccer fans this weekend saw the best of the beautiful game pushed aside by the worst. As Barcelona were dismantling Manchester United with passing and play that was textbook in perfection, the drip-drip-drip of allegations coming out of FIFA's headquarters in Switzerland was deafening.

Sepp Blatter was re-elected as FIFA's President today in one of the more lopsided elections in history.
Here's how Blatter's 91.63% total (186 votes out of 203 possible) compares to some of his dictatorial counterparts:
Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov 2007 Election 80%
Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev 2005 Election 91.

By Babette van Haaren, writing from Holland. We started our tribute to Edwin with Mohamed Moallim's biographical piece on VdS and now we finish with a wonderful piece from Babette, one of the most passionate and knowledgeable Ajax fans around...

Despite Edwin van der Sar never won a European Championship or World Cup with Holland, he enjoys the status of a secular saint in his country.

How badly have we missed Kaka? No, not the Kaka that we have seen at Real Madrid but Kaka that we all witnessed and enjoyed watching play the beautiful game in a graceful way. The Kaka of AC Milan. In the past two years we have basically missed one of the best players in the [...]

Every once in a while I have this weird daydream about having kids, specifically a son. Oh, the things I would teach him! I'd teach him how to play the drums and how to ride a bike and how to make scrambled eggs. I'd teach him how to talk to chicks and how to build a fire. You know, the important stuff.

Victor Decolongon/Getty Images(Bleacher Report) England is the birthplace of the world's greatest game. Not only does it have the title of home of the beautiful game, but it is also home to many legendary players in the sport.
Men like Peter Shilton, who holds the record for the most caps in the English National Team at 125, and Manchester United immortal, Sir Bobby Charlton.

The best team in the world, Barcelona played the most popular team in Mexico (Chivas de Guadalajara) and filled Sun Life Stadium on a humid Wednesday night in Miami. Section 404 was packed with Miami Ultras and other fans who were present to watch the beautiful game at it's best. We all saw Chivas shock Barcelona with their wonderful play and goals.

Those crazy kids over at TMZ managed to get their hands on pictures of Amanda Knox wearing a Seattle Sounders scarf, along with her Halloween outfit. Considering Knox has played the beautiful game, not surprising that she's pulling for the home team in the MLS playoffs (though Real Salt Lake beat them up pretty good, 3-0, this weekend).

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Stop shit, if you can!

Dear Manu, (I would love to drop the 'dear', but my sensibilities don't allow me to do so).

I hope this letter finds you in low spirits. You have remained a cry baby and have been crying for long that we (read: Gooners) have betrayed you. So I take this opportunity to show you the mirror.

Whether or not you can put too much faith in a list which earmarks Darren Fletcher in the top echelons of world football, I'm not entirely sure. But it does make for interesting reading all the same. The ruddy good FourFourTwo magazine released their annual 100 Best Players in the World feature this month; a countdown of the planet's finest exponents of the oft beautiful game.

Bob Levey - Getty Images

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At last! At last! No more votes, no more political wrangling, the new Houston Dynamo stadium is 100% approved!

This picture is so full of win, we almost can't stand it. Saddos? Pay attention. REAL men feel pain and give hugs. 'Kay? Image: Getty Images/Daylife

Morning team! With a magnificent week of football ahead, it is vital that you are fully conversant with the events in the major European leagues over the weekend.

It's a pretty sad day all around. The weather here in the Sound is rainy and gloomy which matches my mood on this Monday morning. I'm sure I'm not the only soccer fan of the same mindset as it was a brutal weekend for fans of the beautiful game. The league has lost two of its most dynamic, creative players to severe injuries.

For all the strides soccer has made in America over the last 20-plus years, even the most ardent backers of the beautiful game will admit that it's many decades away from becoming the nation's No. 1 sport -- if it ever gets there at all.
Not that it needs to, of course. In the United States' vast and vibrant athletic landscape, there will clearly be a big place for futbol alongside football, basketball and baseball as the country's changing demographics continue to push what was a niche game a short few years ago deep into the mainstream consciousness.

Don't know about you but I am glad that this season is ending. It's hard to see a turnaround in the way this current side is playing without a proper break. The summer will be an agonizing period for all of us addicted to the beautiful game and the Arsenal, even more so for those who hate waking up to nonsensical transfer rumours, but it is a necessary evil at this stage.

Photo by FIFA Habbo

It was an incredibly busy week in American soccer. Between the US national team, MLS midweek matches, and all sorts of FIFA controversies, there was a wealth of story lines for fans of the beautiful game. Below are some of the ones we were following this week that we did not have time to post on the site:

• In midweek MLS action, New York and Colorado played to a 2-2 draw, Dallas got three points on the road with a 1-0 win over Seattle, and the Galaxy grabbed an early goal to edge Houston 1-0.

Paul Gardner writes of the opportunity for us to finally see 'the beautiful game' in tomorrow's UEFA Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona.

It was only some 10 months ago that we were getting ready for the World Cup final -- a game between Spain and the Netherlands that promised to give us everything that such a game should -- the very best of soccer.

Yeah, right FIFA President Sepp Blatter has bowed to pressure and announced a range of sweeping reforms he is confident will placate the beautiful game's stakeholders around the world. "For the first time we will introduce goal mouth technology," he stated. "Special cameras will be positioned to determine whether cocktail olives in fact enter the [.

In the wake of Barcelona's 3-1 UEFA Champions League championship victory over Manchester United, the debate has begun about where Barca sits among the greatest club sides of all-time.
Do Barca's players, with their poetic ball skills and precise attacking, surpass the best football teams of all time?

Whether you are a fan of Jim Rome or not, his influence on the American sports world is undeniable. He has a daily 3-hour national sports talk radio show and a half-hour TV show on ESPN, Rome is Burning (He is reportedly leaving ESPN and taking his show with him to CBS). His style is different than other personalities in that he references his followers as 'clones' and what they have to say as 'takes.

Most teams with one win, six losses, and three ties since the season began would probably feel like they have nothing to look forward to. But while Sporting Kansas City may have such a record, they sure do have a lot to play for, as tonight the true test of their rebranding will begin with the opening of LIVESTRONG Sporting Park.

Earlier this week I received my review copy of Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, so the first thing I did was jump to the index to find any sections that deal with soccer. Based on the directions that the index sent me in, and I should note the index seems a bit poor, the book only focuses on soccer in the context of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, which isn't a bad thing, but it seems to leave out the World Wide Leader's dabbling with the Beautiful Game during the bulk of its 31 years.

Kicking + Screening (K+S) Soccer Film Festival, the world's premier international film event dedicated solely to the beautiful game, has announced the lineup of films to be screened at the 3rd annual New York City festival, July 20–23, 2011, at the famous TriBeCa Cinemas.

A newbie to dexy's ranks, I thought I'd come in with a bang – well sort of. This season's been one of the strangest in recent memory. Gone are the stoic battles between two or maybe three formidable outfits – we now have about 6 teams in the top rung of our league, all of which could realistically challenge for top spot ove the next decade.

So, what to do with my review copy of the new book about ESPN, Those Guys Have All The Fun?
First off, I have to confess I did once work for ESPN - at least the website. I wrote for the soccer section of the site during the period when John Skipper, now the head honcho of the whole ESPN shebang, was running the website, but as a freelancer, I never had any inside contact with ESPN culture.

Gold Cup 2011 – 'Handicapped Soccer'
Dr. Joel Rookwood
The beautiful game known globally as 'football' has a patchy history in America, barely permeating the sporting world so often dominated by baseball, basketball and American football. 'Soccer' (allegedly taken from asSOCiation football) has become a reference to a lesser sport, distancing language employed in USA and in other countries with a more dominant national variant.

By Eric Beard, writing from Boston

FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid. Brazil vs. Argentina. England vs. Germany. And yes, the United States vs. Mexico. All are historically-backed traditions that are able to offer the best the beautiful game has to offer.

While searching through YouTube and filtering through the masses upon masses of football highlights that users have uploaded, you often come across a moment, a goal or a match which reminds you why you watch and love the beautiful game. This clip, titled ‘crazy Bergkamp skill' is a moment of pure genius, and demonstrates [.

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that performance this weekend from the Dynamo. I'm not complaining of course and I've never been happier to be so wrong about a game, especially when it's beating up the Sounders. In case you missed it, and I doubt if you're reading this blog that you did, Houston took it to Seattle on Saturday, thumping the inventors of all things soccer, 3-1.

When Luka Modric started playing football, it has been claimed that the little Croat had to play with wooden shin pads to protect him from the hustle and bustle of the beautiful game.

Come the 6th August 2011, he'll need more than the two planks of wood to protect him from the reaction of the Tottenham faithful after his failed transfer to Chelsea.

El Chiquitín Fútbol Club - The wonderful story of the women from Jerez, Spain that will play the beautiful game for as long as they live.

For anyone who has had trouble coming to terms with the fact that the dream of making a living from football has passed, these women courageously show that no matter the circumstances you can play and even try to be the local Messi.