Even before Clint Dempsey plopped to the ground Sunday the United States was already nearing The Tipping Point.

Charlie Davies is recovering from a shattered leg; Oguchi Onyewu is trying to rush back from a patellar tendon rapture (his knee is fucked up); Jermaine Jones might never recover from his broken leg; Jozy Altidore can't score a goal in the English Premier League; Carlos Bocanegra is stuck on the Stade Rennes' bench; DaMarcus Beasley started playing well for the first time in years before tearing his hamstring.

From Mirror Football -

Thierry Henry has negotiated his exit from Barcelona this summer and is preparing to head to the US.

Former Arsenal captain Henry, 32, failed to even make the bench for Barcelona's win at Villarreal last weekend and that has merely confirmed his departure.

It's official. France are out of the World Cup. Following a week and a half of controversy, arguments and embarrassment, a defeat to South Africa this afternoon confirmed their bottom of the group finish.

Patrice Evra, who had been chosen as the captain ahead of Thierry Henry, was dropped to the bench for today's game, with the likes of Malouda and Abidal.

With a chance to extend our lead to four points at the KC Stadium last night we blew it with some sloppy defending from a set piece once more.
We still took an additional point last night to extend the lead over United to 2 points but we all know it could of been and should of been so much more!

The midfielder will be on the bench for Fulham when they travel to Italy in the Europa league.

In this monthly segment, we attempt to answer the question, "Who should we take to South Africa?" Rather than taking the standard approach (doing our best to guess who Bob will take to South Africa), we focus on who we think Bradley should take.

Rearrange these words. Pram. Toys. Throw. Baby

Think Argentina will lift the World Cup? Bet with Betfair and get £25 free!

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Whilst its understandable that Diego Maradona would have been quite stunned by his side's thrashing at the hands of Germany it does seem a little churlish for the Argentine boss to confront celebrating fans given what those fans had just witnessed.

After Arsenal's season was finished, I decided to wait until after the World Cup was over to begin posting again. This was mostly because there are 500 Arsenal blogs out there and 2 false transfer rumors making the rounds each day. So, now the World Cup is over and what is the big story in ArsenalLand?

Landon Donovan's return to Everton is looking less and less likely. After a successful loan spell this past winter, followed by an impressive World Cup, myself and probably yourself had assumed Donovan was destined for permanent Toffee-dom in January 2011.

The race to fill the remaining roster spots at forward for the U.S. World Cup team is about as wide open as you could imagine and with Brian Ching suffering a hamstring injury, and Robbie Findley starting out on the bench for Real Salt Lake last night, you have to wonder just who is leading this race to fill the final forward spots.

It's the end of another season and although football is a team game, I feel some player ratings are necessary to highlight the obvious deficiencies in this team.
Full details of how the rating system (out of ten) works are here, but essentially, 6 is average, 8 is excellent and anything below 5 is pretty abysmal.

Nicolas Anelka, who has been really poor for France in this World Cup, as well as in the warm-up friendlies, couldn't earn a himself a spot on the bench with his woeful displays. Even though he rarely ventured to even take a shot on goal, Domenech still insisted on playing him up front, by himself.

The crowd was thrilled by last night's end-to-end action
Our midfield releases another pinpoint attack
Getting psyched up by Coach Backe's half-time pep talk. "I think, in a way, that you could say this was quite a boring half of football, in a way."
Our bench, anxious for the chance to show they deserve a start
The DC Supporters were enthralled by the exciting play, too
Giving interviews during the post-game cool-down.

Let's pretend. You're the coach of a national team, which means your opportunities to run your charges through their paces are limited, and your pool of players is fluid and unpredictable. Your team has issues with depth in central defense, and an overabundance (quite suddenly) of defensive-minded central midfielders.

Last season, when news broke out that Cristiano Ronaldo was leaving Old Trafford, Nani tipped himself as the man to fill the void left by the great no.7. But any chance of doing that has faded away. He is probably United fifth choice winger behind Valencia, Giggs, Obertan and Park. Don't be surprised if he is out of the door come summer time.

Manchester City's Carlos Tevez has branded Manchester United's Gary Neville a "boot-licker" and a "moron" in explaining his goal celebration in Tuesday's Carling Cup semi-final Former Manchester United striker Tevez gestured and cupped his ears towards the United bench after scoring twice in Manchester City's 2-1 derby win.

While the jury is out on whether or not Charlie Davies will make the World Cup roster, Oguchi Onyewu is almost certainly a lock.

Back in October, Onyewu suffered a serious knee injury that looked like it might keep the hulking central defender out of the World Cup. News this week from Carson, Calif.

Well, it could have been a lot worse. Tonight's USA performance was far from good, but against one of the worlds best teams how much can we really expect? I know what we'd like to expect, of course, but then reality sets in. We can only hope that Bob Bradley's men can turn out better performances once they have a full squad, and hopefully Stuart Holden will recover from that idiotic late tackle Nigel De Jong put in on him (it's called a friendly for a reason Nigel!

By now you've seen this goal by DC United's Jaime Moreno, which came when Philadelphia Union goalkeeper Chris Seitz got a bit flummoxed and dropped the ball, which Moreno cashed in for the tying goal Saturday.

On Monday, US Soccer referee guru Paul Tamberino said the goal shouldn't have been allowed, and Moreno should have been booked for interference.

We may only be a week into the transfer window, but that hasn't stopped Manchester City from splashing over £60 million on new transfers already. One of those looks to me like the worst we will see this window...

The terrible paint mock ups have started once more folks.

16 year old Luis Gil, winner of 2009′s US Soccer young male athlete of the year, and currently riding the bench at Real Salt Lake, has been loaned to USSF D2 AC St. Louis for the rest of the year. ACSTL is currently languishing in fifth place in a six-team conference. What started out so promising in St.

Ahead of Manchester United's 1-0 victory over Wolves, which was a hard fought affair that we came close to drawing, Sir Alex Ferguson was critical of our star player, Wayne Rooney. After struggling for fitness three days earlier in the League Cup final, and seeing team mate Michael Owen pick up an injury on the disgraceful pitch, Rooney played 86 minutes for England in a friendly, on that same dodgy pitch.

DUTCH legend Johan Cruyff last night slammed Fabio Capello and wrote off England's World Cup hopes.
Mr Total Football reckons the influx of Italian managers is wrecking English football.
And he insists the Three Lions have no chance under Capello's boring and predictable style of football.

Let's be completely honest here: we got ahead of ourselves when it came to the recovery of Charlie Davies. Charlie Davies got ahead of himself when it came to the recovery of Charlie Davies. All the faith, belief, and hope in the world couldn't heal Charlie, and turn him back into the footballer he should be, faster than nature would allow.

Manchester United have the opportunity to go top of the table later today as they take on Wolves whilst Chelsea play in the FA Cup.

A draw would be enough to see us go top, thanks to a superior goal difference, whilst a win would put us two points clear with Chelsea not playing in the league again until next weekend, when they play West Ham at home.

Alright, I know the season isn't over yet but it is never too early to think about next season. And, regardless of how Arsenal finish this season, all eyes will again be on Arsene Wenger over the summer transfer period. Indeed, it seems that every transfer window over the past few years, Wenger has been criticized for not buying the right players (or players at all) and, with multiple injuries to his best players this season, one has to wonder if results would be different this season if he had better quality coming off the bench.

"When I signed a contract ­extension last year, it was because the squad was good and I was told the money would be there," said Benitez. "In the end, things changed. We have had a bad season ­because the conditions of my job changed. Hopefully things will be different in the future, but at the moment I can't talk about the future because I don't know what is going on here.

It was a Soccer Marathon for South Florida Soccer fans. A few of the Ultras / Sam's Army Miami Brigade started off their day as early as 8 am at Fritz & Franz in Coral Gables. South Korea beat Greece 2-0, Argentina beat Nigeria 1-0 and the main event had USA take on England. Expectations were high to see what the USA could do.

A case for Carrick after England's passing horror show?

One thing was increasingly obvious during the England-Algeria game those bleach blonde hairstyles donned by some of the Algerian players were horrible. Oh, and if you didn't notice England's passing in that game was dreadful.

Sounders at DC United

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With the Sounders playing their sixth match in 18 days, we have a feeling there could be some more changes to the lineup.

By Ollie Irish

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Inter striker Mario Balotelli has agreed to sign for Man City, for around €30m.

Balotelli had leaving party at Milan's Van Gogh café on Via Bertani on Saturday evening.

The teenager's mate's unveiled a piece of canvas with the message: "Even 1000km away, you'll always be in our hearts.

By Chris Wright

UEFA have banned Barcelona 'keeper Jose Pinto (who appears to be sporting the 'Bo Derek circa 1979' look of late) for imitating the referee's whistle during their recent Champions League tie with Copenhagen which apparently constitutes improper conduct these days.

Last I left you, DC United had finally announced their new head coach, Curt Onalfo, and we were all wondering what moves would be made, and what moves should be made. Well, some of those moves have occurred and they should be discussed.

Christian Castillo, left winger on the El Salvador Men's National team and bench warmer on Leon, in Mexico joins DC on loan.

Landon Donvan came off the bench and scored his second Premier League goal of the season. He then added an assist a few minutes later. Not a bad sendoff in his final match at Goodison! Here are the highlights:

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Megan Rapinoe is a little be sick this afternoon so she has been replaced on the U.S. roster by Kelley O'Hara. The 21-year-old O'Hara earned her first cap for the senior team last Sunday when she came on in the second half for Heather O'Reilly. U.S. head coach Pia Sundhage has six subs she can use during today's match, which could mean a second cap for O'Hara, or possibly first-ever caps for defender Brittany Taylor and/or forward Alex Morgan, all of whom will start the game on the bench.

Looks cold in South Africa huh Henry? (Getty Images)

Boy, France crashed and burned a bit today against Mexico huh? Guess Thierry Henry's next move is, well, to New York now that France is seemingly done with this World Cup. And why not any sooner either? He didn't even get off the bench in this one.

Dirk Kuyt pointed the finger of blame for Holland's World Cup final defeat by Spain at English referee Howard Webb.
Webb brandished 14 yellow cards and one red - a record for a final - in a fiery encounter which saw Andres Iniesta's extra-time goal secure a 1-0 win for Spain.
The South Yorkshire official was booed by Dutch fans at the final whistle and Liverpool forward Kuyt said: "We are angry that we lost because we came so close.

Image: Getty Images via Daylife

We'd like to get one thing straight. The untrained among you might imagine that images like those above and here would put us off Mr David Beckham, his brand of uber hot being founded in the kind of perfectly groomed metrosexual majesty ideal for shilling product and contributing to the languid daydreams of millions.

Whenever an American player heads overseas, the move is fraught with questions. Will he settle in quickly and crack the starting lineup, or will he find himself in purgatory, forgotten, and left to rot on the bench?
Fortunately for Bolton Wanderers and U.S. international midfielder Stuart Holden, getting playing time at a top club hasn't been a problem.

Jozy Altidore was on the bench for Villarreal as they needed two equalizers to split the points at the Estadio Jose Rico Perez on Monday. Nelson Valdez put Hercules up in the 26th minute with Joan Capdevila equalizing three minutes later. David Trezeguet made it 2-1 Hercules in the 40th, and was sent off just before halftime.