A good many wingers would be perfectly happy leaving Euro 2008 with a goal and an assist. But we expected a bit more of Cristiano Ronaldo.

He came into this tournament as (some say) the best player in the world. In every game, he was the man defences feared. But he didn't really deliver.

Yes, he beat up on Czech Republic.

You would think from the accolades last week that Zinedine Zidane had just retired. In fact DaMarcus Beasley somehow compared Claudio Reyna to ZuZu before the 2006 World Cup saying: On the field, technically he's our best player. He's so smooth. He's very nonchalant. He always reminds me of [Zinedine Zidane].

World's best player flops at Free Kick Masters ESPN reported that both Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho demanded first-round byes in the Free Kick Masters, a gimmicky even held in Houston on Saturday. The free pass didn't help either Brazilian though...

It isn't just Manchester City fans who are in a total state of shock relating to the amazing events over at Eastlands (or should that be Middle Eastlands?). Chelsea, and in particular Peter Kenyon will be totally gutted after losing out in the battle to sign Robinho, few saw that particular deal coming on what turned out to be a truly remarkable final day of the summer transfer window.

On this 4th of July we as fans of MLS and the US National team all have something to celebrate. The fact that Jozy Altidore has just been introduced as the best player in the USA and looks likely to remain with Villarreal rather than be loaned out as had been rumored.

Thierry Henry was named this week as the best player in Arsenal history in a series revealed on the club's website. The striker, who now plays at Barcelona, sounded humbled when asked about the award by the website. Thanks to...

While Ronaldo, Kaka and Torres are undeniably three of the best goal scorer's in the world, if I were starting a squad from scratch and could have any player in the world, I would likely select my choice for the #5 best player in the world: Cesc Fabregas. Why would I want Fabregas, who has only scored [.

I'll admit, Liverpool's 1-1 draw with Wisla Krakow wasn't the most exciting pre-season match I've ever seen. But it did feature the appearance of Daniel Pacheco, who was the best player on the pitch in Liverpool's win over FC Lucerne....

Nothing else to talk about, so I will fall back on this for today. Thankfully, it's La Liga preview tomorrow, so I won't have to spend ages on another list.
This list is the 50 best players now. It therefore will not include any has beens who's talent might be rekindled (sorry R10) and no wonderkids who remain just that.

Personally, I think he's crazy, but according to the London Times, Ronaldinho is on his way to Manchester City. I know that Manchester City are an up and coming club in the English Premier League, but there are so many other clubs out there that he could go to and this just seems to be a money grab for him.

With international matches and club fixtures forcing more and more players to deal with double duty, you are starting to see the ramifications of that work load as more and more players are suffering serious injuries.

Here is a rundown on some major injury news, as well as other soccer stories of the day:

Essien out for the rest of the year

Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien is set to miss the remainder of the calendar year after suffering a torn ACL while on international duty with Ghana in a match against Libya.

After all, a football club would be pretty pretty pretty foolish to let their best player leave for a few million, when he has the potential to make a difference over whether they stay up or not. This is not the first story linking this Fulham playmaker with a potential ...

...So says Slaven Bilic! The Croatian coach reckons that little Modric has big skills and is the best player in Europe. Messi, Kaka, Ronaldo, they are all lesser players than Tottenham's midfielder according to Bilic. "Luca is already a star even without this tournament. "I keep saying to him every day that he's the best [.

The on going 'will he, won't he' saga of Cristiano Ronaldo's almost inevitable move to Real Madrid showed no signs of ending yesterday when the Portuguese winger decided to go on a three week holiday. He has made his desire to go to Real Madrid quite clear but he appears to have forgotten to have told Manchester United that he wants to leave.

An unnamed Premiership club has made a bid for Atletico Madrid's best player: Sergio Aguero. The forward is one of the world's best young players and is rumored to be worth around £30 million. Aguero's agent suggested that Manchester United are the bidders, and Premiership Talk believes this suggestion as it's no secret that United are in the hunt for a striker.

Manchester United legend Eric Cantona echoed many fan feelings from around the world when he told Cristiano Ronaldo he would be "bloody stupid" if he was to quit Man U to opt for Real Madrid. "Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player in the world right now," Cantona said in the Daily Star. "He is a genuine [.

Cristiano Ronaldo scooped the award for the UEFA Club Forward of the Year award, as well as overall best Player, during the draw for the Champions League groups this evening. He said the key to his success was hard work and also found time to thank his team mates. However, Ronaldo made sure it was known that [.

As we approach the one year anniversary of the Top 25, the Soccer Source ranking committee was faced with arguably our toughest task yet: deciding this week's #1. The identity of the top club was of course cast into doubt after last week's #1 was outplayed and outcoached for large portions of yesterday's game, which came against a team that did not even field its best player.

A little late in coming, but with two weeks remaining of the Torneo Clausura, which will be followed by Argentina's final World Cup qualifiers of the season, it's time to list the nominees for the second annual HEGS Award for Best Argentine Footballer in a Foreign League! Nominations were very narrowly spread this season, and [.

It's fair to say that Jimmy Bullard is Fulham's best player. It's also fair to say that one of the reasons why he left a vibrant Wigan team to join the Cottagers was due to his desire to move down south. Therefore, it doesn't seem to make sense as to why the popular midfielder would [...]

1. It just wasn't in the stars for France.
When your best player is stretchered off the field in the ninth minute, and you then go down to ten men in the twenty-third AND go down by a penalty, the stars are clearly aligned against you. One would think that coach Raymond Domenech, a follower of astrology, would have seen this coming.

'Who Ate All the Pies' writer Ollie Irish sum's it up best today...
'Ballack was immense in Germany's win over Portugal. He inspired his team-mates to play above their level, which is the true measure of a world-class player - Diego Maradona, a better player than Ballack, had the same effect on his Argentine team-mates.

Neither of these teams were supposed to be here. Spain because of their history and Russia partly because of the history they don't have. But both are more than deserving of their spot in the semifinals and though it's essentially a rematch of their group encounter, won 4-1 by Spain, it's really anything but.

Footballers. As intelligent and forward thinking a bunch of people you'll never meet. I mean, they're always making sure they've got their futures secured.
Picture the scene, you're a 24 year old player and you're worrying about what it is you're going to do when you stop playing.

Just got finished watching the match immediately following my three hour drive home from Virginia Beach. At least I should say I just got finished watching 81 minutes of the match. I missed the rest thanks to the lights at RFK delaying the match past 10:00 pm. What's with that anyway? That's just embarassing.

Lucas Leiva; the youngest player ever to win the "Bola de Ouro" (the award for the best player in the Brazilian League) was labelled as a wonder kid by Rafa Benitez, but where does he fit into our team and more importantly : Is he good enough for Liverpool?

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In a match where we were missing Emilio, Moreno, Namoff, Fred, Vide, and Peralta, a loss wasn't necessarily surprising. I guess the bright side is that we escaped without any more injuries! Also, I saw tonight that we've got some young players with a lot of heart, and that's got to count for something, even if it didn't earn us any points.

I was wrong when I suggested earlier that DCU would probably be taking the CCL seriously, since they had rested Emilio and Fred for the Dallas match. Instead we sent out an even weaker team tonight, that included the reappearance of Zach Wells! Goff says it's because Crayton had a sore knee, I'm not so sure.

So which team do you think will win Euro 2008? How about the dark horses? Which team will underachieve and who will be the player of the tournament? Simply click on the comment link at the foot of the post and tell us your predictions for Euro 2008 which we will then add to the [...]

Nobody likes the host of a tournament to be out early so I ask that we all put our weight behind them in this live online and radio commentary Euro 2008 group match between Switzerland and Turkey live and try to will them to victory as they really need our support. Not only will they have their best player out of this live online streaming match, they also have a very tough team to play against which they must absolutely not lose in order to stand a chance of progressing.

By: Jack Gaughan
Soccer City FC
It's pre-season in European Football, with all the big leagues such as the English Premiership, La Liga and Serie A taking their annual break prior to the new season. Obviously this is the period where managers throughout the globe really earn their salt, in building, tweaking, or keeping together squads.

Sven Goran Eriksson's hiring by the FMF has been hailed as a dawn of a new era of Mexican dominance over CONCACAF. While this certainly may be the case, much evidence provides us with the possibility that this could be another step on the slippery slope of Mexico's fall back to the pack in CONCACAF.

So now were set for a very public pissing contest. We'll see who backs down first.

Should United let him walk? Or should he be allowed to dictate his own future?

Personally, I think United can kick and scream all they want, but in today's player driven world of modern football can they realistically force the best player on the planet to remain at a place he quite clearly has decided he doesn't want to remain at?

Uefa have named Barcelona and Spain playmaker Xavi as the best player of Euro 2008.
The midfielder has been outstanding in his team's tournament triumph. I have previously called Xavi the best midfielder in the world. His display in Euro 2008 reinforced my opinion. Of course he was the leading passer in the whole tournament, as he is in every tournament in which he participates.

I want to respond to Cameron.
My original article was mainly a criticism of the love given one game samples. Such samples do show that a player is skilfull but they do not show that the player will always bring offensive production to his team. As I ellaborated on before, I think Arshavin's long-term stats do indicate he is a very good player, one who will be perhaps a top 5 player in his position in any league he joins.

The two clubs face off in the first qualifying round of the 2008-2009 UEFA Cup. The first leg will be played on July, 17 2008 and the second leg on July 31, 2008.
FC Gomel finished second in the 2007 Belarusian Premier League. Forward and Belarusian national team member Roman Vasilyuk has scored over 50 goals since his arrival at the club in 2005.

Marcos Senna was the best player at Euro 2008 and he caught the attention of some clubs that reportedly included Arsenal. But the 31-year-old Brazilian-born Spanish international had dinner with the president at Villarreal and advised him that he did...

Is Emmanuel Adebayor leaving Arsenal to go to Milan or not? This saga is worse than the Lampard to Inter or Ronaldo to Real Madrid fiascos. I am beginning to not care whether he goes or not and I reckon a lot of Arsenal fans are beginning to feel that way as well. First of all the player said he wanted to go and then he made it clear he was staying and wanted to stay.

I recently (and more than a little prematurely) hailed Martin O'Neill as a genius for holding on to Gareth Barry via the tactic of quoting Liverpool a high price for his best player and not accepting a penny less. But that's not the only tactic for preventing your players from leaving. Our latest football comic from [.

According to the latest news in the London Times, Chelsea are planning to make a world record signing of Kaka from A.C. Milan. To me thats Kaka. With the amount of money they are going to spend on 1 player who may still be in his prime, but also is nearing the end of it, they could be rebuilding the entire squad for the multiple campaigns that they have to mount in England and Europe.