It's a big game no doubt, but recent games have favoured England and I have a slight feeling that this Germany side is more than a tad overrated. It will be tight but England must have a decent chance of winning. Rooney's lack of fitness is a concern, maybe it would be wise to stick Joe Cole in if Rooney's fitness is not 100%, Defoe should continue up front as he is our only striker who has that

Not quite the headbutt that rocked the world. But the Hull City vs Sunderland highlights included this exchange between Jozy Altidore and Alan Hutton.

Hutton got off the worst but Altidore will miss the rest of the season and a possible rethink on his mental composure. Then he uses the dreaded Twitter, which has gotten him into trouble before.

Parties involved in rumoured Cesc Fabregas transfer:

FC Barcelona, Arsenal FC, Cesc Fabregas

Look, this is one big game to Barcelona... they unsettle the player through the media and then swoop what better way to unsettle a transfer target than get their dad's comments widely reported in the press?

"He passed them to death all day" Gary Neville

On behalf of all United fans across the globe, Gary Neville understandably gave Paul Scholes an absolute smacker after his masterclass at Eastlands. It was proof, if any were needed, that Scholes can still provide the goods and that age is just a number.

Ducky's Note: Robert Blanchette is back with a bang for Bigfourza, an expected move after the big game on Sunday. Rob has his own blog at View from Tier 3 which is, obviously, the views of a season-ticket holder form Tier 3 at Old Trafford. Following is his take on the match, and not surprisingly, it revolves around Super-Nan!

Have we seen the last of Jozy Altidore in the English Premier League? It's quite possible following the U.S. international's disappointing dismissal in Hull City's 1-0 home defeat against Sunderland on Saturday, a loss that guarantees the Tigers a one-way ticket down to the Championship for next season.

Morning to you all, a fair bit to get through, most of which comes from yesterday's AGM.

It seems to have been a fairly pleasant meeting with lots of feel-good stuff being said. Which is what you'd expect really, the club is well run from a financial point of view, we've gone into it on the back of two good results and we're sitting third in the table with a big game coming up on Sunday.

In usual big game pre-match fashion, we've had a quick chat with Damian from The Villa Blog about Sunday's League Cup final.

Scott the Red: What would constitute a good season for Villa?

Damian: A good season for us will be winning the League Cup or even, if things go our way and we get a bit of luck, the FA Cup.

Park Ji-Sung joined Manchester United for a bargain £4m when he was 24-years-old.

Now as one of the more experienced lads in the squad and a reputation as a big-game player, scoring goals against Arsenal, Liverpool and AC Milan this season, Park has confessed he hopes to see out the rest of his career at United.

Go ahead, debate it. You know in the last day or so you've though about the impact of David Beckham vs the impact of Thierry Henry to Major League Soccer. Both have their pluses and minuses but each in my mind do the same thing, make the league that much better with them in it.

I've seen a lot of banter over the last couple days about each guy and what they've done or will do for the sport here in America and for MLS in general.

Portland Timbers
VS
Miami FC Blues
Saturday June 11th
4:30 pm @ Lockhart Stadium
Streaming LIVE @ PortlandTimbers.com/live
Radio on 95.5 The Game
Miami is (1-2-7) in league play, they love to earn a draw as they did with Baltimore this week in 3-3 high scoring game.

You can go check out my USMNT v Slovenia rally cry and I'll also have a look at what Slovenian scribes are saying about tomorrow's big game at MLSS later today. Now, if Sean can just solve his computer problems down in South Africa...Let's begin on a good CNN chat with U.S. midfielder Michael Bradley.

By Ollie Irish

In another life England goalkeeper Joe Hart would be a Scottish women's rugby international. I see him as a burly, red-cheeked forward, and there's every chance he'd be related to Colin Hendry Jo McHart, his sports-mad niece, perhaps?

Shush: Edson Buddle's goal silences the thunderous Seattle crowd - and Dema Kovalenko (Photo courtesy: Chris Coulter/SoundersPhotos.com).

The best team over the length of the MLS season shut down the best team over the second half of the season with a disciplined, well-coached effort. There were no surprises for or from either team.

Jamie Sabau - Getty Images

Robbie Rogers (right) will get another U.S. national team shot when the Americans meet South Africa in Cape Town next week.

View full size photo »

Mea culpa: how soccer writers sometimes get it wrong

I write for a living.

Still riding high from his Premier League debut last weekend, US international Landon Donovan is anxiously awaiting an opportunity to make his home debut at Goodison Park. The on-loan Los Angeles Galaxy playmaker could get that chance as soon as this coming Saturday, when Everton plays host to fourth-place Manchester City.

If there's a big game in the Madison area, the odds are good that Dave Jaworski will be the center official.

That's unless the former University of Wisconsin player, who is one of the most-respected referees in the state, is off doing another big match somewhere else in the Midwest.

Bacary Sagna touched upon a topic that could be described as Wenger's Achilles' Heel. Here is what the French full back said,

Sometimes I think we play too much, We just want to do that and do not think about what is good for us sometimes we just need to cut out the football, stop playing for a bit and just consider what will help us achieve what we want.

By Ollie Irish

Links!

Manchester United's Nani and John O'Shea celebrate a winner at Chester Racecourse. [Photo: PA]

West Ham's silly wage bill revealed? Zola on less than Luis Boa Morte? Madness... [Goaly Moly]

Top 10 players who returned as managers [Mirror]

Before a big game, Wayne Rooney loves a bowl of Coco Pops [FourFourTwo]

Nine pics of PM Gordon Brown with famous footballers [The Spoiler]

Football and happiness does it really matter who wins?

>

Liveblog of the big game: USA vs Slovenia. If all goes to plan on the field, then the US can all but qualify.

If all goes to plan with the liveblog, then the window below will also be published on the main page, and I'll be joined by some of the USA blog writers, plus Zala from the Slovenia World Cup Blog.

Leeds captain Richard Naylor has acknowledged there is no love lost between our two clubs, although recognises how great we've been over recent years... unlike them.

"It's a big game and, after growing up a Leeds fan with all the history, you don't like them very much," said Naylor.

Big Story

Billy Bremner's Statue at Elland Road

Henry Winter thinks the FA Cup is gaining relevance as the money English football tips even farther to the Top Four in the Premier League, and points specifically to today's third round FA Cup clash between Leeds United and Manchester United as proof.

COS Contributor Garry Bacon imagines an alternate reality where snow wasn't enough to call off Sunday's big game. Similarities to Dirty Tackle's excellent "If It Continued" series are coincidental and shouldn't prevent lovers of football and inane humour from reading both!

To the casual football observer, Dirk Kuyt can appear something of a mystery. He might be a seasoned professional, with more than 50 caps for the Netherlands, and have 200 career goals to his name, but the most famous son from the tiny Dutch fishing village of Katwijk aan Zee is not your average modern-day footballer.

Fresh Bolton catch Stuart Holden is dressed today, so I will be providing updates. And even if most of you folks aren't up yet, you can happen upon it later.Up until the time Holden enters for his debut, updates will be less comprehensive, shall we say. But if he gets in the game, I'll switch to normal big game mode.

When the draw was made back in December, everyone looked at this matchup as the glamour tie of the round of 16. Back then Chelsea were riding high and Inter were struggling as little, and nobody gave Inter much of a chance against probably the second best team in Europe.

But luckily for Inter the games are being played now instead of before Christmas.

I know we've got a big game against Stoke later today and I'll get to that shortly but first I hope you'll join me in raising a glass, or a cup of coffee at this early stage, to ... well ... me. Today Arseblog reaches the grand old age of 8.

It began on Feb 27th 2002 and in some kind of a hungover haze, here we are 8 years down the line.

Liverpool dropping out of the Champions League into the Europa League might not have been good news but for those at Channel Five it has been manna from heaven.
Normally you do not get too many tuning in to listen to the erudite and enlightening views of Stan Collymore and the equally articulate Colin Murray but the Reds' first meeting with Unirea Urziceni attracted an audience of 3.

After blowing the opportunity to sign Aaron Ramsey a couple of years ago by sending Gary Neville to meet the youngster, opposed to Arsene Wenger's tactic of getting a private jet to fly out the player and family to meet him, Sir Alex Ferguson made sure he did things properly when it came to the highly rated defender, Chris Smalling.

Still too early for United to start celebrating

Another weekend, another twist in the race for the coveted prize of the Premier League. This weekend saw two different league leaders and one team slip a little off the pace. Seeing the reaction of Liverpool's no. 1 fan Gary Neville, you would have thought they had just won the title – especially when listening to the talk of the fans after the game who sounded confident – wait, actually cocky – in their views and opinions.

Jose Mourinho has once again taken the strange step of causing a stir before an important match for his team by claiming that he is not happy in Italian Football. He said
"I always speak in a very honest way and if I do it about Serie A I will be suspended. My situation is clear.

That is a question of great concern to the Madrid media and Madrid fans heading into the big game tomorrow.

Good question......not an easy answer.

Big game coming up this saturday. The media is just filled to the limit with how Barcelona will stop Ronaldo and how Real Madrid will stop Messi. Just a couple of points I wanted to mention here and those are that, Barcelona have no doubt proved that they are the current Champions of the world [...]

REAL MADRID 0 FC BARCELONA 2 2010 FINAL SCORE (Click Link) Source: Sp Football Sport Blog /Our Football – Soccer – friend from "YouTube " "ZiSOK" (nik) has made up this video TRAILER for the big game between REAL MADRID – FC BARCELONA; known as "El Clasico". This years Spanish League – La Liga – could well be decided here, put your prognostic on the SFS survey on the right: (SFS POLL finished: 45

This week, unlike last week, is one of those weeks where you look at your fantasy team and you say, "man I wish I could start everyone." All 15 players. The matchups just look so tasty. So, who will you sit and who will you start? The pundit is here to help...
I. Manchester United @ Manchester City: Tottenham / Chelsea is big, but this one is the big one.

The highly anticipated Manchester Derby took place Saturday with frustrating and mixed results. Both teams seemed satisfied to sit back and not risk over-committing attacking players while each team was still able to enjoy decent spells of possession, but minimal quality attempts on goal.

Judging by the mood on the internet and the response to my last post I guess not many are in the mood to discuss the positives from our season! Or maybe I did a bad job of it and didn't generate enough interest. I'm hoping it's the latter.

In the next few articles I'm going to talk about our weaknesses and problem areas.

Opening in the 1990's the Stadium of Light is considered one of the nicest stadiums in all of the Premier League. Seating around 49,000 seats the home of Sunderland is the third largest stadium in the Premier League regarding full seating capacity. When a maximum capacity is present well over 48,000 fans have a seat for the big game.

You've got to admit, the man is brilliant. Not just at coaching football teams, but at grabbing headlines too. Jose Mourinho knows exactly what the most controversial thing to say is at any given moment. It's part of what makes him The Special One.

This week, in the build up to the 2010 UEFA Champions League Final between Mourinho's Internazionale and Louis Van Gaal's Bayern Munich, The Special One offered up this gem and I quote.

Bayern Munich Celebrate League Title, 2010

The big game is Saturday afternoon on Fox, meaning there's no baseball Start time is 1:30 pm and I'll be getting some lunch and enjoying the game at Farmer's Gastropub for anyone interested in joining me.

Here are a couple of stories previewing the game, including US Today who talked to Munich's star, Arjen Robben.