"There is no wind in the new stadium, none. It's an oven, so it kind of sucks for the other team coming in because they're going to die." -Geoff Cameron

http://blog.chron.com/soccer/2012/05/hot-bbva-compass-stadium-should-provide-home-advantage/

When Roy was at the club I took a big interest in football coaching. I wanted to understand what he was doing and why it worked. So I did what I always do and read a load of books on the subject.

Some of them were really useful so, reminded by a comment in the match thread below, here are few that I think you might like.

Massive Report - For Columbus Crew Fans

Now joining SB Nation's dominence of the MLS team specific blogosphere is a Columbus Crew site so large it could only be called "Massive Report." This means that every team returning in MLS for 2012 is represented. Of course there are plans for a Montreal Impact blog and it is only a matter of time before all 19 teams are live.

Image via wikipedia

In the wake of the news that the WPS has been suspended for the 2012 season, former majicJack and current USWNT striker Ella Masar offers her view of the situation on her blog.

The current (at the time of writing) wikipedia entry for Dan Borislow, the majicJack franchise owner, should give you a heads up as to where the blame is believed to lie in this little saga.

Welcome to tonight's In-Game Blog for the match between the U-23 Men's National Team and El Salvador. We'll have all the information on this massive game for the USA, including lineups, pre-game facts and in-game notes form Nashville. First though, the game between Cuba and Canada. This game has big implications for the USA's advancement scenarios.

I wrote in the blog just before Christmas that I was broadly in favour of Thierry's return when it was just a rumour. If all he does is score one goal, then it's been worth it for a number of reasons.
Firstly, despite returning with Barca and NY, Thierry never really got the send off he deserved.

Like a phoenix rising in the night (or a bat rising above Mestalla), the Valencia Offside returns.

As many of you know, Kyle's Loco4LosChe is ending as of today. That's very sad news.

But the good news is that Kyle's going to write articles here, IF ANYONE FROM THE OFFSIDE ANSWERS OUR E-MAILS .

With just two weeks of the January transfer window left, Tottenham Hotspur yesterday made their first signing. Iago Falque's loan from Juventus was made permanent for a fee rumoured to be around £1.5m. The young Spaniard was immediately sent out on loan to Championship club Southampton.

I rarely post photos on this blog that are not mine but these are an exception. Gary Rohman is a fellow photographer that I sometimes work with and a friend. He is the team photographer for Sporting KC so many of the photos you see used in ads, posters and the website are Gary's. In addition to being a very good commercial photographer, he shoots the games and has captured some great shots.

What would the NSCAA Convention be without the added excitement (and pressure) of speaking? For the second year in a row, my good friend and peer Ryan Knapp and I presented together. Ryan and I met in 2009 at Tweet Blowing the Whistle on Social Media and have bantered back and forth on all things digital and social media since.

DPM Teo Chee Hean (fifth from left at back row) graced the fixture draw in MBS (Picture credit: FAS)

I'm not mean to dampen the mood of everyone here, but I guess many of you out there must be disappointed by this time of the day when we are only made known of the opening round instead of the FULL fixture list of this season S.

The President of Rwanda wants his buddy Arsene to step down? Robin van Persie is furious with Arsene...Or is he? And, does Real Madrid really want Arsene?

It's been quite an interesting week for the Arsenal so far. If you haven't been following the news as much as I have, allow me to illuminate you.

Man, where do I even start? First, let me apologize for such a long hiatus. These past few months have been pretty crazy for me for a number of reasons, but I'm back now. If there's anyone out there that actually still reads this blog, thank you for your patience. This hasn't been a fun time for me, but things are starting to look up.

Wolves v West Bromwich 1-5. This is the worst result against them in 50 years. This blog will be closed for new articles until Mick McCarthy leaves his management at Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. There's only one man that can save Wolves from relegation and Wolves playing at a half filled Molineux now.

Regular readers of this blog will know that neither of the two D words in the headline are those I ever use about Arsenal, or anything connected with this great club. Optimistic and defensive in the extreme, I'm not one for reactionary anger, at least inwardly (opposition and incompetent officials are a different story), preferring attempts to rationalise and find mitigating reasons for the bad days.

Morning all. I'm going to start today with a question. How many times have you heard this debate?

"Arsenal have the fourth biggest wage bill in the Premiership, therefore should be finishing fourth."

"But we also have a lower net spend on transfers over the past six years than the vast majority of the league.

As we prepare to face off in a friendly against the United States next Wednesday, I thought it would be wise to touch up on a bit of history of the sport in America, where it almost seems like the sport's last frontier, despite having the makings of s football superpower early on. We have a lot of Americans who read this blog, and I know questions have been raised in the past about why Americans call it soccer, etc.

At the time of posting, it's Tuesday for 99.3% of the world's population, which means it's probably fair to call this Tuesday's news and notes. And for this Tuesday day, night, morning, evening, or afternoon for 99.3% of the world's population we've got Suarez and Rafa and the media to get to, so we might as well get right to it.

Morning all, a quick Saturday round-up for you.

Aside from the team news, which we'll touch on later or in tomorrow's blog (or Monday's blog), the first thing Arsene was asked at the press conference yesterday was whether or not a deal had been done for Lukasz Podolski.

Naturally, Arsene gave it the old, "When we sign a player we will tell you" stuff, said that a deal hadn't been done, cautioned people that even though a deal can be very close it doesn't take much to turn very close into very far away, and generally gave nothing away.

Liverpool 1: Suarez 47′
Wigan 2: Maloney (pen.) 30′, Caldwell 63′

Liverpool fall to their fifth league defeat in six matches, giving them eight points from eleven matches in 2012. Wigan were far and away the better side on the day, taking the match to Liverpool for all but a few brief spells in either half, and walk away from Anfield deserved winners.

Welcome to the U.S. MNT In-Game Blog for tonight's CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying match. The U-23 MNT faces Canada at LP Field in Nashville with kickoff at 6 p.m. CT. Watch live on Universal Sports Network, Mun2 and CONCACAF.com! The YNT Blog will have the lineup as well as in-game notes, so make sure to check back here throughout the game.

It wasn't so long ago that this blog featured a report detailing the loudest grounds in English football. Near the top of that list sat recognizable English giants Manchester United and Liverpool. At third on the list sat the proud ...
This is a content summary. Visit http://www.epltalk.com to read the entire article

The season is done and dusted, 4th place it is then but as we know because of Chelsea's antics in the Champions League final we have no Champions League football down at the Lane next season. What impact this will have to the squad, with players in and out, is unknown for the time being, but that is discussion for another day, along with a whole host of subjects that this blog will try and delve into over the summer months.

Regular readers of my efforts for this blog will know that, like many other United fans, I place little credence in 90% of the stories which appear in the media about who is leaving and who is joining our illustrious club. There is so much media "noise" going on at the moment about movements, and [..

Come the 2012/13 season, the Arsenalians blog will be restarted. The design and the template's been changed, and there'll be a few more different things here, starting July 2012.

I started this blog on April 23rd of 2007, about 10 years ago, and after over 55M hits, we are still going yes I know it's all very surprising. Ed and Madeline Harrison This shot was taken in High Heaton, Newcastle and yes the sun was shining! We'd like to extend our best wishes to Newcastle fans everywhere, and all the [.

First of all, happy new year everyone. I hope your holidays were great.

New Year started, Im hoping to get some more posts up on the blog from now on. First, Ill start with what Ive seen so far during the first half of our match with Doxa Dramas.

1. Sialmas needs to learn how to finish!

Jon Levy You'll have to forgive all of us here at The Yanks Are Coming for getting into a more-than-healthy amount of self-referencing in the coming months. We're coming up on the blog's fourth birthday this summer, TYAC having been created in the wake of a very talented 2008 Olympic soccer team's early and unexpected exit from the Beijing [.

After publication of my latest blog, which featured an analysis of the error made by one of the Assistant Referees at the end of the game between Sunderland AFC and Manchester City last weekend, I was contacted by a gentleman...

Newcastle vs United "LIVE BLOG: Newcastle vs United" was originally published at The Republik of Mancunia.

But first the best news :-)! Yours truly is in talks with Rafael van der Vaart and his management about an exclusive interview for this blog!! YEAH!!

Ramon van der Vaart, Raf's dad, will be the man organising it for us all. I'm stoked!

I will dedicate a post to this soon [read more]

If there's a better way to celebrate your birthday than with a trip to Cowdenbeath's Central Park then I'm not sure what it is.
Obviously seeing your team winning on said trip would be something of a bonus but that's in the hands of Pat Fenlon and his less than merry band. Drink shall either dull the pain or intensify the joy.

Good morning, apologies for the slight lateness of this blog but I'm having some spinning colouredy-wheel issues with my computer this morning. And it turns out punching it does nothing. Who knew?

Anyway, a quick round-up of the news for you, starting, of course, with the return of Thierry Henry.

In October of last year or sometime thereabouts, The Offside Rules implemented a pretty stunning redesign, which is perhaps best described as "Run of Play 2010 from Hell." And I mean that in the best way possible.

The site's tagline is now "America's premier soccer blog for the art-damaged.

Mirror: Bundesliga blog: Could Podolski and Goetze move to the Premier League?

Welcome to our German football blog, courtesy of BundesligaFussball's Ross Dunbar *** Over a week into the January transfer window and it is no surprise to see a host of clubs in the English Premier League eyeing up some of Germany's top talents.

For the fifth in our Hopeless Teams series, we delve back relatively recently into the past by welcoming Richard Bellis. Richard co-runs Richard and Neil's Football Blog with his brother Neil and was the proud recipient of a nomination in the recent NOPA football blogging awards run by Picklive. 201i, however, largely saw Richard and Neil occupy themselves with the production and dissemination of The Blue & White Fanzine, a new print publication mainly devoted to the reformed Chester FC: a luscious object designed by our own Michael Kinlan and featuring contributions from TTUers William Abbs and myself.

So Bob Bradley calls:

"Sigi, I was reading your blog and saw your thing, whatever that thing was on Run of Play, was that even a thing? About being a woman without women, and I'm like really? You're such a douche."

"Really? I just think they should write about women's soccer more. Some.

The challenge today is to see if I can go through a whole blog without mentioning Thierry Henry.

Oh, balls. Well, mentioning him again. I know we football fans live very much in the moment, and the moment is kinda all his, but I reckon I've had my fill of articles about how great he is in training.

For those regular readers of this blog they will know we are fans of Ryan Taylor. Ryan Taylor - excellent utility player for Newcastle Ever since the lad arrived three years ago as a makeweight in the transfer of Charles N'Zogbia to Wigan, Ryan has been more than a decent player, but the thing we have liked about him most of all is that [.

FC Boro has returned. After deciding to call it a day back in August, the desire to get this place up and running again has come back after the events of recent weeks. It's not totally back as it was as I've still got a few issues to iron out with the domain name and pictures etc, but the blog is back, just as Stevenage FC enter a new era after the departure of Graham Westley.