On the move???
After a World Cup campaign filled with headline grabbing drama, some U.S. internationals are being linked to interesting transfers. Here are a few that have (Gerard) Piqued my interest.
Clint Dempsey to a big European club (maybe Milan??). A move away from Fulham could take a cheap but productive FPL player off the table.

My head is swirling with the names of players who would look good in TFC red. The day of the MLS Cup 2010 press conference I was also expecting information on changes to the Designated Player rule. Here it comes, I thought, when GOL TV interviewed The Garber. But The Garber ducked the DP question from Lee Godfrey.

Chris Taylor, an occasional contributor here and author of the sadly sporadic (sad because he's a damn fine writer) unofficial FC United of Manchester blog It'll Be Off, received one of the many emails sent out by the Sun newspaper in England recruiting bloggers to some kind of bizarre World Cup sweepstakes contest.

We suspected his dad drives an escort. His son now rides them It's the big one. Potentially the story of the year. It's the story that bloggers everywhere will feel that they were born to write. But two questions hit me hard today, as Wazza spills his heart out to his chav princess in order [...]

As the impasse between Major League Soccer and the Players Union continues, the possibility that the players will be locked-out by the league on February 1st when the current CBA expires becomes increasingly more likely.
There is a mix of concern and fear amongst soccer fans in the United States about what effect a work stoppage would have on not only the league, but on the state of the game itself.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Representatives for Major League Soccer announced today that a new collective bargaining agreement has been finally reached between players and management, meaning everyone bored stiff with learning the complexities of MLS's single entity system, precedent-setting sports entertainment labour decisions, and whatever Kasey Keller has to say about either, breathed a sigh of collective relief this morning.

No ladies, Zlats and Leo haven't just caught sight of Lady Gaga at last night's Brit Awards. But we offer our eternal thanks anyway to the petite blond (slightly potty) one. Her hair was the only receptacle at the show large enough to smuggle the entire Kickette team and our handbags inside.

Okay, so Nike may have decided that out of the 300 odd persons invited to their big Innovation event in London that none of them should be female bloggers, but that's fine. Because, as our readers know first hand, there are no women anywhere in the world remotely interested in football product launches or getting our behind the scenes news on the Nike players.

It's all there in black and white, Craig Foster praises Australia's football bloggers as having more knowledge and insight than the profesional football print journalists...it's all there in his new book Fozz on Football..so get out and read all about Aussie Fozzie football....
Okay he didn't include me, but he must have meant Mike Salter and Tony Tannous, and I'm a friend of Mike AND Tony so by default he meant me.

From an actual reporter on the ground, and not just bloggers and fans who let the hurt blind them to simple explanations, we get this from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Tom Timmerman.

The different fates for the men's and women's teams happened because of different decisions by their leagues.

From US Soccer:

CHICAGO (Jan. 7, 2010) – Representatives from the U.S. Soccer Federation, United Soccer Leagues and the North American Soccer League will discuss plans for a Division 2 professional soccer league in 2010 during a call on Thursday, Jan. 7, at 3 p.m. ET.

Reportedly Montreal Impact owner Joey Saputo has said there's a deal - one that might have us party like it's 1990, when the Western Soccer League and American Soccer League played separate schedules, then met in a championship game.

While MLS attendance figures have always been slavishly tracked and overanalyzed on BigEvil, it seems like they're everywhere this season. And no wonder, when you see what happened to the traffic of the MLS Daily blog once it started publishing comprehensive, easily viewable attendance stats.
So now you've got:

-the eminently reasonable Tom Dunmore coming out to laugh and point fingers at the New York team for suffering a precipitous drop in attendance for the second game in its shiny new stadium;
-Michael Lewis interviewing New York players about what's gone wrong in the stands;
-Duane Rollins ruminating on the empty seats at BMO stadium on the weekend; and
-Jason Davis leading the charge to curbstomp Dallas (and lord did that turn into a gang-kill).

How quick things change in the world of football? Last December every Barca fan were complaining about how disappointed were they with the performance of the little Bojan Krkic; now they can't stop praising him. Indeed Bojan Krkic has been in a tremendous goal scoring streak and have impressed everyone including his manager.

so you want to be a soccer writer?

Stay in the game long enough, doing whatever it is that keeps you afloat, and you're bound to get the email – how do I become a soccer writer? How do I make money off my website? They come from kids and adults, from established bloggers and newly launched dreamers.

In his press conference after the Braga game Arsene was asked if he expected Wilshere to play a central role so early in the season. In his usual forthright manner Arsene shared his wisdom,

Honestly, no. But football teaches you one thing be open-minded and never have a definite opinion.

Big Story
The resolution to the deadlock over second division plans for 2010 in North America is of course analysed all over the place: over 100 journalists and bloggers joined the US Soccer teleconference yesterday afternoon. You can read the full transcript from US Soccer here.

Chris and myself have been trying our best to profile each of the 32 teams that will compete at World Cup 2010, but our knowledge about each team is miniscule (or at least mine is anyway) when compared to that of our team bloggers.

If you're unfamiliar with World Cup Blog, then allow me to explain: The blog you're reading now is the front page, but the core of WCB is the multitude of team specific blogs, including one for each of the World Cup 2010 teams.

Chris and myself have been trying our best to profile each of the 32 teams that will compete at World Cup 2010, but our knowledge about each team is miniscule (or at least mine is anyway) when compared to that of our team bloggers.

If you're unfamiliar with World Cup Blog, then allow me to explain: The blog you're reading now is the front page, but the core of WCB is the multitude of team specific blogs, including one for each of the World Cup 2010 teams.

Last week, we told you about the World Cup Twitter accounts that we have set up to help you follow your team in South Africa. Now we have done the same for the world's largest online social network, Facebook. Find your favorite team below and "Like" them on Facebook to get all of the squad updates, news, videos and more, straight from the WorldCupBlog team of bloggers.

Marouane Chamakh is finally an Arsenal player.

Speculation about him coming to us started last summer and in January he signed a pre-contract with us this was not announced by the club but was widely known among journo's and bloggers.

Chamakh is the type of player we have needed for the past half a decade, a player who can score header after header scoring 17 in the past two seasons.

The Guardian and the Observer are going for an extensive online coverage of the 2010 World Cup. They will be producing World Cup guides, wall-charts, match day programs, daily podcasts, match reports and 32 bloggers from every competing nation around the world. Their World Cup activity also includes and 30 second TV ad to be aired across terrestrial and digital channels.

There are a variety of excellent Fantasy World Cup games across the web, but the best is surely our Fantasy Football Challenge.
Why is it the best? Well, here are a few reasons for you:

• Scoring is updated live and in real time. Watch the games on your TV while your laptop instantly updates your league standing.

This kid will cheer right up when he reads the Offside!

The World cup is over, and so is international footy until August. After being consumed by the passion of 4 years waiting, we must once again turn to everyday life. But no fear, there is plenty of football in everyday life, and the writers over here at England WCB are helping bring that to you as well.

Bob Bradley shows interesting in the coaching job at Aston VIlla.

Its a back and forth thing with Bob Bradley right now. Either there is interest in him or he shows interest in something, whether it be the US National team or the current opening at EPL side Aston Villa.

This morning reports suggest the US boss is indeed interested in the Villa job.

Esta entrada la verdad que no deseaba escribirla nunca pero es que que ayer precisamente leia una columna de este dramaturgo y popular escritor mexicano German Dehesa, eso me hizo pensar que hay quienes deben de escribir mas seguido, como columnistas de cualquier periodico(incluyendo a los bloggers) ya que la creatividad y talento llegan después de muchas horas de trabajo y aun así se quedan muchas palabras en el tintero.

With the international break on folks there isn't much to blog about during the course of this week/weekend...Not pitch wise anyway but one thing i urge and ask you to do is view the below video directed by @mikejefferiesL4 and including a host of famous Liverpool fans, bloggers etc. The video is to help raise the awareness of what Hicks And Gillett have done to our club, how they have sucked all

Written by kelsey

The Internet has seen an explosion of football sites in a comparatively short space of time, and at the last count I see there are a hundred or more just dedicated to The Arsenal.

This got me thinking, as I am of an age when if one grew up in and around North London, one either followed Arsenal or Spurs.

All across England and around the world, journalists and bloggers are writing about how Fernando Torres was the deciding factor in Liverpool's game against Chelsea on Sunday. The man who scored two world-class goals. The man who is back in top form. And so on. But rather than focus on Torres, who is well-deserving of the praise, I want to focus instead on the other ten players on the pitch and their manager, all of whom did a heroic job at Anfield to help guarantee Liverpool's biggest win of the season thus far.

Following up on yesterday, so far I've read two major criticisms of my call for more journalism, less forum banter from MLS blogs. The first is that MLS bloggers would write more interesting stories on MLS if they had the time/resources/access. The second is that MLS is an inherently uninteresting league and therefore no amount of good storytelling is going to save the league from its synthetic self.

The frothing fury of those who feel personally betrayed by Arsène Wenger's recent comments on the January transfer window have had me splitting my sides.

You will recall that our leader seemed to categorically rule out taking the AFC wallet out of the club strongroom (where it is permanently protected by Peter Storey and some ‘friends') to add to our squad this January.

The other day I read this article about Wilshere that had a few quotes. A couple of lines stood out.

You never get ahead of yourself, you just can't. Take the boss, for example. He won't say too much but he's never completely pleased.

Even if you've had a good game he'll always say, ‘You could have done this better'.

I'll admit, I don't want to dive into this whole CBA mess. The more I look at it the more my head hurts. I still believe and fully expect something to get done before the new season kicks off.

Today a few bloggers out there give their take and keep us all up to date. The best however maybe a summary from Jason Davis at Match Fit USA.

Not good enough. Just not good enough, dammit. If, come the end of the season, Harry Redknapp's charges are sat in the away dressing room at Burnley and feeling sorry for themselves, then they'd be wise to look back on this game and those against Stoke and Wolves as an indication on why they did not succeed.

Finally, after months of back and forth, America's 2nd division is set and ready for play. The United Soccer League (USL) and the North American Soccer League (NASL) will play in the same league separated by two conferences of six teams each. The league will be overseen by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) for the 2010 season, and titled the USSF Second Divsion.

I'm not going to insult your intelligence by explaining what a big game this Cameroon vs Egypt Africa(n) Cup of Nations quarterfinal is. Replay of the 2008 final (which holders Egypt won 1-0), Samuel Eto'o, etcetera, etcetera. Instead let's focus on the form of two teams who will be planning on winning not just this game, but the whole thing.

Como hay muchos blogs que lo hacen mucho mejor que nosotros, les presentamos TODA la info sobre el clausura 2010 para que arranquemos bien informados sobre este nuevo torneo en la república Argentina.
Doble 5: "5x1: refuerzos a tener en cuenta"
Vale Chumbar: "La guia del Clausura 2010" y "Los pronósticos de los bloggers"
Esférico Balón: "El Clausura 2010, Club x club"

Wow, I thought I would just nip back to the site and see what it was like.

It reminded me of when I used to nip into London on the train, I would always stop off at the Arsenal Underground just to have a walk around the old Highbury Stadium, anyone who has ever walked down the real Avenell Road on a non match day will know what a different place it was to a day when there was a match, sadly it's non match day forever down there now since we have moved across the railway line.

Why Arsène's Arsenal are hated (even by its own fans): a long perspective By Brian Baker I was prompted to write this following the extraordinary convulsions in the Arsenal blogosphere after the defeat to Manchester United. Chicken Licken bloggers, one of whom claimed they could manage Arsenal better than Arsene, renewed their calls for Denilson's head, Arsene's [.

Having stayed up too late tonight waiting to be able to type this post up, the four teams in action on Monday were most inconsiderate to England-based Argentine football bloggers by not bothering to score a single bloody one between them. Godoy Cruz join Vélez at the top of the infant Clausura table on seven [.

No ladies, Zlats and Leo haven't just caught sight of Lady Gaga at last night's Brit Awards. But we offer our eternal thanks anyway to the petite blond (slightly potty) one. Her hair was the only receptacle at the show large enough to smuggle the entire Kickette team and our handbags inside.