It's easy to mistake Alex Morgan for a veteran. The U.S. women's soccer team forward has been in the spotlight scoring crucial goals in the semifinal and final at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, walking the red carpet at an "Entourage" HBO TV season premiere and posing in body paint for Sports Illustrated's annual [.

TweetSeeing as the US Women's National Team are playing out in Portugal today, as part of the Algarve Cup, I thought I'll treat y'all to some pictures of striker Alex Morgan posing for Sports Illustrated in only body paint!... Sports Illustrated is something that we don't have on this side of the pond.

Soccer super stud Alex Morgan had to look twice in the mirror to make sure she wasn't completely exposed. Despite feeling slightly uncomfortable, Morgan was thrilled with the end result.

Olympic gold medal swimmer Natalie Coughlin loved modeling for the SI Swimsuit issue, despite the 12 hours it took to paint a swimsuit on her.

Oooh, love that ginger detailingIn what is turning out to be an annual corporate cross-promotion, auto-maker and club sponsor Kia Motors unveiled a "Special TFC Edition" vehicle. Once again, Academy coach Danny Dichio and team barista/dodgy hairstyle enthusiast Jim Brennan premiered the car, a 2012 Optima, at the Toronto Auto Show for a rapturous crowd of sub-compact coupe aficionados/fans of the English First Division (1993 - 2006).

If you' re any sort of women's soccer fan, you know about Alex Morgan.

The 22-year-old wunderkind, known as the "super sub" during the Women's World Cup last summer and in the recent CONCACAF Olympic qualifying matches, has a nose for the goal. The former Cal soccer star has also been noted for her amazing mix of strength and beauty which makes her the epitome of Pretty Tough.

By Chris Wright

Soooo...this guy showed up to cheer on Indonesia in their SEA (Southeast Asian) Games semi-final against Vietnam in Jakarta a couple of days ago and he bought what appears to be his talcum powder with him though surely chafing isn't going to be a problem when you turn up to a match in nothing but a slathering of red body paint and your pyjama bottoms?

As many readers of this blog will know, some German women who play competitive football posed for Playboy. These are not members of the national team, but they are women who play high level football in the country.
March Presentation of 2011 WWC kitTitus Chalk from When Saturday Comes does a nice job with this story.

On twitter last week, I noted the Dynamo's reliance on their cheerleaders (the Dynamo Girls) in marketing their Party Zone for the first game this year:

Which is eh, but not in itself worthy of a full blog post. However, Amanda at Needs More Kittens points out that the Dynamo are swapping out actual female fans for Dynamo girls in their promotion of a soon-to-be-released supporters section of their website:

Amanda:

So, at first I wasn't thrilled with this photo because of how it sexified the female supporters - I'm a Houston fan and in Texian Army, and while there are a lot of attractive women around the tailgate, I don't think there are that many half-shirts.

Woke up this morning to learn that my favorite new marketing campaign has "gone viral", with Jeremiah Oshan attributing the 16,000 season ticket sales that took place before the ad ran to the sexy campaign:

It should be noted that the Whitecaps' promos appear to be even more successful, as they've reportedly sold close to 16,000 season tickets already.

Woke up this morning to learn that my favorite new marketing campaign has "gone viral", with Jeremiah Oshan attributing the 16,000 season ticket sales that took place before the ad ran to the sexy campaign:

It should be noted that the Whitecaps' promos appear to be even more successful, as they've reportedly sold close to 16,000 season tickets already.

Sevilla, a very good club in its own right, will march up against the behemoths of Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey semifinal on Wedneday. Tough ask. In order to put the fear of both God and red body paint into their rivals, they whipped up this little viral in which they tell Mourinho "we will leave you without the title" in Portuguese.