MLS career assists leader Steve Ralston is retiring. So frame your Steve Ralston jersey, I guess?

Eric Altshule argues that grit is the distinguishing trait of the US National team, and that it will serve us as well as skill and ability serve the rest of the world's teams. Hm.

It appears the Union won't be dipping into the designated player market any time soon, so Union Jack better start learning that attacking center mid position.

There's no doubt there will be some incredible talent on show at South Africa 2010, but - as with every World Cup - there are some players who are going to miss out. And here are our top five, complete with the obligatory YouTube videos showing how fantastic they are.5: Edin DzekoBecause Bosnia lost their play-off match against Portugal, the 2010 World Cup will be without Europe's top striker.

The battle to make the Euro 2012 Finals in Poland and Ukraine began in earnest tonight with a few shock results. Have a look below for all tonight's Euro 2012 results and scorers.

Group A

Belgium 0 1 Germany
Klose 51′

Kazakhstan 0 3 Turkey
Turan 24′
Altintop 26′
Kahveci 75′

Group B

Armenia 0 1 Rep.

Defending Chinese Super League champions Beijing Guoan F.C. have officially unveiled the Nike 2010 home kit. Owned by the Chinese government and its subsidiaries, Beijing Guoan have long been a powerhouse in Chinese soccer. Their team roster features several Chinese internationals along with players from Australia, Bosnia, Cameroon and Scotland.

The talented Newcastle United Under-18s retained the Football Friends title last night in Bosnia Phil Airey - player of the tournament The youngsters also won the title last year, and last night they retained the title when they beat NK Zagreb 3-2 in a terrific final in the Bosnian town of Foca. The youngsters reached the final by [.

Alou Diarra was one of the 11 World Cup players to make Blanc's first Euro qualification squad. Will Blanc trust him to captain the national team like he trusted him to lead Bordeaux?

Blanc chose a squad of 21 players to face Belarus and Bosnia in France's first qualification matches for Euro 2012.

Slovakia have already upset Russia at home which other teams are capable of following their lead?

The Euro 2012 qualifiers are underway, and though it is still early in the process, it is never too early to start making predictions! At this point, most teams have already played two games and its mathematically possible for every team to still qualify.

With well-respected Frenchman Bruno Metsu (who took Senegal to the quarter-finals of the 2002 FIFA World Cup) at the helm, Qatar will host the 2011 Asian Cup Finals. Ranked 104th in the world, The Annabi (Maroon) has notched impressive draws with Mali and Bosnia-Herzegovina thus far this year. The Qatar national soccer team's kit is provided [.

(video gol highlights)
(1-0. Pjanic)

I'll have a complete season review up sometime in the next few days, but to tide you over until then, here is next season's schedule. For obvious reasons, only league games are listed, as Champions League, Coupe de France, and Coupe de la Ligue dates haven't been decided yet. Also to be determined is Lyon's summer schedule.

We have done our best to piece together this list of 31 of the 32 World Cup bound team's pre-tournament friendly matches (location of matches not included):
-Mon May 24
Argentina v Canada
Australia v New Zealand
England v Mexico
Japan v South Korea
Portugal v Cape Verdes Islands
South Africa v Bulgaria
-Tue May 25
Cameroon v Georgia
Greece v North Korea
Nigeria v Saudi Arabia
Paraguay v Ireland
USA v Czech Republic
-Wed May 26
Chile v Zambia
France v Costa Rica
Mexico v Netherlands
Uruguay v Israel
-Thu May 27
Denmark v Senegal
Honduras v Belarus
South Africa v Colombia
-Fri May 28
Algeria v Ireland
-Sat May 29
Cameroon v Slovakia
Germany v Hungary
New Zealand v Serbia
North Korea v Congo DR
Spain v Saudi Arabia
USA v Turkey
-Sun May 30
Chile v N Ireland
Chile v Israel
Cote d'Ivoire v Paraguay
England v Japan
France v Tunisia
Mexico v Gambia
Nigeria v Colombia
South Korea v Belarus
-Tue Jun 1
Australia v Denmark
Cameroon v Portugal
Ghana v Netherlands
Switzerland v Costa Rica
-Wed Jun 2
Greece v Paraguay
Honduras v Azerbaijan
Serbia v Poland
-Thu Jun 3
Germany v Bosnia-Herzegovina
Italy v Mexico
South Korea v Spain
-Fri Jun 4
Cote d'Ivoire v Japan
France v China
New Zealand v Slovenia
-Sat Jun 5
Algeria v UAE
Cameroon v Serbia
Denmark v South Africa
Ghana - v Latvia
Honduras v Romania
Italy v Switzerland
Netherlands v Hungary
Slovakia v Costa Rica
USA v Australia
-Sun Jun 6
Nigeria v North Korea
-Tue Jun 8
Portugal v Mozambique
Spain v Poland
-Wed Jun 9
Chile v New Zealand
(We have not yet heard of any matches for Brazil.

ESPN Deportes has Spain - Korea at 11am. Mexico - Italy is on Telemundo at 1pm. GolTV for Germany - Bosnia at 2:30pm. All Times Eastern

Joachim Low's German side staged an encouraging comeback to overturn an early Edin Dzeko goal to beat Bosnia thanks to two goals from Bastian Schweinsteiger and a cracker from Philipp Lahm.

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uefa.com Schweinsteiger on the spot for Germany: Germany 3-1 Bosnia and Herzegovina Two Bastian Schweinsteiger penalties helped Joachim Löw's side come from behind to win their final friendly before the FIFA World Cup. - http://www.uefa.com/membera... 3 minutes ago from PULSE - Comment - Like

Group D gets under way with fixture between two potential dark horses.

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Serbia's Nemanja Vidic is expected to be fit after missing the friendlies against Poland and Cameroon with an upset stomach and a high temperature.

• Con Gallos Blancos de Querétaro

El Sol de Parral

Parral, Chih..- El exjugador de Coyotes de Parral, Martín Amaya este viernes estará firmando contrato con el Club Gallos Blancos de Querétaro de primera división del Fútbol Mexicano, gracias a su buen desempeño mostrado durante la pretemporada que se encuentra realizando con la oncena emplumada y donde por cierto ya debutó y anotó gol en juegos de postemporada.

Manchester City have certainly demonstrated their ability to splash around some major cash at will this summer. Wolfsburg's Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko has now challenged the Sky Blues to continue that spending spree by acquiring him from the Bundesliga outfit.

Although he hasn't explicitly singled out Roberto Mancini's side as his destination of choice, he understands that only a select few clubs can afford the price tag of £34 million that his German club has slapped on him.

French Ligue 1 side Montpellier has denied that there has been any contact with Arsenal over the possible transfer of defender Emir Spahic, via a statement on their official site.

Reports emanating out of Spahic's homeland Bosnia yesterday suggested that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was close to securing a deal for the 29-year-old.

It's almost September, and that can only mean one thing, Euro 2012 qualifiers. Laurent Blanc has an immense task ahead of him. He must create a new squad using the inexperienced squad that faced Norway and the Mondialists. If that isn't a hard enough task, add all of the suspensions and injuries that France is currently burdened with, and Les Bleus have some serious problems.

There have been some squad updates since Sarah's post on Thursday. Yesterday some very concerning news was released that Lassana Diarra may not be fit to play for France, again...

Apparently he picked up a hamstring strain during his match against Mallorca.

This morning the FFF's official website announced two new names to be added to the French Squad that will face Belarus and Bosnia.

There are only two days before France's decisive match against Belarus. From what I've seen, Laurent Blanc is keeping a positive atmosphere at Les Bleus' headquarters. To reinforce the optimism, Le President invited Zinedine Zidane to Clairefontaine to spend the day with the team. This was a huge confidence boost for the team as a whole.

There's finally some football today! I know internationals aren't everyone's cup of tea, but these actually mean something and aren't just random friendlies, so that's something right? Plus we've got some Gunners in action, and I love watching our guys play. If you've got some time to kill then check out the numerous qualifiers that are going on today.

Martedi di nuovo in campo, per la seconda giornata delle qualificazioni valide per Euro 2012. L'Italia, tornata a vincere dopo un'interminabile striscia di risultati negativi, grazie al 2 a 1 in rimonta contro l'Estonia, si prepara ad affrontare un altro avversario abbordabile.

The Road to Euro 2012 continues on Tuesday...

Euro 2012 qualifying continues tomorrow (Tuesday, September 7) after the most countries kicked off their qualification campaign last Friday. And even though we are two years away from the final tournament and its only matchday 2- some countries are already under pressure to get results.

Bosnia & Herzogovina vs France

They say this is Lady Gaga, but it looks more like a poor Finnish attempt at drag.

• CAS and Franck Ribery. (Bayern Offside)
• Laurent Blanc sees Bosnia's positives. (AFP)
• The Finnish are finished. (Nordic Football)
• Just say not to a US WC. (LA Times)
• Borussia fans fight ticket hikes.

Bosnia France. A must win for Les Bleus, and win they did. France churned out a 2 goal victory in Sarajevo today reviving their Euro 2012 qualification hopes. Finally something went right for France. It's our first win in 8 international matches. The first win + clean sheet since November 2009. Hopefully France can continue to win in the future.

PSG star gets his kit off in bar If you needed any further evidence of how poor the France national team is at the moment, here it is. Former international Ludovic Giuly would rather degrade himself by performing a striptease in a public bar than have to watch Les Bleus. The Paris St Germain attacker [.

PSG star gets his kit off in bar If you needed any further evidence of how poor the France national team is at the moment, here it is. Former international Ludovic Giuly would rather degrade himself by performing a striptease in a public bar than have to watch Les Bleus. The Paris St Germain attacker [.

The early report card is in, and it's disproportionately weighted toward Bosnia.

On paper, France have 3 points from 6 on offer (in Euro 2012 Qualifying). But the performance away to Bosnia, relative to the standards that we're used to from the Domenech era, was phenomenal.

Laurent Blanc got some cracking [read more]

Portugal vs Denmark on October 8, 2010- Euro 2012 qualifying Group I game at the Estadio do Dragao, Porto. Portugal are desperately seeking a win after a horror start in qualifying last month that saw them draw against Cyprus and lose to Norway. Denmark struggled to break down Iceland last month and only won thanks to Thomas [.

With each game that passes by the Domenech era seems more distant. Tomorrow we get to see what our new France team can do to a minnow. With Les Bleus coming off two glorious victories over Bosnia and Romania I do not think the likes of Luxembourg can stop us.

I honestly can not wait for the match to begin.

With each game that passes by the Domenech era seems more distant. Tomorrow we get to see what our new France team can do to a minnow. With Les Bleus coming off two glorious victories over Bosnia and Romania I do not think the likes of Luxembourg can stop us.

I honestly can not wait for the match to begin.

Franz Smuda picked his players for our final game of the year against Bosnia. As it's not an official international date we have only Ekstraklasa players at our disposal. Some names are surprising and some have deserved a call up for a while now. Majority of those players will serve as backups for the 'real' national team, only some of them have a serious chance to play a more important role.

La liga italiana siempre es muy criticada y considerada como un campeonato en el que no se le da bola a los jóvenes y se justifica de ésta forma la actual crisis de su selección que lleva ya varios años sin brillar desde que lograran ganar el Mundial de Alemania en 2006. Los porteros de muchos equipos del Calcio superan los 35 años, llegando en algunos casos como el de Francesco Antonioli, portero del Cesena a sus 41 años.

By Chris Wright

It seems that want-away striker Carlos Tevez isn't the only one submitting written transfer requests at Manchester City this week.

Word is that Wolfsburg's towering target man Edin Dzeko has also dug out his favourite 'Forever Friends' stationary set and wrote to City to personally request permission to land in Manchester.

Liverpool are trying to put a deal together to sign Edin Dzeko, the Wolfsburg striker, but fear they will not be able to match Manchester City's spending power.
The Bosnia striker, 24, has a €40million (£34 million) release clause in his contract, which expires in 2013, and Wolfsburg hope that City's interest will help them receive a figure as close to that as possible.

Liverpool's teenage striker, Nikola Saric, has joined Eredivisie club Vitesse Arnhem on loan.
The 19-year-old was viewed as a potential star of the future when he first moved to Anfield from Danish club Herfolge in the summer of 2008 and he had been linked with Barcelona.
But Saric, who was born in Bosnia but has represented Denmark at Under 16, U17 and U18 level, has suffered with a succession of unfortunate long-term injuries in Liverpool's reserve team.

With heavy speculation that Carlos Tevez will leave City in the near future, former names attached to the Manchester club are coming to the fore again...

This time Bosnian International, Edin Dzeko, 24, is in the frame for a transfer to Eastlands. As The Guardian explains:

The prolific Wolfsburg striker sent his letter to a senior executive at Eastlands earlier in the season, expressing his admiration for the club and his gratitude for their efforts to buy him in the August window

This perhaps hints that Manchester City might be a place that the Wolfsburg striker will strongly consider in January.