A rare sighting of Ronaldo and his recently-determined son, Alexander. Image: R7.

(Original) Ronaldo made our overstuffed Boxing Day bellies queasy by describing his alternative to abstinence/birth control/condoms/the pull-out method:

"I closed the factory."

And by that, he means: he had a vasectomy.

A Belgian soccer fan who proposed to his girl-friend before Cercle Brugge versus Standard Liege on Boxing Day was left red faced after the bride to be ran off. (See Below)

Poor pitch conditions... but likely not this bad.Tangerines to hold late inspection - Yahoo! EurosportBlackpool will hold a pitch inspection three hours before their scheduled 3pm kick-off against Liverpool on Boxing Day to see if the match can go ahead.The Seasiders do not have undersoil heating at Bloomfield Road and despite covering the pitch there is still some doubt over whether the surface

This Boxing day Manchester United will take on Sunderland at Old Trafford with the chance to go five points clear of Arsenal, who play Chelsea on Monday. Ahead of the game, Sir Alex Ferguson has...
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The Blackpool vs Liverpool game on Boxing Day ( December 26, 2010) was cancelled/postponed after a late pitch inspection at Bloomfield Road. Blackpool vs Liverpool was a supposed 3pm kick off but Bloomfield Road, which does not have under soil heating, did not pass the muster for the game due to frozen pitch conditions.

English Premier League lovers around the world are in the midst of the busy holiday period that is seeing most of the league's teams play three matches in space of ten days from December 26th (or Boxing Day) to January 1st. The action then continues throughout January as things return to a tamer pace.

Much has been made of Arsenal's inability to win the big games, and how it may be the undoing of their title challenge. So after Monday night's defeat at Old Trafford, and with the boxing day visit of Chelsea to come, should Arsenal be looking towards the Carling Cup as their only hope of silverware?

Blackpool have said that their Boxing Day fixture against Liverpool is in jeopardy from the weather. Blackpool, the only Premier League club that does not have undersoil heating, have already had two home games postponed this season and with a still frozen pitch, that number is likely to increase to three.

Weather permitting, Manchester United will welcome Sunderland to Old Trafford for a Boxing Day clash on Sunday afternoon. And though Sir Alex Ferguson has convincingly had the upper hand on Steve Bruce during the former United defender's managerial career, Sunday's showdown shapes up to be a severe test for the league leaders.

Our gift to you... all the Boxing Day team news in one convenient blog post package. After the jump. Young doubtful for Spurs clash - Yahoo! Eurosport: Ashley Young remains a doubt for Aston Villa's Barclays Premier League clash against Tottenham at Villa Park on Boxing Day... Neither he nor Luke Young (groin) have trained with the team this week so remain touch and go.

Maurice Edu says he hopes to be back healthy for Rangers' Boxing Day contest with Motherwell as the American midfielder nears his recovery from a knee injury.

Happy Holidays to all. Let's preview the big Boxing Day weekend from a fantasy footie perspective. But first, one last note on last weekend's snowed out fixtures: As we have said for almost 2 years, the emergency captain rule is ... Continue reading →

So it's come around to Christmas again already. 2010 has been a great year in the history of Stevenage FC. The club finally achieved promotion to the football league and have made a solid start to life in League 2.

Whilst the last 4-6 weeks haven't been great, the signs are good for the future.

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

When Christmas falls on a Saturday it can often lead to a light weekend of soccer action, but there is plenty to watch for the soccer fans in need of their fix.

Christmas Day won't give you anything to watch in the way of live matches, but both Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV are breaking out replays of some of the best matches of the past few months.

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Time to give Chelsea the blues!

It's that time of the week again when I attempt to predict the outcome of this weekend's Premier League games. Last week was a bit of a wash out, as only three of the 10 games were played, and I ended up with one correct outcome and two incorrect.

Not much going on this weekend except for the English Premier League and a few other matches on television. Okay, only one other live one and that one is from Australia, which barely counts. Among the EPL matches, though, there are a few good ones and one great one. The great one of course is (Wayne Gretzky) the match on Monday between Chelsea and Arsenal at Emirates Stadium on Monday.

With Christmas in the rearview mirror, and a day without live soccer behind us, soccer fans hungry for some on-field action will get their gifts today as Boxing Day clashes make up today's light schedule.

Bad weather has already led to cancellations of two matches (Blackpool-Liverpool and Everton-Birmingham City), but there is still action to watch throughout the day.

In what proved to be a highly entertaining Boxing Day encounter, Manchester City saw off a resilient Newcastle side after a goal from Gareth Barry and Carlos Tevez inside the opening five minutes of play. Newcastle will surely feel hard-done by after dominating the remaining eighty-five minutes of play, far outnumbering their ridiculously-paid counterparts in terms of possession and shots, but once again Carlos Tevez proved that without him, his current team would be sitting comfortably in mid-table mediocrity.

A Boxing Day error by Tim Krul gifted Carlos Tevez the ball and it led to a goal for Gareth Barry in the opening minutes. Another defensive lapse saw the Argentinian sprint by Fabricio Colocinni and get his foot onto a James Milner cross to stick the ball into the net. Two goals and the game was not even five minutes old.

It's odd that the fantasy football schedule is so busy at the moment, yet I feel so disconnected from it. Being at home, and not sitting at a computer for nine hours a day means I'm not plugged in to every story, rumour and gossip that comes across the wires. With family commitments and the chance to take a four-hour bike ride up the coast yesterday, I missed the big Boxing Day fixtures as

Stadium-sized humiliation This Belgian football fan had a bit of a dampener put on his Christmas festivities when he decided to propose on the pitch before the Boxing Day match against Standard Liege. The chap, named Frank, was soon regretting his grand public gesture when girlfriend Natalie turned him down and did a runner.

Manchester United regained top spot in the Premier League on Tuesday but there were no celebrations from Alex Ferguson after his team gave up another late goal in a 1-1 draw at Birmingham City. Earlier Mario Balotelli hit a hat-trick, including two penalties, to help Manchester City beat Aston Villa 4-0 and briefly occupy top spot.

So I completely missed yesterday's match as I was flying across the country after spending Christmas in rainy Seattle. But considering the result, I'll try it more often.

Excluding our only league away win last season, Fulham haven't kept a clean sheet on the road, and won, since May 16 2009 when we beat Newcastle 1-0.

De Ro perfects the look most TFC supporters have

Remember a few weeks ago when Toronto FC Konsültant Jürgen Klinsmann was waxing on about the pre-Christmas signing of our new head coach? Ah... good times. While the future wasn't exactly bright (since Tom Anselmi and ML$E were still involved) it was at least something to look forward to.

Chris Holroyd: Loan deal expires on Boxing Day

There's no game this weekend as tomorrow's scheduled game against Port Vale was called off yesterday. News broke about lunchtime yesterday that the game had been postponed due to the Vale Park pitch being frozen after a week of extreme weather.

Last week I was fortunate to be joined by John Nicholson, whose work you know from EPLTalk.com as well as Football365.co.uk. In addition to talking about his book, We Ate All The Pies, we discussed the plight of his club (Middlesbrough), football's place on Boxing Day, and the new shape of the Premier League.

Ji-Sung Park once again sunk Arsenal as Manchester United went back to the top of the Premier League. Park's fourth goal in seven starts against the Gunners decided the Old Trafford showdown.

Park plays in all the big games for United and they will miss him when he heads off to the Asian Cup in Qatar after the Boxing Day fixture with Sunderland.

After his poor start to the season, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was questioning Ji-Sung Park's Manchester United future.

Now, with the Korean in the best form, at least scoring-wise, in what's now his sixth season at Old Trafford, all of the talk is about how much he'll be missed when he has to depart after Boxing Day to join up with South Korea ahead of the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, which kicks off early next month in Qatar.

Ji-Sung Park once again sunk Arsenal as Manchester United went back to the top of the Premier League. Park's fourth goal in seven starts against the Gunners decided the Old Trafford showdown.

Park plays in all the big games for United and they will miss him when he heads off to the Asian Cup in Qatar after the Boxing Day fixture with Sunderland.

By AVI CREDITOR

By now you should know if you've qualified for the Fantasy Cup, Fantasy Premier League's massive knockout-style tournament. If you were one of the top 2,097,152 scorers in the world last week, you qualified.

For those of you new to the game, in addition to your weekly battle to climb the SBI league table, you'll also have a head-to-head matchup against a random team every week until you lose.

Jose Reina is well aware that the festive period in the Premier League is a make-or-break period in Liverpool's 'realistic' quest for a place in the top four.
The Reds are preparing to welcome Fulham to Anfield on Saturday evening ahead of what looks to be a key series of fixtures in an inconsistent season.

I likened Wigan to low hanging fruit in the preview, but we're not going to pluck any today after "freak weather" has caused the game to be postponed. That's a problem, we really could have done with sinking our teeth into that sweet, ripe flesh ahead of the Boxing Day fixture against Tottenham.

1. Paul Scholes and Antonio Valencia will most likely be fit for whenever the game is rescheduled, which definitely is a bonus where our starting XI is concerned.
2. Wayne Rooney might have found some goalscoring form and can then be entering the game full of confidence.
3. The pressure is now on Arsenal and Chelsea, not us, as they play next weekend.

I'm burning up some vacation time with an extended midwinter nap on required furlough, so they'll be no column Tuesday (or next week for that matter) and blogging over the holidays will be minimal unless events warrant.

The weekend's EPL action, including Sunday's big game between Manchester United and Chelsea, was frozen out, but today's Manchester City-Everton game (noon ESPN2) is on.

This is indeed a landmark week for World Club Rankings, chock full of milestones. This weekend, we received our 100th follower on Facebook, our 400,000th hit and completed a week that saw us have our highest number of unique page views (3,723) in our history. Even though I receive ten pieces of hate mail for every happy piece of mail that I see, I appreciate everyone stopping by and am glad that those of you who enjoy the site do so.

I can't add sleigh bells to my posts over Christmas (and believe me I would if I could) so instead I thought I'd write a Christmas themed post covering which sides have faired best in Boxing Day matches over the years.

Boxing Day stats:

• 172 Aston Villa have scored more goals than any side.

I can't add sleigh bells to my posts over Christmas (and believe me I would if I could) so instead I thought I'd write a Christmas themed post covering which sides have faired best in Boxing Day matches over the years.

Boxing Day stats:

• 172 Aston Villa have scored more goals than any side.

Apart from Newcastle ticket news, which is getting as tedious as listening to Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas...' for the fifteenth time, there has been nothing to talk about for about a week now. Our visit to Bury was called off on Friday due to a frozen pitch and the rest of the weekend's League 2 fixtures followed.

Written by MickyDidIt89

Boxing Day and the visit of Chelsea marks the beginning of the second half of term, and I have some thoughts on the way that half may pan out. Should Utd win their game in hand, then in points speak, we would be as close to 1st as we are to 5th.

Every team is always open to criticism in some quarter or other.

Dirk Kuyt is hoping that Liverpool can muster up four consecutive victories during the Christmas period.
The Reds' recent home game against Fulham was cancelled due to bad weather, but the Dutchman is now targeting the game against Blackpool on Boxing Day to start a winning streak.
Wolves, Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers are set to follow within a span of 10 days, and the 30-year-old is looking ahead to taking maximum points from these fixtures.