WASHINGTON, DC — President Barack Obama says FIFA made the "wrong decision" in awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar over the United States. The U.S. Soccer Federation spent millions of dollars on its bid. Former President Bill Clinton was highly involved in the process and participated in the closing presentation.

photo credit: DhubaX | Eduardo Lacerda

Briefly lets take a look at the best and a little bit of the worst team statistics on the second tier of English football.

BEST OFFENSE

West Bromich has been the best offensive unit of the first half of the season on the second tier and the club is the only in the league that has surpassed 60 goals this season.

For the last few years, LasVegas has been a popular candidate for MLS expansion. Right now, that seems unlikely, but Vegas remains the go-to destination for legal sports gambling in the United States: unless you want to bet on MLS. During a recent trip to Sin City, we went "sports book hopping" looking for betting lines on MLS matches They were nowhere to be found.

Numerous individuals took it upon themselves to declare the World Cup open today, but it didn't really begin until Mexico kicked off to begin the opening game of World Cup 2010 against hosts South Africa. Ninety minutes (plus halftime and stoppage time) later it finished 1-1. South Africa might be disappointed after taking a 55th minute lead though the excellently named Siphiwe Tshabalala, only to let Mexico captain Rafa Marquez equalize in the 79th.

Security at the tournament was again put in the spotlight after a fan brandishing a vuvuzela ran onto the pitch in the fourth minute of the Germany-Spain semi-final in Durban, briefly delaying the match.
Italy's 2010 World Cup will forever be remembered for all the wrong reasons following the flop in South Africa, and Italian pitch invader Mario Ferri ensured that notion was further underlined after breaching security during the Germany-Spain semi-final in Durban on Wednesday night.

They hadn't so much as conceded at home before today, so really we had no business expecting anything. But you always hope for more don't you? It wasn't to be.

Chelsea had all the ball in the first half and made all the danger. They scored when Michael Essien headed home a left wing cross, and it looked at that point if there might be many more.

Wait for me over there, over by the Humber Bridge.Which is my two-clever by half (get it, two?) way of introducing some important team news regarding our friends with two-matches this week. Wow... never post before you've had your coffee.O'Hara returns to PompeyTottenham midfielder Jamie O'Hara has joined Portsmouth on loan until the end of the season.

Thai Port won the 2010 Isuzu Cup, after a very comfortable 5-1 win over FC Phuket at the Trang Municipal Stadium.
It was a good day for Port striker Pitipong Kulidilok (pic below), who missed the end of last season with a broken leg. He managed to scored twice early on, before FC Phuket briefly reduced the deficit to a single goal.

United continued their dream run of the past few weeks; the ten days has been compared to the famous period in 1999 in this Richard Williams piece, but let's not elevate this to those levels just yet. However, yesterday's performance if not the string of them over the past ten days could perhaps be termed the watershed moment of our season, if this leads us to something of significance, come May.

Normally the Jared Montz podcast is a one interview a week kind of thing but this week is a little different as Montz gives us a real treat with two stars, Sacha Kljestan and Edson Buddle. I talked with Montz briefly yesterday and he said he was able to go out to LA and interview these two in person.

By Chris Wright

Arsenal and France defender William Gallas left his national team's hearts briefly in their collective mouths on Sunday after crashing and rolling his buggy during a 'team-bonding' race at the French World Cup training camp in Tignes.

The 2010 World Cup keeps rolling on, but for U.S. national team fans, the reality is still sinking in that the United States' exciting World Cup run is over.

Success or failure? Tournament to remember or tournament to forget? While the disappointment of Saturday's loss to Ghana is sure to leave the lingering tinge of failure, we have to ask ourselves if the tournament the team did play was memorable and whether it exceeded or surpassed our expectations.

The first place in the 2010 World Cup final will be booked tonight when the Netherlands takes on Uruguay in Cape Town in the first of the two World Cup semifinals.

The Netherlands will be heavily favored against an Uruguay team that will be playing without star striker Luis Suarez and veteran defender Diego Lugano (among others).

Some weeks ago I wrote this:
The World Cup will not be won by England, Spain, Argentina or North Korea. Fact.
Well, three out of four ain't bad.
More recently I pointed out that, after losing to Switzerland, Spain had a mountain to climb if they were to deliver on their destiny as pre tournament favourites.

Sorry to get all parochial, but the loose ends of last season have only this week been tied up for my club, Isthmian League Kingstonian. And if you are weighing up the risks to your club of strolling onto the pitch at a vital stage of your club's most vital match of the season in order to stick one on the opposition's centre-half, and strolling off again, unchallenged, this will be of interest to you too (although I strongly suspect no such person would be reading this website).

By Ollie Irish

Crazy scoreline, crazy match. And briefly, Blackpool topped the league!

Wigan were about as bad as I can remember, relegation certs Blackpool were rampant and might have won by a couple more, though Wigan did have a goal wrongly ruled out for offside.

Liverpool get past a tough Trabzonspor side on the strength of an own goal forced by great play down the right side from Glen Johnson and a late tap-in from Dirk Kuyt after Dani Pacheco's arrowed strike was parried away (worth noting that Pacheco had a pretty profound impact after coming on for Fabio Aurelio in the 77th minute).

Bayern's website archives could use some updating, but it allows us a bit of 'what if?'

• Howard Webb would like video replay, please. (Independent)
• Rio's been talking to Michael Ballack. (Early Doors)
• Serie A's fighting The Man. Briefly. (Serie A Offside)
• Reading between the England lines.

I danced over to 101gg, looking for the video of Luis Valencia's ankle break, fully intending upon watching it through slightly spread fingers (curiosity killed the appetite, too), only to walk into something far, far more violent and generally unsettling.

Last night in the Turkish second division the coach of Mersin Idman Yurdu, Yuksel Yesilova, was stabbed on the sidelines by his brother.

Crazy football has crazy house With his (briefly) raspberry ripple Audi, Grannygate and a host of other examples of bizarre behaviour, we know Stephen Ireland has a funny way of doing things. So it is no surprise to discover that his interior design has all the taste of a cardboard sandwich. Starting with the Baz [.

Crazy football has crazy house With his (briefly) raspberry ripple Audi, Grannygate and a host of other examples of bizarre behaviour, we know Stephen Ireland has a funny way of doing things. So it is no surprise to discover that his interior design has all the taste of a cardboard sandwich. Starting with the Baz [.

Newly signed Barcelona forward David Villa will be suspended one match for the red card he received last weekend against Athletic Bilbao. The World Cup winning forward was sent off late in the 3-1 away victory when he jabbed at Athletic defender Carlos Gurpegi striking the footballer briefly in the face with his fist.

Good news last night that Andy Carroll has signed a new 5 year contract at Newcastle. Alan Shearer while briefly manager at Newcastle last year And the great Alan Shearer has talked today about the 21 year-old striker, and we're sure Alan could pass on a few hints to the still learning (and improving) [.

The first piece of news is quite obviously about our wonderful captain, Kevin Davies earning his first cap. In a rather depressing goalless draw against Montenegro, Kev was brought on in the 69th minute for Peter Crouch. He did not score a goal, though he did earn a yellow card. Over all, it was probably a disappointing debut for Davies, though the fact that he got it in the first place is a little victory.

Celtic had the lead briefly after a Gary Hooper goal roughly four minutes later, Celtic's hopes of a SPL table lead came crashing down as Glenn Loovens placed the ball in his own goal before Rangers star Kenny Miller finished the day with two goal, his last via penalty.

Manchester United and Tottenham go head-to-head, controversy is a given, and it usually tends to go in favour of Sir Alex Ferguson & Co.
oday was exactly the same, while also being just a little bit different.

Brains Ahoy!

With 85 minutes on the clock, Manchester United were up one (perfectly legitimate) goal to nil.

I've been mulling over writing a post exploring how player registrations, contracts and amortization of transfer fees work for a little while and planned on using John Carew as an example since there seemed to be a growing opinion that he should simply be sold in January. As if it's really that simple.

I've been mulling over writing a post exploring how player registrations, contracts and amortization of transfer fees work for a little while and planned on using John Carew as an example since there seemed to be a growing opinion that he should simply be sold in January. As if it's really that simple.

LONDON, England – In the Premier League Arsenal only briefly led the table after getting back on track at the end of a traumatic week with a 4-2 victory at Aston Villa. The Gunners crashed 2-0 at Braga in the Champions League in midweek, just days after blowing a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 at [...]

In what appears to be a bit of Club v. Country tug-of-war, apparently Yuto Nagatomo may choose to miss January's Asian Cup Finals to help out his club Cesena instead, despite having been named in Zaccheroni's list of 50. Cesena, as any regular reader of my Euro-exports posts will know, are utterly useless at the moment struggling near the foot of Serie A despite having briefly hit top spot in the first few weeks of the season.

MADRID, Spain Karim Benzema cemented his return to form with his second hat-trick of the month and Cristiano Ronaldo also netted three goals as Real Madrid crushed lowly Levante 8-0 in their King's Cup last-16 first leg on Wednesday. France striker Benzema is profiting from the absence through injury of first-choice centre forward Gonzalo [.

MADRID, Spain Karim Benzema cemented his return to form with his second hat-trick of the month and Cristiano Ronaldo also netted three goals as Real Madrid crushed lowly Levante 8-0 in their King's Cup last-16 first leg on Wednesday. France striker Benzema is profiting from the absence through injury of first-choice centre forward Gonzalo [.

Hello everyone,

feeling slightly better this morning. Hot whiskey + cough medicine + all the other medicine in the house in one large goblet seems to have made a bit of a difference.

Arsene's press conference took place yesterday ahead of the Chelsea game and there wasn't much out of the ordinary going on.

Inter Milan president Massimo Moratti continues to let Rafa Benitez dangle in the wind and has once again declined to confirm coach Rafael Benitez has been officially sacked by the newly crowned World Club Champions.

Moratti briefly spoke with reporters at lunchtime today when he again denied that Benitez had been shown the exit door.