Xavi's pure brilliance in the midfield has been rewarded as the Spanish playmaker has been honored with the World Soccer Player of the Year for 2010. Xavi received 25.8% of the votes and edged out Lionel Messi for the award. Messi wasn't far behind however as he received 24.1% percent.

As for Barcelona, they were rated the third best team in the world.

First of all, hearty congratulations to Fernando Torres on the birth of his 2nd child. Having said that, never has the the news of impending child birth been greeted with such wariness by the Kop. Stevie, Carra and Nando, probably the 3 most important players in the team, all missing.

The Saturday Skills #6 Barcelona vs Arsenal and the Lionel Messi show is a post from: Just Football

Last week on the Saturday Skills we brought you a wonderful compilation of skills, flicks and tricks from some of the game's contemporary greats. This week, in light of Friday's Champions League last sixteen draw, we have a Lionel Messi-centric Barcelona vs Arsenal Saturday Skills for you.

Arsenal can go up. Arsenal can go flat. Arsenal can go down. It's that time of the season and the League table is set up nicely. Come April and May we won't have five teams so close to each other at the top. One or two of the top teams are now going to push on, some will carry on with a stop-start season, and one or two will lag behind.

In many ways, 2010 has been an unusual curate's egg of a year on the pitch. With the value of hindsight, we can see that not everything that we might have predicted last January came to pass yet, at the same time, it often felt as if it was very much business as usual on the pitch. The clubs of the Premier League and Barcelona, the aesthetes choice, all contrived to hit a brick wall in the Champions League before the final whilst, in the Premier League itself, league Chelsea managed to break Manchester United's most recent monopoly on the league title itself with a victory that felt more routine than it was thanks to late season thrashings of Aston Villa, Stoke City and Wigan Athletic.

Yesterday was kinda slow on the Twitter. Thankfully, TheChels.org was not in a uninspired mood.

Quite Uninspiring And Rather Erratic Since Moving Abroad

They asked followers to take the name of a person associated with the club player, coach, legend, etc.

The Scottish Football Blog, unlike the 2018 World Cup, is going to England. To the land of Manchester's United and City, of Newcastle and Bolton, Chelsea and Blackpool.
Why? Because there's only one Scottish game on this weekend. And because regular English Premier League guest blogger, Mark Briggs is back.

Whilst it is always better to travel hopefully, I cannot say that I held any for us getting a result today. I went with my eldest who has remained stoically Arsenal, despite my best efforts, and was not expecting his unbeaten run at games we've attended to come to an end.

The first twenty minutes did little to dispel my initial opinion.

They could have been forgiven for believing that they had turned a corner, of sorts. Going into this afternoon's match at the Stadium Of Light, West Ham United had won two straight matches following a run of just one win since the end of September. Now that this particular semi-inflated balloon has been pricked, though, a feeling of claustrophobia has begun to lower itself upon the Boleyn Ground this evening following a defeat at Sunderland that leaves West Ham back at the bottom of the Premier League.

Great clip showing Abou Diaby's reaction to Eboue's warm up on the bench.

The match was a mixed bag. Arsenal got the win but looked far from assured. When Cleo got the equalizer, a familiar anxiety gripped the fans and an exasperated Wenger took his frustration out on the water bottle.

One moment of brilliance between Mitch, Nico (Solorzano) flicking on for Kosta in the 43 and Sydney were finished off.
Sydney were revitalised in the second half with the introduction of Brosque's long ball running game.
But Ange's game plan was learn the lesson from Victory - show we can grind and hold out.

For all that superficially Roy Hodgson's moment of face rubbing madness had an element of slapstick in its sudden violence, in the end it was more depressing than laughable. At its root it was a display of frustrated, impotent rage from a man who momentarily seemed to have snapped. He didn't know what to do, couldn't do more than stand and watch, and it reflected what I and I'm sure many following Liverpool have wanted to do time and again over his tenure.

There are many games against Man United I remember for the right reasons.

Arsenal would play like my five-a-side team back home for most of the season, but would always come into their own against United for some reason. Adrenaline rushes, Gatorade overdoses, pieces of individual brilliance and downright miracles like offensive Henry headers and defensive Sylvestre ones contributed to Arsenal having a better head-to-head record against the Red Devils than most.

There were just over seventeen minutes to play in this critical, top of the table Premier League match when the whistle blew for a penalty kick. Wayne Rooney picked the ball up and placed it on the spot. In front of the Stretford End, this was his moment, after everything, for redemption and the healing process to begin.

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While a few members the AFR team were caught up studying with final exams or sprinting away from uni faster than Aaron Lennon to get home, Oli Sparrow and Eric Beard were keeping things cozy at the AFR quarters to talk the footy.

Sometimes, statistics can obscure. They can disguise shortcomings, flatter reputations or fail to communicate brilliance. After all, no sane critic...

There are some footballers who we can all agree about. Lionel Messi, for example. There can't be any serious observer who would think he's over-rated. But such unanimity is very rare in football.

Split opinion is much more common and when it comes to Dimitar Berbatov, rarely can a player have divided opinion with such a gulf.