Chelsea capitan John Terry shows his brilliance by kneeing Barcelona's Alex Sanchez in the thigh.

Well hello there.

I see you've caught me poignantly looking off into the distance after playing my final match at Old Trafford. Yes, it's a sad moment because another chapter of the Berbography is drawing to a close, but it's also very happy because the next chapter is sure to be just as erotic as the last.

Well hello there.

I see you've caught me introducing an interview I did with Manchester United's official website. These are some of my words floating next to my head, but you're probably too distracted by my widow's peak and my intoxicating, Simon Cowell-like scent to see them. ...

Help me, I'm having nightmares. More, after the jump:

Cold as ice

I'm not even sure this match is as important as what's transpiring around the orbit of England's Once Brave (Twice-Removed) John Terry- henceforth known as EOBTRJT. Jack cooked up some brilliance on the matter, as always, which I recommend you all read at once.

Real Madrid's coach, Jose Mourinho is in a positive mood after his team once again picked up all three points in the league, keeping their lead over Barcelona in tact and also not throwing away much energies as their win happened in a convincing fashion. Mourinho revealed that's the victory over Racing Santander was obviously important but getting it without much trouble is even more appreciated by the tactician considering Madrid are facing tight schedules ahead of them.

That goal-scoring has been one of Liverpool's greatest problems is no great secret. But Liverpool's first two goals last night – more specifically, how Liverpool scored those goals with quick transitions from defense to attack – shows the promise in this side. If Liverpool play a certain way.
The first was an archetypal break from defense.

For the second match in a row, we got a performance from Luis Suarez that was, on the whole, thoroughly enjoyable. His display in the derby win over Everton was undoubtedly boosted by the return of Steven Gerrard, but the creativity and work rate of the Uruguayan was integral in two of the captain's three goals.

Imagine this: 2010. You support a club which has won the European Cup, your team has a wealthy American owner , they are Wembley regulars and are usually in contact with the League leaders, they are managed by one of the best PL managers (O'Neill) and have some decent players in the squad.

Move forward a couple of years to 2012.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning

- Winston Churchill

Hey how come none of my quotes have appeared for a long time?

- A miffed Carlton Palmer

End of the season is a wonderful time for everyone involved with the footballing world.

Montreal Impact 1 Galaxy 1 A rare moment of David Beckham brilliance from a trademark free kick gave the Galaxy the equalizer needed to tie Montreal 1-1 today before a record 60,830 crowd for a soccer game at Olympic Stadium. His superbly struck set piece left former Galaxy goalkeeper Donovan

338 Appearances. 157 Goals. 10 Major Trophies.

#Legend

For the better part of my adult life, I've been around football. It's an all-consuming vacuum of sense and reality which has rewarded me with magical displays of individual and collective brilliance. As a team sport, football generally bestows plaudits on those select few men who seem to strike a fine balance between other-worldly talent and self-actualized ignorance.

Goals:
Simpson 28'
Bellamy 30'
Gerrard 45' (pen)
Shelvey 68'
Carroll 89'
Downing 90+4'
It should be illegal to complain when Liverpool score five, including firsts for Shelvey and Downing and a cameo from Carroll off the bench, no matter the opposition or merits of overall performance.

Tried to replicate the formation from the 2-0 win against Stoke last season, starting with three center-backs for the first time this season. Didn't work. Tried sending Carroll on for final thirty minutes. Didn't work. Bellamy couldn't change matters either. Another disappointing, frustrating draw at Anfield.

Not the NY Cosmos MLS bid here...

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Imagine a world where Sepp Blatter and Jack Warner's shady dealings weren't illuminated...to all?

Or better? That Lionel Messi's brilliance wasn't on display for the world prostrate.

(Our two cents: SOPA was never going to come to be both politically and technically.

Feliz Sabado! If you haven't heard of 'Cuando Messi', you've gotta get with the program right away. Yesterday (for the most part), most of the football fraternity was up in arms over something Pele said :

"When Messi has scored 1,283 goals and won three World Cups, then we will talk.

It was, in short, a poor afternoon. Let's just say our trip to Spain couldn't have come at a better time. More, after the jump:

Begging for Mercy

I'm a hazy mess. Well, not a mess per se. But, disappointed by what was without a doubt a toothless display of our ineffective style that sums up our season.

Kenny Dalglish may have threatened to axe some under-performing players in the Liverpool squad following Saturday's humiliating 3-1 loss to Bolton but he has firmly maintained his support behind winger Stewart Downing.

Downing cost the Reds £20 million during the summer transfer window and despite showing sparks of brilliance, the England international has yet to score or provide an assist in his Liverpool career.

Liverpool win 3-2 on aggregate
Goals:
De Jong 31'
Gerrard 40' (pen)
Dzeko 67'
Bellamy 74'
*Shakes head* Football, man. Football.
So much for Liverpool holding what they had. This was no lock-down defensive effort. Liverpool played defense by attacking, and would have settled the tie far sooner if not for Joe Hart's continuing brilliance.

By CALEB SONNELAND

Despite both sides having punched their tickets to the 2012 London Olympics, bragging rights and a No. 1 seed were on the line when the United States Women clashed with Canada last night.

Thanks to the continued brilliance of Abby Wambach and young gun Alex Morgan, the United States trotted out a 4-0 victory to cap off what has largely been a pedestrian Olympic Qualifying.

It was, as things turned out, a mercifully quiet transfer deadline day, but the most curious acquisition of the day ended up involving a young player with just a handful of first team substitute appearances under his belt but also, it would seem, the capacity for potential brilliance and and self-destruction in roughly equal measures.

Have to say the game this afternoon between Ireland and Wales was an absolute classic. It was a joy to watch two brilliant teams go all out for the win
For the record I thought Wales deserved it but the brilliance of the win was tainted somewhat by a really nasty spear-tackle in the second half.

Didja like what you've seen so far? If you answered "no" then it probably won't get much better than that. In this package of brilliance, you will find the inaction shots of Milos Kocic, 2010-workhorse-2011-goat Dan Gargan and the biggest endorsement 'miss' going of the not-yet-Harvey's sponsored Torsten Frings.

I'm going to attempt to keep this short because, quite frankly, spitting viciously vile vitriol is not how I'd like to spend my Saturday afternoon. Virulence really isn't going to get us anywhere.

But, shit, I'm fucking pissed.

Don't worry, it got much worse.

Another disappointed result earned by English sides on Italian soil as after Arsenal's defeat against Ac Milan not long ago, this time it's Chelsea's turn to suffer a similar outcome although Andre Villas-Boas ' team did put out a better effort than Wenger's boys.

Playing against Napoli at San Paolo, the Blues actually managed to take an early lead but got pummeled 3-1 in the end, leaving Villas-Boas in despair as his team suffered another disappointment.

I'm not going to pretend that Arshavin has had the best of seasons in an Arsenal shirt this year, but I was still shocked to read this Tweet by The Evening Standard's Chief Football Correspondent, James Olley, earlier today:
Decision made. #Arsenal agree to loan out Arshavin until the end of the season.

The one that got the ball roling

He's 5 foot 4, He's 5 foot 4, Thank you Arshavin, ...... Adebayor

Is one of the many variations of the song that would probably get some time during the derby tomorrow. Andrey Arshavin has returned to Zenit St Petersburg on loan until the rest of the season and we have probably seen the last of seen in an Arsenal shirt.

Real Madrid continue their reign in La Liga and maintain gap with Barcelona after picking up another victory on the road as they defeated Rayo Vallecano with a single goal from their Portuguese superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo.

It was an important victory indeed as it wasn't achieved in an easy way since the home team put on an excellent effort to trouble the league leader, who were aiming to keep their 10 points lead over their Catalan rival in place.

Atletico Madrid's tactician, Diego Simeone, didn't left the pitch in rage after his team's defeat against Barcelona, especially with a rather controversial yet brilliant Lionel Messi's free kick which simply decided the end result.

Speaking to the press after the game, Simeone is content with the defeat and even hailed Messi as the genius that simply decided the end result on the Sunday fixture with his brilliance, more than anything.

We end this look at the coming season with the team that drives soccer in Colorado, the Colorado Rapids.

MLS Cup champions in 2010, the Rapids slogged through 2011. After the first month of the campaign, only a July dismantling of New York (4-0) and an August domination of Columbus (a 2-0 shellacking that looked like an 11-on-9 game) stood out.

Soak up that photo for a moment. The man can't be stopped, and neither can his drooping blouse.

Two bold claims from Planet Eric this week:

i. The US will win a World Cup within the next 20 years. (So one of the next five.)
ii. The Catalonia national team could win a World Cup.

After literally years of discussing the idea, we finally review a classic match. Much to Daryl's dismay (sort of) we chose the 1986 World Cup Quarterfinal between Argentina and England. Classic in every sense of the word, you have controversy( Maradona's "Hand of God"), brilliance (Maradona's "Goal of the Century"), mullets, short shorts, goalies picking up back passes, Canadian TV feeds (drink Labatt) and England in sky blue shorts.

The pitch at the Santiago Bernabeu momentarily betrayed Cristiano Ronaldo during Real Madrid's 4-1 win over CSKA Moscow to advance to the Champions League quarterfinals on a 5-2 aggregate score. Ronaldo scored two goals, but the pitch was either unable or unwilling to support his brilliance in this moment, prompting him to respond with physical abuse.

It had been almost five months since the last time he struck gold. No longer are we left to wait, and no longer is he left to ponder. Fernando did the business on Sunday, and with style. Hit the jump for details and the like:

The face of relief

Admit it, you exhaled.

The Seattle Sounders will have to once again have to make do without the services of Mauro Rosales. Coach Sigi Schmid revealed on Tuesday that his star midfielder has a sprained knee and will miss at least Friday's game and could be out as long as several weeks. Schmid said the injury was different than the one that cost Rosales most of the final five games of the regular season and both playoff games.

Imagine this: 2010. You support a club which has won the European Cup, your team has a wealthy American owner , they are Wembley regulars and are usually in contact with the League leaders, they are managed by one of the best PL managers (O'Neill) and have some decent players in the squad.

Move forward a couple of years to 2012.

Having endured the first 60 minutes of the Chavs' vs. Spuds' collective attempt to discover the best cure for insomnia, I was extremely pleased to find a half-decent stream to watch the mighty Red & White take on the Villains. I expected AV to put in a performance, partly based on their half decent effort during our last encounter with them in January (FA-cup), and partly on the fact that they have nothing really to play for anymore, which makes these sorts of games a bit of a bonus for them.

BY DAVID GUBALA

BRIDGEVIEW, Il -- The plan for the Chicago Fire this season was to kick off right where they left off in 2011 and it seems that they're doing just that.

A piece of brilliance from Marco Pappa and Dominic Oduro was all it took as the Chicago Fire handled a struggling Philadelphia Union side with a 1-0 victory Saturday night at Toyota Park.

In a battle of the reserves of the MLS Eastern Division's top two teams, the winner came up all Orange today. The Dynamo Reserves beat the Plastic Sporks in KC 3-0 at the Sporting Club Training Center in Swope Park, and the hero of the day was none other than that guy to the left right there, Alex Dixon.

Tottenham Hotspur are on their way to Wembley again for the FA Cup semi-Final against Chelsea after battling past an inspired Adam Bogdan Bolton side on an emotional night at the Lane.

The night started with both sets of players warming up in T-shirts which read "Uniting for Fabrice" on the front and "thank you for your support for Fabrice" on the back.

Having endured the first 60 minutes of the Chavs' vs. Spuds' collective attempt to discover the best cure for insomnia, I was extremely pleased to find a half-decent stream to watch the mighty Red & White take on the Villains. I expected AV to put in a performance, partly based on their half decent effort during our last encounter with them in January (FA-cup), and partly on the fact that they have nothing really to play for anymore, which makes these sorts of games a bit of a bonus for them.