By Justin Shaffer - SEATTLE, WA (Feb 22, 2012) US Soccer Players -- This past Christmas, my brother's gift to me were two tickets to the Seattle Sounders "Opening Day." Shortly into explaining how the Sounders would open their campaign against Santos Laguna in 2012 and how the schedule was setup with the Sounders in three different competitions (MLS, CONCACAF Champions League, and the US Open Cup), my frustrated brother interrupted me, "Why does soccer.

Madrid's tuxedo boutiques are having the best day ever. Images: Divinity.es.

Sergio let his hair down in Madrid earlier today whilst shopping with his brother Rene and girlfriend Lara Alvarez. He wore a fantastic ensemble from the well-known design house, We Actually Don't Hate What You're Wearing, and was apparently on the hunt for a tuxedo.

Reports in France today that Newcastle are ready to offer midfielder Romain Amalfitano a three-year contract. Romain Amalfitano plays for Reims in French second division The 22-year-old plays for Stade Reims in the French second division and he is the younger brother of Morgan, who plays for Olympique Marseille.

22 year-old Romain Amalfitano from Reims should shortly be announced as Newcastle's first summer signing. Romain Amalfitano - attacking midfielder Romain is the younger brother of 27 year-old French International Morgan Amalfitano, who plays at Marseilles. The youngster will turn 23 in August, once he's arrived on Tyneside, and he will be signing a three [.

Heres the crux of it: if you want to play Academy-level soccer, don't plan on lettering for your high school team anytime soon. Last week,the US Developmental Academy announced a shift to a 10-month schedule, complete with a ban on any high school play by its members.

*shrugs*

Its not all that surprising, really.

Bem-vindo a Selecao Bootcamp! Who would've thought that Neymar would be reunited with his long lost younger brother from Switzerland?! Well, these are some of the funny things that happen when the Seleção go overseas for their friendly matches.

Eclipse Select Communications
CHICAGO -- Eclipse Select Soccer Club defender Kara Morway announced her commitment to play for the Illinois State women's soccer team beginning in 2013. The Lake Villa, Ill., native and Lakes Community High School junior had narrowed down her search to Illinois State and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Chelsea fans all over the world it's time to come together and support two of our supporters in their challenge to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to mark it as "Chelsea Territory" and most importantly of all, to raise money for FOUR tremendous charities: Help a Capital Child, Right to Play International, Association for Suicide prevention and Save the Children.

Image: PIERANUNZI LUCIANO/AFP/Getty Images.

As we are sure you must be aware by now, Livorno's Piermario Morosini collapsed on the pitch on Saturday during his side's Serie B game vs. Pescara. Despite efforts to revive him, he passed away.

At 25-years-old Morosini had already suffered terribly in his life, losing both his parents before he was eighteen and his disabled brother shortly after.

MANCHESTER CITY representatives have been said to have met up with the brother of ATHLETIC CLUB BILBAO & Spanish International forward FERNANDO LLORENTE , "Chus" who is also the players rep. The meeting was to express the clear interest of the English Premier League Champions to get the player over to England.

Ronaldinho has gotten his contract with Flamengo terminated by a Brazilian labor court over almost $20 million in unpaid wages. He is now free to sign with another club after scoring 29 goals in 72 matches for Flamengo since singing in January 2011.

From Sambafoot:

The reasons for the termination were four months of unpaid wages, a justification accepted by the judge.

Sammy Ameobi, the 19 year-old younger brother of Shola, is one of the young guns who came through big time under Alan Pardew last year. Sammy Ameobi what a goal this lad scored at Scunthorpe! Along with other youngsters like Haris Vuckic, Shane Ferguson, Mehdi Abeid and James Tavernier we expect these youngsters to come through at Newcastle this coming year.

The FA recently condemned Liverpool's Luis Suarez to a life of being labelled a racist, but when it comes to their own employees, they shy away from taking any kind of action. Case in point: In September 2011, FA Council member Peter Brown sent a racist email to his brother from a dedicated FA email account.

Now it seems the agent of Demba Ba is talking about the transfer negotiations they are involved in, to sell Newcatsle's Demba Ba. The Demba Ba management team is now headed by his brother, but Armand Doorn is a member of that team and he said today that Mancsheter United were one of the clubs interested in [.

There's a report that Newcastle United are keeping tabs on three of their Dutch targets on the continent. Siem de Jong 22 year-old older brother of Luuk The three are attacking midfielder Siem de Jong and strikers Luuk de Jong and Ricky van Wolfswinkel, and of those three Dutchman, the only one we haven't [.

Wallowing in the glory of Henry's movie-moment comeback was not meant to last all week, but for me it has. The YouTube video I breathlessly uploaded at about midnight on Monday has now had about 37,000 hits (and Analytics tell me 90.6% of those who watched it were male, with 9.7% female how do they know this I wonder – though my brother did confidently predict that he had watched it "about 28,000 times" so maybe there's some truth in that).

Dwight Howard's wish list is growing. The superstar center for the Orlando Magic is now open to playing for the Chicago Bulls. Previously, Howard had left the Bulls off of his wish list.

"If I could play with Derrick right now and God wanted that to happen, it will happen. It has nothing to do with me not wanting to play with Derrick Rose.

All eyes will be on the prematch handshake at Stamford Bridge on Sunday to see whether Rio Ferdinand will shake the hand of the person accused of racially abusing his brother.

Rio is said to be furious at the way the FA is standing besides John Terry despite his impending court case, while in contrast, he was banned for nine months but the FA for missing a drugs test.

TRANSFORMATIONAL FOOTBALL PART 1: CAN FOOTBALL REALLY SAVE THE WORLD?

Our very own Timber brother gets a 107ist focused article up on "In Bed with Maradona" soccer blog.

It probably hasn't escaped your attention that Northumbria bizzies have been investigating what have been described as "sickening" racist comments about Newcastle United forward, Shola Ameobi, on Facebook. This comes after recent similar comments about his younger brother and teammate Sammy Ameobi on Twitter.

It probably hasn't escaped your attention that Northumbria bizzies have been investigating what have been described as "sickening" racist comments about Newcastle United forward, Shola Ameobi, on Facebook. This comes after recent similar comments about his younger brother and teammate Sammy Ameobi on Twitter.

By Chris Wright

So harsh, but this is excellent work from Pies fan Vuk Krajacic...

The Flukeman is/was a genetically mutated, quasi-vertebrate humanoid that found it's way into the New Jersey sewer system and killed several people by biting them and transmitting parasitic larvae into their bodies.

I honestly thought I'd never again hear monkey chants directed at a black player during a football match outside of backwards Eastern European nations.

But at Porto's ground last night, I heard, loud and clear, Porto fans making monkey noises whenever Manchester City's Mario Balotelli was involved in the action.

By Chris Wright

Hands up, I have no idea what's going on here, but it looks like Pods may have misread the memo and turned up at Cologne Carnival as Napoleon's colour-blind brother...

Photo: Kickette

Newcastle's 18 year-old goalkeeper Jak Alnwick has been training with the first team at the club's Benton training facility. Jak Alnwick training with first team squad Alnwick is the younger brother of former Sunderland goalkeeper Ben Alnwick, who is currently at Tottenham, but has had many loan spells over the last five years, with time spent [.

There's no stopping the FIFA Puskas Award winner Neymar these days... the Santos Stud is on a ROLL! He grabbed a hat-trick in Santos's 3-1 win over Internacional in the Copa Libertadores last night and has been scoring goals in the same way he danced at Carnaval two weeks ago like a madman!

Lionel Messi's older brother Matias, who recently had his house in Argentina targeted by a drive-by shooting, describes himself as the Barcelona star's "number one fan." Matias not only proves that by sharing similar DNA, but with the tattoo he has on his arm of Lionel in an Albiceleste shirt.

Elias Bazakos began his career as a referee at the age of 9. Spending his early years officiating with his father Mike and his younger brother Fotis, Elias continued working his way up through the levels of Minnesota youth soccer until he worked his first professional soccer game as an assistant referee in 1994.

Next opponent: Zangief "This is shit ... AND I ATE IT!!!!!!" -- Gordon Ramsay Somehow my brother has gotten me to start watching "Kitchen Nightmares" on BBC America. I'm not proud of it, yet it's dumb, don't think, entertainment that doesn't tax the brain at odd hours of the night. Sort of like the Premier League the last couple weeks, except in the early morning and midday.

David Moyes: "It was a better situation 10 years ago. Back then, I looked abroad at the way agents had control of the players, and in some cases the clubs, and you thought that couldn't happen in Britain. You thought the chairmen of clubs wouldn't be daft enough for agents to be doing the deals, or telling them what deals they should be doing.

By Alan Duffy

"The club is alive... with the sound of impending relegation"

Brother of celebrity Twitter start, Rio, and QPR football defender man, Anton Ferdinand, has revealed that his life could have taken a different, altogether more auto-tuned path in his younger days.

Not content with having a brother that had a TV programme where he 'merked' his fellow international team mates, Anton Ferdinand has revealed that another member of his family could have been responsible for making your ears bleed, by confirming that he could have been a member of boyband JLS, after being best mates with [.

By Chris Wright

In which Edinson Cavani's older brother, who goes by the name 'Gully', is shown the red card for thrusting a palm not once, but twice into the face of his own Pelotas teammate Douglas Silva after the pair became embroiled in a heated spat during their 2-1 defeat at Caxais (Caxais, eh?

Saw this on the Keeper Notes Facebook page from the Twitter feed of Gabriel Gabor, a Miami-based MLS PR guy and just had to share. Here's the tweet:

Another classic Upper Deck soccer card from my brother's collection: 1994 Dominic Kinnear @HoustonDynamo coach @MLS.

Rio Ferdinand will play against brother Anton in tomorrow's game against QPR. This obviously isn't the first time they've played on opposite sides though, with Anton scoring against us for West Ham but scoring an own goal for us against Sunderland.

Rio says that when he loses he goes in to a big sulk and won't speak to his other family members for a few days.

Chelsea fans all over the world it's time to come together and support two of our supporters in their challenge to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to mark it as "Chelsea Territory" and most importantly of all, to raise money for FOUR tremendous charities: Help a Capital Child, Right to Play International, Association for Suicide prevention and Save the Children.

Image: MundoDeportivo.com.

Earlier today David Villa presented the eighth edition of the book "Relatos Solidarios" a compilation of short stories written by 42 journos with Villa contributing as well. The book was dedicated to Dani Montesinos, a journalist who tragically died in an accident but was represented in spirit by his parents, widow and brother (L-R, above) at Thursday's launch.

By Chris Wright

Immense stuff from Udinese hero Antonio Di Natale, who has vowed to take guardianship and provide both financial and emotional support to the sister of former teammate Piermario Morosini the Zebrette midfielder on loan at Livorno midfielder who died at the tragically young age of 25 after collapsing on the pitch in Serie B this weekend.

The weekend's tragic death of Piermario Morosini, which saw football in Italy cancelled, has permeated the sport.

Unfortunately, his life was equally as tragic as his death, losing both of his parents as a teenager, his brother to suicide a couple of years ago, and he was responsible for taking care of his physically disabled elder sister.

When Liverpool won the League Cup in the midst of their worst run of form in the League in over half a century, the topic of exactly what would constitute a successful season for the club began to come up. With a second chance at silverware on the horizon and any chance of Champions League qualification miles back in the rearview mirror, the question seems more relevant than ever.