So FourFourTwo have released their list for the top 100 players in the world today. We all know who the top two will be but in which order? And how many spanish players will make the top 20 following their Euro 2008 triumph and 100% World Cup qualification record?

I cant be bothered to put the full list on here because personally I couldn't give a toss if Darijno Srna is the 66th best player in the world.

Often we see a young player explode onto the calcio scene and everyone turns heads and says "Where did this kid come from?". Well, now is your chance to gain some knowledge about some promising Italian young players and maybe in a year or two when one of these players starts to do some good things on the pitch you'll know who they are.

This photo of Gigi Buffon and Fabio Cannavaro kind of gives away the result for Italy in the Confederations Cup - they lost 0-3 against Brazil, who now go on to the semi-finals against South Africa.

In other results, the American NT made magic happen against Egypt, winning three goals to nil, and are now set to face Spain in the semis.

As Newcastle United gear up to face Manchester City tomorrow, Shay Given has been informed that he will not be playing against his future club. Yes, you read it right, Shay Given is on the verge of wrapping up a deal that brings him to the City of Manchester Stadium. Although a signing won't be completed before tomorrow's fixture, both sides have agreed that it's better if Given doesn't make an appearance.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

The U.S. men's national team will play its first rematch from the 2006 World Cup today as they take on defending World Cup champion Italy (2:25pm, ESPN).

The U.

The highly-anticipated Peace Cup title came down to a shootout between Italian power Juventus and EPL side Aston Villa recently.
Gigi Buffon versus Brad Guzan.
Advantage: the young American, who made three saves to lead his team to the win.
So in the last week or so, we'll seen the USMNT's No.

The Italian Players Association have announced the annual Serie A award winners. The awards are obviously voted on by current Serie A players.  Serie A Player of the Year- Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter) Best Foreign Player- Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter) Italian Player of the Year- Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus) Coach of the Year- Cesare Prandelli (Fiorentina) Best Defender- Giorgio Chiellini (

Tonights games in the Confederations Cup brought an exciting end to Group B, with Brazil already qualified on 6 points, and Italy, Egypt and USA all tied on three points.
In the headline game, Brazil took on Italy with the Italians looking to win in order to qualify for semi-finals.

With much of the qualification process almost complete and South Africa 2010 looming large, it would make sense to assess some of the world's best custodians who will be present during the World Cup. Goalkeepers such as Petr Cech will be excluded from the discussion since their nation failed to qualify for next summer's big event.

Which means until now, he was convinced he was the world's best.
Buffon handed the batton to Inter Milan keeper Julio Cruz.
The ego of pro athletes staggers me sometimes.
One day I'll pass along the torch, to the next best American soccer blogger that lives on my street.

Now before everyone goes absolutely mental at me pray let me explain.
I judge keepers as if they were in a league format. For example;
Premiership; Casillas, Cech, Buffon, Reina, Given, etc AND finally now, Almunia
Championship; Howard, Robinson, etc
Blue Square Premiership; Gomes
Get my drift?

To fans of Calcio it's still as vivid as ever: The vision of Fabio Cannavaro lifting the World Cup aloft remains the proudest of Italian memories in a difficult recent history. But with one year to go before the 19th World Cup Final, Cannavaro and his Azzurri have a lot of hard work to do if the national team are to avoid an embarrassing fate in their defence of the trophy.

Let me just start out by saying that I have never liked Goal.com (the English version at least. The Italian version is actually pretty good because it just posts articles from Italian newspapers, so at least you know you're reading from a source). The English version always seems to have stories without sources that look like they were just thought up at that instant and posted, and I have never liked their opinions on Italian calcio.

Barcelona custodian, Victor Valdes has signed a new contract whihc will see him playing for the club till 2014. The contract negotiation with Barca's No.1 goal keeper and the club has been stalled in many occasion. Victor Valdes has been looking to improve his contract taking him par with the best paid players in the club.

Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Carlos Tevez, and Emmanuel Adebayor! Such is the caliber of each of these players that their involvement in this summer's transfer market has left no spotlight for the lesser-known talent. Such is the nature of the market right now that none of the European giants can be bothered with a move for the hidden gems.

The Weekend Round-up will be up tomorrow since today was the last day of the summer transfer market and teams made last minute deals. Many clubs were scrambling until the very last minute to get contracts deposited into the league offices and some transfers had to be canceled because they weren't completed in time.

Helen Svedin (Figo's wifey) looks gorgeous; shills jewelery for at Chamilla's new collection at the Santo Mauro Hotel in Madrid.
Becks trims his beard, takes off his shirt. Son Cruz continues his reign of family superstar.
Want a kiss from Gerard Pique? Just ask for it (on a cardboard sign) and you shall receive.

A number of players can stake a claim for being part of the best team in the world at this early period of the European domestic leagues. However, very few players standout the way those listed below have in terms of their contribution to their team, their role as leaders, and certainly their crucial involvement in their respective clubs.

Los rumores no han tardado en aparecer después de que Silvano Martina, agente de Gianluigi Buffon, declarara el martes pasado que si bien su representado desea permanecer en la Juventus, escucharán "todas las ofertas importantes económicamente hablando" que le lleguen al guardameta. Las informaciones publicadas en diversos medios, tanto italianos como españoles, apuntan a que el [.

Here's the link to Lee Dixon's analysis.
He claims that Alex Song is no Vieira, Petit, or Flamini, and that Arsenal need to acquire:
1. a holding midfielder;
2. a central defender who is commanding in the air;
3. a new striker; and
4. a new goalkeeper
if they are to compete with Liverpool, Man United, and Chelsea.

Domenica sera è in programma una sfida tanto affascinante quanto delicata e decisiva, essenzialmente per quanto riguarda il destino degli azzurri nella manifestazione sudafricana. L'Italia, dopo il clamoroso ko rimediato contro l'Egitto, si gioca l'accesso semifinali della Confederation Cup contro il temibile e stratitolato Brasile di Kak , gi qualificato alla fase successiva con sei punti in due gare (4 a 3 all'Egitto, 3 a0 nel match contro gli Usa).

Brazil ended Italy's hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals of the confederations cup with a blistering 8 minute spell that yielded 3 goals. Luis Fabioano had a fantastioc game scoring 2 of the three goals including a dink over the onrushing Buffon. Liverpools Andrea Dossena scored an own goal to finish the .

La Confederation Cup si è chiusa, ufficialmente, ieri sera con la premiazione del Brasile, campione per la terza volta grazie alla splendida rimonta (da 0-2 a 3-2), e degli sconfitti, gli Usa del mago Bradley, autori comunque di una grande gara e soprattutto di una partecipazione decisamente sopra le righe.

The 2009 Peace Cup concluded on Sunday with English side Aston Villa taking on Italian side Juventus. Here's a recap of the match along with video highlights.

Aston Villa Edges Juventus 0-0 (4-3 on penalties) Video Highlights

Aston Villa outlasted Juventus after it had to go to penalties to win the 2009 Peace Cup.

So Shevchenko has finally ended his Chelsea nightmare and rejoined Dynamo Kiev. Once the most feared striker in the world, he never really made an impact at Chelsea, which is a shame because it has tainted his once fearsome reputation, and he seemed to deal with the whole situation with some dignity.

La Serie A riposa, è tempo di parlare di Nazionale e di due match fondamentali per la qualificazione ai Mondiali del 2010. Stasera l'Italia affronta il primo impegno importante, la Georgia, allenata da una vecchia conoscenza della Serie A e del calcio italiano, l'ex allenatore interista Hector Cuper.

E una è andata. La Georgia, tra le squadre di calcio insidiose del girone, è stata superata (due gol a zero il risultato finale), non senza difficolt , e soprattutto grazie ad una buona dose di "fattore C", anzi K, visto che è stato il capitano georgiano Kaladze ad essere in serata di vena "realizzativa" (due, o un autogol e mezzo nella serata, un record o quasi).

Looking at the Serie A table going into last weekend, the Lazio/Juventus matchup presented the most promise. Each team had won its first two games. Would this game produce beautiful, flowing football that might serve to entice a Serie A neophyte? In a word, no.

The first half was almost completely forgettable.

Bayern Munich vs Juventus:

Definitely the most anticipated match of this week's Champions League play, this is a meeting that we have seen many times over the years. They do not usually live up to expectations as you can see from their previous score lines:

19.10.04 Juventus 1 Bayern 0

3.

The Republic of Ireland almost won against World Champions Italy at Croke Park tonight.The Irish took the lead twice, first from a great goal by Glenn Whelan from a Liam Lawrence corner only to be pegged back by a goal from Camoranesi from an Andre Pirlo corner.The Irish matched the Italians throughout the game and it looked like it was heading for a 1-1 draw until Sean St Ledger nodded a free-kick past Buffon in the 87th minute and it looked like Trappatoni's team were going to beat Italy for a famous victory.

No wonder Sir Alex Ferguson admires him so much. Igor Akinfeev may have conceded three goals though none of them was his fault but he had pulled off a number of world-class saves which had frustrated Manchester United.

He is only 23, but he has been first choice 'keeper at CSKA Moscow for six years now, and was just 17 when he broke into the Russian side making him the youngest ever.

N'Zogbia, 22, is desperate to quit St James' Park — despite boss Joe Kinnear making it clear he is not for sale. The midfielder was booed when he came on as a sub during Saturday's 2-2 draw with West Ham and French giants Lyon are the latest club to be linked with [...]

Robinho is hoping Manchester City can sign a player to match Kaka's calibre after insisting there has not been a rift with the Premier League club. Robinho has moved to explain his decision to leave the camp and, while conceding there has been a 'lack of communication', says there are no problems with the club.

(Summary is not available.)

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span style="font-weight: bold;"Ranieri /spanha chiesto massima concentrazione ai giocatori della span style="font-weight: bold;"Juventus/span, in vista dell'incontro casalingo di domani contro il span style="font-weight: bold;"Chievo /spandi span style="font-weight: bold;"Mimmo di Carlo/span. Ma sar difficile perche tra pochi giorni sar supersfida con Mourinho, come ha anche affermato il presidente bianconero span style="font-weight: bold;"Cobolli Gigli/span: "span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"Pensiamo gi alla gara con l'Inter/span".

I am going to try to have a daily synopsis on important football matters that happen on the continent or globally. I will write a brief synopsis with a link to the original story. I will only post or comment on each article if i have an opinion that is relevant and informative.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

The U.S. men's national team will play its first rematch from the 2006 World Cup today as they take on defending World Cup champion Italy (2:25pm, ESPN).

The U.

The games on Confederation Cup showed that offensive football such as is preferred by Brazil or Spain has no alternative and that two squads will, for sure, be the hot favourites for the champion's title next summer in South Africa.

On the other side we have warrior-like Italian and Argentineans that are light years away.

International week is boring. There's really no news from Serie A, and we get a week of Lippi dodging questions about Mourinho and Cassano. Here's the highlights from today's game. Italy won 2-0, finally a decent performance. Pirlo excelled as a trequartista, Zambrotta actually ran up and down the wing, De Rossi is the most important part of our midfield, Iaquinta and Gila actually had pretty good chemistry, Grosso is still awesome, Buffon is back to being Buffon, Marchisio put in a good performance, and Simone Pepe still manages to fall over his own two feet.