I personally really enjoyed Vanity Fair's idea to shoot football's biggest stars in patriotic underwear and nothing more.

From Vanity Fair's Fair Play Blog:

For the June issue of Vanity Fair, Annie Leibovitz set out to capture some of the sport's biggest stars, including Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o, and Brazil's Kaká.

Today I read that Didier Drogba might not be able to play the World Cup in South Africa due to a hernia operation he might go through. The info comes from France's L'Equipe. I do feel bad for the guy, but unfortunately the rapid change of feeling comes when I remember Brazil is playing Ivory Coast, and playing Ivory Coast without Drogba would be a heck lot easier.

image from fifa.com

My goodness! What a huge sheits of a match. I probably spent a lot of dollars texting my brother all my curse vocabulary.

Our midfield was plain boring and numb. Julio Batista, Felipe Melo, Gilberto Silva and Dani Alves (Brazil's surprise card) left the ability to create decent plays somewhere very far from the pitch.

"We came to the home of the league leaders who'd won all 15 games here so far this season. I give a lot of value to winning this one – it's an honour to come here and win. They've got 77 points and that's incredible." - Pep Guardiola on the result

Shots: 16 v 8
Shots on goal: 7 v 4
Usually when I see stats like these, I tend to expect Barca to be the bigger number.

Barcelona emerged victorious from 'El Clasico' after beating Real Madrid 2-0 in Madrid. This was the first home defeat for Los Galacticos in la Liga and might signal the end of Real's challenge to wrestle away the league title from the Catalan club.

Real's defenders looked shaky not only because of Lionel Messi's movement but also due to midfielder Xavi Hernandez who dissected the capital side's defensive line with his incisive passing and pinpoint assists.

The titans of Spanish football will face off next weekend at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu in the traditional El Classico which will carry an even greater importance this time because it could decide the league title's destination. The two clubs are tied on top of la Liga with the same number of points but Los Galacticos are one goal ahead in terms of the goals scored and conceded differential.

Los Galacticos were able to defeat Valencia 2-0 courtesy of their two top scorers Gonzalo Higuain and Cristiano Ronaldo. Real Madrid have been heavily dependent on the duo to deliver the goals and achieve victories. When the two are having a relatively subdued match, Real tend to struggle as witnessed against Barcelona.

La Liga leaders Barcelona escaped with a 3-2 win from Sevilla after what appeared to be a rout at one point turned into a nerve-wracking end to an entertaining match. On the other hand, Real Madrid dismantled Athletic Bilbao 5-1 to keep the pressure on leaders Barca with one point separating both sides.

Inter coach Jose Mourinho is renowned for making controversial remarks, for using the media to hammer his point and for manipulating the press to engage in psychological games against his toughest opponents. The focus here will be on Mourinho's latest statement which is actually inaccurate if one is to consider the many factors associated with the World Cup and involved in the buildup to the biggest sports tournament in the world.

It is quite early to discuss next season's Champions League particularly with the World Cup looming ahead but Inter's historic treble was much more than a great achievement. It proved once again how difficult it is to repeat as a champion in Europe's elite club competition. For the Nerazzurri winning the Champions League is the ultimate experience having waited for more than four decades to repeat as champions of Europe.

Don't let the title of this article fool you: of course I think Cristiano Ronaldo is still Portugal's best player. It's just that sometimes recently, he's had to do it on his own. And when he hasn't shown up to work, the results have been downright embarrassing.

In the past decade, football fans have witnessed Portugal wax to almost Euro 2004 winners and routine vanquishers of Brazil (in friendlies mostly, but still), and then wane to something less than.