This may be a bit long-winded and rambling but I hope you stick with me as there are a number of important points to discuss.  UEFA recently released a publication entitled "Safeguarding The Heritage And Future Of Team Sport In Europe", which outlines UEFA's stance on principles of good governance, player agents and home-grown players. Click to continue reading...

With all of this week's CONCACAF Champions League matches played, some teams are emerging as the likely candidates to advance to the next round of the region's most important tournament.

Saprissa could not take the top spot in Group A after United stole a point in Costa Rica last night. Click to continue reading...

Prior to last night's game, members of United had a special visit from the Costa Rican U.S. Ambassador Peter Cianchette and his family, wife Carolyn and children Evan and Maria. Ambassador Cianchette was presented with a personalized D.C. United kit and wished the players good luck just moments before they took the field for warm-ups.

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Just a short little video of United's starters warming up prior to kickoff versus Saprissa... sweet purple seats, huh?

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What a battle. What a game. I can't decide if I'm happy or disappointed. A win seemed within reach - it was within reach! - but a bit of poor refereeing combined with some bad luck led to a 2-1 deficit late in the match. Rodion Dyachenko's header with just a few minutes left in the game pulled United even, however, and a draw was the result.

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DCU Substitutes: Saprissa Substitutes: 4 Marc Burch
22 Ryan Cordeiro
17 Boyzzz Khumalo
18 Devon McTavish
40 James Thorpe TBA Click to continue reading...

Game time is 10 p.m. ET time tonight, as United takes on Deportivo Saprissa for the second and final time in Group A play. Saprissa took the tournament-opener 2-0 at RFK Stadium back on Sept. 16.

Tonight's game will have a much different feel as United sent just 16 players to San José, most of whom are reserves.

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USL-1 side Impact de Montreal continued its undefeated streak last night as they beat Joe Public FC 4-1. With three wins and a tie in the inaugural Champions League, Montreal sits atop the Group C standings with ten points and is poised to advance to the quarterfinals, while Joe Public sits alone at the bottom of the table.

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The guys got their first look at Estadio Ricardo Saprissa this evening when they trained in Deportivo Saprissa's home stadium. Rain fell steadily throughout. And I mean, it fell steadily. Luckily, the weather remained relatively warm, so the rain was bearable.

Saprissa's field is a pretty well-trampled hybrid of astro and field turf - i.

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As D.C. United gets ready to face Deportivo Saprissa again in the Champions League, here are some tidbits about how the team has been doing lately.

Since we last played them on September 16, Saprissa has added a win and a loss in the 2008 Invierno campaign in the Costa Rican league. They are now in second place in their group standings (fifth overall) with a 4-3-2 record.

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Two Champions League games were played last night. In United's group, Cruz Azul and Marathon tied 1-1 at Mexico, while Group B saw the Houston Dynamo defeat San Francisco at home and take second place in their group standings.

Tonight, Group C and Group D will each play their two matches. Click to continue reading...

Pshew. We made it. Another long day of travel with a two hour flight to Houston, an hour and a half layover, a three and a half hour flight into Costa Rica and then a 45 minute bus ride to the team hotel.

With a host of injuries to key players - Emilio, Fred, Gallardo, Moreno and others - and the team's third to last MLS regular season game on Sunday, there are just 16 players in Costa Rica for Thursday's game with Saprissa.

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Much of the press will go to Milan (this is the fourth story on the ESPN front page, not Soccernet) & the British clubs, but the more intriguing matchups are to be found elsewhere, and none has more potential than Group C. Sevilla made the leap last year to the Champions League, but they're back on [. Click to continue reading...

Poor Marseille. Last week was not a good week for them. First they lost their Champions League game against Atletico Madrid, 2-1, giving them a grand total of 0 points in two matches. But worse than that? They got back to the airport, only to discover that they couldn't get home. [...] Click to continue reading...

Two clubs who put up vastly different performances and perhaps equally undeserved results in the Champions League walked out of their domestic fixtures with "Well whaddya think of us now?" plastered all over their faces this weekend. Barca were a large disappointment in Ukraine for about 87 minutes until Leo Messi & karma took over; though [. Click to continue reading...

It may be just me, but lately I've been burned out listening to podcasts. So much so that my weekly diet of half a dozen different shows has now dwindled down to one or two. The same goes for non-soccer podcasts too. I find myself occupying my listening time with my newest addiction, Audible books, [. Click to continue reading...

On the newly re-launched Third Half podcast (a roundup show for all the Talk web sites), I had a great discussions with host Jonathan Starling about the goings-on of Matchday 2. Download the episode from EPL Talk. It was a Matchday that saw debutants BATE Borisov and CFR Cluj pull off draws (and one might say [. Click to continue reading...

(Summary is not available.) Click to continue reading...

Chelsea visited Transylvania to play CFR Cluj in the Champions League this week, and didn't make a particularly good impression on their Romanian hosts. Apparently they were way too picky about what goes on their plates. Much as it pains me to quote anything from The Daily Mail: The players, who flew into the famous Dracula country [. Click to continue reading...

It was another interesting round of Champions League soccer as once again French teams failed to shine on Europe's biggest stage. Olympique Lyonnais collected the only point achieved by a Ligue 1 outfit on Matchday 2 and that point means that French teams have grabbed only two points from six games this season. Click to continue reading...

Roma Is Burning or Should Be Roma need to step it up and continue to set a fire underneath themselves, as this season's Champions League Final will be held at the Stadio Olimpico.  In knowing the final will be played on their home pitch infront of their fans the boys in red should gain inspiration and desire from that reality [. Click to continue reading...

4 seeds are the new 3 seeds; or, Transylvanians, Cypriots & Belarusians are legit. BATE were very fortunate to be eying a blonde Austrian rather than a turban-sporting Italian in net, but they were never predicted to sneak a deserved point. Cluj proved their Roma win was no fluke, even if they used a vastly different [. Click to continue reading...

Roma Is Burning Or Should Be Roma need to step it up and continue to set a fire underneath themselves, as this season's Champions League Final will be held at the Stadio Olimpico.  In knowing the final will be played on their home pitch in front of their fans, the boys in red should gain inspiration and desire from that [. Click to continue reading...

Roma Is Burning Or Should Be Roma need to step it up and continue to set a fire underneath themselves, as this season's Champions League Final will be held at the Stadio Olimpico.  In knowing the final will be played on their home pitch in front of their fans, the boys in red should gain inspiration and desire from that [. Click to continue reading...

Yoann Gourcuff's first-half strike gave Laurent Blanc's side the lead, but Mirko Vucinic brought the visitors level midway through the second half, before Julio Baptista struck twice in the final quarter of the match to revive Giallorossi Champions League ambitions. There was no surrender that typified Bordeaux's 4-0 defeat by Chelsea in their first match in Group A, [. Click to continue reading...

Aalborg 0-3 Manchester United
A goal for Wayne Rooney, two for Dimitar Berbatov, thank you very much. Let's all just forget about that weak draw with Villareal, shall we? I think it's safe to assume that Celtic are going to be eliminated at the group stage, as per usual, and based on this performance Aalborg really aren't much of a threat, so no worries until the knockout rounds start. Click to continue reading...

So another loss (this time, though, due to an unlucky goal) in Champions League means D.C. United sits at the bottom of Group A with 0 pts. while the rest of the teams are all tied with 6 pts. On the bright side, several newcomers got the chance to play and showed a lot of effort and energy for the Black-and-Red.

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Now that is how you boss a little team from Holland. We commanded this game from the first kick and I was a little disappointed that we only netted the three goals. Torres was a little off for some reason and if he had not been, we surely would have seen a higher scoreline.

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What a difference a few days make. After a pretty dreadful performance from Arsenal last Saturday, they were given a wake up call by some of Wenger's threats prior to the game against Porto. Turns out his bark is worse than his bite, as the only change from Saturday was Samir Nasri in for Emmanuel Eboue.

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1 - 0 Ilsinho 45'



1 - 1 L.Messi 87'



1 - 2 L.Messi 90'+4



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Highlights



1 - 0 Y.Gourcuff 18'



1 - 1 M.Vucinic 64'



1 - 2 J.Baptista 71'



1 - 3 J.Baptista 83'



DISCLAIMER: Calcioplus non hosta alcun video pubblicato su di esso. Tutti i video pubblicati sono caricati da amanti di calcio su siti di video hosting come Youtube e Dailymotion ed ubicati dunque su siti esterni a Calcioplus. Click to continue reading...

Highlights



1 - 0 R.Zanni (Autogol) 55'



2 - 0 Derlei 86'



DISCLAIMER: Calcioplus non hosta alcun video pubblicato su di esso. Tutti i video pubblicati sono caricati da amanti di calcio su siti di video hosting come Youtube e Dailymotion ed ubicati dunque su siti esterni a Calcioplus. Click to continue reading...

Highlights



1 - 0 D.Kuyt 4'



2 - 0 R.Keane 34'



3 - 0 S.Gerrard 76'



3 - 1 D.Koevermans 78'



DISCLAIMER: Calcioplus non hosta alcun video pubblicato su di esso. Tutti i video pubblicati sono caricati da amanti di calcio su siti di video hosting come Youtube e Dailymotion ed ubicati dunque su siti esterni a Calcioplus. Click to continue reading...

Highlights



1 - 0 Maicon 13'



1 - 1 C.Pizarro 62'



DISCLAIMER: Calcioplus non hosta alcun video pubblicato su di esso. Tutti i video pubblicati sono caricati da amanti di calcio su siti di video hosting come Youtube e Dailymotion ed ubicati dunque su siti esterni a Calcioplus. Click to continue reading...

Highlights



1 - 0 K.Agüero 5'



1 - 1 M.Niang 16'



2 - 1 R.García 22'



DISCLAIMER: Calcioplus non hosta alcun video pubblicato su di esso. Tutti i video pubblicati sono caricati da amanti di calcio su siti di video hosting come Youtube e Dailymotion ed ubicati dunque su siti esterni a Calcioplus. Click to continue reading...