Almost is nothing in sport. Costa Rica played much better over 90 minutes in Montevideo than they ever did in San José, and they had Uruguay reeling toward the end, suffering as they always do, but at the final whistle it was the South Americans progressing on to South Africa and the Central Americans returning home without an official match for another 16 months. Click to continue reading...

by JAMES CURTIS It would seem the November injury curse stretches beyond just Arsenal playing staff. This dreaded plague is now spreading among Arsenal fans too as I write this with a fractured leg, sustained over the same weekend as Van Persie ruptured his ankle ligaments playing for the Dutch against Italy.

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Man United captain Gary Neville has said that only the most experienced and ‘elite' referee's should take charge of the biggest games. I think it is fair to say that there have been some high profile decision's that have gone against United but should ‘elite' referee's really take charge of high profile games? Click to continue reading...

Liverpool Need Their Roar Back

Liverpool aren't scaring anybody these days. Danny Murphy pointed this out during the Liverpool/Birmingham City half-time show. Unfortunately, he's too right.

Against Birmingham, Liverpool spent more time with the ball than an NBA forward playing one-on-one with a ten-year-old kid.

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Despite 8 defeats in 15 games this season, JODY DANIELS refuses to give up hope, and is confident that if Liverpool fans keep the faith, their loyalty will eventually be rewarded.
In my view, fans publicly chastising the club Manager/Owners (or accepting the pessimistic, bias and prejudiced stories written by the media) is totally against the spirit of Liverpool FC. Click to continue reading...

Good morning, a fine start to a new week for many of you. Round these parts there aren't too many Sp*rs fans. I play football with one on a Tuesday and when I told him I was going over for the game he said 'Oh dear, you've just wasted your money there'.

Oh dear indeed. So he'll get some tomorrow night but I can imagine those of you returning to work today who live in much closer quarters to fans of that persuasion will have a jolly good morning engaging in 'banter', you might say.

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Is it only me or is the whole world against us?

Firstly, we have a list of injured players longer than my telephone bill. Then, Rafa has to be contented with playing so-so players because of some friggin owners would not cough up the funds needed for us to be real contenders for the PL. Then we have a game in which we dominate play for such a long period and the bar stops the ball and the only time Pepe touches the ball is to collect it from his net.

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There are so many clichés that commentators, pundits, coaches and players use, whether intentionally or inadvertently, when talking about the Beautiful Game (that's one). One way or another, pretty much all applied to FC Dallas in 2009.
ASN's Marc Stern provides a thorough season review over at our FCD page. Click to continue reading...

Last year when we was going through our barren (pre Arshavin) spell if someone had said would you be happy with a 2-2 draw away against the Whammers I would have taken that all day long. But this year we have progressed as a team, a team that can pass forwards and create chances with ease. We still lack the mental capacity to finish games off.

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Sunday's match between Manchester United and Liverpool has all the ingredients for an October classic: Fernando Torres v Nemanja Vidic. Antonio Valencia v Glen Johnson. Alex Ferguson v Rafa Benitez. All of it being played against the backdrop that one more loss for Liverpool would mean curtains on their title aspirations.

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Miles and Barton in the Studio

As Fox Soccer Channel's Nick Webster told me, "Americans have more access to soccer from around the world than in any other country on earth." That is undoubtedly true. On any given weekend, you can flip around the dial and find the EPL, Serie A, La Liga, the MLS, the Bundesliga, the Mexican leagues, French Ligue 1 and an odd assortment of other broadcasts from around the world, not to mention the weekday Champions league games.

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On Monday, it was revealed by our sister site EPL Talk that the legendary Martin Tyler of Sky Sports will be joining ESPN for next summer's World Cup as the lead announcer. While I have nothing personally against Tyler (In fact, I like his style, and have seen him present two matches this weekend, since I am currently in India and here the Sky or TWI feed is given for every live match.

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Bill Shankly once said: "A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best, and then make sure that you are." Truer words have never been spoken, and every Liverpool player needs to take that philosophy on board before it's too late.
In my "The good, the bad and ugly" article I mentioned that the problem with Liverpool this season is not that they're losing, but how they're losing. Click to continue reading...

AP Photo/Keystone, Patrick B. Kraemer Footy fans rejoice. At least those of you on this side of the pond. It looks like one of the best match commentators in the English-speaking world will be calling the games at the 2010 World Cup.... Click to continue reading...

AP Photo/Keystone, Patrick B. Kraemer Footy fans rejoice. At least those of you on this side of the pond. It looks like one of the best match commentators in the English-speaking world will be calling the games at the 2010 World Cup.... Click to continue reading...

Martin Tyler has joined ESPN's 2010 World Cup team as the main commentator, according to Sports Illustrated.

EPL Talk speculated back in July that ESPN were interested in acquiring Tyler. And now, according to SI, they expect ESPN to make a formal announcement this week.

Without a doubt, Tyler is by far the number one football commentator in the world and it's an incredible achievement for ESPN to acquire his talent.

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We're a little bit late on this one but I don't really care as this is quite brilliant. The beauty of Honduras qualifying for the World Cup 2010, as captured by commentators on Honduran radio. Click to continue reading...

It has been a while since I last posted due to being heavily burdened by workload. Since that last post, we lost to Fiorentina in the CL and Chelsea, and just now to Sunderland, in the Premier League. Although I did find time to follow the news and the whatabouts on my mobile.

It is a very trying period for supporters of LFC.

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There still 9 spots left for the World Cup. But one thing is for sure: 32 is not enough for the number of cool nations around. We are still months away from the World Cup, but here are nations that we already miss. And the reason we miss them? Some of them,at some point in some edition of the tournament, played nice football.

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While Barbs send off on the 8th minute was fair, Adelaide got the raw end of the poor refing show - and still won.
The main feature was the central defending display by Colosimo and Rudan. The best in the league by far.
Why do commentators think it fair to have a go at Scott Jamieson? I wish he played for us - he is fantastic and more brutalised than Robbie Kruse - better player too. Click to continue reading...

Bless me readers for I have sinned.
Two days without posting (although my lover kindly stepped in on Monday night).
I'm pleased to say I am at home this evening, however. You can bet I will be firmly ensconced in front of the TV at around 7.30pm.
I wouldn't miss it for the world. Click to continue reading...

If anyone can remember a better Sydney FC performance than last night's at Etihad Stadium, I'd be interested to hear about it. Put simply, it was a game where it all came together for the team in sky blue. Against their eternal rivals, no less!
The midfield functioned superbly well, passing neatly and crisply, and providing plenty of support both to both the attack and the defence. Click to continue reading...

After the 2-2 draw against Sunderland on Saturday, Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson claimed that the referee (Alan Wiley) was unfit. That has led to one trade union chief saying that Fergie should be banned from football.
The national secretary of Professionals' trade union of Prospect, Alan Leghton, told BBC Radio 5 Live:
"So I think there has to be some recognition that this is a serious allegation that needs to be properly dealt with and punished severely. Click to continue reading...

Pundits and so called 'experts' have been talking endlessly about the ineffective nature of quite a few players within Rafa's first team squad after some rather woeful performances and defensive nightmares, but are there really players at the club who are not good enough, and if so, who are they?

Portsmouth Vs Liverpool Tickets Still Available!

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The 2009 U-20 World Cup began with high expectations for Team USA. With twelve professional players, and withdrawals and extenuating circumstances elsewhere the US looked a sure bet to make noise.

Now, the US must count on other results to continue in the competition. The US has advanced to the knock out stages of six consecutive U-20 World Cups, but making a seventh is now in severe doubt.

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A resurgent AEK overcame a depressing 4-0 thrashing to Everton two weeks ago to grind out a surprising but deserved 1-0 victory over Portugeuese powerhouse club Benfica FC.

The night started dismally for AEK. Playing what I believe was a 4-2-3-1 with Saja in goal and Juanfran, Arce, Marjstorovic, and Gorgeas in the back, Kafes and Jahic in defensive midfield roles, Manduca, Scocco and Hersi forming a three-man attacking line and Blanco playing lone goal-poacher up top, AEK struggled for possession early on.

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This post gives explanations of two more footballing clichés. You can find many more examples by going to our football cliché page here.

To run your socks off | Listen to the cliché here

This cliché is used when a team or an individual player is seen to work very hard during a game.

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Ryan Giggs is rolling back the years. He is going to be 36 in November. But like Benjamin Button, he seems like he is only getting younger. You would think we someone as good him, he can't be 35, approaching 36. Coming on as a substitute with the score at 0-0 against Stoke, his impact was priceless.

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Alan Hansen on Match of the Day gave credit to Fulham. And deservedly so. But at the same time he took away credit from Arsenal. He said on another day Fulham would have won, but Stoke never looked like winning against Utd. Which for me translates as Utd were solid, Arsenal by comparison were weaker.

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It is a good thing that I am not a CLB fan right now. In the 41st minute of this CCL match, play is getting chippy as hell and C.A. just scored a second goal a few minutes after one of those stretches when the commentators say, "Uh, the ref really needs to get control of this game soon or someone is going to get hurt. Click to continue reading...

If you're like me, I watch so much English football on television that I sometimes forget two things. One, how wonderful it is to actually play the game everything from the sound of the ball hitting the back of the net to the emotions you feel when playing the game. And, two, how difficult it actually is to play the game at a high level.

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Arsenal have done it again in the League Cup.
It wasn't the 6-0 that they had at this point last season, but a couple great late goals, both involving Ramsey and substitute Carlos Vela, have Arsenal through to the next round. The 56,000 supporters in attendance and the rest of us watching on Arsenal TV Online (ATVO) enjoyed it tremendously. Click to continue reading...

Too often in European away ties we play with an inbuilt fear, a fear of making a mistake and not being able to recover. Last night saw a very indifferent performance from Arsenal, a performance that the Sky TV team of Parry and Smith.

Within five minutes all Arsenal fans were wondering what had gone wrong.

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Cheaters, one and all
Hello folks. I know it's been a little while. I had to finish up an important proposal this week and with that now done, I can finally turn my attention to other things, like this blog.
I start with something only only tangentially related to soccer. Click to continue reading...

Tim White is a name that most of us were unfamiliar with before this week, but in the span of 24 hours we now know his name all too painfully well.

If you don't know who Tim White is, he's a football commentator. This week, he gave a woeful commentary for the UEFA feed of the Besiktas versus Manchester United match.

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