You know that baby wanted a photo with Martin Palermo... but his family stopped Veron's sleek black ride instead as it drove up to Estudiantes' training ground last week. The baby's got the "Papa, you lied. We were supposed to go to Boca's training ground, dammmit!

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Qualification is officially over. Playoffs won, tears shed, hearts broken and dreams renewed, it's all over. After Uruguay withstood the Costa Rican pressure late in the evening, the final 32 teams were written into stone though not without a fair bit of controversy.

The following are those 32 teams who will take part in South Africa 2010.

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RAFA BENITEZ is confident David Ngog will be available to face Manchester City this weekend – despite breaking his nose on international duty.
The young striker sustained the injury during a training session with France's Under-21 squad last week and has returned to Melwood for treatment. Click to continue reading...

Barcelona defender Carles Puyol added more controversy over the future of Cesc Fabregas, declaring the Arsenal captain would have the same opportunities he has in London if he moves to Spain. The 31-year old Spanish International ... Click to continue reading...

Barcelona defender Carles Puyol added more controversy over the future of Cesc Fabregas, declaring the Arsenal captain would have the same opportunities he has in London if he moves to Spain. The 31-year old Spanish International ...

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Statutory demands are curious documents which have caused some degree of controversy in recent months in the world of debt recovery. They are served under the Insolvency Act of 1986 and are the first step in the process of petitioning somebody's bankruptcy or issuing a winding up order against a company.

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Galaxy 2 Houston Dynamo 0

Who would have thunk it at the outset of this season?

Two extra time goals by Gregg Berhalter (!) and Landon Donovan - his 17th postseason goal, the most in MLS (he was tied with Carlos Ruiz previously) - has given the Galaxy the win before an energized 25,373 even though it's past 11:30 p.

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Morning all, welcome to the blog.
By the time you read this, Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell will hold a testing session for his players and a "midseason" review with the good fellows of Perth's sports media.
What that means, FP doesn't know, but presumably it won't be any different than the usual Glory presser. Click to continue reading...

Wow, I never thought at this age level that I would see a game like we had Tuesday night against OSA Inferno. These girls were big and not afraid to throw down! Literally within the first 3 minutes an OSA forward leveled our middle defender. She wasn't going for the ball in any way. It was a knee driven into the thigh and a hip-check as Taylor brought the ball to her right. Click to continue reading...

Another day, another dive. With a stilted Liverpool trailing a frisky Birmingham City at Anfield late, David N'Gog (pronounced like "own goal") sensationally split two defenders while charging in from the left. N'Gog then almost blew past Lee Carsley, but Carsley slid towards him, grazing the ball while managing to avoid any contact.

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We think diving is as much a stain on the modern game as the next person, but it's come to the point that when someone wins a penalty the armchair fans instinctively brandish the player a liar and a cheat. Such was the case after Monday's Liverpool v Birmingham match, when Lee Carsley's lunge at David Ngog in the penalty box earned the Reds a penalty kick, a valuable point, and ultimately gave Rafa Benitez a stay of execution.

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Well it is arguably the greatest rivalry in all of league football, so you knew when Manchester United faced off against Chelsea that it would go right down to wire and the two powerhouse clubs did not disappoint over the weekend.� The match would have many of the staples to any classic match between the two squads: many near goal scoring chances, a tight match throughout the competition, the� late winner, and a perturbed Fergie who once again has screamed foul at the officials.

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Four games played on Saturday of Round 10 in "La Liga". Here is aquick & brief summary of events.Once again REAL MADRID defeated ATLETICO DE MADRID at the"Vicente Calderon" Stadium 2-3 in a dramatic game. Real started without Raúl & Atletico left Sergio Aguero on the bench, the latterdue to leg muscle worries which has caused controversy. Click to continue reading...

Tomasz Kuszczak (left) is a reserve goalkeeper for Manchester United.
Recently he made all the headlines for calling the Old Trafford No. 1 'keeper Edwin van der Sar (right) selfish, damn selfish. It's creating a bit of a controversy in England, and I'm pretty sure it's because Kuszczak needed to try to find a way to become relevant. Click to continue reading...

Another day, another Chelsea controversy. Hot on the heels of the ‘noise' surrounding Newcastle's decision to sell naming rights to St. James' Park, new Chelsea Chief Executive Ron Gourlay announced that Chelsea are considering something similar at Stamford Bridge.
And what outrage it has caused among many Chelsea fans.

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Another day, another Chelsea controversy. Hot on the heels of the ‘noise' surrounding Newcastle's decision to sell naming rights to St. James' Park, new Chelsea Chief Executive Ron Gourlay announced that Chelsea are considering something similar at Stamford Bridge.
And what outrage it has caused among many Chelsea fans.

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Could this work of art kill England's World Cup Bid?

OK so perhaps the title is a tad hyperbolic, but really things are getting ridiculous. A quick refresher course for those of you who have missed this: England (as you all should know) is bidding to host the 2018 World Cup. Recently there was a conference in London at which Jack Warner, a FIFA vice-president, was present. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool youngster Mikel San Jose may be set to return from his loan spell in Spain ahead of schedule.
The 20-year-old defender agreed to join Athletic Bilbao on a season-long deal over the summer, but has grown frustrated at a lack of opportunities in his homeland.
He has been awarded just seven minutes of action this term and feels he needs to explore other avenues. Click to continue reading...

The draw for the Carling Cup quarter finals took place yesterday afternoon, and Arsene Wenger's young guns were rewarded for their win against Liverpool with an away tie at Manchester City. It could mean that Emmanuel Adebayor will play against his former club again. The Togolese frontman was the centre of controversy in September when he [. Click to continue reading...

After Samuel Eto'o's alleged statements against Pep and others at Barca, he adressed the subject as expected at the presentation campaign for "Shoe Aid In Africa" which he's the face of. And Samu's statements were far from any sort of lashing out at the club:
"My relationship [with Guardiola] has never been bad. Click to continue reading...

Chelsea must have lost their "hand"� altogether because now they might be dealt a whole other blow to their already fragile stance at the top of the Premier League.� By some miracle they are ahead of ManU by two points and I can't imagine how they've gotten this far considering all the things that have happened.

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19 year old USMNT and Hull City Striker Jozy Altidore is the latest footballer to be involved in controversy over twitter. Click to continue reading...

Crystal Palace 1 Nottingham Forest 1 A fairly laboursome game was always likely with managers like Davies and Warnock in charge of the two clubs they're both fairly well-versed in employing spoiling tactics to inhibit the other side, and this was pretty much the order of the day at Selhurst Park yesterday. Click to continue reading...

At later stages, clubs are now fairly open in their contempt for the FA Cup, fielding reserve teams and compaining about fixture congestion, but at this stage it still matters. This weekend sees the Fourth Qualifying Round, the sixth stage of the competition and that at which Blue Square Premier clubs enter.

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Jason and Zach review the Round of 16 in the TPL, address a controversy, and look forward to the quarterfinals. The search for America's Favorite Soccer Twitter Personality continues... DOWNLOAD THE...

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So almost without us (or me, anyway) even realizing it, we appear to possibly have a goalkeeping controversy on our hands.

After Manuel Almunia went down a few games into the season with a "chest infection", and last season's number two, Lukasz Fabianski, was also out with a long term injury, we had to hand the gloves over to young Italian Vito Mannone.

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Well by all accounts the AGM was a fairly uneventful affair. Arsene got a big birthday book, made a nice speech, Stan Kroenke was there and refused to talk and we got some little known facts about Gunnersaurus.

Obviously a reflection of how things are at the club at the moment. On the pitch things are looking good, off the pitch things are looking good and there's unlikely to be controversy or difficulty in those circumstances.

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From harbouring hopes of a return next week against Scunthorpe, it seems that Robinho is instead set for another couple of weeks on the sidelines:
"He's had a little bit of a setback, and the likelihood is it will be another 10 to 14 days," confirmed Hughes.

"The area where the stress fracture is hasn't healed as quickly as we anticipated.

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The much debated draw for the European play-offs in a bid to qualify for the World Cup were revealed on Monday. There had been some controversy after FIFA President Sepp Blatter altered the layout of the draw after what appeared to be some poor qualifying campaigns for some of the bigger ... Click to continue reading...

David Beckham was at the center of controversy once again this past weekend as he was involved in a red card fracas.

As the Los Angeles Galaxy squared up with Western Conference rivals Houston Dynamo, Beckham went in late and hard on Houston player Ricardo Clark. Houston captain Brian Ching was not pleased with Beckham's challenge at all, and the American forward promptly pushed Becks in the face and exchanged some harsh words.

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The play-offs for the final World Cup places for European teams were decided yesterday with a few interesting matches' games on the cards. Controversy was caused in the lead up to the draw yesterday with seeding being introduced in what would appear a blatant attempt to get the big ... Click to continue reading...

The slightly controversial UEFA bridesmaid's draw has taken place and fortunately it's gone off without controversy. Somehow, someway, despite UEFA being involved, Liverpool and Chelsea will not meet. Who knew?

It's rather pedestrian, really, as perhaps the two best teams France and Russia were handed the easiest draw.

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During a week in which the cheeky antics of America's "balloon boy" captivated the world, the Stadium of Light's "beach ball boy" brought controversy to the Premiership. Blurred out in photos by the press for his own protection, we at Footy Factor can finally reveal who the culprit is that cost Liverpool their fourth loss of the season.

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The VALENCIA CF sponsor wanted to utilize the upcoming gameagainst FC BARCELONA to promote its web & product, & on theway build up support among Valencia fans to vibe up this grandclash tomorrow.They elaborated this VIDEO, depicting Valencia CFas Spartan warriors ready to take on the enemy FC Barcelona inthe "Mestalla Stadium" (Valencia):Well it has created controversy, so much so that the "Anti Click to continue reading...

The Qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup are over, except for the playoff games which will determine the last batch of teams that will travel to South Africa. Here is a breakdown of the qualified teams, and the teams that will fight for a spot in the playoffs.




Europe


Qualified teams: Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia, Switzerland, England, Italy, Serbia, Spain
Playoff teams: Portugal, Greece, Slovenia, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine, France, Republic of Ireland
Many big teams had difficulty in Europe, Portugal and Sweden struggled, and eventually Portugal prevailed, leaving Sweden and Ibrahimovic out of the 2010 World Cup. Click to continue reading...