The year is 2010AD, Girls Aloud have split, Jedward are ruling the world with over 237 million albums sold, forcing many a music fan to throw themselves of various bridges throughout the world, Sir Dexy Longshot has left UKFF and now writes for Gardeners Weekly & Spurs are Premier League champions.

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The match before this [in Egypt] was marred by crowd troubles and home fans throwing rocks at the Algerians. The scare tactics worked cause they walked away from that match as 2-0 victors and forced a playoff half a week later. Last night however, with the match taking place on ... Click to continue reading...

What are the laws of football for?� � You get sent off for dangerous play because it's dangerous.� You get sent off for fouling too much because you shouldn't foul too much.� � But what are the implications of these dastardly acts?� Usually nothing.� Just the general cleaning up of the game and allowing it to be the free-flowing attacking game we all love.

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How to begin making sense of this week?� We start out with the crazy happenings between Ireland and France today - if ever there was a case to be made for instituting replay, this was it.� Sadly, the case of the Irish is not likely to be sufficient to make it happen.� Until a major team (that draws major crowd and sponsorship support) misses out on the World Cup or Champions League because of a Click to continue reading...

In 2008 Home United lost out on the SLeague by six points. Points coincidentally they lost on my firt two visits to Bishan Stadium when they lost both games.
I later appeared on Star Sports' Top Corner which has since been discontinued.
Now comes news that My Team and Kuala Muda will not be appearing in next season's Malaysia Super League. Click to continue reading...

A friend of mine sent me an email yesterday, consisting of a simple question: Was the Jozy Altidore signing simply a Phil Brown PR move? He had the crowd cheering USA! USA! in his first game and...

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Liverpool and Brazil midfielder Lucas Leiva has conceded that he would like to emulate his uncle Leivinha by making the final squad that will travel to the World Cup in South Africa next year.
Leivinha played in the 1974 World Cup for the Verde e Amarelo and earned a total of 21 caps, scoring seven goals in the process. Click to continue reading...

About a week or so ago, I wrote two articles on this site about the perilous state the Scottish game finds itself in. Back then, I bemoaned the fact that the game north of the border was being haunted by events on and off the field, from financial troubles to crowd troubles, from declining standards [. Click to continue reading...

ESUFC gave Sodium all they could handle for 60 minutes of regulation in the OPL Semi-Final match. Back and forth all game the play went. Each keeper being called upon keep their team in the game. Play was physical as free kicks were awarded to both teams throughout the game.
In the end it was Jill Farley from her midfield position that brought the ball deep down the left side and ripped what we thought was going to be an awesome cross, INTO THE NET! Click to continue reading...

If you read our African World Cup qualifying finale preview post yesterday, then you knew that Egypt vs Algeria was big. Historic bad feeling, exacerbated by Egyptian fans attacking the Algerian team bus in Cairo big. There was also the beautifully weighted qualification situation in Group C, where Egypt needed to beat Algeria by three goals or more to qualify for World Cup 2010 at Algeria's expense.

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Before the largest crowd in New Zealand football history, New Zealand beat Bahrain 1-0 to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, Over 35,000 fans packed into Wellington's Westpac Stadium to see the All Whites reach the World Cup finals for the first time since 1982. Plymouth Argyle striker Rory Fallon headed the decisive goal just before half time and Wellington Phoenix keeper Mark Paston saved a second half penalty five minutes after the restart from Sayed Mohamed Adnan. Click to continue reading...

The Western Conference Final started late for East Coast viewers and ended late for the crowd at the Home Depot Center, with LA advancing to the 2009 MLS Cup 2-0 in overtime. Two lengthy stoppages due to power outages and overtime pushed the game past the venue's regular 11pm curfew. With chances few and far apart, Houston had the best opportunity in regulation, having a goal waived off in the 80th-minute. Click to continue reading...

A visit to Egypt hasn't gone well for the Algerian national team so far.
Prior to a World Cup qualifier on Saturday, the team bus was stoned by a crowd of some ungracious hosts. A handful of players were injured, one's face was bloodied as seen in the video (1:00 mark). Click to continue reading...

The EPL Talk Podcast discusses the FA's Respect campaign towards officials. Why are officials so badly treated by supporters, players and managers? Has the campaign had any positive affect? Why does John Yerry always lead a group of Chelsea players to crowd around the officials? Why does Sir Alex Ferguson always seem to blame the officials when Manchester United has an unexpectedly bad result?

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Real Madrid hosted Alcorcon in the Spanish Copa del Rey on Tuesday, November 10, 2009. Alcorcon stunned Madrid in the first leg with a 4-0 win. Here's a recap of the second leg at the Bernabeu along with video highlights.

Real Madrid beats Alcorcon 1-0 (loses 1-4 on aggregate) Video Highlights

1st Half

Real Madrid were embarrassed in the first leg and had to score at least four goals to have a chance at advancing.

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Galaxy 0 Chivas USA 0

The Galaxy have had the better of this game so far and by all rights should be leading.

A 25-yard Chris Klein volley from a Landon Donovan cross in the 35th minute was perhaps the best Galaxy chance, requiring as it did an agile punch by Chivas USA goalkeeper Zach Thornton to send it over the bar.

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I said in my preview post posted earlier today that it was a big game and a chance for us to establish a 5-point gap at the top of the table, and after a scrappy, hard fought and closer than expected game, we managed it through a great Barcelona at home header from JT.
Chelsea lined up as expected with Ivanovic at right back, JT, Carvalho and Ashley Cole at the back, Cech in goal of course. Click to continue reading...

This is one of the most bizarre things you can expect to see at a professional football match. With Chelsea leading 1-0 against Manchester United, Salomon Kalou was getting ready to come on for Didier Drogba in the 83rd minute of the game. However, who would have expected a Chelsea supporter to look so calm and collected as he brushed his teeth in the crowd.

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Hmmm. At the start of the season this was supposed to be the blockbuster that Gold Coast would steal from the Roar. But with only 5,400 watching and quite a few of those in Sydney colours you would have to say Gold Coast have a long, long way to go build a fan base.
Shame really as this game was won by Jason Culina who was at his best. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle boss Chris Hughton was just delighted with his team's professional win at St. James' Park this afternoon, in front of � a good Geordie crowd of � 43,067, the second biggest attendance of the day in England. Andy Carroll 4th goal this season Newcastle won fairly comfortably with goals from Gutierrez, Carroll and Simpson, before Dean Keates [. Click to continue reading...

As you will have gathered I have been somewhat distracted this week.
Blocked sinus' and a red nose are neither nice to live with nor pretty.
But hey - Foxes are fighters so here I am bouncing back and catching up on football news.
Which included a report of our match against QPR which we won 1 2 at Loftus Road. Click to continue reading...

The UEFA Europa League had a full set of group stage matches on Thursday, November 5, 2009 including Everton v Benfica. Here's a recap along with video highlights of the match.

Benfica beats Everton 2-0 Video Highlights

Everton hosted Benfica looking to avenge a 5-0 defeat in the last matchday.

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Ringside and the atmosphere is steamy. It's minutes to go and ‘Rocky' Birrell and ‘Riddler' Roberts slip off their silky gowns to the cheers and jeers from of crowd, prompting Buttkiss to leave an urgent message at the feet of the Chairman. Topping the scoring with 8 points and no joker played, Birrell is favourite [. Click to continue reading...

So, how do you prepare your players for the biggest game of their lives so far?

We play in a few hours, we play the semi final of our conference tournament at home in front of the biggest crowd of our careers.....

Last night we gave them the night off from practice so that they would be rested and refreshed for today.

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Phew, writing something vaguely interesting (even for me) at this time of the night here� is hard enough. Where do I start? I know, I'll start� with a Lithuanian most of you have forgotten about.

I was watching (albeit very briefly) Inter at Livorno the other day. It finished 2-0 to Inter btw.

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The UEFA Champions League had a full set of group stage matches on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 including Manchester United hosting CSKA Moscow at Old Trafford. Here's a recap of the match along with video highlights.

Manchester United draws with CSKA Moscow 3-3 Video Highlights

Neither team was able to score in the first 10 minutes but Man U started to take control of the match.

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The FFA have taken over marketing and ticketing at Gold Coast. I think the owner will be pleased. Meanwhile over at the Roar FFA assistance seems to have been knocked back again. The messages from the top there are very confusing. Brisbane is the City with the opportunity. Meanwhile the coach is now saying that the team will grind out results until the need of the calendar year. Click to continue reading...

A few nice goals this week, but nothing extraordinary. Giuseppe Mascara scored one of his trademark wonder-goals, and Marco Borriello got back on the scoresheet with 2 goals (the second a nice scissor kick) after almost a year. Diego Milito got back to his scoring ways as well after being absent through injury, and Mirko Vucinic finally scored his first goal of the season.

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Given - Match saving performance. Three superb saves and the penalty stop to 'win' the point. 8.5
Zabaleta - A strong performance, not a step out of place. Put more distance between him and Richards. 7
Kompany - Cool, calm and assured. Forged a nice partnership with Lescott in dealing with the lively front pair. Click to continue reading...

When we last left Jose Mourinho's tongue, it was being stuck out at the crowd after an injury time winner against Udinese. Here it makes another appearance, albeit just a cameo, after Inter's second goal against Livorno on Sunday, accompanied by some kind of Michael Jackson type hand motion.

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Wow, close one!� The fans in Seattle are phenomenal! Some of those shots of the crowd look more like a European club playing in Champions League!

JM

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Count the years off one by one. Every single year in this decade we have played Spurs home and away in the League. And out of twenty matches we haven't lost a single one. Not a single one.
Even if we had lost one, we could still reflect on the annual difference between the teams shown by the League table. Click to continue reading...

Manchester United looks to recover from last weekend's defeat to Liverpool as they face Blackburn Rovers. Were they able to win or did Blackburn get a result? Here's a recap of the match along with video highlights.

Manchester United beats Blackburn 2-0 Video Highlights

The match had a slow start as neither team really had any great chances in the first 20 minutes.

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We were surprised and a little disappointed that Marlon Harewood was booed off the field, for his play after 60 minutes on Saturday afternoon. Marlon Harewood - let's not boo this player Booing never helps any player, and it's not a good thing to start doing. After all that's what the Middlebrough crowd regularly do, � and they are [. Click to continue reading...

Blood, noise, yellow cards and a disputed whistle outnumbered scoring chances as expansion Seattle made its MLS postseason debut with a scoreless tie against the more experienced and bullish Houston Dynamo on Thursday night.
Seattle couldn't take advantage of dominating possession, or the energy created by 35,807 fans at Qwest Field. Click to continue reading...