More than enough has been written about the unfortunate turn-of-events when France advanced to the 2010 World Cup at Ireland's behest.
Though Thierry Henry is the culprit, he should not become a villain, nor have his reputation tarnished by what will surely become the omnipresent fine print in his character bio forever. Click to continue reading...

Who ever said that 'footballers have no sense of humour'? I don't know either. I just made it up.
If that quote did exist though then Darren Fletcher would be exempt. He believes, wait for it, that comments made by Arsene Wenger earlier in the season have resulted in him being singled out by referees. Click to continue reading...

I'm getting incredibly tired of reading articles and having to sift through the enormous anti-Italian sentiment to find actual content. This happens all the time on British websites, and the latest culprit is WhoAteAllthePies.

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Chivas USA 2 Galaxy 2

This is becoming a game when different players are making their worst errors of the season at the worst possible time.

The culprit this time was usually dependable Galaxy defender Omar Gonzalez whose poor attempt at a back pass was gratefully intercepted and deposited in the back of the net by substitute Maykel Galindo who has knotted the game a two apiece.

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Fredy Montero hopes for better success in front of goal in Houston

The Seattle Sounders and Houston Dynamo played a highly contentious match on Thursday evening to a 0-0 draw. A capacity crowd of 35,807 at Quest field in Seattle saw a match that contained 6 yellow cards (3 for each side) and countless missed opportunities on both sides.

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[101 Great Goals] When Dr. Paul Morris laid out the ways and means of diving, giving referees the necessary tools to catch the culprit (failure thus far), he forgot two very, very important indicators: i. The delay between perceived foul and the criminal going to ground. ii. The "look back". We'll call this The Morten Gamst Pedersen (below). Click to continue reading...

by JAMES CURTIS Not surprisingly there was a general consensus on Sky Sports' coverage yesterday to avoid discussing in depth the nature of West Ham's goals. But as we can only cringe at the lack of heat generated in the studio over the dubious rulings of Chris Foy, Arsenal must first take a look at themselves as the primary benefactors who brought about their own destruction.

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Points dropped, not a big deal

I was very close to lauding Alex Song to the heavens last night when he dropped his guard as to be honest did the rest of the Arsenal defence in the 93rd minute, enabling AZ Alkmaar to equalise.

He did have a terrific game, but he's not the polished gem we would yet have him to be, even though his improvement has been spectacular.

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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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You can clearly see Glen Johnson did not get his foot on the ball. Bent's shot skips just over the defender and hits the red beach ball and deflects into goal. And the culprit is one of Liverpool's fans.

Steve Bruce should heave a sigh of relief on this one.

Even a lay person not well versed with rules, would be sufficiently at unease when an outside agency influences a match.

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So Saturday was a bit of a surprise wasn't it? Bolton played the best they have in a long while, and arguably outplayed Spurs, who have been a quality side so far this season. If you read my match preview, I wasn't very optimistic for this match, I said we might sneak away with a draw. However it was Tottenham who were lucky to get a point.

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Divers are the newest witches. And people are, rightfully, ready to burn them at the stake as cheats.
One potential culprit, United's Wayne Rooney, is denying any indiscretion.

"Everyone who watches me play knows I am an honest player,'' he said. "I play the game as honestly as I can.

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In the end, it was a damp squib of a transfer deadline day, hyped to the nines but delivering nothing of interest, and nothing at all for Arsenal.

The whole absurd day, which has become a newspaper-selling website-hitting phenomenon all of its own, with Sky Sports News the very worst culprit, is summed up for me by this one entry from the Guardian's live transfer deadline day page:

5.

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A sickening tackle on Eduardo more than 18 months ago leaves him a doorstep from a permanent end to his career.

Clips of his mangled ankle with the bone protruding out is replayed again and again, evoking a visceral reaction of horror and disgust that fails to lessen in intensity each time its shown.

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It was a dive. It was a dive. It was a dive.
Despite every Arsenal fan accepting that, we still have had it repeated ad nauseam. All day long. So I thought it should be said a few more times.
Goodplaya's description of events is perfect:

Last night Eduardo did what a million strikers do – nudge the ball past the keeper and trust his momentum will provide enough contact to yield a penalty.

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D.C. United suffered their second consecutive league loss 2-0 at the hands of Toronto FC in Toronto, Canada. While the defense has been the main culprit of United's road deficiencies this season, this loss was completely on the non-existent offense. Click to continue reading...

The excuse/culprit this time?
Diarrhea.
Or so he alleges. Though his notorious behavior makes it hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The former Internazionale striker may have been at Flamengo for little over two months, but he has already started to exhibit the disciplinary problems he became known for in Italy.

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Spain's Fernando Torres scored a hat-trick within 17 minutes of the kick-off as tournament favourites Spain routed New Zealand 5-0 at a half-full Rustenburg stadium.

The Liverpool striker broke the deadlock after six minutes, then added his second and third in the 14th and 17th minutes. Cesc Fabregas made it four seven minutes later before David Villa completed the rout early in the second half.

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Recent results in world cup qualifying have brought a swift sense of reality to my vision of the U.S. National Team's potential. We were trounced in Costa Rica and won at home in less than convincing fashion against a Honduras team that jumped out to an early lead. Now the Nats head to South Africa to take part in the warm up to the 2010 World Cup tournament.

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The comedy of errors that led to Frank Baumann's goal against Hamburg. The culprit has been identified and it will be installed in Werder's hall of fame.

Werder had Hamburg's number this season. Make it three of three. Baumann's goal ended their UEFA aspirations. They also lost the German Cup.

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What can be done?

After last week's Champions League farce in which Didier Drogba and Cristano Rolando played a pivotal role in the final destination of the trophy, one can not hide from the fact that both players disgraced the game of football for different reasons, and despite the governing bodies effort to eliminate diving, it seems these two players are on a one man crusade to bring the ugliest side of football back into the game.

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D.C. United Account Executive Zach Walker had a bit of a surprise waiting for him when he arrived to his desk this morning...

No word on who the culprit was...

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I thought it was about time to do a monthly post like this. Shame it was so late but as the saying goes, better late than never. And this month isn't a bad place to start either. We played 8 games with mixed success; if I was put on the spot I would say more negative with our semi-final defeats to Utd and Chelsea. Click to continue reading...

Ball boys have been getting abused recently.
A while back there was a video of a field player chucking the ball at the ball boy's back. Now we've found it again.
Gimnasia-Jujuy goalkeeper Gaston Pezzutti was the culprit in a match against River Plate. Apparently the ball boy was taking to long to give the Pezzutti the ball for a goal kick. Click to continue reading...

Valdes - 6.5 - Had a decent night. Kept another clean sheet. Now he has not conceded a goal for 632 minutes in the league. Looked a bgit more nervous in the end but was sloid otherwise.
Abidal - 7 - Was solid throughout the match. It's true that capel did get past him at some time. But that's ok. Click to continue reading...

I don't care that he scored a goal on a clear breakaway – he should have had three. It's very nice that he sometimes makes nice plays to hold up the ball – it would be much nicer if he didn't let his man stroll away from him in the box to score on an uncontested header. In short, I feel that Chad Barrett is in large part responsible for TFC's 3-2 loss tonight against FC Dallas.

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Well, what can you say about that game? We played very poorly, we didn't deserve to win, and so we didn't.

The knee-jerk reaction from a lot of fans may be to blame Fabianski, who possibly could have stopped the first goal and came out too early and got beaten by Drogba, who tucked the ball into an empty net.

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It used to be just the Premier League that showed open contempt for all things internet. But now that technophobia has trickled down the tiers of English football, all the way to League Two. Double-barrelled BBC Technology blogger Rory Cellan-Jones was the victim/culprit. He recorded 37 seconds of League Two's Brentford vs Exeter City on a [. Click to continue reading...

Valdes - 7.5 - Made some crucial interventions. Couldn't do much for the goal as he was baffled by Ribery.
Alves - 7.5 - Good performance going forward and was decent at the back. Had trouble against Ribery but held on well throughout the match. His crosses did had the venom but none of his team mates could make anything out of it. Click to continue reading...

FC Barcelona set up a semi final show down with Chelsea in this year's Champions League with a 1-1 draw against Bayern Munich. Frank Ribery put Bayern in the lead early in the second half but a stunning strike from Keita kept Barca's unbeaten streak intact. Barca already had the match in bag after a 4-0 crushing of Bayern at home but they still need to see off this leg and they did it brilliantly. Click to continue reading...

Villareal 1 (Senna 10) Arsenal 1 (Adebayor 66)
(Champions League Quarter Final)

Advantage Arsenal, then. After an opening half which could have turned into a complete disaster, a stupendous overhead kick from Adebayor sees us favourites to progress, a result any fan would have bitten your hand off for after the opening stages.

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What is it about Liverpool players and their cocky, fawning, self-congratulatory overconfidence whenever the team goes on a good run? The last few weeks have been filled with tedious, boastful eulogising in the press and it's just not the Liverpool way.
Every time Liverpool go on a good run it's the same old story: the players saturate the press with comments about any or all of the following:
1. Click to continue reading...

The sun is shining. The preparations have been perfect. A couple of weeks break, before a few weeks training sessions, all in high spirits. Ordinary staff will become servants for a few weeks, as people will probably kill everyone in the room if you simply asked. You arrive with scores of people with nothing but encouragement for you. Click to continue reading...

Its difficult swallowing losses to Fulham and now Hull. Especially after that wonderful mid week dismantling of Sheffield Utd at the hands of the youngsters.

Admittedly the goals that sunk the Gunners were top notch. Almunia, even if he had morphed into a giant octopus with flailing tentacles, would have had a tough time keeping Geovanni and Daniel Cousin from the back of the net.

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