With the second half of the season well underway from Mexico to Europe, there's a few particular things to look forward to until it comes to a close.

Photo by Nick Turchiaro/ISIphotos.com

The pieces are in place for it to be the weekend of the landmark appearance for Americans across Europe.

After Tim Ream was named to Bolton's matchday roster and Charlie Davies was named to Sochaux's, West Ham announced that centerback George John will be part of the 20-man traveling party for the club's match at Peterborough United on Saturday.

photo by Don Feria/ISIphotos.com

For the second consecutive offseason, Chris Wondolowski has signed a contract extension with the San Jose Earthquakes.

A year to the day after signing a new deal with the San Jose Earthquakes, Wondolowski has again agreed to renew his contract with the club.

Spanish club Real Madrid has for the seventh consecutive year topped the football rich list this is according to auditing and financial advisory firm Deloite &Touche. Madrid posted a turnover of £433m for the 2010/2011 season to finish first ahead of arch rivals and fellow Spanish side Barcelona who came in second with revenues of £407m.

It's a pretty futile task to find any headlines other than those pertaining to the question of the England manager's job this morning but is it inevitable that Harry Redknapp is about to step into Fabio Capello's expensive Italian shoes?

Virtually every newspaper and sports website is covering this and there are so many different claims as to what, if anything, has already been decided.

Earlier today MLSSoccer.com reported that the reason Mac Kandji wasn't in camp right away is that he was looking for a team in Europe. This afternoon the Rapids announced that Kandji had been traded to Houston for a conditional 3rd round draft pick in 2014. Probably a fair trade for a guy who's had 0 goals and 3 assists in 16 games.

I wrote yesterday that Fabio Capello And FA were set for a fireworks meeting today with neither site apparently ready to concede ground over John Terry.

Well after meeting today, it became apparent that the two sides could no longer work together and the FA has announced that Fabio Capello has stepped down as England manager.

What do you say to this?

Holy @#$%.

Incredibly, everyone from Samsunspor Turkish Super Lig survived and the team bus is the only thing which netted catastrophic damage. And as evident from the video, no signs/warnings appeared that, ya know, a train was steaming in.

Someone's likely to see a change in employment status for this.

AC Milan will be looking to put behind them their disastrous weekend outing when they host Juventus at the San Siro tonight in the Coppa Italia first leg semi-final. With Juventus also having settled for a similar barren draw with Siena in the weekend, the match will definitely be an explosive one.

There is 10% off every red item on Mancunia Merchandise for today only.

Voucher code: RED2012

This means that most t-shirts, including p&p, will cost around £15.60 when shipped to Europe.

"Red For The Day" was originally published at The Republik of Mancunia.

Their is a lot of uncertainity over who will be the next England Captain after John Terry was sensationally axed from the position last week. Favourites for the job United's Rio Ferdinand ruled himself out of the running while Man City's Joe Hart has down played his chances of replacing Terry.

Arsene Wenger has been following the rise of Eden Hazard ever since he was a teenager at the Lille Academy in 2005, and it has always been assumed that Wenger would bring him to Arsenal as soon as he could. But now Hazard is 21 years-old and one of the most sought-after players in Europe, [...]

Josh Gatt is not a player many American soccer fans have seen play, but he is already considered one of the best young Americans playing in Europe.

The speedy Michigan native has enjoyed an outstanding start to his professional career, going from 18-year-old newcomer to 20-year-old transfer target, having already made one upward move from Austrian club SCR Rheindorf Altach to Norwegian champions Molde.

The Bundesliga title race keeps getting more interesting each week. Yesterday, the chasing pack of Schalke and Borussia Mochengladbach who were just a point behind leaders Bayern heading into this weekend's games were both held to draws that saw them lose ground in the title race.

However, the shock result of the weekend was Bayern's 1-1 home draw with Hamburg.

There's been murmurs all week that Folan was looking for a a new club in Europe. Today the Rapids made it official, releasing him from his contract. Anyone who read this blog last year knows I was no fan of Folan, mainly due to the lack of effort he displayed on the field. This move frees up around 200K of salary cap space, possibly to go after that rumored Argentine midfielder.

Former Rep of Ireland u-21 striker Eamon Zayed (28) became a hero for his new Iranian club Persepolis Tehran after he scored a late,late hat-trick to secure a 3-2 win in the Tehran derby last night.

Persepolis trailed 2-0 with just nine minutes remaining on the clock before Zayed found his scoring boots to fire a hat-trick in just over 10 minutes.

For the second time, Chelsea's John Terry has been stripped of the England captaincy. The English Football Association confirmed that Terry was informed of the decision by FA chairman David Bernstein in a phone call Friday morning.

Terry is due to stand trial in July over racial abuse allegations after an incident with QPR's Anton Ferdinand and there has been mounting pressure within England to remove Terry as England's captain ahead of this summer's Euro 2012 competition

The FA released a statement on their web site which read:

Following the decision to adjourn the court case against John Terry to July, The Football Association confirm he will not captain the England team until the allegations against him are resolved.

Football is a funny game. When you predict like a master pundit (read-Carlton Palmer) every thing goes topsy turvy and it actually ends up even more interesting. The past week was no exception and it had everything, I mean everything. For a guy like me the premier league is the only source of joy in what can be called an uneventful life (Yes, what can you do when you are an engineer with a long and winding road ahead).

Chasing The Big Leagues Southampton and the challengers (English Championship) is a post from: Just Football

Tales from Tier Two is a series on Just Football in partnership with @tiertwofooty, in which we assess the promotion chances of the clubs in tier two of Europe's major leagues at the midway point of 2011/12.

Snow joke Much of Europe is currently covered in snow, which is creating the usual blend of havoc and child-like entertainment. Inter Milan player John Obi experienced a bit of both when he went over a pitchside advertising hoarding during his side's match against Palermo and landed straight in a big pile of snow that [.

After a full week of news both on and off the pitch, Tottenham centre half Younes Kaboul identified the 3-1 win over Wigan as a return to form after some indifferent results of late.

Younes played a full part in the win and was unlucky not to open the scoring on two occasions before Gareth Bale and Luka Modric sealed the win.

I haven't given up on Arsenal making the top four because I can't.
Despite Arsenal appearing to want to make it as difficult as possible to get there, something inside me makes it hard for me to believe we won't make it. And that something inside me is certainly not wind.
Perhaps its the season when we needed a Lasagna to make it happen gives me belief.

With Arsenal currently sitting 7th in the Premier League Table, it's now truly inevitable that Robin van Persie will choose a new club come summertime, barring some miracle. Because it seems so predestined, the notion doesn't trigger anxiety levels of Fabregas proportions in summers past, where you just really didn't know what was going to happen.

Chasing The Big Leagues West Ham United (English Championship) is a post from: Just Football

Tales from Tier Two is a series on Just Football in partnership with @tiertwofooty, in which we assess the promotion chances of the clubs in tier two of Europe's major leagues at the midway point of 2011/12.

Newcastle United are up to fifth in the Premier League after they beat Blackburn Rovers 2-0, while Arsenal's poor run of form continues as they were held 0-0 at Bolton.

Newcastle are now just three points behind Chelsea and a UEFA Champions League place as the Magpies leapfrog both Liverpool and Arsenal with the win.

Valencia keeper Diego Alves makes a great save from a Lionel Messi spot-kick to give his side a 1-1 draw to bring to the Nou Camp in their Copa del Rey semi-final second leg.

Chasing the Big Leagues Real Valladolid and the contenders (Spain Segunda) is a post from: Just Football

Just Football's Tales from Tier Two series, in association with @tiertwofooty, continues now as we continue with Spain's Liga Adelante. First we assessed the promotion chances of Deportivo La Coruña in Spain's Segunda Division:

Real Valladolid

Real Valladolid have been in and around the top six all season in Spain's Segunda Division following a run of just 2 defeats in 22 games since kicking off the season with a 3-0 win at Gimnastic Tarragona.

Mike Ashley wants a major revamp of Newcastle United so that the club can compete with the best clubs in Europe over the next few years. Mike Ashley - will invest even more in youth development It seems that Newcastle will add to their first team pool big time in the summer, and that's not too surprising, with [.

And I'm not talking about Beckham's 2-year $15 million contract.

I'm talking about Omar Gonzalez. Last month Omar pulled out of the national team training camp for a very exciting loan move to Nurnberg. His very first day there he suffered a season ending injury at the hands well, feet of his USMNT teammate Timmy Chandler.

Edson Buddle's European venture has come to a screeching halt.

Despite Buddle scoring six goals for FC Ingolstadt this season, the club released him from his contract Tuesday for unspecified reasons. Buddle had been sent away from the team prior to the 2. Bundesliga's winter break, the first indication that his time in Germany may have been coming to a premature close.

Mallorca keeper Juan Calatayud could benefit with the Ne‎w Euro 2012 ball for his control after this gaffe cost his side a 1-0 defeat to Athletic Bilbao last week.

Arsenal's on loan striker Carlos Vela must see an openining in the Gunner's midfield, as an enforcer, whatch how he takes out the linesman with the minimum of fuss during Real Sociedad's 5-1 win at the week-end, and applause must also go to the official for doing a Messi and not a Ronaldo.

Brazilian club Santos on Friday turned down an €8 million bid from Portuguese club FC Porto for their midfield wizard Paulo Henrique Ganso. However, what seems to be rubbing people the wrong way is club president Luis Alvaro Ribeiro's comments where he labelled Porto's bid as comical and that it should have at least contained an extra zero for Santos to consider it.

Former US U-17 midfielder Alejandro Guido is now currently training with Club Tijuana of the Mexican Primera but a potential move to Europe is still on the table.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic scores a brilliant free-kick during Milan's 3-0 Serie A win over Cagliari last night.

Adidasproud sponsors of AC Milan.

News that Jose Mourinho could be about to de-camp to yet another club will no doubt result in managers at some of Europe's top clubs looking over their shoulders. It was ever thus. Mourinho is of course hugely successful; his wins to games ratio at 69% is astonishing, that's an incredible ll% higher than Ferguson's - though, it's true the United manager has been around for a lot longer.

The race for the Bundesliga title is getting very interesting with each passing week as Bayern Muinch, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke all notched up wins to ensure that there was no let up in the league standings.

All three teams are level on 40 points with fourth place Borussia Mochengladabch only a point behind.

Oguchi Onyewu was the hero for Sporting, scoring twice on Sunday in a 2-0 win over Biera Mar. Onyewu opened the scoring with an 18th minute header and used his head again for the second goal in the 27th. He was yellow carded in the opening minute. The win moves Sporting into 4th-place in the Portuguese Liga.

Liverpool have been drawn to play Brighton at home in the FA Cup fifth round after their 2-1 victory over Manchester United. Championship side Brighton should not be taken lightly after they upset Newcastle United in the forth round.

Kenny Dalglish's side will be looking to go all the way in the FA Cup this year since they are not competing in Europe and are off the pace in the league this season.

Liverpool have been drawn to play Brighton at home in the FA Cup fifth round after their 2-1 victory over Manchester United. Championship side Brighton should not be taken lightly after they upset Newcastle United in the forth round.

Kenny Dalglish's side will be looking to go all the way in the FA Cup this year since they are not competing in Europe and are off the pace in the league this season.