A couple of weeks ago I wrote a small article selecting the best eleven in Europe who wear the number thirteen shirt. I thought I'd look into this subject further and I believe that if you take the top five leagues in Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany, France and England) that the highest number you can make an eleven from (you need a goalkeeper remember) is 33.

Throughout history the number 13 has been associated with misfortune, not only were there thirteen people present at the last supper there were also thirteen contestants in the first series of UK Big Brother. The connection between the number and bad luck has found its way into football in the past.

Disturbingly high squad numbers have been part of top level football for a few years now and squad numbers as high as 99 are seen around Europe. The Premier League isn't immune from such abominations with numbers in the 40s regularly sighted in stadiums throughout the UK. With this in mind I thought I'd take a look at the biggest culprits from Europe's "Top Five Leagues": Serie A, La Liga, Premier League, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga.

The Europa League is often viewed as the poor cousin of the much more high profile Champions League. This contents of this video propose a new theme song for the competition in order to help it reach its rightful place amongst the world's great footballing competitions.

I would be very interested if anyone else has any ideas for theme songs for the Europa League (or any other football competition for that matter).

Following on from the piece on nationalities in European competition I thought I'd take a look at the squad numbers used during the opening week of European football (Europa League and Champions League). There were forty games across Europe last week so it gives us a decent data set to look at which numbers are popular in Europe, and which are not so popular.

The Champions League and Europa League group stages began this week so therefore I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the different nationalities that featured in the matches this week. In the sixteen Champions League matches fifty-three different nationalities started matches, in the twenty-fourEuropa League fixtures seventy-three different nationalities started games.

French Football League XI

Between the sticks is the unfortunate Romain Larrieu of Plymouth Argyle, he played eighteen games in an ultimately doomed season for the Pilgrims who were relegated to the fourth tier. Across the back is former Spurs and Wigan fullback Pascal Chimbonda of QPR, Jean-Yves M'voto of Oldham Athletic, Maxime Blanchard of Tranmere Rovers and Stephane Zubar of Plymouth Argyle.

The phrase national hero can be overused in football reporting, but one man who has a valid claim to such a title is Torkil Nielsen of the Faroe Islands.

The Faroe Islands sit inbetween Norway and Iceland, due north of Great Britain. With a population of only 50,000 they first entered international competition in 1990 where they faced Austria in the opening game of their Euro 92 qualification campaign.

HAMBURG, Germany — Frank Arnesen will take over as sporting director of Bundesliga club Hamburger SV in the off-season, German media reported on Saturday. The 54-year-old Dane, last employed in the same capacity by Chelsea, will receive a three-year contract, Bild said. Hamburg's first choice, Matthias Sammer, the technical director of the German football association, [.

The vast majority of football supporters and the sporting media are human beings. This difficult fact means that the gap between perception of events and the reality of them is often very wide indeed. Take Wednesday's Champions League tie between Arsenal and Barcelona as an example. Arsenal have had acres of column inches written about them in praise for their victory over the Catalan giants a team who are considered to be the greatest in the world – if not the greatest of all time.

LONDON, England The Great Britain Olympic football team may be forced to withdraw from the 2012 London Olympics completely if the FA board cannot come to a solution to the problems of fielding a side. It has been widely expected that Great Britain would field a combined side for the first time in [.

LONDON, England A British judge will rule Thursday whether Liverpool's former American owners can sue in the United States over the enforced sale of the club to the Boston Red Sox ownership group. Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. claim that an "epic swindle" by Liverpool directors and the club's lenders led to a [.

ZURICH, Switzerland The Swiss club Grasshoppers says it must leave Zurich after 125 years because talks with authorities over rent and operating costs have broken down. The 27-time champions are exploring stadium-sharing options next season with clubs in Aarau and Emmen. Club officials say the city has refused to reduce annual rent at Letzigrund [.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands Johan Cruyff has returned to Ajax on an advisory basis after agreeing to become a member of one of three "sounding board groups". A meeting on Thursday night between general manager Rik van den Boog, Ajax's board of directors and Cruyff confirmed the former Holland playmaker's willingness to advise on technical issues.

LONDON, England Chelsea's Ashley Cole has been named England's Player of the Year for 2010 the first defender to win the award. Cole, who will draw level with Kenny Sansom on 86 caps to become his country's most-capped full-back if he faces Denmark on Wednesday, was the stand-out performer in a [.

MANCHESTER, England — Neil Young, a striker in Manchester City's trophy winning teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s, has died aged 66 from cancer, the English Premier League club announced Thursday. Young, who scored the winning goal in the 1969 FA Cup final, was also a member of the City side that [.

LONDON, England The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice has put forward the view that it is against EU law to stop broadcasters across the continent from showing football matches using foreign decoder cards. Juliane Kokott gave her thoughts to judges at the ECJ, who are expected to deliver their verdict on [.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan Miroslav Beranek, who guided his native Czech Republic to a surprise European Under-21 title triumph in 2002, was named Kazakhstan coach on Monday. Beranek, 53, takes charge of a Kazakh team who are rooted to the bottom of Euro 2012 qualifying Group A. The Kazakhstan job had been vacant since October following [.

NEW YORK. NY — ESPN has acquired U.S. broadcast rights to soccer's European Championship in 2012 and 2016 and will televise every game of both tournaments. The Union of European Football Associations planned to make the announcement Tuesday. ESPN purchased U.S. broadcast and Internet rights in all languages.

NYON, Switzerland — UEFA has chosen Israel to host the Under-21 European Championships in 2013. UEFA's Executive Committee voted for Israel's bid ahead of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, England and Wales. Israel's victory comes after it was edged by Denmark in the contest to host the 2011 edition. Compensation for that defeat was offered when UEFA [.

LIVERPOOL, England Liverpool forward Ryan Babel has completed his move to Hoffenheim after signing a two-and-a-half-year contract, according to the German club. The Reds accepted a fee for the Holland international, believed to be in the region of £6million, last week but the deal appeared to be off up until late on Monday when [.

Football in Belgium has been making a noise lately in Romelu Lukaku.

Lukaku has the quality of a future football superstar, making Brazil's Neymar look like a mere schoolboy.

This Belgian teenager is still 17 years old, lightning fast, stands 6′ 3″, top scorer in the Belgian First Division.