Go ahead and say it. You think this is pretty. Well you aren't the only one. The orange seats are going in as we speak and the grass will soon be installed. Happy times indeed in Houston.

(Photo via @hapykappy7)

Graham Westley is beginning to discover that the grass isn't always greener at Deepdale. The papers reported this morning that GW has got off on the wrong foot with the Preston players with text messages at 2am telling players have been dropped and giving motivational messages.

It's fair to say that it hasn't gone down too well in Lancashire.

This weekend Persija IPL will host Bontang in Solo. Next week Persija ISL will play two home games either in Solo or Sidoarjo. Neither club it seems can get a game in Jakarta.
Persija ISL are being forced away from their home town because the grass at the Bung Karno is being relaid, apparently, and the other options available, Lebak Bulus or Soemantri Brojonegoro are not real options; Lebak Bulus is supposed to being demolished some time soon while the other one is even smaller.

This is likely to end up on some end of the year Best Of lists for football photos and the like, along with someone in the Bundesliga making a nice tackle and John Terry barking orders in the rain soaked evening.

Afghan boys play football in sunset in Mazar-i-Shraif on January 10, 2012.

This is how crazy ideas get started. It's only a matter of time before someone patents it and calls it a sport.
Would the sport be better on grass or indoors with a machine running the balls back up?
Many variations could be offered for Foot Bowling. Widening the lane could be one option.

This is the exact pose Sergio Aguero makes on the way to the Manchester Market every Sunday for tea and biscuits! Can't blame the bloke, he's really enjoying life at the club.

We know you Scousers aren't entirely happy about losing 3-0 to Mancini's Men last night, but that's how football is.

1. We were desperately hoping that Steve Kean was going to sit down on the grass during the Stand Up If You Want Kean Out chants. 2. It took seeing how good a hereto hopeless Bolton side to realise precisely how bad Blackburn are at the minute. 3. On a night when the two Lancashire [...]

Thanks to White Noise and Simon Peach on Twitter.

Interesting viewing. Talks about how the grass is always greener, which is undoubtedly true. Jol does look a bit defensive here (as is natural I suppose) but is a fairly eloquent speaker and gives decent answers to the questions put to him.

Former Arsenal keeper Jens Lehman expressed delight at seeing both Manchester sides eliminated from the Champions League on Wednesday but was more happy with league leaders City's failure to progress to the next stage.

According to Lehman, City play very boring football and deserved to be dumped out of the competition.

Bem-vindo to Day 3 of Selecao Bootcamp! These Brazilian caras are still in Libreville, Gabon where they're scheduled to play a friendly as part of the inauguration of the newly-built 'Friendship stadium' below today. As we mentioned, the guys have been training hard and Menezes just announced his starting line-up with Hulk and Jonas leading the attack today.

By Chris Wright

If you're a fan of men in tights sitting on each other's faces, then you may be familiar with this pale-looking chap, if not then let us introduce him. His name is Sheamus, he's a WWE wrestler and, unlike certain superstar basketball sell-outs we could mention, he's a genuine Liverpool fan.

Football can do a lot of things. It can turn completely stable people into emotional wrecks, it can play with our emotions like nothing else, save perhaps a member of the opposite sex. In short, it's a very powerful thing. One thing it should not do, however, is to change our perspective. Not footballing perspective, of course you should feel free to argue that your team is better than my team, your fans are louder than my fans, your grass is greener than our grass.

Been a while since a Friday music post. So here we are, in honour of a couple of Dave's recent "Top Fives".

I was at one of the shows on the '94 tour, Milton Keynes Bowl. We saw Magnapop, then Belly, then Blur, then REM. It was one of the best days I ever had.

A few of us went along.

A number of Tottenham players were in action last night including Younes Kaboul, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Luka Modric. Pav was on the score sheet for Russia once again in their 6-0 rout of Andorra but elsewhere, one man stood out above all else.

Gareth Bale scored and starred in Wales' impressive 1-0 win in Bulgaria last night.

• Top 50 MLS Cup Moments: #47 Orange Crush [MLS Soccer]
• Dynamo Stadium grass being grown in Damon, Texas [Houston Dynamo]
• Houston's Cameron named MLS W.O.R.K.S. Humanitarian of the Month [MLS Soccer]
• Houston's Bruin continues to push for starting spot [MLS Soccer]
• Hainault giving Dynamo his all [Houston Chronicle]
• Houston's Cam Weaver to have season-ending hip surgery [Sporting News]
• Academy College Report - Oct.

Mertesacker emptiness: Per fails to impress as Gunners struggle against Greeks

gentle giant Per Mertesacker once went 31 games without being booked in Germany. His unkindest critics would explain such a phenomenon by arguing that 6ft 6in Mertesacker never gets close enough to kick his opponents.

Why I want a blood-and-thunder Mersey derby just like the bad old days

The Merseyside derby was once known as the friendly derby. God knows why. The other day I watched a replay of an encounter between the old enemy from the early 80s, which was supposed to be a decade of friendly rivalry between the two great clubs.

The problem is all of those follies dubbed the 'worst ever' seems to have at least a bit of merit. Amir Sayoud of Al Ahly is on the list, and you're going to see a lot of him in the coming days. Almost all of it will involve the prone position and a meal of grass.

At least he can laugh about it, though.

Bem-vindo a Selecao Bootcamp! It was Birthdays galore over the weekend as both Julio Cesar and Alexandre Pato celebrated their big days with their Brazilian teammates. Cesar was pelted with water and made to roll his face over the grass while Pato got a strawberry cake courtesy of the squad's chef!

Football League blog: Grass isn't always greener, says Blades boss

For the new season, MirrorFootball is teaming up with some of the blogosphere's best new writers to bring you even more great football reads every single day. Friday is Football League day, so please be upstanding for theseventytwo.

She can dive, she can catch, she can smother, she can throw and she can certainly kick and punch, but can she dance? We'll find out on Season 13 of Dancing with the Stars which will feature U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo. As Solo is tremendous athlete and competitor, the WNT Blog is putting its money on the USA's #1 to go deep in the competition.

Previously Nepal was awaiting to leave for Amman to play against Jordan. National team got only four days on schedule to train. But DISAPPOINTMENT!!! The training ground was nearly a bushes and clearly unusable to train for the players. Graham Roberts then was infuriated along with his players. ANFA didn't prepared the proper ground for training and National team training days was reduced to 3 days.

Previously Nepal was awaiting to leave for Amman to play against Jordan. National team got only four days on schedule to train. But DISAPPOINTMENT!!! The training ground was nearly a bushes and clearly unusable to train for the players. Graham Roberts then was infuriated along with his players. ANFA didn't prepared the proper ground for training and National team training days was reduced to 3 days.

Imagine, if you will, a meticulously tended field of grass carved into the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains in the northeast of Mexico. It is home to the champions in the sport of soccer for all the lands from the far tundra of Nunavut to the sweltering jungles of Guyana - a team of millionaires and superstars who each bear a household name in a land where their sport is king.

You ever wonder what goes on in the tunnel in the run up to gametime? I'll tell you: it's nothing but champagne & Gatorade spritzers and all-you-can-eat crabcakes. Can you believe that sh*t? No? Good because I'm lying.
The tunnel is a place where 20 year-old keepers give pounds to white-haired security guards, cleats make an exceptionally loud sound and bro hugs are often doled out at a backstage-at-the-Source-Awards frequency.

Green $19.99 Galaxy T-shirts (Keane, Beckham or Donovan available) are on sale at the stadium souvenir stands tonight for the first time.

The grass berm at one end of the stadium features a clover leaf (and is open if you'd like to come on down and spread a blanket on a lovely evening).

And there's a Robbie Keane article in tonight's program.

By Chris Wright

When banter turns to herbicide.

Police are appealing for witnesses after vandals broke into Oxford United's Kassam Stadium at the weekend and burnt 'STFC' the initials of local rivals Swindon Town rather shoddily into the pitch with a 'substance capable of staining the grass' apologies for using that technical jargon) ahead of Saturday's derby game between the two sides.

The soccer season in Minnesota is always interesting. As a former veteran club coach for many years I know the routine well. You plan and train all winter just waiting for the weather to get nice enough to get outside and start training on real grass. But some years, like this past spring, the weather [.

I've always had the impression that the stories about Arsenal matching the offers of manu for Smalling and Jones only to be turned down as being a yarn purposely spun by the manu PR machine in a sad attempt to redress the balance after we publicly rubbed their noses in it for missing out on Ramsey.

Denilson has perhaps already realized that the grass is not always greener away from Emirates, and its taken less time than it usually does. Over the years we have seen players who decide they must ...

Being away for two weeks during some work for our new portal, Futbolita.TV does not mean that we won't be here for you during preseason. We're back and we can't wait to kick this season off!

Hot off the Spanish press (from the newspaper with reporters who are willing to hold your arms as you are walking on unstable grass conditions: El Mundo Deportivo) is the news that Kun Aguero's transfer to Man City will be finalized by Wednesday!

After the Houston Dynamo – Bolton Wanderers match, Matilda and I had the opportunity to speak to a number of Bolton players and Owen Coyle. Rather than pick out certain quotes to give you, we've decided to post the entire transcript.

Hit the jump for our short chat with Stuart Holden:
Q:How is the leg and everything?

Everton 2011/12 Home Kits - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Everton have unveiled their 2011/2012 kits. The Everton away shirt was already revealed in May and now the blue home shirt and the camouflaged home goalkeeper kits.

Outfield

The main difference in 11/12 season's home shirt is the return of the collar adding a vintage look.

Everton 2011/12 Home Kits - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Everton have unveiled their 2011/2012 kits. The Everton away shirt was already revealed in May and now the blue home shirt and the camouflaged home goalkeeper kits.

Outfield

The main difference in 11/12 season's home shirt is the return of the collar adding a vintage look.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how much football teams actually play. In the top professional leagues, actual playing time averages to between 61 and 65 minutes per match. In the post, I noted the obvious - namely that the clock can be your friend or your enemy, and that teams of course have the option to use it tactically.

Click here to view the embedded video.

via waatp.

Imagine the scene. You're in the stands, watching Dynamo Kiev play Metalist in the first game of the Ukrainian Premier League season (not an auspicious start, but stay with us), when ex-Chelsea forward and all-round hot booty-boy Andriy Shevchenko scores a goal.

It's been nearly 14 hours since Mexico defeated the U.S. 4-2 in the 2011 Gold Cup final at Azetca Junior, the Rose Bowl. In that time all that keeps replaying in my mind is an orange-glad Tim Howard flopping on the grass like a fish out of water, Gio Dos Santos chipping an inch-perfect 99-of-100 shot into the upper 90, followed by Howard punching the grass in a show of unchecked emotional

It looks like there will be a new playing surface on Qwest Field in 2012, although the chances of it being grass are almost nil, according to comments Seattle Sounders GM Adrian Hanauer made to Don Ruiz of the News Tribune:

In the meantime, I think it's highly likely that we will speed up the process and regularity with which we would change the synthetic.

Yesterday Newcastle marked their first foray into the transfer martket with Frenchman Yohan Cabaye a fully fledged French international who, in his spare time, completely strips football pitches of grass for no other reason than "because I can". Even if he doesn't work out, he'll be keeping the groundsmen busy with that kind of [.

Patience is a virtue in short supply at my age. It's been the driest spring for a hundred years: that's the weather not the Spurs strikers' record since February. Anyway it rained sufficiently last week to get the grass growing and I have now mowed the lawn and taken the overflow compost heap down to the allotment.