Now that we know the teams that will be making it to South Africa for the World Cup finals, i think its time we all took the bold step of picking our favorites to win the tournament. I know many of you might say that the right time to do this will be after the group stage draw that will happen in about two weeks time on the 4th of December.

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Continental's New ContiFan Competition Gives Fans Chance to Win Tickets to 2010 FIFA World Cupâ„¢
Continental Tyres, Official Sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cupâ„¢, is offering fans the chance to win a fantastic trip to South Africa complete with World Cup tickets in their new ContiFanContest
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The forthcoming season of world football is set to be the most thrilling in recent history concluding with one man holding aloft that hallowed golden trophy in Jo'berg next summer.

As top-flight action kicks off around the globe, who should we be looking out for? Which players are capable of bursting on to the international scene and emulating the famous exploits of an adolescent Owen during France '98?

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Rafael Benitez has been under the knife recently for the poor performance of Liverpool. Four consecutive defeats in the league and Europe have made a serious impact on their title hopes. But as he prepares to face Manchester United at Anfield today, he must be thinking of his future. Last year he was constantly locking horns with Sir Alex Ferguson by making stupid comments about the Old Trafford Click to continue reading...

Brazil will get to lock horns with the country ranked 79th in the world when they play Oman in Muscat on 17th November this year.

Three days before, Brazil take on England in Qatar. The squad for both matches will be announced on October 27th. Dunga (photo) is not expected to call up Brazil-based players whose sides are involved in the final stage of the Campeonato Brasileiro.

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.Old Trafford is all set for another rollicking encounter on this Saturday, as Manchester United will lock horns with Gary Megson's Bolton on what would be a tough weekend for some of the top sides in the league. Red Devils would be playing without their star striker, Wayne Rooney. However, the team will have the services [. Click to continue reading...

With an impressive 16 Champions League trophies between these two sides, matchday 3 will indeed be a classic affair as two of the most successful clubs in Europe will lock horns at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

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This mouth watering clash is a must watch for all football lovers including me and you can bet that come Wednesday 21st October i will be enjoying this fixture in the comfort of room where there won't be any disturbances.

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Amanda Palmer is one half of The Dresden Dolls. "Leeds United" is off her solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?. The track isn't directly about Leeds but the pounding on the keys, the blaring horns, the voice hoarse from shouting/screaming/singing taps into the riot of football crowds. She explains that the whole idea of turning out to support your team & getting into brawls with each other struck her as "Roman" and a good subject for her. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal v Olympiakos Piraeus

Didn't get to see the game, but from the looks of things, it was one of those games that easily could have been much more lopsided than the end result I think 2-0 flattered the Greek side a bit. 12 shots on goal, many of them golden opportunities from close up, is quality, and I think we're almost always going to win if we can create chances like that.

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Only Two Things Come from Texas...

Click here to find out what.

Now I may be going out on a limb, but after the past couple games, I'm a bit testy. I mean, if you think back to the way RSL started the season (except playing away of course), I was pretty darn optimistic.

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Remember about two years back, when that kid blocked Michigan's last-second field goal and carved Appalachian State's name resoundly into the esteemed scrolls of The Unlikeliests, and unleashed a pox that year upon college football's upper crust to nearly all fall to spry inferiors as forcefullyly as they had risen, like dictators in Africa? Click to continue reading...

More top stuff from Adam Spangler in Mexico. That's our friend Bruce in the header, incidentally.

Adam gets brownie points for this:

Azteca was a let down. It's a big dirty stadium without charm. Walking around the seats is like rock climbing–it is so steep; there is so little room I wanted a harness.

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Michael Orozco and San Luis lock horns against Paco Torres and Pachuca while Edgar Castillo and Tigres hope to rebound from last week's defeat. Click to continue reading...

In yet another reason why the Internet rules, Soul Train has its own YouTube channel.

I can be 98% sure that, in the mid-70s, I was the only boy in my neighborhood who watched Soul Train. Obviously, I had no idea why it was such a culturally important show, and it didn't matter that the dancers or performers looked like nobody I knew.

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By now we have all heard of the disappointing finish for the U.S. in the Confederations Cup against powerhouse Brazil. We all know that the U.S. squandered a 2-0 first half lead and conceded three straight goals in the second half to lose the match 2-3. We all also know that it was the first FIFA final the U.

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It ultimately ended in heart-break for South Africa in the Confederations Cup semi-final against Brazil, but Bafana Bafana will be back.
The competition is seen as a trial run ahead of next year's World Cup and the first real test of South Africa's ability to host such a large sporting contest. Click to continue reading...

I've just watched the England under-21's vs Germany under-21's final and I have to be honest; England were smashed more than a plate at a Greek restaurant.
It was embarrassing at times and it just confirms to me what I've always believed. England, at all levels, aren't as good as most of us English people think we are. Click to continue reading...

I told the lads yesterday before we locked horns in the Grimsby Derby - "be like the Americans, not in the first second half, the first half". The Yanks took the game to the South Americans for large parts of the half and showed little of the respect they showed earlier in the competition and got their rewards. Click to continue reading...

It ultimately ended in heart-break for South Africa in the Confederations Cup semi-final against Brazil, but Bafana Bafana will be back.
The competition is seen as a trial run ahead of next year's World Cup and the first real test of South Africa's ability to host such a large sporting contest. Click to continue reading...

Random thoughts while watching today's U.S.-Spain Confederations Cup semifinal:

• Charlie Davies' bicycle kick, had it gone in, would have been legendary
• Landon Donovan has been fantastic so far, very patient and very deliberate with his passes
• John Harkes raises an interesting possibility, that if this game goes into the penalty kicks, Tim Howard is a great equalizer there for the U.

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Pakistan are victorious! And all Pakistan fans' cars seem to have working horns. Tooting is ablaze with noise.

I used to think 20-20 was an abomination. I was very wrong. What a great game they've come up with. (Of course, it's exactly the game many of us played every summer Wednesday while growing up, but it's nice to see the old midweek slogs being played by experts.

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South Africa, horns and all, have edged their way into the semi-finals of this year's Confederations Cup, but their doing so has been something of a hollow victory for them, as we saw last night. Their procession through to the semi-finals was more about the shortcomings of others than about anything that they managed themselves.

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The movement to ban vuvuzelas continues to gain supporters and steam. Dutch head coach Bert Van Marwijk spoke out against the annoying horns.
"At home watching TV it really was annoying, but in the stadiums you get used to it but it is still unpleasant," Van Marwikj, who is on a fact-finding tour before next year's World Cup finals, told reporters at the hotel his team will use next year. Click to continue reading...

So we're two matches into our Confederations Cup campaign and we've already been eliminated. Now it's time to start asking the all-important question what did we learn?

1. Horns absolutely need to be banned from all World Cup matches.

2. We are awesome at getting players sent off.

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Wow, Giuseppe Rossi is the way to keep the comments line burning.
So, let's talk about something else before the Brazil game.
Ordinarily, for me it would be WPS - I hope you enjoyed the goal on FSC Sunday, because that was the only one all weekend. Ouch. It might be time for me to admit the St. Click to continue reading...

Admit it. You've been watching the Confederations Cup and heard that incessant monotonous buzzing. It's driving you crazy...at best it makes you want to mute the TV, at worst it makes you want to throw your TV out the window.
If you think this is bad, just wait until the 2010 World Cup when the stadium are likely to be at or near capacity. Click to continue reading...

The horns are causing the dilemma actually.If you are watching the games on ESPN you will hear the overenthusiastic horn players in the crowds producing an irritating incessant humming noise that just goes on and on without a break.My long suffering elocution teacher would have said that it reminded her of the "hum of innumerable bees"
It's a ghastly sound effect.

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Part Three of a Series on American Style

*As the U.S. National Team attempts to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, I will write a series of pieces concentrating on the style, or lack of it, of American soccer. See the other two here and here.

Watching the U.S. play Italy in the Confederations Cup made glaring all the differences we already knew existed between the two teams.

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Part Three of a Series on American Style

*As the U.S. National Team attempts to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, I will write a series of pieces concentrating on the style, or lack of it, of American soccer. See the other two here and here.

Watching the U.S. play Italy in the Confederations Cup made glaring all the differences we already knew existed between the two teams.

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In the past day this has been sent to me via Twitter by at least five people, so I really have no choice but to blog it. Paul Simon singing Late In The Evening on Jimmy Fallon's show backed by The Roots and the horns from Antibalas.

Simon misses a ton of notes here, but it doesn't matter because everybody else is so hot (on drums, ?

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So this morning I casually remarked via e-mail to a friend or two that there were probably 15 things about Bruce's performance at the halftime show that made me giddy as a schoolgirl. So after I secured FLOOR SEATS to his show here in Chicago on May 12, what else was there for me to do but go to the TiVo and actually count them?

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