It's early November and we're still another seventh months until the tournament starts but I must admit that the injuries to Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard are beginning to worry me. According to Radio 5, Gerrard hasn't trained for two weeks and Ferdinand's overall fitness this season may have contributed to some of his indifferent performances when he has appeared for Manchester United.

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Scaremongering about the extent of Liverpool FC's debt under Hicks and Gillett is rife these days, with fans groups and the media alike painting a picture of irreversible gloom and impending financial meltdown. What is the truth of the situation? Do H+G deserve such villification? TAF MCDONALD analyses the reality of Liverpool FC's debt level, and comes up with some surprising results. Click to continue reading...

Welcome to the latest installment of Your Questions Answered, now with more national team content.

The U.S. men's national team has dominated October's batch of questions as you might expect, but this installment includes some interesting inquiries about the likes of Brad Friedel, Jeff Cunningham and yes, Freddy Adu.

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Welcome to the latest installment of Your Questions Answered, now with more national team content.

The U.S. men's national team has dominated October's batch of questions as you might expect, but this installment includes some interesting inquiries about the likes of Brad Friedel, Jeff Cunningham and yes, Freddy Adu.

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Goal of the Year gets all of the hype, but we can't forget about what's going on at the other end of the field. Check out the year in big stops and cat-like reflexes. Click to continue reading...

Let's begin today's stroll about the intarwebs in the land of the vikings... I'm sure everybody has read all the Brit-hype and seen all the mobile phone videos of Brad Guzan walking on water, and that's all well and good--he's the #2 behind Timmy... Click to continue reading...

Antonio Valencia's impact on the team has hardly been spectacular since his £16 million summer move from Wigan. But what a difference a goal can make. Well, two actually, and in back to back games to boot.

Goals breed confidence, and if Valencia is short of a little confidence, his latest performances in a United shirt will go some way to building it up.

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You know, soccer, there are codes of conduct in this world. One of them is that if you want to end a relationship with someone you supposedly care about, you deal with them honestly. You don't promise excitement and entertainment only to bore the hell out of them. But of course, that's what you did with me, and I'm not real happy about it.

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It wasn't the prettiest match in football history, nor was it supposed to be. Brazil had already qualified and Venezuela had almost no chances of qualifying (unless they beat Brazil 6-0 and Argentina beat Uruguay 9-0!), so it was what it was. Dunga did some experimenting and some things are definitely clear: Robinho should never come back, neither should Filipe Luiz, who plays anything but good football.

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In partnership with Russian Football Now, EPL Talk presents the eighth episode of RNF's podcast.

After months of build-up, the German national team's trip to Moscow lived up to the hype. Punching their ticket to the World Cup, Germany downed the upstart Russians 1-0, leaving hosts Chris Riordan and Richard Farley to explain where things went wrong for Guss Hiddink's men.

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[caption id="attachment_1400" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Ibrahimovic has so far payed dividends for what Barcelona spent on him"][/caption] Ibrahimovic has been in scintillating form for Barcelona this season and has scored like 3 goals in 3 games. Benzema on the other hand has not lived up to the hype of "The new Ronaldo (the Brazilian one, . Click to continue reading...

Darrius Barnes is currently leading the way for the rookies. (Getty Images)

Its finally Friday, though I will admit this week has flown by for me due to it being a four-day work week and things being fairly steady on both the regular job front and this place. I had planned to do more than what had been posted today but I blame the weird rainy weather here in Dallas for me not getting around to some of it.

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It seems the big man veteran striker Martin Palermo from Boca Juniors will get his long awaited chance of playing in one of the most important games in recent decades. It seems he has has already won the trust of Maradona and the hearts of the Argentine public to win a spot next to Messi in the Argentine attack. Click to continue reading...

The 2009 U-20 World Cup began with high expectations for Team USA. With twelve professional players, and withdrawals and extenuating circumstances elsewhere the US looked a sure bet to make noise.

Now, the US must count on other results to continue in the competition. The US has advanced to the knock out stages of six consecutive U-20 World Cups, but making a seventh is now in severe doubt.

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A lot of hype going around about this band right now. Insane hype. Early Strokes-level hype. Is it worth it? Probably not as these days bands can go from Black Sabbath to Black Kids in less than one album cycle. But they certainly have potential; the slow-burning "Islands" could most-definitely become an iPod staple for moody people in Doc Martin's. Click to continue reading...

If you downloaded the demo for the much anticipated Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, you've probably seen some of these already. Nevertheless, to create some more hype for the late October (in the EU) / early November (in North America) release of PES 2010, the marketers at Konami have released the shots of  the player faces [. Click to continue reading...

It's a strange thing. Everybody complains that the integrity of the "so-called Champions League" is a wasting ozone being eaten away by the presence of so many non-champions, and everybody loves the idea that the fan-friendly, high-scoring, reasonably priced Bundesliga is secretly better than the not-particularly-any-of-those-things Premier League.

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Photographs of what looks like Italy's new home and away football shirts for the 2010 World Cup have been leaked.

Designed and manufactured by Puma, Italian football fans will hope their nation will be wearing these shirts if and when Italy qualifies for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa next summer.

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Howdy doody LadyArse lovers. It seems as though I may have a very tiny apology to make regarding the standard of my blogging over the past number of weeks, maybe even months (this week aside). The reason for this is that I have been thoroughly and utterly miserable in work, more so than is normal.

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The Carling Cup game against West Brom the long awaited season debut of Carlos Vela. Vela was injured whilst away with Mexico missing most of the pre-season. Wenger obviously though that Carlos was not 100% and waited until midway through the second half before allowing the Mexican striker to make his season's bow in front of an admiring audience at the Emirates.

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With J Hutcherson -- The United States National Team's involvement in the Under-20 World Cup kicks off on Saturday in Suez, Egypt (10am - ESPN Classic/Galavision) minus the associated hype we saw last time around in Canada. Blame it on relative proximity and a lineup not dominated by players on the short list to be the next big thing in Major League Soccer. Click to continue reading...

Afternoon all,

So yesterday we closed the gap on Sp*rs and Citeh but remain quite some way behind Chelsea out in front. Not a bad weekend by any means and we did everything possible to close down the points deficit. The league will come alive in January/February time, especially when Chelsea lose their African players.

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Croatia have qualified for three successive World Cups since Independence, reaching the Semi Final in 1998. It's a remarkable record for a nation of 4 Million. It could be about to end.
Croatia may have been resurgent under Slaven Bilić, qualifying emphatically for the EURO 2008 tournament, pimping McClaren's England along the way, but 2007-8 was a long time ago.

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I'm not a huge fan of the UEFA Champions League group stages, especially not in the early matches as it all feels a bit pointless. The hype meets disappointemt experience of yesterday's Inter vs Barca game summed it up pretty nicely for me. But at least there are UEFA cub-plots to keep us interested. Click to continue reading...

After months of hype and anticipation, the North American demo for EA Sports FIFA 10 is now available! The fully playable demos of FIFA 10 for the PLAYSTATION3 and XBox360 can be downloaded at the PLAYSTATION Store and Xbox Live Marketplace respectively. The PC version of the demo is available for download at this EA Sports link. Click to continue reading...

It's the Wednesday portion of Champions League Matchday One. Eight games, but there's really only one game if you're a neutral. I'm talking of course about Dynamo vs FC Rubin Kazan. Or maybe Internazionale vs Barcelona. Actually, Lyon vs Fiorentina could be a pretty entertaining game too, but the hype is all about Inter vs Barça. Click to continue reading...

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Samuel Eto'o will be the focal points of all the hype surrounding the UEFA Champions league clash between reigning Serie A champions Inter Milan and European holders Barcelona. Ibrahimovic travels to the San Siro to play against his former employers, while Samuel Eto'o is also expected to start against his former Catalan [. Click to continue reading...

After months of hype and anticipation, the European demo for EA Sports FIFA 10 is now available! The PS3 and XBox 360 versions of the demo are available via the online stores accessible via the consoles. The PC version of the demo is available at this link. Download the installation file and run through the setup steps. Click to continue reading...

The hype for the October release of FIFA 10 is building, and it's no wonder when you see video like this (see above) featuring some of the amazing new skills and graphics.

The video is beautifully created by 16-year-old Norwegian Marius Hjerpseth. In it, the whiz kid shows actual game footage and then shows video from FIFA 10 and includes instructions on how to make the new moves.

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The United States is sometimes derided for its lack of football culture and traditions. For at least one night, the Lamar Hunt U.S Open Cup filled that void admirably as Seattle Sounders F.C. defeated D.C. United 2-1 in the 96th edition of the oldest competition in American football.
Spurred by a war of words between the two team's front offices, the game drew more interest than the U. Click to continue reading...

When we were kings - Colombia were the first to ever beat Argentina at home in a qualifierAfter all the build-up and all the hype, once the mud-slinging Click to continue reading...

We watched the last couple of hours of the transfer window on Sky Sports last Tuesday, and did you get the idea the excitement is being created with just a little bit too much hype? We'd love to make a comic sketch of what we saw but there's this kind of thing that [...] Click to continue reading...

Maybe you had too much too fast. Maybe you had too much too fast.
Or just over played your part.
Nothin shakin on shakedown street. Used to be the heart of town.
Dont tell me this town aint got no heart. You just gotta poke around.

Freddy Adu was once pure potentiality.

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Nothing like a little kid to hype up a game.

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For once the US Open Cup is getting it's just due for some hype going into tonight's final. It sure didn't hurt that two of the league's best PR teams are in the final. DC United has done it's best hyping the match against expansion side Seattle Sounders FC. Oh and there's been a fun back and forth thing between the club's front offices.

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