The final international break of the year is over. How good does that sound?

Real football returns tomorrow, and unlike many Premiership weekends, it is Saturday that looks the tastier of the days. Liverpool and City play each other at lunchtime, United face Everton in the evening, Chelsea are involved and we have a very tricky trip to Sunderland to negotiate.

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Yesterday we learned the rules for this year's expansion draft, where the Philadelphia Union will select 10 players from the 15 current MLS teams to help to begin their process for building their roster. The Wizards are allowed to protect 11 players and 3 of the team's 4 international players will have to be protected. Click to continue reading...

If you haven't seen it already, Eboue scored a goal for Ivory Coast in an international friendly against Germany yesterday.

The goal was brilliant showing he may very well be the perfect striker: the strength of Drogba, the creativity of Henry, and the finishing of Owen. He's the complete package, folks.

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They Think It's All Over... thinks France's victory over Ireland is a crying shame for football. Click to continue reading...

Next week, the Philadelphia Union will have their pick of the current MLS teams' unprotected roster players, today we learned the rules that those teams will use to choose the players that they will protect. The rules are very similar to the rules that were used last year for the Seattle Sounders FC draft. Click to continue reading...

It's not strictly Arsenal-related, I know, but by now I'm sure you've all seen the controversial goal which put France into the 2010 World Cup.

If you haven't: there was a cross into the box which fizzed past the far post, and looked like it was headed over the touchline for a goal kick. But off one hop, it hit the arm of Thierry Henry, and deflected back into play in a perfect spot for him to center it directly into the path of the oncoming William Gallas, who headed home the winning goal.

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MLS has released the rules for the draft and they're slightly different from what I listed in my last post. There appears to be no automatic protection for players on the season-ending injury list. Only 3 of our internationals need to be protected however. Given that, here is my revised list:
*GA Players (Automatically protected)
O'Brien
Valentino
*Required 3 Internationals
Baudet
Cummings
Kimura
*Roster (8 spots left)
Casey
Clark
Harvey
LaBrocca
Mastroeni
Moor
Pickens
Smith, if he's expected to make a full recovery, otherwise Palguta Click to continue reading...

Found this list online, here, and thought it was interesting. Good for Spurs and Villa fans at least.

The list is correct as of 17/11/09.

Top 20 Teams For Producing England Internationals (all time):

1. Aston Villa 68
2. Tottenham 62
3. Everton 59
4.

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Part II of our "What did we miss out on?" series continues today:

EDIN DZEKO Arsenal were heavily linked with the 23 year-old Bosnian striker early in the transfer window. He was coming off of a wonderful season in the Bundesliga, in which he led Wolfsburg to a surprise championship and led the league in goals, with a phenomenal 26 strikes in 29 appearances.

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Well, it never ends. Apparently Aaron Ramsey has also picked up a knock on international duty, meaning we now have fully thirteen players injured.

If you're curious, we have 29 players listed in our first-team. Which means we are only a few injuries away from having literally more than half our team injured.

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The slight air of unreality surrounding our season so far was further compounded by the sight of Jermaine Jenas and Tom Huddlestone in an England midfield, baking under a Middle Eastern sun as the whiplash gales destroyed my garden fence. Congratulations to all our internationals, especially to Tom on his debut. Click to continue reading...

Benni Mc Carthy Takes a Shot Against Jamaica

Maybe the "weakened" Jamaica was a better opponent for South Africa, because Bafana Bafana managed to play forward although they were held to a goalless draw at Vodacom Stadium on Tuesday.

That means the 2010 World Cup hosts have now scored just six goals in their last 12 internationals.

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They Think It's All Over... busts out some World Cup playoff predictions. Click to continue reading...

With the news that Kieran Gibbs has sustained a knock whilst on international duty, Arsenal now have an astonishing 10 players out of action at the moment. Robin Van Persie, Nicklas Bendtner, Carlos Vela, Theo Walcott, Denilson, Gael Clichy, Jack Wilshere, Johan Djourou 'keeper Lukasz Fabianski and the aforementioned Gibbs are ALL injured. Click to continue reading...

OK, time to get back to a more regular posting schedule. This week I'll hopefully have a season review, a recap of where the European teams I'm following are, and maybe a new team to talk about. First lets start with next week's Expansion Draft for next year's Philadelphia Union.
The draft will be a week from Wednesday. Click to continue reading...

By Walter Broeckx Well at the end of the day... we can only trust the Lord Wenger. For those about who shout BUY, I would like to ask: how are you going to keep all of them happy on the bench as only 3 players can play in our current system. We still have 2 full internationals [...] Click to continue reading...

Rafa Benitez faces more battles between club and country if Liverpool fail to get their season back on track.
The World Cup will become an unwanted distraction for the Kop boss unless his side is competing for honours in the New Year.
Star players Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres are putting their bodies on the line to help save the club's faltering season. Click to continue reading...

Rafa makes January plans.

Portsmouth Vs Liverpool Tickets Still Available!

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Here we find ourselves slap bang in the middle of another damn international break, only this one is even more torrid than others as there are barely any meaningful internationals to hold our attention.

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Most of you have probably already seen this, but Robin van Persie tore an ankle ligament today, an injury which will keep him up for around 2 months..

What, you may ask, super-important match was he playing in to take on such an injury? Was it the World Cup? Nope. The European championships?

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La Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF) has officially launched the Spain adidas World Cup 2010 kit. Under the theme El Poder de la Roja (The Power of the Red), the 1980s-inspired kit was presented to the public at the Kinépolis de Pozuelo (Madrid) multiplex cinema yesterday with current Spanish internationals Iker CasillsaAlbiol, Marchena, Silva, Xabi [. Click to continue reading...

Ibrahim Afellay is back, at last, for the internationals against Italy and Paraguay. He was absent too much due to injuries. "It was highly frustrating. Every time there was something else. Oranje is very important to me and I'm happy I'm top fit again. I want to keep it like Click to continue reading...

Define Irony : A bunch of football players missing Internationals for an injury they got introduced in the previous Internationals.

So finally we get to watch some International action. And boy, don't I love it. England versus Brazil yeah. Does it get better than this.

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The Russia Football Union (RFU) have officially presented the Russia adidas 2010/12 home kit. The presentation took place earlier today at the Pavlovsky Hall of the Moscow's Marriott Grand Hotel with Russian internationals Roman Pavlyuchenko, Sergei Semak, Vasily Berezutsky and Pavel Pogrebnyak serving as kit models. Click to continue reading...

Wenger monitoring young Israeli.

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Arsenal are "keeping tabs on" 18-year-old Barcelona winger Gai Assulin, which seems as good a place as any to keep tabs, but only if they're properly secured with Velcro.

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This happened a couple of days ago, but, you know...(shrugs). 15 Arsenal players have been called up for duty over the international break. The entire list can be found here.

Of the 15, only 5 Diaby, Gallas, and Sagna for France, Arshavin for Russia, and Song for Cameroon are playing in meaningful senior international matches, as all of their nations are trying to qualify for the World Cup.

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I hate the cold. Have I ever mentioned that? I think I might have. It's cold this morning. The worst part though is that it's not even really that cold and when it starts to get colder and colder I'm going to like it even less. I've been campaigning for a Blogs Family move to Equatorsville where it's warm all the time but as Mrs Blogs rightly points out they have their own problems there, what with monsters, political upheaval and monsters.

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Hannover 96 goalkeeper Robert Enke died on Wednesday after being hit by a train. The 32-yer-old Enke had eight caps for the German National Team and played with Benfica and Barcelona. He was a teammate of United States internationals Steve Cherundolo and Sal Zizzo. He was in goal for Hannover's 2-2 draw with Hamburg on Sunday. Click to continue reading...

It happened right in front of me, and by the lack of reaction on Keller's face it took me a sec to even realize what had happened!
If you check the highlights page on the Dynamo site, you get the Telefutura call ("QUE GOLAZO!!") and then the Dynamo radio call, with James Clarkson yelling so loud I think it knocked them off the air for a second or two. Click to continue reading...

A decent win in the Black Country on Saturday, aided by some iffy Wolves defending and goalkeeping. Still we weathered the early storm Wolves whipped up quite well, although a lack of sharpness on their part in front of goal helped.Â

Now we head into an international break with a number of our European players featuring in crucial World Cup play-offs, not least France v Ireland.

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The line up against Wolverhampton Wibbleyous will be much as we saw against the London Street Directory (the A to Z do try and keep up).  Carlos Vela and Armand Traore are just about ready for action, but not quite. Denilson hasn't started training yet, but will do so while the silly internationals are going [. Click to continue reading...

It was just one of those nights. Kind of like the home wins over Sevilla or Slavia Prague match in 2007. Arsenal came off 3-nil win over Spurs at the weekend, in which they had never really hit 3rd gear, and rode that 3rd gear for much of the Champions League match with AZ Alkmaar on Wednesday evening.

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You've got to give Steve McClaren some credit. The man was a pitiful England manager, but for a brief moment in time he was able to derail one of the most powerful forces in modern football: David Beckham.

When Becks stepped down as England's captain after the 2006 World Cup, McClaren dropped him entirely from the team.

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First, and most importantly, there is some sad news for the Wanderers World. Our dear Jussi is retiring from his international career. His Finnish team failed to make South Africa 2010, and Jaaskelainen announced his retirement earlier today. He was first capped in 1998, and has earned 55 since. Jussi, pure class as ever, came out with this statement:

"I have considered this decision long and hard, and I believe that it is now the right time to give younger Finnish goalkeepers the chance to play on the international stage.

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It seems that Bobby Moncur is a great admirer of our young and improving strike force of 20 year-old local lad Andy Carroll and 18 year-old London lad Nile Ranger, who are both current England Youth Internationals. Bobby Moncur - likes the look of the youngsters Former Newcastle captain Bobby Moncur talked to the Evening Chronicle today: [. Click to continue reading...

United have once again been linked with January moves for Valencia's star men, David Villa and David Silva. The future of both Spanish Internationals was the focus of much media attention over the summer with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Liverpool keeping tabs on the situation to name but a few.

Valencia managed to hold on to their prized assets in the summer but as their financial troubles show no sign of letting up, it looks increasingly likely they will lose one if not both in the winter.

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