Perhaps that should be, 2012 HAS to be different. More than some recent poor results, last night's 0-0 with Bolton felt like it signalled the death knell for our season.

I say this because for once we can't hide behind conceding fluke goals or wonder goals. I say this because despite keeping a clean sheet for the first time in what feels like eternity, we could not score at a ground where the likes of United and Chelsea scored five.

Perhaps that should be, 2012 HAS to be different. More than some recent poor results, last night's 0-0 with Bolton felt like it signalled the death knell for our season.

I say this because for once we can't hide behind conceding fluke goals or wonder goals. I say this because despite keeping a clean sheet for the first time in what feels like eternity, we could not score at a ground where the likes of United and Chelsea scored five.

Welcome to the Friday Crackovia Club your weekly special on the best comedy sketch show from Spain! This week, watch as Mourinho instructs Pepe on how to make a correct 'Live TV' apology. It's a little stab at last week's Leo Messi hand-stepping saga which was followed by an emotionless apology from the defender.

Olympiakos 3 (Djebbour 16, Fuster 36, Modesto 89) Arsenal 1 (Benayoun 57)
(Champions League Group Stage)

It seems the knives are out again. Described as Euro flops in some quarters, and a laughing stock in others, it seems many of the press are finally able to pull the trigger on the negative stories they've been unable to run over the past month, thanks to our improved form.

Having been the laughing stock of world football for many years, the tiny Pacific nation of American Samoa is just one step away from progressing beyond the first stage of 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying following a good start to their campaign.

Rock bottom of the FIFA World Rankings over the last few years and having failed to win a single competitive match for 17 years, American Samoa began their first stage campaign on Tuesday by defeating Tonga by two goals to one with Ramin Ott and Shalom Luani getting on the score sheet.

The Malaysian football league may not have many teams. Just 14 in the top flight Super League and 12 in the Super League. But when you add the FA Cup and the Malaysia Cup what you have is a domestic season that begins in January and finishes at the end of October. Then the best players get to prepare for the SEA Games or the AFF Cup depending which year we are in.

Frank Klopas helped a struggling Chicago Fire transform from league laughing stock to legitimate playoff contender in less than a season and has been rewarded with a chance to keep doing the job he did so well this past season.

The Fire will remove the interim tag from Frank Klopas' interim head coaching position and make him the team's head coach for the 2012 MLS season, sources told Fox Soccer on Tuesday.

Most sports in recent times have seen huge changes in power as athletes transform their role from minor pawns in the big game to major players in how their respective sports are run and administered. I have to admit that in most cases, it has not come a moment too soon as greedy owners have sought to pillage their sports on the backs of athletes who are restricted to just a small amount of time to make hay and have their day in the sun.

RSL Celebrates, RBNY Engages in Finger-Pointing (Photo by Dan Dickinson)"Get behind the boys tonight and drive them onto victory. COYRB!" That's how I concluded my match preview yesterday. How naive! Hours later, I would find myself alongside thousands of other fans booing the Red Bulls off the pitch at halftime as they went to the locker room trailing 3-0 early to Real Salt Lake, victims of their own ineptitude.

The injury situation at Arsenal is fast becoming a laughing stock now, as it seems a different player each week finds himself in the treatment room and the latest to find himself there is Yossi Benayoun. Benayoun scored his first Arsenal goal on Tuesday evening in the 3-1 win over Shrewsbury, but rather than celebrating [.

By Chris Wright

While for all the world it seems like they are trying to reduce Blackburn to a chicken-flavoured laughing stock, kudos must go out to Venky's for this one with the Indian poultry magnates deciding to forgo a shirt sponsor for 2011/12 and instead carry the logo of the Prince's Trust, a charity that works with disadvantaged youths around Britain.

Back in 2008 Malaysia were drawn against Thailand, Vietnam and Laos in the ASEAN Football Federation Cup. After defeating Laos 3-0 hopes were high in the homeland that finally the Hariamau would make an impression in the region's leading competition. But successive defeats against Vietnam and Malaysia soon ended those hopes.

Blackburn Rovers players have been made a laughing stock of after this leaked ad shows the player's playfully fighting over Venky's Chicken as the Indian owners use the club to advertise their Indian company Venky's.

After you've read that rather ambiguous headline, let me explain. I don't mean a state-of-the-art stadium, packed to the rafters every week. I don't mean a passion and identity that is unique to a region. I don't even mean you're likely to see a few goals due to some hapless defending.

What I do mean, and I say this with a heavy heart as a Blackburn fan for 20 years, is that Rovers have become the Premier League's laughing stock.

Abhinav's Note: This has been quite an interesting series for us authors at BFZ, and I personally hope we are back with this at the end of next season too. Oh, I'm getting too emotional. [I really can't express those yawning or wailing sounds like Ducky, so just imagine Rebecca Black singing]

You know what I just realised?

Sidelined for almost the whole season in favour of Heurhelo Gomes, the 37 year-old veteran keeper has arguably gone beyond the call of duty when asked to stand in for Heurhelo Gomes for two brief periods during the season when the No. 1 was hit firstly with a match ban and then more recently was ruled out with a back injury.

For so long Sengkang Punggol were a laughing stock in the SLeague. If they dropped much further down the league table, nobody ever once said, they would end up in the Batam Regional League. Sengkang Punggol players couldn't score in Lorong 8 or Joo Chiat the mockers mocked. The guys behind the now extinct Fish Out Of Water blog produced more than their heroes ever did.

Since being sold to Dan Borislow and turned into one of the sorriest excuses of a "professional sports franchise" in recent American sports history, the once proud Washington Freedom are now the...
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Sparks of joy was seen at Stamford Bridge this weekend, not only for Chelsea's victory over West Ham but simply because the thing that all Chelsea fans have been waiting since January, which is witnessing a goal from Fernando Torres, finally arrived.

The 50 million pound striker finally breaks his duck since joining the Blues after netting the Blues' second goal on that match less than 10 minutes since entering the pitch in-place of Didier Drogba.

It has been another week of spin, mixed messages and division at Wrexham FC, but by the time of the kick-off in their match against Forest Green Rovers this afternoon their supporters may have a better idea of who the new owners of and investors their club are. It is important to differentiate between "having a better idea of" and actually knowing, because we know no more about who the investors behind the Booth bid are than we did at the very beginning.

PARIS, France Former France coach Raymond Domenech has broken his silence over the World Cup debacle, labeling the players "stupid brats" for going on strike at a training session to make "a laughing stock" of their country. Domenech's bitter six-year tenure as France coach ended after last year's World Cup in South Africa and [.

The last we saw of Raymond Domenech, he was immersed in a witness protection program masquerading as some sort of poker crash course. Now that the money's dried up from that little venture, he's back for more cash with his very first exclusive post-World Cup meltdown interview to be released amidst pomp and several forms of circumstance tomorrow.

By Chris Wright

"I say, Patrice. You're a foolhardy brat is what you bloomin' well are!"

Former France coach Raymond Domenech has broken his silence of Les Bleu's capitulation at last summer's South African World Cup, lambasting the squad as a 'bunch of foolhardy brats'.

If nothing is announced within the next 15 minutes or so, then Newcastle will be the laughing stock of football again. Mike Ashley told Andy he had to go? They have sold their top striker, Andy Carroll and left themselves only 7 hours in the transfer window to bring in a replacement which [...]

Third-tier Spanish goalkeeper Rubin Garcia has become a laughing stock after running out-sidehis area to punt the ball up-field.

Fortunately for him he only received a yellow card for his goof and his team Ontinyent claimed all three points when CD Denia keeper Ivan Vidal made a costly blunder which cost his side a share of the spoils.

By Ollie Irish

This is France's first ever Nike kit, which can lay claim to being the most expensive football kit of all time. It cost Nike around €300m (€42m per year until 2018) to buy the rights (previously held by Adidas) to dress the French team with a swoosh (several swooshes actually).

Martin O'Neill has quashed the rumours linking him to the managerial hot seat at West Ham. However, it appears O'Neill had been spoken to, and was interested in the role, but he is unhappy at the way it has been handled. It appears someone can't keeep their mouth shut at West Ham since Gold, Sullivan and Brady came to the club and the media informant is doing more harm than good at Upton Park.

After tonight I have to be honest and say that I really don't know what to think or how to feel about Carlo and the boys at the minute I really don't. On paper right now if anyone had said to us fans back at the end of October,

Oh by the way, you are going to have your worst run of form for years, lose away at Birmingham, get thumped at home by Sunderland and lose at Wolves!