Sabato giornata ricca di amichevoli internazionali. Tante le sfide affascinanti in programma, tra le quali quella tra il Brasile di Dunga e l'Inghilterra di Fabio Capello. Ma non meno appassionante, anche se si stratta solo di un "friendly match", è il match tra la Spagna e l'Argentina del focoso Dieguito Maradona. Click to continue reading...

With a couple of upcoming Friendlies (Macedonia on Nov 14 & Poland on Nov 18), and with a break in my Masters happening right now (oh, how convenient), I finally have chance to to write a proper blog post that isn't a summary of my Twitter stories.

Yeah a lot has happened lately. First Begovic, then Jacob Lensky (and thank you, Stephen Hart, for publicly expressing your disappointment).

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Stuart Pearce's side ran rampant against Macedonia in this European Under 21 Championship qualifier. Kieran Gibbs bagged a brace (one an own goal) as did Newcastle United striker Andy Carroll and West Ham man Zavon Hines.

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1-0 Gibbs

2-0 Richards

2-1 Muarem

2-2 Ibraimi

3-2 Carroll

3-3 Gibbs (Own Goal)

4-3 Hines

5-3 Carroll

6-3 Hines

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The Football Association will broadcast the England Under-21's European Championship qualifier against Macedonia on Friday for free.

The match will be the first England game streamed live on the FA website and will start at 1945 BST. The contest will take place at Coventry's Ricoh Arena.

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It has emerged that Albert Riera had a bust-up with Rafa Benitez over being left on the bench for the first three games of the season. Was Riera right to feel aggrieved?
Talking to Spanish publication AS, Riera revealed:
"I didn't play the first game because I started training late after the Confederations Cup, like [Pepe] Reina and [Fernando] Torres. Click to continue reading...

George Burley's future as Scotland manager may be hanging in the balance but Ally McCoist believes the national team's problems date back much further than the current regime.

The former Scotland striker always had faith in his nation's ability to compete against the best in the world and that belief was reinforced when he took his seat alongside the Tartan Army at Hampden and watched Burley's men match the might of Holland.

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Una selección de goles que quizás no vieron de la Eliminatoria por ser equipos no tan mediáticos:

McFadden de Escocia contra Macedonia Nicklas Bentdner de Dinamarca contra Portugal Jovetic de Montenegro contra Bulgaria Click to continue reading...

I settled down yesterday afternoon ready for one of those great footballing days that come along every now and again. I had the prospect of 4 matches in a row to keep me entertained (including Charlton v Brentford!) and to see if Scotland could get a win against Macedonia. It was an opportunity to run the rule over a few players who have returned to regular football in the Premiership and see just what Scotland could do.

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Sorry there was no blog yesterday. I'd like to say I simply forgot but that would be a lie. I was very busy, in awful form, and basically, couldn't be arsed. Besides, you know when I can't be arsed you get a three-line blog full consisting of thrown together crap, not the quality you are about to get today. Click to continue reading...

.World Cup qualifiers Europe (Group 1) Denmark 1 1 Portugal Hungary 1 2 Sweden World Cup qualifiers Europe (Group 2) Moldova 0 0 Luxembourg Israel 0 1 Latvia Switzerland 2 0 Greece World Cup qualifiers Europe (Group 3) Poland 1 1 Northern Ireland Slovakia 2 2 Czech Republic World Cup qualifiers [. Click to continue reading...

Good day for the home teams as former Red, Robbie Keane scored the winner for Ireland against Cyprus in Nicosia to maintain their search for the top-spot in their group.
England had Jermaine Dafoe to thank in their 2-1 win against Slovenia
in their friendly at Wembley Stadium. Click to continue reading...

Celtic's Scott Brown scored the opener for George Burley's Scotland side, still hoping to clinch second spot in their World Cup group. Birmingham City's James McFadden made the game safe with a great solo effort.

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.Scotland managed to keep their slim world cup dream alive as they overcame a stubborn and technical Macedonian side. The boo's and jeers rang out around a wet Hampden Park at half-time as the performance from the Tartan Army was less than convincing. Macedonia dominated much of the first period and found hole after hole in [. Click to continue reading...

Not only do your Wizards look to snap a couple of streaks at Gillette Stadium, but the United States Men's National will take on El Salvador with an eye toward improving their standing in the CONCACAF hexagonal. Our match starts at 6:30 p.m. CT on Metro Sports, with the USA game at 7 p.m. CT on ESPN Classic. Click to continue reading...

El Salvador - United States is at 8pm on ESPN Classic and TeleFutura. Costa Rica - Mexico is on Telemundo at 10pm. MLS on Fox Soccer Channel: Toronto - Colorado at 10pm. England - Slovenia is on Fox Soccer at 12:30pm along with Bahrain - Saudi Arabia at 3pm and Georgia - Italy at 5pm. On GolTV: Scotland - Macedonia at 10am and Spain - Belgium at 4pm. Click to continue reading...

With World Cup qualifying in full flow there are only three MLS games this weekend, (MLS always has trouble attracting fans on Labor day weekend anyway).

Click to the right for a full game schedule, but here's what I'll be checking out (and local college games are listed below, too):

Saturday

7 a.

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Inside Left avoids using tired old clichés about how Scotland need to win on Saturday by inventing some completely new clichés. And in a quiet football weekend, we also look at games in the ALBA Challenge Cup and the Highland League. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool midfielder Albert Riera has dedicated his international strike for Spain this week to the memory of the late Espanyol player Daniel Jarque.
Jarque, a former team-mate of Riera's at the Catalan outfit, passed away unexpectedly after suffering a heart attack after a training session. Click to continue reading...

OK, so watch carefully as an inept linesman fails to rule out Goran Pandev's goals as way way offside, I mean criminally offside, very dubious. Clearly riled by this injustice fight back from two goals down. Fernando Torres puts away a header early in the second half and former Man United man Gerard Pique scores after good work from Arsenal magician Cesc Fabregas.

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Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez has admitted he has spoken to the Spain national team to ensure Fernando Torres does not run the risk of picking up an injury.
Torres is currently away with Spain for Wednesday's friendly with Macedonia with Benitez hoping he returns with no injury problems for the start of the Premier League season this weekend. Click to continue reading...

Geri and Cescy aren't wasting any time, now are they? Pique is back on the Spanish NT along with Puyol, Xavi and Busquets for their country's friendly against Macedonia; while several other Barca players have also left to join their national teams...
In other freindlies, Gudjohnsen and Iceland will face Slovakia; Messi and his country Argentina are up against Russia; Dani Alves joins Brazil for their meet with Estonia; Keita will participate in Mali's match with Burkina Faso; while Yaya Toure takes on Tunisia with his team, Ivory Coast. Click to continue reading...

The Spanish National Team Selector & Coach Vicente Del Bosquehas handed in his list of Spanish players for the upcomingInternational friendly against Macedonia for the 12th of Septemberat Skopje.The novelty is the call up of the 23 year old IGNACIO MONREALdefender of Osasuna who comes in to take the place of injuredReal Madrid player Sergio Ramos. Click to continue reading...

How long with the Maradona experiment last?
One more loss?
I can't imagine the Argentina soccer federation is willing to sacrifice a World Cup to keep a legend in charge. I have the imagine the hot seat is somewhere around medium-high after the 2-0 defeat to Ecuador on Wednesday. Click to continue reading...

...And breathe. That's your lot. It's the second week of June, and it's finally, finally the end of the 2008/09 football season in England. This being England, of course, the nagging doubt that one of these days they will get turned over by a team like Andorra, a team of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers with not much greater ambition than to turn up at somewhere like Wembley and keep a clean sheet.

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Today's European group qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup football tournament taught us a few things.Firstly, that Carlos Queiroz, the current Portugal manager, is not up to the job. Yeah, OK, it was a friendly and Queiroz rested a few players, but 0-0 against Estonia indicates the man is not capable of leading a talented squad of players to South Africa 2010. Click to continue reading...

It's the day we've all been waiting for, the day when Norway's hopes of reaching the 2010 World Cup will be extinguished once and for all. Or will they?

In order to reach a play-off Norway probably need four points from these two internationals, and with the game away to Macedonia only yielding one that means Drillo's dullards will have to decimate the Dutch.

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The season lets out and internationals start up, and our players turn their attention to their national teams as they play qualifiers for the World Cup in 2010.
Alexander Hleb participated with Belarus against Andorra yesterday, his team won 5-1. Alex captained the team and played the full match. Click to continue reading...

Norway 0 - 0 Macedonia

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"It will be boring as shit for the first hour," predicted Drillo ahead of the game and well, he wasn't wrong. Unfortunately his other prediction that it could get more interesting after that first hour proved wide of the mark. That's not entirely true actually - as Macedonia started throwing bodies forward the game was upgraded from "life-threateningly dull" to just "very dull".

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World Cup qual. - Africa (Group 1) June 6 FT Gabon 3 - 0 Togo World Cup qual. - Africa (Group 2) June 6 FT Tunisia 2 - 0 Mozambique World Cup qual. - Africa (Group 3) June 6 FT Zambia 1 - 0 Rwanda World Cup qual. - Africa (Group 5) June 6 FT Malawi 0 - 1 Burkina Faso World Cup qual. Click to continue reading...

Arjen Robben has been fit since December 2008. Five months without an injury is almost unique for the Madrid winger. He gave Real extra impulses and shone in Oranje against Scotland and Macedonia, but had to suffer a setback this week: a calf injury. Robben (25 years old) copped the injury Click to continue reading...

8 anni di esclusione da tutte le competizioni europee, a partire dalla prossima stagione calcistica. Questo è il verdetto dell'Uefa, duro ma giusto, nei confronti del Pobeda, squadra macedone, accusata di manipolazione di gare (preliminari della Champions 2004/2005) per scommesse illegali.
Sentenza storica. Click to continue reading...

Nico Dijkshoorn calls himself a poet. I think he just makes lovely, witty little ditties. This is his guest column in VI. I'll try to come up with some fun poems of his as well... Patience, already! Wes' new girlfriend.... "There's a nice tension when I go to watch Holland-Macedonia on Wednesday. Click to continue reading...

span style="font-weight: bold;"Risultati:/spanbr /Scozia-Islanda 2-1br /Olanda-Macedonia 4-0br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Classifica: /spanOlanda 15; Scozia 7; Islanda 4; Macedonia 3; Norvegia 2.br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Prossime partite (6 giugno):/span Macedonia-Norvegia e Islanda-Olandabr /span style="font-weight: bold;"(10 giugno)/span Macedonia-Islanda e Olanda-Norvegia. Click to continue reading...

The international break ended with some satisfaction for the under-fire British teams. England produced one of their best results and one of their best performances for many years in the 4-1 thrashing of Croatia. Scotland got the 2-1 win in Iceland they so desperately needed after the disappointment of the 1-0 defeat in Macedonia. Click to continue reading...

Photo by ISIphotos.com

Let the games begin, again.

World Cup qualifying is set to kick off tonight when Paraguay plays host to Venezuela (and Vanuatu faces Fiji), but tomorrow is when most of the world will have its attention turned to a loaded qualifying schedule and all the teams trying to make it to the 2010 World Cup.

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