A 2-0 loss to Valencia out in Spain rounded off our pre-season preparations on Saturday. Nothing to cry about really. I can remember a lot of successful seasons which kicked off with indifferent results in pre-season.

Friday bought us news of our draw with Celtic in the play-off round of the Champions League.

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Morning all. I'll be the first to admit I haven't been posting nearly enough this Summer, but I've been reinvigorated by the upcoming start of the season and so I'm back and I wanted to give my thoughts on everything that has happened in the past week or so while I've been in New Hampshire.
So first off we had the Kolo Toure transfer to Manchester City. Click to continue reading...

Maikel FAIL Maikel FAIL
Ah, so this is why Maikel plays for Szombathelyi Haladas in Hungary, rather than a club that more than 37 people have heard of. Because not all Brazilians can be amazingly good at football.
Maikel's hilarious miss, which must rank as one the worst pens I've ever seen, happened during Arsenal's pre-season friendly against Haladas earlier this week. Click to continue reading...

FC Barcelona will be leaving for their US tour on Wednesday and arriving in Los Angeles to prepare for their first match of the tour on Saturday. While in the US the team will be taking part in social activities along with their playing schedule.

Check back often as this will be updated when more information is available such as training schedules and locations for each city.

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Images via Sergio-Ramos.com

Just 24 hours after our concern for the well being of everyone's favourite fashion plate, we have located Sergio Ramos.

He is tanning. He is topless. He is with a random blonde. All is right with the world.

Apparently, Sergio has been laying low because he feels his "glamorous" life has done damage to his image.

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Images via Sergio-Ramos.com

Just 24 hours after our concern for the well being of everyone's favourite fashion plate, we have located Sergio Ramos.

He is tanning. He is topless. He is with a random blonde. All is right with the world.

Apparently, Sergio has been laying low because he feels his "glamorous" life has done damage to his image.

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Micah Richards is stranded in Cyprus after contracting swine flu while on holiday with friends.
The Manchester City defender, 21, is confined to his hotel room in Cyprus after being told he could not fly back to the UK until fully recovered.

Great. In 2005 it was Yakubu and then Lua Lua coming down with malaria. Click to continue reading...

In case you didn't notice its recent appearance, I'd like to introduce the Aztexan Store. Very simply, it sells shirts and stickers with my soccerized version of the "Come And Take It" flag.
Additionally, it sometimes carries a few soccer-related items I'm auctioning on Ebay. These are usually jerseys I got from an MLS-affiliated credit card (a program that was just cancelled, in fact). Click to continue reading...

Por Sole Leyva
En Yoff, una barriada en las afueras de ese puzzle de barriadas que es Dakar, la capital de Senegal, en cuyos mercadillos las falsificaciones de las zamarras del Madrid y Barcelona valen cinco euros al cambio -con un poco de barro impregnado, eso sí-, vive el padre Joaquín, un salesiano de un pequeño pueblo de Zamora, que hace dos décadas cogió los zarríos y se marchó a África de misionero. Click to continue reading...

Miami will be part of the summer international soccer scene outside of the Gold Cup this summer. Some of Europe's big stars and their Caribbean counterparts will convene there in order to raise money for the development Haitian youth soccer.

Various stars from European leagues will be present including Barcelona defender and French international Éric Abidal.

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David Beckham and British tennis player Andy Murray played a bit of tennis and football over a mosquito net to launch new charity Malaria No More UK.....

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Sporting stars exchange shots and mundance questions Just days after the state of the pitch at Wembley was a sore point for Messrs Wenger and Ferguson, pesky David Beckham and some miserable Scottish bloke were indulging in some high jinks on the hallowed turf. Becks and tennis star Andy Murray did the favoured viral routine of [. Click to continue reading...

Received this via Behind the Badge - D.C. United's Official Blog.
Ben Olsen, Bryan Namoff, Santino Quaranta, Chris Pontius and Rodney Wallace helped create a video showcasing the history of D.C. United rookie pranks. Click to continue reading...

On Saturday, one of the biggest rivalries in the world was played.  One of the subplots of this drama came in with 20 minutes left and Iker Casillas denied Samuel Eto'o from scoring on a penalty kick.  A few minutes later, the Cameroonian got his revenge and opened the scoring on route to victory. Three days [. Click to continue reading...

Ah, the joys of AYSO!
Many people in the U.S., including Cobi Jones, first kicked a soccer ball around in AYSO. Besides introducing kids to the joys of soccer, the organization also supports projects to make the world a better place. They're working on a new venture with Barsa these days.
An AYSO worker explained: AYSO is working with FC Barcelona on a Malaria No More campaign. Click to continue reading...

And the first player to transfer from Manchester United to Arsenal in 34 years is...Mikaël Silvestre.

Who on Earth saw that coming? We do make our transfers quiet, I'll give you that.

He's not our normal style of signing. He's 31. He's a defender. He's French. (Okay, that one negates the other ones.

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The Special One is back and better than ever this season. It would be difficult for an ordinary man to manage Inter Milan and host a hit TV show at the same time, but Senore Mourinho is no ordinary man. He is fantastic.
In this episode, José chats with his co-host, Sven-Göran Eriksson, aka "It", about managing Mexico and how the cultures in Mexico and England are different. Click to continue reading...

Wayne Rooney looks set to miss the start of the season after picking up a virus whilst in Nigeria. Rooney joins Nani who is suspended and Anderson who is on olympic duty and Ronaldo who is stillr ecovering from ankle surgery in United's list of unavailable players. United boss Alex Ferguson confirmed that the virus is not malaria but described it as "not a nice one". Click to continue reading...

From a reader: At 5PM on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at Chelsea Waterside Park (23rd Street and 12th Avenue, across from Chelsea Piers), the most storied soccer club in history, FC Barcelona, will be playing in a 4-on-4 tournament to benefit Malaria No More. This historic event will be free and open to the public and will [. Click to continue reading...

Kolo Toure is expected to recover in time to start the new season despite catching malaria during the summer break. Click to continue reading...

With full-time captain William Gallas not playing in Arsenal's recent preseason matches and stand in captain Kolo Toure struck by malaria, left back Gael Clichy has briefly taken the captain's armband.
When asked about the captaincy, Clichy had this to say:

"It's a fantastic honour and I don't know if it will carry on like this but if the boss needs me then I will try.

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Morning all. That video is hilarious. If you don't know what it's from it's from the movie Step Brothers that just came out. I saw it last night and I didn't stop laughing.
So it's been a quiet few days in the world of Arsenal. No matches till Monday so I suppose they've just been training away. Click to continue reading...

Good Saturday to you all.

There's a certain amount of *boilk* this morning but nothing too terrible. Certainly nothing sausages, bacon, white pudding, fried eggs, toast, orange juice and about 1800mg of Ibuprofen won't fix.

Not a huge amount going on in the word of Arsenal.

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It's been an interesting month for exotic illnesses and EPL players. Arsenal central defender Kolo Toure has picked up malaria, probably when he was home visiting the Ivory Coast on break. Incubation can be as long as a month, so he didn't realize he was sick until the team's preseason trip to Austria. Click to continue reading...