It was a depleted Barcelona side that turned up in Valencia tonight, but it was also a team that does't give and they got a credible 1-1 draw in their Copa del Rey semi-final first-leg. Barca will be heavy favorites now to finish this tie off at the Camp Now.

Barca were given an early scare when Roberto Soldado raced onto a through ball, but Pinto came racing out of his goal to slide in and clear the danger, appearing to use his hand as he did so, only for play to be waved on.

Goals:
Carroll 52'
Bellamy 61'
Kuyt 78'
The result implies dominance, and Liverpool were fairly dominant throughout, but 3-0 did not look likely at half-time.
Sure, had Liverpool taken one of their multiple first half chances, most notably from Kuyt in the third minute, or had Anthony Taylor given Adam an absolutely dead certain penalty in the 35th, the side might have strolled to victory sooner.

The Timbers practice today was an uneventful one on the field but saw several developments on the sidelines. Once again Jose Adolfo Valencia was missing from practice which was yet again explained as being further fitness testing. John Spencer went on to say that as soon as he was done testing we would see him back on the field.

It's been a problem of Chelsea's ever since Jose Mourinho decided to drop Paulo Ferreira from that position back in the day. Think of the names we have had playing there: Geremi, Diarra, Del Horno, Bosingwa and Ivanovic and still no one has put down a marker and made the position their own.
Branislav Ivanovic did to a certain extent but was never truly happy playing there.

After reviewing the losses I decided to lump the remaining defenders together. Seattle Sounders FC returns two fullbacks, three centerbacks and Zach Scott man-marker. These ratings add clarity in the various authors' opinions about why Seattle is reinventing it's fullback positions signing Adam Johansson, pursuing Christian Sivebaek and possibly adding more wide defensive talent either through a young international or draftee.

Arsenal. Barcelona. Legos.

A bit late for Christmas, but an excellent edition to the holidays of 2011.

Brilliant showing all around, right down to the suspect locks of Gervinho and the questionable use of facial patch by David Villa. He might use a magic marker too.

Five things we learned from the Boxing Day football | Jonathan Wilson

Dimitar Berbatov has still got it but Ashley Cole appears to be losing it and Andy Carroll is just unlucky Berbatov's still got it One of the sadnesses of modern football and the prevalence of large squads is the talent that does not get to play.

Tottenham Hotspur went to the Tallaght stadium needing a Lyon type turnaround to make it through to the knock-out rounds. From his team selection, including only choosing four subs, it appeared that Harry Redknapp wasn't really counting on the results going Spurs way.

As the game got started it was clear that Shamrock would try hard and run around a lot.

There has been some talk of late about Jose Enrique, and in particular there have been questions asked as to whether his form has dipped after a flying start to the season that saw him make a strong case for being the league's best left back—and possibly even its best fullback. Previously we looked at his numbers for the club after the first eight games and felt that as he was the only player to be clearly amongst the top three in both attack and defense, the numbers appeared to fully support the idea that he was the best in the league.

In a match in which Spurs enjoyed 80% possession, we once again ran out comfortable winners and extended our unbeaten streak to 11 and our winning to six, the latter being a new premier league record for us. This saw us in a temporary 2nd place and following a weekend where all our rivals won as well, it was all about keeping the pace and we finish the weekend in third.

In a match in which Spurs enjoyed 80% possession, we once again ran out comfortable winners and extended our unbeaten streak to 11 and our winning to six, the latter being a new premier league record for us. This saw us in a temporary 2nd place and following a weekend where all our rivals won as well, it was all about keeping the pace and we finish the weekend in third.

That Locomotive called Arsenal was back on track today charging once again towards the top of the table. After frustratingly slowing down at Fulham last weekend it was full steam ahead up north to Wigan to pick up what turned out to be an easy three points.

The players exuded superiority from the moment they stepped onto the pitch.

That Locomotive called Arsenal was back on track today charging once again towards the top of the table. After frustratingly slowing down at Fulham last weekend it was full steam ahead up north to Wigan to pick up what turned out to be an easy three points.

The players exuded superiority from the moment they stepped onto the pitch.

Some interesting news coming out of Andre Villas-Boas' press conference post-Newcastle. The Portuguese confirmed that the club has received transfer requests from both Nicolas Anelka and Alex, and that both have been accepted. Cue more January transfer window speculation.

No more of this then.

It will go down in the records book as a comfortable 4-0 victory over Rayo Vallecano at the Camp Nou tonight. But this game was much more than that. After the weekend's shocking 1-0 defeat to Getafe, Barcelona found itself in the unusual position of looking up at Real Madrid. Before tonight's kick-off Barca was six points behind Madrid and Pep Guardiola's team knew that they could not allow that gap to grow any wider if they were to have any hope of retaining their La Liga crown.

After several disappointing results, finally Chelsea's fans have something to cheer about after their team picked up a pretty convincing 3-0 victory against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the league.

The Blues' summer singing, Juan Mata, became the team's main influence in the game as he bagged two assist and a goal which helped regaining some confidence for Andre Villas-Boas' side after three straight defeats.

FC Barcelona made shot work of the visiting Zaragoza side with a brilliant 4-0 victory at the Camp Nou. With this win, Barca had briefly moved to the top of standing, equalising with Real Madrid, who will be playing Valencia shortly. In a night after the international break, Pique, Messi, Puyol, Villa all scored for Barca.

2007 seems a long time ago. That was the last time Thailand won the SEA Games, a competition they had come to view as one they were entitled to win. After all, 2007 was their 8th consecutive triumph, a run dating back to 1993.
No more. They were humiliated in 2009, failing to get past the group stage for the first time in yonks conceding late goals in a draw against Vietnam and, crucially, the deciding game against Malaysia when the eventual winners scored in injury time.

AZ forward Jozy Altidore has applied the 83rd minute capper on a 3-0 win over ADO Den Haag. Celebrating his birthday, the (now) 22-year old hypnotized two defenders and danced around the keeper. I'll get the clip up as quickly as I can, you're gonna love it.And if you're keeping score, that's four Eredivisie goals and eight overall as we near the 1/3 marker on the season.

AZ forward Jozy Altidore has applied the 83rd minute capper on a 3-0 win over ADO Den Haag. Celebrating his birthday, the (now) 22-year old hypnotized two defenders and danced around the keeper. I'll get the clip up as quickly as I can, you're gonna love it.And if you're keeping score, that's four Eredivisie goals and eight overall as we near the 1/3 marker on the season.

Video highlights and reaction Match report By the numbers

So the progress and the momentum continued yesterday with a win so routine it made you sit up and realise how long it's been since we won a game quite so easily. Having beaten us here last season West Brom clearly decided that was enough and really didn't offer much at all.

I had never seen De Bruyne play being honest and didn't know alot about him after we were linked with a move for him back in the summer. As you can imagine watching him at Stamford Bridge in person two weeks ago didn't really provide me with anything of note. He has something about him, but along with the rest of his team mates, he looked outclassed and was never able to show us what he could do.

Aggregate scoring are foreign words to U.S. sports fans. Generally speaking, they have no idea what it means and its existence is one more distance marker between them and Soccer.
A win in the first game has no bearing on the outcome of which team moves forward to the next round of the playoffs.

This week's languagecaster football phrase is - To lay down a marker. Do you think Man City laid down a marker by beating United 6-1?

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: Weekly Football Phrase

Each week the languagecaster team will explain a football phrase or cliche for learners of English who love the sport. On this week's show we feature the phrase To lay down a marker.

Iniesta leads FC Barcelona past FC Viktoria Plzen (Photo: David Ramos/Getty Images)

An inspired Andres Iniesta guides Barcelona to victory, defeating Czech Republic's Viktoria Plzen 2-0 on another record-breaking night in the Catalan capital.

The win sees Barca extend their undefeated start of the season to a club record 13 games, improving to 9-0-4 in all competitions this year.

We sit three points behind United and City in the Premier League. Tomorrow United travel to Anfield to take on Liverpool which is no easy game and City take on Villa at home. Next weekend, United and City play each other at Old Trafford and god only knows what will happen in those games.
Chelsea have in my view are our biggest two games of the season so far in Everton at home tomorrow followed by our local rivals QPR next weekend.

Liverpool owner John W Henry concedes he may have overspent on some players, but believes it was important to put down a marker.
Since completing a takeover at Anfield in October 2010, the Fenway Sports Group has pumped £110.5million into the pursuit of fresh faces.
The likes of Andy Carroll, Luis Suarez, Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing have been snapped up for big money, with the Reds aware of the need to spend in order to compete.

Henry admits to overspending

Liverpool owner John W Henry concedes he may have overspent on some players, but believes it was important to put down a marker.

View the full story here: Sky Sports

A news article on 2011-10-13 17:20:11 from: Sky Sports

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

The United States Men's National Soccer team fell 0-1 to Ecuador in an international friendly at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey on Tuesday night. Substitute Jaimi Ayovi eluded marker Tim Ream to head the ball past USA goalkeeper Tim Howard in the 80th to give Ecuador the late, hard-fought win in front of a [.

Some notes on the game that recently end:

• What a win for the Philadelphia Union. Ignore the fact that the Seattle Sounders were missing three of their best players, including striker Freddy Montero. Seattle needed this win to stay in the Supporters Shield hunt, coming off of a third straight United States Open Cup (USOC) victory.

Chelsea thrashed Bolton 5-1 yesterday with two goals from Danny Sturridge and a hat-trick from Frank Lampard. It was a stunning first half display from Chelsea who took full advantage of a Bolton side trying a new formation to cope with us, but never looked happy playing that way at all.
Like I said in the title of this blog post, the performance has been coming from quite some time now and our display of finishing (with the help of their backup keeper) was really good to see.

KC's games are really starting to get a deja vu felling to them, because so often the script is the same. Go at the opposing team, pressure early (some times get a goal, sometimes now), start to see back a little bit, defensive error gives opponent a great opportunity (that they may or may not put away).

By Chris Wright

An early first-half double from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and fellow summer-signing Andre Santos was enough to earn Arsenal a win over Olympiakos at the Emirates last night and subsequently pick up the first victory of their Group F campaign.

Oxlade-Chamberlian opened the scoring in the 8th-minute, playing a slick one-two off a defender's knees before cutting a low shot back across goal through his marker's legs and into the far corner - thus becoming the youngest ever English Champions League goalscorer in the process.

Click here to view the embedded video.

"And I applaud the team because there was a lot of heart, even in a very difficult situation, a very physical game, they did the job done so it's a very positive sign especially being behind and then also the young group we have."

Well said, Peter Nowak.

Megan Striedel headed a perfectly-placed corner kick into the center of the net with 2:37 remaining to lift No. 18 Fort Lewis (6-0-1 overall, 3-0-0 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) to a 2-1 win over a spirited Colorado Mesa (3-4-0, 2-1-0) squad Wednesday at Dirks Field.

"I knew it was obviously going to be a very tough game," said FLC head coach Damian Clarke.

Week 5 took off on Friday with Gil Vicente scoring a late marker to draw against Olhanense, Nacional then earned their first victory of the season with a 1-0 win over Pacos Ferreira moving them out of the basement in Portugal. Sunday had Maritimo jump into fourth spot in the Portuguese League with their 3-1 win over Leiria.

I cannot remember if I have ever come away from a defeat feeling as positive as I did yesterday. I think to be fair based on the chances we created we should have got a draw there at least but credit United, you took the chances you had (apart from the penalty) and won the game.
I could be like United fan's were a couple of seasons ago and start bleating on saying "the goals were offside" but I am not going to bother.

AVB and company open their European account with a fair acquittal against a tough German outfit. Goals from David Luiz and Juan Mata (both set up by Fernando Torres) sealed all three points on this night. More after the jump:

Back in style

The Match:

You have to be pleased with what you saw.

1. After spending most of last season dreading our away games, how thoroughly refreshing it was to see United put in a performance like that at a ground we often struggle at. When the chants of "Are you Arsenal in disguise?" started, with us 3-0 up after 25 minutes, you knew it was going to be a good day.