As the Henry business slowly and painfully dies away, I just want to cap off my soccer journalism post from Wednesday. I finished with offering one or two reasons why the traditional long-form journo model may in fact not be dead, and speculated on what the introduction of an across the board pay-wall for newspaper on-line editions would mean. Click to continue reading...

For a 120 minutes the Irish National Team played their hearts out and with one hand Henry took their dreams of a World Cup away. Here is how the Irish newspapers covered the events yesterday in Paris.
Irish Times
Irish Independent
Irish Examiner
Irish Daily Star
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Argentine youngster Angel di Maria has quashed speculation linking him with a move to England, saying that he has never spoken to the English press and has never "dreamed of" a move to English shores.

The Benfica midfielder was linked with potential moves to some of the Premiership's top clubs including Manchester United, Manchester City, and Arsenal, but the Europa League standout now insists that the reports are all fabricated.

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Very broad and interesting response to my post yesterday. I just want to speak to some of the comments I received over the course of the day as I recovered from a nasty sore throat.
First, the post was not a protracted whinge about soccer writing not paying my bills. I know there is a route whereby money can be made from bloggin' about soccer, and I know several of us have commandeered that route with great success. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United are interested in Portuguese under-21 forward Ukra. Well, maybe. It comes from the Daily Mail, which is to newspapers what 'Snakes on a Plane' is to film history, and it doesn't quote anybody saying they're after anyone, so take a large pinch of salt with your porridge this morning on this one. Click to continue reading...

Around Germany today, people were still in shocked over the death of former National Team goalkeeper Robert Enke. According to reports in Europe, Enke committed suicide after battling depression for many years. The story was front page all over Germany this morning
Here is how some of the German newspapers cover Enke's death

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Last week after the fantastic win in the Carling Cup, Fran Merida told afc.com that he wanted to stay at Arsenal and that he hoped his contract would be sorted out very soon. Sadly for Fran, his agent Joseba Diaz hasn't seen the interview or possibly not even bothered to speak to Merida. Diaz has said he has an illness, well a love for Atletico Madrid which all started when he slept on red and white sheets when he was young!

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Rio Ferdinand's agent Pini Zahavi has revealed to Soccernet that his client is not struggling for form but instead struggling for health. The English international has been suffering from a calf injury that has yet to heal 100%, and Rio's club and international form has gone with it.

"All the speculation about Rio's ability is totally incorrect.

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21 games. Each with its own background, its own unique circumstances. The cumulative effect is a European nightmare for Scottish football. Since July we've appeared about as comfortable on the continent as Norman Tebbit at a Eurovision convention.21 games. In blogs, phone ins, forums and newspapers fans scream for change. Click to continue reading...

Cristiano Ronaldo may have a Ballon d'Or (Golden Ball), but his boyfriend Kaka is the proud recipient of the Marca Golden Newspaper Boy award. Wonder how many newspapers he delivered to the many residents of Madrid to take home the prize? Fascinating.

No, wait. That's not factually correct.

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Cristiano Ronaldo may have a Ballon d'Or (Golden Ball), but his boyfriend Kaka is the proud recipient of the Marca Golden Newspaper Boy award. Wonder how many newspapers he delivered to the many residents of Madrid to take home the prize? Fascinating.

No, wait. That's not factually correct.

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It is probably the most famous wasp in the world, the wasp that almost cost Fabio Cannavaro his career. The Italian defender was stung last week and later treated by Juve medics however following this Cannavaro failed a drugs test.

Over the last few days Cannavaro has been cleared of any wrong doing and he has revealed more information about that sting and where it was.

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As you will have probably heard on the news, the Ukraine V England match will be shown exclusively online on certain websites, meaning that you won't be able to watch it anywhere on your TV.
Unfortunately to be able to watch this World Cup Qualifier game online, you are going to have to pay a set fee.

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So The Dona and gang have a mission to qualify for the World Cup. And obviously a place in South Africa is muy importante! As you can see, he probably cracked a ball joke in the photo above and Kind Messiah decided that it would've only been polite if he laughed along.

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Some newspapers are reporting that a South African businessman is now interested in Newcastle United. I rather suspect this could be a case of 'here we go again' as bids are rumoured and then fall by the wayside but you never can tell with this sort of thing - very occasionally a rumour turns out to [. Click to continue reading...

Consider this part two of the "Revenge of the Nerds" post. It was originally part of that piece, but got split out when I went in a different direction.

On the same day Whittall equated his blogging baptism with having a first period (his post is titled, "Are you there MLS? It's me, Richard"), Tom Dunmore over at Pitch Invasion lamented the shameful state of print coverage for his hometown Chicago Fire.

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Reports in The Mail and The Mirror are suggesting that Newcastle United may be sold by the end of this week. We've heard it all before of course but one of the newspapers will get it right one day and maybe it's today. Last week Newcastle issued a statement saying that Ashley's £100m asking price has [. Click to continue reading...

With J Hutcherson -- Some of you might have seen HBO's Real Sports segment on newspaper sports writing this week. The points were predictable. Loss of advertisers, changing face of sports consumption due to the internet and availability of games. Altered demographic skewing old for people who actually subscribe to newspapers. Click to continue reading...

Hassan Sunny – Persisam
Alex Duric – Sriwijaya (to be fair if I put my boots on they might be interested in me as well!)
Indra – PSM
Daniel Bennett – Persebaya (but his agent(!) is quoted as saying he would prefer Jakarta)
Agu Casmir – Persipura (but his agent says he has extended his contract with Gombak United)
Shi Jiayi – Persija did ask me about him but there is talk someone else might be interested. Click to continue reading...

Not Guilty!

You may have missed it, as the newspapers were keeping unsurprisingly quiet about that whole thing, but as it turns out those pesky Tottenham fans at Fratton Park who were vilified by the press for abusing Sol Campbell, well they had their cases thrown out of court. See below.

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In international news, Brazil beat Argentina at home in the Rosario stadium 1-3, Argentina dominated the game for 20 minutes but soon after Luisao headed it into the back of the net with a beautiful free kick by Elano. Several minutes later Luis Fabiano scores, making it 0-2 for Brazil. Napoli's winger Datolo scores for Argentina in the 65' minute, but Luis Fabiano put the game away three minutes later, making the score 1-3. Click to continue reading...

The most glib response that one can give to the issue of football hooliganism is to say that it has simply gone away for good. Anybody that regularly goes to matches will know fully well that it is constantly there, bubbling away under the surface and waiting for an opportunity to raise its head. As clubs, the game's authorities and the police themselves are often more than eager to tell us, the success that has been had in tackling the issue in and around stadia - the area in which there is no dispute that clubs have to take responsibility for the behaviour of those claiming to support the clubs - has been largely due to more sophisticated stewarding and policing methods.

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I started this whole blogging idea because I was ticked off that the newspapers, radio, and television media largely can't be bothered to give soccer the time of day, never mind decent coverage. In fact, in the not so distant past, I ranted about the St Petersburg Times giving the US National Team the shaft. Click to continue reading...

This might sound cheesy, but while watching the Wizards lose again, and worst of all, not score again a Madonna song from the early 1990s started to go off in my head.

On the game.

Not much to say. Pretty boring and we made a mediocre (at best) team look pretty good and we were incapable of scoring.

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Fulham defender Brede Hangeland declared his move to Arsenal, if it was ever discussed between the two clubs, will probably not happen.

On a possible move to Arsenal, he told VG:

I'm not going to sit here and lie you do think about these things. I thought about it a lot when I was with the national team, when there was a lot of talk.

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The takeover farce is, as usual, suffering from conflicting press opinions. First we hear from newspapers like� The Guardian,� The Telegraph and� The Journal that Ashley arrived at the training ground in his gunship to join Llambias and Moat in takeover talks. Then� The Chronicle comes along and says Ashley isn't there for takeover talks at all but is merely [. Click to continue reading...

Yes, you have read this story in 17 different newspapers in the past 5 years, and yes it's back again. For the umpteenth time in the history of the Premier League, the old row over goal-line technology has hit the surface once again. This latest uproar comes courtesy of a truly hilarious and ridiculous incident during [. Click to continue reading...

According to reports from newspapers, Man United are interested in signing 23-year old German keeper, Manuel Neuer, from Schalke. A fee of around £5M is being suggested, though no official bid has been made from officials at United. Bayern Munich are also stated to be interested in signing him. This young keeper came through Schalke's ranks [. Click to continue reading...

A gallery of newspaper front pages from Mexico in the wake of yesterday's 2-1 win over the United States. (Thanks to the excellent newseum.org.) More after the jump.

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Whilst all the newspapers are claiming we will struggle this season thanks to the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo, something they haven't touched on is this season we won't be travelling half way around the world during the busy Christmas period.

Upon returning from the FIFA World Club Cup, we had plenty of games to catch up and had plenty more games than any other team, as well as dealing with the tiredness of travelling to Japan and back.

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Fulham defender Brede Hangeland rubbished all the transfer rumours wanting him away from the club as he declared he is focused on next weekend's game against Portsmouth.

He told Sky Sports News:

At the moment it is just something written in the newspapers and I'm not too worried about that.

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it is played by robots. Yes, you heard right, not one, but both major area newspapers featured the footy match that took place on the USF campus Wednesday.
It was a three-on-three Lego robot match designed to promote computer sciences and engineering. Good stuff. Not to sound bitter here or down on higher learning and all, but neither paper can hardly give the time of day to real live humans playing soccer in the Bay area, but toy robots can make both fish wraps. Click to continue reading...

Porto Alegre newspapers Zero Hora and Correio do Povo are both reporting that Edu has agreed to join Inter.
No official announcement has been made but it is thought that the 30 year old attacking midfielder will officially sign a two year contract with the club on Friday when Inter return from Japan. Click to continue reading...

The Daily Mail Soccer section has differing views on what is going to happen to Liverpool's Xabi Alonso. On the top of their site, they have a story about Liverpool and Real Madrid agreeing to the fee for Alonso, while right under it they have a story about Real dropping their interest in Spanish midfielder. Click to continue reading...

We will have a better indication tonight if Arsenal has made a bid or in talks with Fulham over their centre back Brede Hangeland.

Hangeland has been an Arsenal target since December, well a target as far as the newspapers and cyberspace is concerned, yet Arsenal does not appear to have made an approach.

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