A couple of years ago Absolute Radio e-mailed to ask if I would appear on the first edition of their new Saturday afternoon football show. It was new, exciting and interactive. Ian Wright in the chair, he wanted a sparky show with comment and bite. Spurs were playing and they wanted to hear from the fans.

Lionel Messi won his third Ballon D'Or this week. To celebrate he will be donning a very special pair of boots for Barcelona's match against Real Betis this weekend. The customised adizero F50 boots have been produced in a celebratory gold colourway and feature the flag of Argentina, the years of Leo's Ballon d'Or successes [.

'Arry angered by sock butchery Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is said to launched a dressing room rant at his players over their new craze for cutting the feet off their socks. Football's latest fashion fad has seen many Premier League players opting to play in tennis-style ankle socks, believing it gives them better traction inside [.

Win QPR tickets

Liverpool stretched their unbeaten run to 10 matches against Manchester City on Sunday – and to celebrate, the Turkish Culture and Tourism office is giving five pairs of tickets for our Anfield clash with QPR on December 10, 2011.

View the full story here: Liverpool FC

A news article on 2011-11-28 12:37:20 from: Liverpool FC

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

Sounder at Heart has five pairs of tickets to give away to Tuesday's CONCACAF Champions League match against Monterrey. The Seattle Sounders have already secured advancement to the quarterfinals, but will win the group if they can get a point. If they win, the Sounders could potentially knock Monterrey out of the tournament.

Thanks to nPower, the sponsors of the Championship and football leagues, we've got 2 pairs of football tickets to give away for some top quality Championship matches.

Firstly we have the mid-table clash of 2 huge Championship clubs, both of whom will be desperate to get their season back on track, when Cardiff City head down to Elland Road.

Adidas have released a new competition that is offering winners a brilliant opportunity to win VIP tickets to matches in the UEFA Champions League this season.

Using a simple video editor, pre-loaded with 70 clips (all sources from YouTube users), each participant must answer one question: What would you do for Ultimate Access tickets to the UEFA Champions League?

It doesn't rain but it pours! Jack Wilshere will be out of action for Arsenal until possibly next year as his ankle injury has not responded to treatment. He will have an op on Monday.

He told followers of his Twitter account: "The bone is not responding. I will have surgery on my right ankle on Monday.

Win tickets to a night of MirrorFootball comedy with Robbie Savage and Bob Mills

10 pairs of tickets to our exclusive bash must be won

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-09-13 15:05:07 from: The Mirror

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

Superbrat former tennis legend John McEnroe has blasted Ireland's US Open flops Conor Niland and Louk Sorensen after both retired during their 1st round US Open match-ups. Niland retired due to food poisoning while Sorensen retired due to injury, however McEnroe blamed booze for the pairs failings and not what many believe to be just bad luck.

By Chris Wright

Word is going around that 'people acting on Arsenal's behalf' are writing to the club's supporters individually and offering to reimburse fans who travelled to and sat through the 8-2 pasting at Old Trafford on Sunday and issuing them with pairs of complimentary tickets for an upcoming Premier League match.

BIG THANKS TO ZACH FOR HELPING ME GET THIS TO POST

Sometimes being bored has its advantages.

After an hour of being undercaffeinated while listening to a lecture about the philosophy of coaching Under 8's waaaaay too early on a Saturday morning, my thoughts drifted to the Orangemen (apologies to anyone Irish for that reference).

With the Super Cup between Barcelona and FC Porto set to kick off tomorrow, Mizuno has upped its presence by stating that Porto striker Hulk will be wearing a pair of personalized Gold Morelia's. The boots are designed to commemorate the fantastic season Hulk had last season top goalscorer in Liga Sagres with 23 goals and a leader in Porto's impressive treble the Portuguese League, the League Cup and the Europa League Cup.

In an effort to help promote the upcoming CONCACAF Champions League Group Stage games, the Seattle Sounders have given us three pairs of tickets to give away to our readers. Rather than do it via something relatively boring like trivia, they asked that we make it a little more interactive. So here's what we're going to do:

In the comments, give us your favorite CCL moment, preferably Sounders related.

I just took Stan out for a walk to see what's what. Tooting had been tipped as a possible venue for disorder tonight, but while we saw at least thirteen police (three on bikes, five pairs on foot), there were hardly any other people about (weirdly I bumped into a couple who sat behind us on Thursday they were out looking for mushrooms, everywhere was closed), and certainly no troublemakers.

WIN! 10 pairs of Community Shield tickets!

You and a pal could be at Wembley to see City take on United

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-07-27 14:03:53 from: The Mirror

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

So the team continue in Germany, working hard on fitness and probably doing lots of running. Is there anything worse than just running?

I always, always hated pre-season when I was playing proper league football. Doing laps of the pitch, or doing that running when you're in pairs and when the coach shouted '1′ it meant touch the ground with your right hand, '2′ with your left, '3′ up for a header, '4′ was 'back men to the front' and all that.

Apparently Sanna Nyassi saw an opportunity with Casey's injury to claim a starting spot and he took full advantage. He was a couple of inches short of a first-half hat-trick, but got his hat-trick and staked the Rapids to a 4-0 lead right after half. After that it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.

Editors's Note: The US Women are about to kickoff their World Cup, TSG guest columnist Maura Gladys concludes the positional review with the forwards. This piece written last week.

Part I: Defense: USWNT positioning more core US backline success than experience.

All week we will be unveiling the winners of our Team of the Year voting with a mixture of regular and guest writers. Good things tend to come in two: Bert and Ernie, pairs of socks, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini. Following in the footsteps of the later this season have been two outstanding centerbacks for AC Milan, Thiago Silva and Alessandro Nesta.

Home:
3/5 Stars
Werder Bremen has certainly had some interesting designs over the years, and this one is definitely an improvement on last year's look. The poor quality image doesn't help with the first impression, but it's definitely continuing to grow on me even as I continue to write.

Home:
3/5 Stars
Werder Bremen has certainly had some interesting designs over the years, and this one is definitely an improvement on last year's look. The poor quality image doesn't help with the first impression, but it's definitely continuing to grow on me even as I continue to write.

Ah, American ownership the gift which keeps on giving. Or rather not giving and taking away. And then being taken away.

The team of Gillett & Hicks apparently ticked several of the stereotype boxes, including being dumber than a box of...stereotypes? Gillett, anyway.

Proof positive one needn't be bright to be filthy rich.

In previous editions, we looked at the correlation between first half and second half rate stats for MLS players last season and then added strike rate to the list of stats.

Next I want to take a look at team rates. I went through the work of generating and comparing the first and second half rates, as I did with players, but it was quickly obvious that the number of data points was just too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.

As illustrated footballers go, Marco Materazzi's near the top of the heap somewhere. The man just loves his ink, and increasingly so, it seems, as he grows closer and closer (one would think) to leaving the pitch behind. Lots of standard, if cliched, stuff.

But I bet you didn't expect him to display a few pairs of Air Force Ones in the colors of Perugia and Inter.

Danny Sturridge is featured in the Independent in one of the most open interviews he has ever given. When you think of Danny Sturridge you immediately think of him being arrogant because of the image he has been portrayed as in the past. Sturridge is keen to make a point that away from football, he wants to remain as grounded as possible.

Monterrey and Toluca meet in the quarterfinal round of the CONCACAF Champions League in a matchup that not only pairs the northern and central Mexican teams, but also the last two Mexican league champions. Monterrey, winners of the last two Apertura tournaments, have been one of the two hottest teams in Mexican football over the last two seasons (only Cruz Azul have won more league points since the 2009 Apertura).

Four days since the January window closed?
Time for some new transfer rumours!

Is it too late to start a poll on which Liverpool player gets the first yellow card for a foul on Torres? Or how long it takes before he mopes when a call doesn't go his way? Nevermind. But hey, speaking of polls (woo!

Image: REUTERS/Jon Nazca.

Have you gotten your flu shots, Kickettes?

Well, apparently a few of us missed ours. Others are keeping warm and toasty mid-blizzard in their beds. One of us is really lazy.

So here's the bad news: Iker had Sara C. to tend to his achey head and possibly bruised ego following last night's onslaught of winged water bottles.

It's been a while since I've had the excuse to run a post about how awesome Lucas Leiva is and that if you don't agree you're a stupid poopy-head who wants to have Andy Gray's love child. I kid, I kid. Sort of. Still, in this generally disappointing season, the question, "So, what do you think of Lucas?