In the weeks leading up to the biggest match of the new decade, there'll be plenty of psychological mind games played out in the press between the players and coaching staff of both England and the United States. But those mind games will be nothing compared to some of the warfare played out in the minds of soccer fans in the United States.

Let's face it unless you spend a lot of time on the toilet or in airports, it's difficult to pry yourself away from the television and/or internet long enough to actually read and actual book. So in the interest of focusing your book readin' efforts on the few works actually worth sacrificing valuable YouTube time for, we present the first book to earn the DT seal of approval: Finn McCool's Football Club.

I'm working from my "basement office" today because our floors are being buffed and poly-urethaned. An adventure. Ruby is with me, under house arrest, as she has already helped herself to part of one of the guys' lunches (a feat she accomplished while Willie and I were walking down the driveway to get the paper).

Just when I'm trolling around in search of something to care about, along comes Toronto FC COO and all around fan favourite Paul Beirne tweeting about how he intends to require TFC Academy entrants to commit to playing for Canada.
Even Duane Rollins points out the Academy couldn't force a player to play for the national outfit if it came down to that, so ultimately this is just more fan populism, and it seems they're loving it.

Not so long ago on this site we marked the passing of one volunteer at one non-league football club by reflecting on the fact that without these volunteers, there would be no non-league football. Part of the battle for smaller clubs is in getting any publicity within a media culture that continues to ignore them almost all of the time, but one small technological development has allowed them at least a fighting chance.

JordanCornblog's predictions proved slightly inaccurate, perhaps because the biking didn't start soon enough in the series. Or perhaps because she didn't wear her Utley shirt for those last two games ... or the Phillies hat ... or maybe the barometric pressure was all wrong (that was the problem the year the Eagles lost to the Pats in the Superbowl .