Jozy Altidore, on how the US National team plays -
"We are a blue-collar team and we always try to make things hard on our opponents," Altidore told FIFA.com about the philosophy of the American side, whose semi-final win over Spain, who were top of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking at the time, at South Africa 2009 ranks as one of the biggest in international history. Click to continue reading...

President & CEO Kevin Payne said in a press release - "Our first priority was to find someone who shares the club's long-standing philosophy of attacking soccer – and Curt absolutely does."
Curt Onalfo told the Washington Post - "D.C. set the standard in this league and the goal has got to be to return to that level. Click to continue reading...

My neverending quest to understand football has taken me in many strange directions. Most recently I have been reading a couple of coaching books by a man named Allen Wade. Wade's name won't mean much to you, I don't suppose, but it was he who taught our Roy to coach back in the day.   From there it was natural enough that I might further explore Wade's philosophy, as a way of getting an understanding of Roy's.

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I might not have been at practice yesterday, but I have a few updates from Wednesday's training session thanks to the email report of a faithful reader who attended the session. Here we go...

John tearing it up --

Apparently, it hasn't taken trialist Collins John long to get acclimated to the Fire.

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West Ham boss Gianfranco Zola has expressed his disappointment in former teammate Eidur Gudjohnsen after the Icelandic striker made an 11th hour move to Tottenham instead of the Hammers.

"I am disappointed with Spurs and disappointed with Gudjohnsen. I was expecting good behaviour from him," Zola said.

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Courtesey of baconscarf's friend Sammy, not to be confused with lostboy. Real deal or the lazy man's atheist? Great read nonetheless. Here's the intro:

The following article takes ancient Illuminati teachings and presents them in the light of modern philosophical and scientific findings.

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No, the blog's not dead - it's just winter. I decided against doing a "Best Of" this year for reasons of time and number of entries for 2009.
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I've mentioned it a few times, but for the most part of left this item of my reffing life out of this blog, but I'm officiating roller derby now. Click to continue reading...

I'm an avid follower of the "master of your own destiny" philosophy, you know. I read authors like Stuart Wilde, Dan Millman, Anthony Robbins and Deepak Chopra and I am a believer in The Laws of Attraction and The Secret. Or as Johan Cruyff says: you make your own luck. So, if Click to continue reading...

A successful throw-in strategy and philosophy relies on movement along with checking-in, thrower awareness, and accurate throws. On most throw-ins, the thrower should have a minimum of three teammates open to receive the throw. Click to continue reading...

In his new column at Las Vegas Weekly, my friend Steve Friess describes the experience he had at the new Garth Brooks show at Wynn Las Vegas. I'm not a fan of Garth Brooks' music, but I've always respected him as a performer. He always seemed to be one of those guys who really understood his audience and delivered the goods every night, and I was wondering how his return to the stage, with just him and an acoustic, would turn out.

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So far this offseason the Fire has parted ways with former head coach Denis Hamlett, seen Brandon Prideaux retire, lost David Myrie in the expansion draft, and watched as Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Chris Rolfe and (now) Gonzalo Segares left to ply their trade abroad.

They have yet to bring in anyone new.

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Over at Pitch Invasion:

Seattle Sounders FC player rep James Riley said the union wants the teams, not the League, to negotiate player contracts. The union also wants more guaranteed contracts and free agency after contracts expire. I'll bolden my prediction by guessing that a CBA is not achieved until at least April, meaning that for the first time, MLS games will be missed due to a work stoppage.

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Brad Evans offers an enigma. He may be more valuable to the US National Team than he is to his club. Certainly, the young midfielder has value to the club, particularly once he settled back to a box-to-box midfield role inside Sigi's Arrow, but for long stretches his role was unknown. While with the US MNT Evans has settled into a Right Back role, but that isn't where his strength lies, nor his chances of being the one or two selected from the January camp to travel to South Africa this Summer.

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Brad Evans offers an enigma. He may be more valuable to the US National Team than he is to his club. Certainly, the young midfielder has value to the club, particularly once he settled back to a box-to-box midfield role inside Sigi's Arrow, but for long stretches his role was unknown. While with the US MNT Evans has settled into a Right Back role, but that isn't where his strength lies, nor his chances of being the one or two selected from the January camp to travel to South Africa this Summer.

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Critics of Arsene Wenger often accuse him of having a utopian view of football which can never realistically be put into action. They point to events like our defeat to Chelsea and argue that this is evidence, that playing beautiful passing football does not work as it is 'powder-puff' and the bigger teams can simply bully Arsenal. Click to continue reading...

What do you do when you're faced with an absolutely dead rubber like Wolverhampton Wanderers traveling to the home of the Champions. You field the Wolverhampton Wanderers 'B' team, and make it all interesting, with people spinning of theories about how it could've been with their 'A' team (shuarely), and how this has now destroyed Birmingham's title chances (hey you never know, 5 wins in a friggin row!

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Mick McCarthy Wolves

We regret to inform you that "McCarthyism" is enveloping the English game. Now let's be clear: this is in no way related to the communist witch-hunt that struck fear and suspicion into American hearts during the 1950s. Instead, this is a philosophy of cowardice and underachievement being perpetuated by a certain enemy of football named Michael Joseph "Mick" McCarthy.

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The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger seems to becoming short of patience with the fans that keep clamouring for him to spend millions on expensive players just because Arsenal have lost a few games. Arsenal have been linked with many good players, but with Wenger's philosophy of not buying unless the player is young and cheap, [. Click to continue reading...

To Rafael Benitez (for now atleast) and Whomsoever it may concern at Chelsea

Posted in Arsenal Tagged: Football Philosophy, People, Tributes

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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger says he will never make a huge number of signings at any one time because it will affect their style of play.
Wenger insisted that to maintain the quality of Arsenal's game, he simply cannot afford to make too many changes or bring in too many players at once. Click to continue reading...

Recently, Palmeiras and Sport played some thrilling and decisive matches, with one side side usually celebrating at the end. Sport eliminated Palmeiras from Copa do Brasil. Palmeiras eliminated Sport from Libertadores and before that they battled in the group stage.

Last night in Sao Paulo, Palmeiras and Sport tied in 2 goals for the 35th round of Brasileirao.

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Instead of acting on Philipp Lahm's criticisms, Bayern are glossing over their failings in Europe and, at the moment, the Bundesliga.
Philipp Lahm slaughters his own club to leave Bayern Munich ranting and railing.
He would help...
"Top teams in the Champions League have first-class players in seven, eight positions – we don't," Lahm said. Click to continue reading...

Albert Camus, the philosopher, author and football fanatic, was once asked that if he had to choose between football and the theatre, which he would choose. He replied "Football, without hesitation" And its little surprise, football has everything theatre has, and more. It has a story, but is unwritten. Click to continue reading...

Everton manager David Moyes has not contained his anger at the Carling Cup organizers for forcing a Tuesday kickoff at White Hart Lane. The match will be Everton's third in a six day span, and Moyes is pointing the fingers at the tournament's organizers.

The Carling Cup fixture against a strong Tottenham Hotspurs side comes just days after Everton's Premier League fixture at Bolton and their Europa League fixture away to Benfica.

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It's Barca, Bojan's giving you the lazy eye, and they thrashed Zaragoza 6-1 yesterday. What more can we say? For all those who can't stop talking about the midweek loss to Rubin, Xavi wants you to grab an umbrella and sit down NOW.

"It has been proved that the cycle was not finished because the only difference between Rubin and Zaragoza was our success in front of goal, because our philosophy of attacking play is always the same," he said.

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Listen to Emmanuel Petit, David Dein and Lee Dixon during a special programme, Arsene at 60, on BBC Radio 5 live at 2000 BST on Thursday.

I wonder what Dein will have to say. He has had a complex relationship with Wenger, being responsible for his arrival but his business dealings clashed with Wenger's philosophy of developing low budget talent.

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FIFA have established a new award named after Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas that will be given to the player who scores "the most beautiful goal" of the year.
It will be inaugurated in December during the 2009 FIFA World Player Gala and presented to the player - man or woman - who has scored the "most beautiful goal" during the past year.

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Liverpool co-owner George Gillett claims to have been ''pleasantly surprised'' on a visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss new club academies.
Liverpool recently announced they had reached an agreement with Prince Faisal bin Fahad bin Abdulla of Saudi Arabia to set up a number of academies in the Middle East. Click to continue reading...

In a Premier League full of seriously high stakes and grave financial ramifications for failure, it is easy to forget that football is just a game. And no player better embraced that philosophy - enjoying making a living playing the sport you love - than Dwight Yorke. For 15 Premier League seasons, the striker charmed English fans with his smiling demeanour and impressed them with his finishing prowess. Click to continue reading...

RFK Stadium has seen many hard fought U.S. National Team games and this one was no exception. After going down 2-0 in the first half, the Yanks rallied before a Jonathan Bornstein header deep into stoppage time clinched a 2-2 draw and first place in the Hex. After the match the Chivas USA defender had some interesting observations about overlapping coaching styles at club and country. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal Manager Arsene Wenger has told the "News of the world" that he does not want to buy players, to stop the development of his youngsters. The french man especially has mentioned his exciting prospects Carlos Vela, Aaron Ramsey as well as Jack Wilshere.

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As great as it is to see Liverpool embracing an attacking philosophy and scoring lots of goals in the league, the team has still been unable to win against anything other than comparatively inferior opposition. And with Chelsea coming up on Sunday, this does not bode well at all.
Here is a list of teams Liverpool has played so far:
Tottenham
Stoke
Aston Villa
Bolton
Burnley
Debrecen
West Ham
Leeds United
Hull City
Fiorentina
What do all the beaten teams (in bold) have in common? Click to continue reading...

What is it about Liverpool FC and its cocky, self-congratulatory overconfidence whenever the team goes on a good run? The last few weeks has been filled with tedious eulogising in the press, but just like previous seasons, it has all come crashing down; and with the defeat to Fiorentina, Liverpool players once again look stupid after weeks of massaging each others' egos. Click to continue reading...

'Technical challenge' Barcelona's philosophy is fundamental to our success, he said. When Cruyff introduced this style of play people were... Click to continue reading...

Rupert Murdoch helps address the need for a social life Let's face some facts. We are closing in on the end of the month. Anyone who shares my monthly fiscal philosophy of ‘two weeks living well, two weeks scraping by' will be looking forward to a weekend on the sofa with any remaining cash spent at [. Click to continue reading...

A long press conference was held a few days ago by team president Thanopoulos. The president spoke for a couple of hours on a number of issues. Some of the highlights were:

-Firstly, he confirmed that things around the team are now calm. We have achieved our goals in terms of transfers and reaching the Europa League Group Stages

-The team is now on much more solid ground, financially.

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Barcelona and Spain midfielder Xavi Hernandez, at a press conference, has claimed that the national side share the same football philosophy as his club.

"The philosophy is almost the same, dominate, keep possession of the ball and pass," Xavi said.

The 29-year-old midfielder is an ever-present member of Vicente Del Bosque's side and Xavi declared that it is a real pleasure to play amongst players of such quality with Spain and also with Barca.

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The changes that have been made over pre-season are really beginning to shine through as the season continues to start well. Wenger was confident going into this season which implied something had changed. With two senior players leaving and only one coming in, many doubted Wenger.

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Near the end of last season, Fernando Torres stated that winning the Champions League is more important than winning the league title. Sacrilege, surely? Whilst Torres is perfectly entitled to his opinion, such a belief is contrary to a long-standing principle of Liverpool FC's philosophy.
In an interview in April 2009, Torres stated:
"Domestic titles are very important but to win the Champions League you are saying we are the best team in Europe. Click to continue reading...

Barcelona new boy Zlatan Ibrahimovic believes it will be bitter rivals Real Madrid who will be feeling the pressure ahead of the start of the Primera Division season.

Madrid have spent over 250million euros building a squad capable of challenging Barca. It has been much quieter at the Nou Camp where they have only brought in Ibrahimovic and Maxwell, but the Sweden striker insists his new team are not worried.

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