They say that girls can be a lot crueler then boys and it's no lie if you saw the highlights on ESPN of the college women's soccer match between New Mexico and BYU yesterday. Defender Elizabeth Lambert of New Mexico seemed to be playing the wrong sport as she tackled, punched, kicked, slapped, elbowed, and hair pulled opposing players throughout the match.

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ESPN ran a story about a recent match between BYU and New Mexico's women's teams which has become infamous for the elbows-to-the-ribs and ponytail-yank antics of New Mexico player Elizabeth Lambert. Fans of the sport are groaning, because this is what it takes to get a non-Olympics/World Cup/WPS Final into headlines - replays of bitchslap. Click to continue reading...

Elizabeth Lambert is a college football defender playing for New Mexico in the Women's Mountain West Conference college tournament. In the game against Bringham Young University (BYU), things got a little rough with Elizabeth. Things got so rough that she earned the nickname Elizabeth "cheap-shot" Lambert.

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RSL was down on the strength of two Schelotto goals by the 35th minute and it appeared as if Crew would be able to get over the one goal disadvantage and advance to the quarter finals. But RSL struck back from a Javier Morales goal two minutes later. Ten minutes later, RSL were awarded a penalty by referee Baldemero Toledo, a dubious call on Frankie Hejduk as Espindola went down a bit too easily.

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This post, which is totally for subscribers only, examines the performance of the English refereeing team for the Europa Cup match in Croatia yesterday between Dinamo Zagreb and Ajax Amsterdam.
The referee was Mike Dean, neatly fitting this event in between two live BSkyB matches.
Will he match his skip of delight at giving Birmingham their penalty last Sunday? Click to continue reading...

Briefly:

*Don't forget, the second MLS playoff game between the Columbus Crew and Real Salt Lake is scheduled for 5 o'clock today on ESPN2.

*The Cal State Northridge men closed in on a post-season berth Wednesday with a 1-0 victory over Cal State Fullerton with the goal coming in the sixth minute of OT and now hold the tiebreaker over the Titans going into the final game of the regular season Saturday against UC Irvine.

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Despite the plethora of Champions League games available to me this week I flicked my sports channel over to the game in Milan to see whether the Milanistas could re-create their spectacular victory in the Bernabeu two weeks ago. And, despite their failure to upset the football betting odds and re-enact their Madrid heroics following 90 scrappy but passionate minutes, there were still signs that they have turned the corner.

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David Beckham signed for AC Milan on loan last season and proved such a hit that the England midfielder will again pull on the AC Milan shirt for the second half of this season to give himself the best possible chance to reach the 2010 World Cup and Milan coach Leonardo is looking forward to adding Beckham to his squad.

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Brown's in the box dive for a penalty should lead to a suspension - despite the spot kick being missed. Referee Ben Williams should be ashamed of himself the number of times he has waved on legitimate penalties from the Roar, and give this one.
What has become obvious is the home ground advantage for Wellington. Click to continue reading...

After the boring 1-0 win by Manchester United on the plastic pitch in Moscow a couple of weeks ago, my expectations were lowered before I began watching last night's game from Old Trafford. But surprisingly, the game was extremely entertaining and a very close match.

CSKA Moscow played with a confidence and direct tactics that definitely shocked me and put Manchester United on the backfoot.

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Sir Alex Ferguson has referee issues again.He called referee Olegario Benquerenca's decision not to give Darren Fletcher a penalty in the Man U v/s CSKA champion's league clash the worst decision he has ever seen.Meanwhile the game ended at 3 goals a piece.Michael Owen's goal stretched the offside rule to the limits of its credibility.

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What a great show the tifosi put on last night! Perhaps they couldn't all contain their whistles when Ricky got hold of the ball, but they certainly showed their cuori che sono grandi (big hearts) nevertheless. On the pitch, it's safe to say that Los Blancos played strikingly better than the first leg, even without the sadly missed Greaseano.

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From the same game as yesterday's DTotD, we have Amauri's injury time act of frustration. He tried to be discreet about it, but in most circles kicking a goalkeeper in the face is frowned upon (as is tossing said goalkeeper's own teammate on top of him after the fact, though to a much lesser extent), so Amauri was shown a red card and may or may not have hoped that the referee would fall on the ground so he could kick him in the face, as well.

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Newcastle United regained the top spot in the Coca Cola League Championship after edging Sheffield United 1-0 away from home. The Magpies went into Monday evening a point behind West Bromwich Albion but an own goal from Blades skipper Chris Morgan stunned Bramall Lane.

Fortunately for Newcastle, there was no coming back from the hosts.

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I recently asked the question: When Will Phil Brown Go?, & it seems in all actuality I'm no closer to an accurate answer of that question than when I posed it last week. Hull City lost another football match this weekend at Turf Moor to current over-achievers Burnley, 2-0. Two Graham Alexander goals were enough to see off a brave Hull City that will feel slightly cheated by the outcome.

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Oscar Ustari can only stare blankly as Gonzalo Higuaín beats him for a second time.

The fashionable district. The working-class south. The established. The disrespected. Commerce. Industry. A comparison between the two top Madrid clubs. Getafe just wants to be in the conversation.

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There is nothing like diving. An art hated by many, appreciated by some, it's a part of football whether we like it or not. So until it's eradicated from the game, I am providing fans a new wave of classifying a dive. A fool proof system to help you identify the severity of the transgression committed when our favorite footballers decide to cheat. Click to continue reading...

In last week's 2-0 victory over Barnsley we were forced to see out another League Cup with ten men following Gary Neville's sending off.

Just days after losing at Anfield, passionate scouse-hater Neville left a foot in on Liverpool supporting Adam Hammill after winning the ball.

Sir Alex Ferguson conceded the referee was "probably correct" to send Neville off but our captain isn't so sure.

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Well, I commented on the biggest upset of this weekend already... Feyenoord losing away to Ajax, 5-1. That hurts. Every Feyenoord fans secretly thanks the referee for that debatable red card for Babovic, so they can now claim that maybe maybe maybe with eleven, Feyenoord would have had a chance. Click to continue reading...

Adam Pearson, the new chairman of Hull City, has told manager Phil Brown that he has one more match to save his Hull City career.
"The manager was expected to be dismissed after the 2-0 defeat away to Burnley on Saturday, but it seems he has earned himself a stay of execution for one more game at least because of the woeful performance of Mike Jones, the referee, at Turf Moor. Click to continue reading...

Morning All – I did a little bit of multi-tasking yesterday, using my vast experience and skill around the keyboard; I typed while watching our wonderful team put in a lunchtime shift at the Emirates!
Ok, I am fibbing, I just typed as I watched and corrected a huge amount of spelling mistakes afterwards, it took an age!

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Two fairly atrocious decisions from referee Lee Mason, and some bizarre substitutions from Rafael Benitez made for another woeful afternoon at the office for the Liverpool gaffer. It was a game that people were cautious about following the 2-0 win over Man Utd last weekend it's one of those Liverpool should win but very often [. Click to continue reading...

AC Milan takes on Parma in the Italian Serie A on Saturday, October 31, 2009. Was Milan able to win and move up in the Serie A table or was Parma able to get a result at the San Siro? Here's a recap along with video highlights of the match.

AC Milan beats Parma 2-0 Video Highlights

The match really started to pick up around the 10th minute.

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That could have gone better. But I'll stand by my previous comments; Arsenal fans are generally morons.
Essentially, we did badly. We did very badly indeed. But up until about 40 minutes in, it was looking like a very close gig. We were defending both in numbers and extremely competently. Apart from one or two hairy moments, Ledley King and Seb Bassong were doing a more than adequate job. Click to continue reading...

What goes around comes around eh? Less than a week after hauling Michael Owen down as the last man, Jamie Carragher got his just desserts. In the first half, Carragher fell in to Zamora in the penalty area but the referee let him off the hook again. It was a case of three strikes and your out for Carragher though, with the Liverpool defender finally handed a straight red card for rugby tackling his opponent.

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Good from the Arsenal. I'm popping online about 5 hours after the match, and none of the blogs I read have updated.
Van Persie scored the opener. This match was available stateside in HD. ESPN is doing a good job with their EPL coverage - much better than they had done with their CL coverage. Click to continue reading...

Rafael Benitez will appeal against both red cards after nine-man Liverpool slumped to a humiliating 3-1 defeat at Craven Cottage.
Swiss defender Philipp Degen and captain Jamie Carragher were sent off for second-half fouls as Liverpool's Premier League hopes disintegrated, falling to their fifth league loss of the season. Click to continue reading...

Manchester United have submitted a claim of mistaken identity to the Football Association after Fabio da Silva was booked by referee Chris Foy against Barnsley in the Carling Cup.

Instead the offender for a challenge on Jamal Campbell-Ryce was his twin brother Rafael.

The only way the twins can be separated around training is because Fabio wears a wedding ring, it begs the question why they don't swap shirts to avoid suspensions, or a free substitution maybe?

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That could not have gone much better. We may have answered some questions today. For one thing, of our previous 6 wins, they have all been over bottom half of the table clubs. We just beat a club sitting 4th in the table, and we did so convincingly. It was also great, given our recent struggles holding onto leads, to see Arsenal finish off a game instead of sitting on the lead, we grew stronger and more dominant as the game went along.

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So yet another installment of the fiery North London derby has passed. Tottenham, missing Jermaine Defoe through a suspension and Aaron Lennon through injury, looked a shadow of the side which threatened to take over one of the top 4 spots earlier in the season. Arsenal, on the other hand, were magnificent.

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The north London derby of Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in recent years has been one of the marquee matches in the English Premier League. Both clubs have looked strong in the 2009-10 season and Saturday's match took place at the Emirates. Here's a recap of the EPL matches from Saturday, October 31, 2009 along with video highlights.

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This morning FIFA confirmed the match referees who will be in charge of the CONCACAF/CONMEBOL playoff. Alberto Undiano Mallenco, who is from Spain, will direct the first leg. He was the match referee for the 2007 U-20 World Cup final, the most recent Real Madrid-Barcelona match, and a number of UEFA Champions League matches. Click to continue reading...

Referee Abdul Malik made a brave decision to carry on the match despite the heavy downpour (as pictured above) that started prior to the start of this live televised game.
Frankly, this fixture would have been a title decider perfectly fit for this season's finale, but it wasn't the case after all. Click to continue reading...

Celtic captain Stephen McManus earned a straight red for his waaaay late challenge on Hearts striker Andy Driver just before the final whistle in Hearts' 1-0 CIS Insurance Cup quarterfinal win on Wednesday.

The referee initially only showed McManus a yellow card, but then the assistant ref pulled him aside and side something to the effect of "Are you serious?

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This is Fabio

At least that's what Manchester United is saying.

Sir Alex Ferguson played both twin Brazilian brothers, Rafael & Fabio Silva, in their Carling Cup match against Barnsley. En route to winning, Rafael fouled Jamal Campbell-Ryce and earned himself a yellow card; however Referee Chris Foy put brother Fabio in the book.

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