There is a very interesting Arsenal transfer rumour in today's Mail saying that Arsene Wenger has got his scouts monitoring the very young Panathiniakos keeper Stefanos Kapino, who made made history in November by setting a record for the youngest ever player to represent Greece at senior level in a friendly match (against Romania).

R9: Pra Sempre Fenomeno

As the career of one legend sets, the career of another is about to explode. There will never be another quite like O Fenomeno, but even after is playing days are over (no, scoring in a Match Against Poverty does not count as your career living on) the man continues to be a class act.

Brazilian legend Ronaldo played in his final professional match on June 7th, 2011 when he came on as a substitute for the Brazil national team in a friendly against Romania in São Paulo. During his storied career from 1993 to 2011, Ronaldo played for Cruzeiro, PSV, FC Barcelona, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, AC Milan and [.

1. It could definitely have been worse for England. Far, far worse. Yet the caution about our prospects against the likes of the Ukraine and Sweden is reassuring. 2. England v France at the European Championships just won't be the same without a vomiting Zinedine Zidane. 3. Spain, Italy and the Republic of Ireland make [.

Since my last post, Greece played two friendly matches in November against Russia and Romania. These were two games that Fernando Santos used to wrap up the season and check out potential improvements ahead of next years big tournament. Also, this Friday the draw for the final tournament will take [read more]

Name: Ilie Dumitrescu In his 1990s prime for: Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United Lowdown: Signed for Spurs from Steaua Bucharest in 1994, where he had become a club hero. Internationally, he had recently helped Romania to the quarter-final of the World Cup, including scoring two goals in a 3-2 win against Argentina.

Belgium and Manchester City defender Vincent Kompany shows great vision and execution with this pass v Romania at the week-end.

Grab your Euro 2012 Kits at Soccer.com

Mumblings of discontent in Singapore following the recent open trials that featured players from Australia, England and Romania among others. Many SLeague clubs were reportedly less than impressed with the quality on offer though it must be said that three days training and playing after long flights is hardly the best way to put yourself in the shop window.

While one of the great things about football is the role that club supporters can play during matches: songs, chants, and visual displays can sometimes inspire their club to find that next goal or not give up the lead during a match. Unfortunately, this past weekend some fans of Petrolul Ploiești in Romania took things a step further when one fan, Dragos Petrut Enache, sucker punched a Steaua București defender, George Galamaz.

While one of the great things about football is the role that club supporters can play during matches: songs, chants, and visual displays can sometimes inspire their club to find that next goal or not give up the lead during a match. Unfortunately, this past weekend some fans of Petrolul Ploiești in Romania took things a step further when one fan, Dragos Petrut Enache, sucker punched a Steaua București defender, George Galamaz.

Well, more 'fan attacks', really. Steaua Bucharest defender George Galamaz, busy doing the outrageous thing of living. And then came the fan and chaos soon ensued. A flare not the guy committing assault on another human being permanently ended the match later on.

And don't forget the bonus of Gigi Becali yelling in a language you probably don't understand.

Fiftieth second or so.

Vaslui's Lithuanian keeper Vytautas Cerniauskas was posed with the basic task of catching a bounder in front of net, requiring little or no effort. His execution was, shall we say faulty, which then sparked two over done reactions: the opposition's coach, celebrating like his boys just recreated Argentina's team movement from 2006, and Cerniauskas himself, who seems like he was just receiving the news as someone's next of kin.

Following another game for United in last night's Champions League victory in Romania, Anders Lindegaard has spoken highly of the way our club prepare for every game.

"One of the things that impressed me most when I came to United is that every game is handled the same way," he said.

Players protests don't come much better than this, a team in Romania who were reduced to 9 men and 3-1 down walked off the field when their opponents were awarded an injury-time penalty.

Vointa Sibiu players left just their keeper on the field who in turn, turned his back on the spot-kick before the referee ordered a retake as a keeper must be facing a penalty in order for it to count but it didn't matter as the keeper done his best statue impression as Petrolul Ploiesti won 4-1.

Wayne Rooney's two penalties last night in Romania seen him break former team-mate Pauls Scholes European record of goals scored in Europe by an Englishman as United struggled to break a resolute Otelul Galati side.

Here's UEFA.com on France's Group D:

"Group D: France remain a point ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina following Friday victories, with the pair meeting in Paris to decide the group. Romania have now been eliminated so whoever misses out in the decider will be in the play-offs."

So it could be worse.

England became the seventh team to qualify for EURO 2012 on Friday on a night when Russia and Greece took huge steps towards joining them and the likes of Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina ensured top-two finishes.

Last month holders Spain and former European champions Italy, the Netherlands and Germany ensured their finals berths alongside co-hosts Poland and Ukraine, and to that number can be added England after their 2-2 draw in Montenegro settled Group G.

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Walter Broeckx A couple of days back the president of the Romanian Referee Commission Vasile Avram has been arrested. This Mr. Avram is what you could call the Mike Riley of Romania. He is the one that decides which ref goes to do which game. A very important job.

Nice to see Ed Miliband MP, going on the offensive again. Stinging George Osborne with a good quip about his lurid past yesterday (A bit undignified but given Cameron's style and Osborne's awful joke at the GQ Awards who can argue with it) and today he has written to David Cameron demanding that he returns to the House of Commons to correct inaccurate statistics that the Cameron used at PMQs.

The Pot 4 Club Otelul Galati is a post from: Just Football

Last but not least in The Pot 4 Club Just Football's analysis of all eight Champions League fourth seeded teams Romanian champions Otelul Galati. Analysis provided by Romanian football scout Radu Baicu:

Club: Otelul Galati

Straight outta': Romania

Group: C with Manchester United, Benfica and FC Basel

Recent History

Their first, probably their last, certainly their everything!

Manchester City fans will once again be left unhappy with the international football calendar, as new signing Samir Nasri picked up an injury while playing for France on Tuesday. The midfielder has a rumored broken bone in his hand, leaving City fans and officials hoping for a quick recovery.

The French midfielder was a substitute for Les Blues in their match against Romania, and the only thing more disappointing for him than his broken bone was his side's 0-0 draw.

Some of Newcastle player were in action yesterday for the second game of the International break. Davide Santon - captained Itakly's U21 side against Hungary Yohan Cabaye remained on the bench in France's win 2-1 win at Albania last Friday, but he starred for the French last night against Romania, before being withdrawn after 75 [.

France escaped from Romania with a point, but Bosnia and Herzegovina have closed to within a point.

Euro Qualifying Group D Standings
France – 17 points from 8 matches
Bosnia and Herzegovina – 16 points from 8 matches
Romania – 12 points from 8 matches
Belarus – 12 points from 9 matches
Albania – 8 points [read more]

The United States plays Belgium at 2:#0pm on ESPN. Argentina - Nigeria is at 9:30am on ESPN Deportes. EURO 2012 qualifying on ESPN Deportes: Finland - Holland at 1pm, Romania - France at 2:30pm, and Spain - Liechtenstein at 5pm. Fox Soccer has England - Wales at 2:30pm. All Times Eastern

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: Predictions

On this week's predictions we feature some of the big games from the European Championship qualifiers teams are trying to reach the finals in Poland/Ukraine in 2012 as well as some games from the Asian qualifying section for the 2014 Brazil World Cup.

Manchester United's Champions League campaign will see them travel to Portugal, Switzerland and Romania to face opposition who, on paper, appear to offer little resistance to a successful group stage. The draw this year was particularly brutal to many teams especially the other three English entries.

Benfica Portugal
Last season: 2nd in the league, 21 points behind Porto. Semi-finals of Europa League. Winners of the League Cup.
This season: 3rd out of 16. 2 points behind the leaders.
Last season's top scorers: Javier Saviola (9) and Óscar Cardozo (9).
European success: 2 European Cups (1961 and 1962).

FC Dinamo BucureÅŸti (commonly known as Dinamo or Dinamo Bucharest) is a Romanian professional soccer club based in Bucharest. Dinamo is one Romania's most successful teams with 18 Romanian Liga I titles, 12 Romanian Cups and 1 Romanian Supercup to its credit. The club became the first Romanian side to reach the European Champions' Cup [.

The draw for the Homeless World Cup has been made and Scotland's men find themselves in Group G with Indonesia, Romania, Kyrgyzstan, Ireland and Germany.
As two of the most established Homeless World Cup sides a meeting between Scotland and Ireland, the group's highest ranked side, can normally be relied on to enthral.

1º Spain 25.628,47 2º Netherlands 23.161,67 3º germany 20.936,54 4º Japan 12.061,19 5º Australia 11.023,82 6º Argentina 10.100,91 7º Korea Republic 9.586,72 8º England 9.538,95 9º Brazil 9.531,89 10º Uruguay 9.240,90 11º Italy 9.229,40 12º Panama 9.

By Dominic Vieira, writing from Lisbon, Portugal

Unfortunately he earned that label. On occasions he displayed a lethal scoring ability; remember his glorious Parma days partnering an incredible Adriano up front? On the pitch he was a performer, an icon to his country and a symbol.

Outside of doing lines off a hooker's tender parts presumably is Adrian Mutu really a bad boy, or just an idiot? Both are probably on the scale, but the weight seems to shift towards the latter. His latest "drug ban" was for weight-loss supplements, after all.

It's not like he rock-star smashed up his hotel or anything, but rather consumed some adult beverages a couple of nights before a game.

It's time for a little history as we talk about the best Romanian football player of all time.
The Romanian national football team had the most success in the '90, when they only missed one final tournament, the Euro 92. One more notable period for the team is the participation in the first 3 World Cups (1930, 1934 and 1938), although without much to brag about.

By Chris Wright

As you may be aware, Spain are current World Champions, European Champions, U21 European Champions and, as of last night, U19 European Champions to boot with La Roja eventually seeing off their Czech counterparts, winning 3-2 after extra-time (Valencia's Paco Alcacer stroked home the winner in the 115th minute) in Romania yesterday evening to claim the title for the fifth time.

By Chris Wright

As you may be aware, Spain are current World Champions, European Champions, U21 European Champions and, as of last night, U19 European Champions to boot with La Roja eventually seeing off their Czech counterparts, winning 3-2 after extra-time (Valencia's Paco Alcacer stroked home the winner in the 115th minute) in Romania yesterday evening to claim the title for the fifth time.

By Chris Wright

Just happened across this ethereal fish-eye shot of a tractor-wielding bod laying the pitch at the newly built National Arena in Romania and figured it was suitably impressive to share...

The story is that Argentina have just pulled out of a friendly against Romania after 'rescinding the contract' of coach Sergio Batista, a game which was due to be held at (and probably go some way towards paying for) the new stadium in Bucharest.

Romania plays host to the UEFA European Under-19 Championships from today with eight teams hoping to take the title which was won by the French last year. The champions, however, will not be there to defend their title as they failed to get past the qualifying rounds this time around.

The team that eliminated France in the Elite Round of qualifying is Greece who topped Group 3 over Les Bleus as well as Slovakia and Belarus.

Hull have announced the signing of Irish Under-21 winger Robbie Brady on loan from Manchester United.
The 19-year-old Dublin born player, who can also play as a striker, has joined the Tigers until the end of the calendar year.
The highly-rated player was an influential member of United's 2009 Milk Cup-winning squad, scoring five goals in the prestigious youth tournament.

The annual Super Cup match has opened the new season in Romania with last season's league champions Oțelul Galați getting the better of cup winners Steaua Bucharest with a single goal victory. Laurențiu Buș grabbed the only goal of the game after just a quarter of an hour and the champions never relinquished the lead in what was an exciting opener to the 2011-12 campaign.

The annual Super Cup match has opened the new season in Romania with last season's league champions Oțelul Galați getting the better of cup winners Steaua Bucharest with a single goal victory. Laurențiu Buș grabbed the only goal of the game after just a quarter of an hour and the champions never relinquished the lead in what was an exciting opener to the 2011-12 campaign.