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Today's referee is Andre Marinner Was his score as impressive as the final score line of the game?

MATCH REVIEW DETAILS Andre Marinner (2012-02-04) Period 1 Min Type Foul from On [.

When I woke up bleary-eyed and desperate of coffee this morning my first thought was "Why do I wake up so early for the impending doom that is Arsenal?" I turned my TV on and was greeted by the image of Arsene Wenger walking onto the pitch and a great view of the skyline above the Emirates Stadium, leading me to think, "At least it looks beautiful out there.

Tottenham's youngsters continued a good week of results at the club with a 1-0 win over Liverpool to take them into to the semi finals of the NextGen series. The winner came in the second half, courtesy of Shaq Coulthirst but Spurs had to withstand heavy pressure from the visitors throughout.

Pedro celebrates goal that moves Barcelona through to next round of Copa (Photo: REUTERS/Albert Gea)

In a battle of titans, Barcelona held on to defeat Real Madrid 4-3 on aggregate and eliminate the defending Champions from the Copa del Rey.

It was everything a clasico should be: a high-octane encounter of offensive brilliance and heart-stopping tension.

Mexico's World Cup qualifying victory clearly shook the US Women's National Team to their core. On Tuesday night, the US settled the score, reminding Mexico, and the world, that there is still an enormous gap in class between the two sides. Were at not for some shoddy finishing and a whole lot of five-alarm defending, the score line could easily have been doubled as the US controlled the match from the opening whistle and were rarely troubled throughout the 90 minutes.

Lionel Messi scored his first away hat-trick of the season to give Barca a comfortable 4-1 victory over Malaga. The match wasn't as comfortable as the score-line suggest. In the first half Malaga had some serious chances and ended as 1-0. Rondon scored the consolation goal for Malaga.

Manchester City maintain their lead at the top of table and also widen their gap with third place team, Tottenham Hotspurs after Roberto Mancini's team edged passed Harry Redknapp's boys this Sunday.

Controversial Italian striker, Mario Balotelli arrived as City's savior in the match after scoring the winning goal deep in injury time.

Newcastle's two top Senegal strikers, Demba Ba and Papiss Cissee, will be representing their country tonight in their first game in the African Cup of Nations, when they take on Zambia. Leon Best after scoring against QPR last Sunday We'll be looking for that score-line and hope that Senegal can get off to a winning start.

It's interesting how certain Premier League fixtures come and go as being a ‘must see' or a top of the table clash, but one that has always whet the appetite is whenever Arsenal come up against Manchester United. However this Sunday will mark the first time I've missed the visit of United in nearly 12 years.

The KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup) clash between Ajax Amsterdam and AZ Alkmaar, which was suspended due to an attack on AZ keeper Esteban Alvarado in the initial encounter, was completed today in the Amsterdam ArenA with the home side going down to a 3-2 defeat.

Siem de Jong gave Ajax the lead as early as the 10th minute only for the visitors to restore parity fourteen minutes later through Maarten Martins.

Manchester United breezed past ‘poor' Bolton Wanderers last afternoon and in the process leveled points with league leaders Manchester City, who will visit Wigan on Monday. Bolton who was already languishing in the relegation zone suffered another routine defeat, while the victory of Blackburn Rovers over Fulham further compounded their misery.

Universidad de Chile crowned a fantastic year by winning the Clausura championship final last night. Following a goalless draw in the first leg played last week, "La U" saw off final opponents Cobreloa with a 3-0 score line with all of the goals coming in the first half. Gustavo Canales, Eduardo Vargas and Matias Rodriguez scored the goals which settled the championship which was La U's 15th Chilean championship title overall.

After 45 minutes it seemed that an unlikely conclusion was in prospect for our latest venture into the Europa League. With Spurs leading and 10 man Rubin Kazan losing to Paok, it looked as though we may turn over the three point and five goal deficit.

A 1-1 score line in Salonika eventually made anything we did irrelevant but our 4-0 win included debut strikes for Steven Pienaar and Harry Kane and a second goal in a Spurs shirt for Andros Townsend.

It is a tournament that receives much criticism given its awkward timing and relative unimportance, but I guess the World Club Championship has lost a whole heap more supporters following Barcelona's game with Al-Sadd.
Not that is was anything to do with Barca's Qatari opponents, who worked diligently to try and contain the European Champions.

The South Asian Football Championship has been taking place in India since the beginning of December. The biannual event retained its recent trend of seeing the Indian national team win the championship this time defeating Afghanistan in yesterday's final by four goals to nil.

In the early stages of the tournament Afghanistan had the early advantage over India with both teams meeting each other in Group A, along with Sri Lanka and Bhutan, and the Afghans finishing top of the group on goal difference.

It was all going so well, Newcastle United had just earned a fantastic point at Old Trafford and were in confident mood ahead of their clash with Chelsea.

However, things change quickly in Football and Alan Pardew's side are now facing an injury crisis that threatens to derail their fine start to the Premier League season after Chelsea ran out 3-0 winners at St James' Park, a score line which very much flattered Andre Villas-Boas' charges.

Tunisian giants Espérance will make their maiden appearance in the FIFA Club World Cup following their second CAF Champions League title win, their first such title for seventeen years, which was achieved with a 1-0 aggregate victory over Moroccans WAC Casablanca in the final. Should the Tunis based side overcome the challenge of Asian champions Al Sadd in the quarter-finals, a glamour tie against UEFA Champions League winners FC Barcelona will be on the cards for one of Africa's most famous clubs.

OADBY TOWN 1–1 (aet) TIPTON TOWN Saturday 3rd December 2011 FA Vase 3rd Round Greene King Park
Another home game for Oadby Town this afternoon, this time against former adversaries in the Midland Football Alliance Tipton Town in the 3rd round (last 64) of the FA Vase. This is the first time since the 2004/05 season that Oadby have reached this stage of the competition.

Game week is here and I'm a happy man, I met an old lady who predicted stuff with her fancy crystal ball and the inquisitive man in me asked her to predict this game week. So here is what she had to say:

Newcastle V Chelsea:

Alan Pardew's men are on a roll and AVB's men are down in a hole.

In the second part of our European summer leagues review we look back at another six leagues which fell upon the 2011 calendar year.

KAZAKHSTAN: FC Shakhter Karagandy (Played 32, Points 42) finished the season as Kazakhstan Premier League champions but it didn't look so clear cut throughout the season.

To coin a well-known footballing phrase, it's squeaky bum time in two of Asia's biggest leagues.

In Japan the title will go down to a last day showdown with any one from Kashiwa Reysol, Nagoya Grampus Eight and Gamba Osaka all capable of winning the championship. Kashiwa currently hold the advantage of topping the table with 69 points from 33 games whilst Nagoya and Osaka trail the leaders by just one and two points respectively with one round of matches to be played next weekend.

For me, this game is harder than the Villa game. Villa is a team that we've dominated at home over the past decade, whereas West Brom away is one of those Jekyll and Hyde games. You don't know what West Brom team is going to turn up, but they are capable of getting something out of us. Despite our current run of form, the WBA forums back this view up and are filled with a mixture of cautious optimism and soul crushing despair.

szólj hozzá: N2-1M

Napoli put Manchester City back in their box as Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi haunted the City defence all night in Naples as Napoli beat City 2-1 with Joe Hart keeping the score-line respectful on the night.

Put Kindle on your Christmas list

A very negative team and performance from Villa resulted in a very comfortable performance from Spurs and a score line that flattered Villa. David Cameron had braved the Tottenham wastelands to sit in the stands and watch his lot get outplayed. No doubt getting tips from Spurs on how to control the right and left wings.

Pique celebrates goal against Zaragoza (Photo: REUTERS/Gustau Nacarino)

Barcelona continued their impeccable home form this season, cruising to a comfortable 4-0 victory over bottom feeders Real Zaragoza.

With a critical group stage match against AC Milan looming on the horizon, Guardiola rested regulars Abidal, Iniesta, Busquets and Villa.

With seven wins from eight games and twenty-two points from a possible twenty-four, the sun is rising over the white and navy blue corner of North London at the moment. This evening's match against Aston Villa was one at which Tottenham Hotspur might, in other years, have chosen to fluff their lines, and Spurs supporters are rather over-familiar with their club's predilection for getting to the point of achievement before contriving to find a way to allow it to slip through their hands.

Tottenham's surge up the table has left them with the possibility of going third tonight if they beat Aston Villa by a sufficient enough score line to take them above Newcastle.

However, with teams such as Liverpool and Arsenal starting to find form, assistant Joe Jordan has stated that Spurs need to keep on winning games such as these if they are to stand a chance of regaining a Champions League slot.

Article by Pedro Gomes
The United States and Slovenia put on an entertaining show for fans of both sides on a very foggy evening in Ljublana. Both sides had a number of opportunities to score on the night and the score line could easily have read 5-5 by the time the referee blew the final whistle.

Tottenham Hotspurs failed to present a gift for their coach, Harry Redknapp, who has just had an operation, after the Lilywhites' second string got beaten by Rubin Kazan in the latest Europa League group stage tie.

Meanwhile, Stoke City continues their excellent run in Europe by picking up another victory against Macabi Tel Aviv, proving their ability to compete with foreign teams in the competition yet still pretty competitive in the league.

by Pedro Gomes
The Colorado Rapids headed into Live Strong Sporting Park to face Sporting Kansas City down 2 goals and a handful of starters. They had a difficult task ahead of them and the 18,565 fans and heavy rain were not going to make it any easier for them. Sporting got the first couple of chances in the match and in the 28' converted on one of those.

Messi celebrates back to back hat tricks (Photo: JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)

It was a night for the record books, as Leo Messi surpassed 200 goals in a Barcelona uniform, scoring a hat-trick in route to a commanding 4-0 victory against Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League.

The result sees Barcelona through to the knockout rounds of Europe's premiere club competition with two games left to play in the group stages.

Three of four lower seeds in the MLS conference playoff semifinals suffered home losses, leaving most of higher seeds in total control heading into the second leg rematches at mid-week. While that may not bode well for seeing a true upset in the conference semifinals for the first time in a good while (unless you think RSL beating Seattle is actually an upset), we still might see some surprises.

Since April 10th we have lost 5 and drawn 3 games away from home, a dismal and painful run of games that has seen our defence and confidence take knock after knock.

The abject display in August at Old Trafford saw a very humbling score line result in cries for Wenger to walk now, before we fell apart at the seams was the cry of the naysayer's.

In the words of the gaffer it's time to "kick-on" following last week's Derby loss to City and get back to what United know best winning.

United face a trip to Goodison this weekend to take on David Moyes' Everton, and Sir Alex has challenged Wayne Rooney to lead the fight back from the sides derby mauling by putting his old club to the sword.

By Ref Reviewer 04 For the Manchester derby at Old Trafford we had Ref Clattenburg in charge. Was his contribution as historical as the score line? Min Type Foul from On C/NC Comment points weight 3 OTHER Richards Young C Cought the man on the leg 1 1 4 OTHER Young Silva NC Silva tries [...]

Watching City take on United at Old Trafford on Sunday was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to see it in person (not that I wish United ill in any way) for the historical occasion it was (and the good football, too).
We now know that the outcome of the match was truly unusual. But how unusual?

Robin Van Persie continues his fine goal scoring run for Arsenal as the Dutchman came off the bench to lead his side beating Stoke City 3-1 at Emirates, after the two team simply sharing the score line in the first half.

The victory continues' the Gunners' emergence in the league table as they're slowly climbing into the top seven team after having a horrendous start to their season, which previously saw them battling in the relegation zone.

Premier League Weekend Preview: Title deciding Manchester derby and more! - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

The top two go head to head on Sunday when Manchester United take on neighbours and arch rivals City at Old Trafford, and Sir Alex Ferguson's side have to be the call at odds-against.

Quotes:

Portland Timbers Quotes

Head Coach John Spencer
On Dwayne De Rosario:
"If [Dwayne De Rosario] doesn't get MVP of the League there's something wrong. Plain and simple. For the last three months of the season since he came here, he's been the best player in the League by far - a country mile.

photo by Victor Palkaninec

By FRANCO PANIZO

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. - The Puerto Rico Islanders won't soon forget the name Brian Shriver.

A week after scoring the final goal in the Fort Lauderdale Strikers' 3-1 road win against Puerto Rico, Shriver bagged a brace in the second leg of the NASL semifinals series to give the hosts a 2-1 victory in front of 4,233 fans at Lockhart Stadium on Saturday night.