The silence has finally been broken and we finally know what all the secrecy was about. Jose Adolfo Valencia will be having knee surgery to repair damage cartilage in his left knee. The biggest reason this took so long to take care of was the fact that Santa Fe and Portland reworked the loan deal that brought Valencia to Portland as it is still unclear when and where the injury occurred.

Pill-ow talk Freiburg's club doctor has revealed he once received a 3am phonecall from a player who wanted to check he wouldn't be breaking doping rules by taking Viagra. Doctor Andreas Aust proved he has plenty of patience for his patients by taking the call and giving the mystery player the all-clear to play the [.

It's almost impossible to have escaped the saga of the Chris Paul trade(s) in the NBA but just in case you have, here are a couple of need-to-know facts.

• Ownership of the New Orleans Hornets (Chris Paul's now former team) was sold to the NBA back in December 2010
• Every owner in the NBA owns 1/29th of the Hornets but does not have any direct say in day-to-day operations
• NBA commissioner David Stern had given full authority to Hornets General Manager Dell Demps to make whatever player moves he felt were in the team's best interest
• The Hornets best player and NBA superstar Chris Paul was under contract for only one more season
• Chris Paul recently told the Hornets he didn't want to sign with them after this season and would like to be traded
• Rather than see the Hornets get nothing when Paul walks this summer, GM Demps worked out a three-way trade less than two weeks ago that would have shipped Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers and had a couple of players from the Lakers and the Houston Rockets come to the Hornets.

Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra race row hearing starts

Luis Suarez's race-row hearing has begun under a clock of secrecy. The Liverpool striker is charged with allegedly aiming racist abuse at Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-12-14 14:59:31 from: The Mail

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Where was the player who would score? Everybody said he'd score. Dave thought he'd have scored by now. At least based on what other people had said. Dave thought intensely. He was in his kitchen. He had gotten up early and tip-toed into the kitchen. He had carefully hid his laptop in a bag, entered the kitchen, taken the laptop out of the bag, placed a freshly cleaned and lemon-scented towel on the granite kitchen counter top, placed the laptop on the towel, turned on the laptop, and found a pirated stream of the soccer game.

MLS announced today that the Houston Dynamo are moving to the Eastern Conference to make way for the inclusion of Vancouver and Portland in the West. The new conference alignment keeps the balance of power in the West, so not much has changed in terms of the Fire's standing in the East.

East : Chicago, Columbus, DC, Houston, New England, New York, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Toronto

West : Chivas, Colorado, Dallas, Los Angeles, RSL, San Jose, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver

Houston suffered through a down year last season and their current state is not much different than the Fire's.

So while researching another story, I came across this photo touting Soccer United Marketing President Kathy Carter as one of the most powerful women in sports. Helpfully buried in the caption was the following:

Carter is the Executive Vice President of Soccer United Marketing, helping accumulate $100 million in annual revenue.