Editor's note: For your offseason pleasure, PSP is happy to present an multi-part fiction series entitled The Pine Barrens League. In the conclusion of the story, it is the second half of the final. Schnauzer and company have 45 minutes to score a goal to win the money.

We were exhausted when we got off the field at half time.

Liverpool legend Ian Rush has escaped serious injury after being involved in a serious car crash in Egypt. Rushie was in Cairo to official open a new LFC Academy and Soccer School, and during a sightseeing trip to the pyramids, his car was hit by another vehicle and crashed into a wall.

El Clásico in mind-numbing slow motion

You know how they say football is a game won and lost in the margins? Watch. This illustrates exactly what those fine margins are. (great find by our friends at The Shin Guardian)

El Clásico in mind-numbing slow motion

You know how they say football is a game won and lost in the margins? Watch. This illustrates exactly what those fine margins are. (great find by our friends at The Shin Guardian)

Undoubtedly, you woke up thinking "You know what I need to see in super slow motion today..."

Juan Pablo Rodriguez was given a straight red card; Manuel Viniegra was given anything at all to just stop the pain. And maybe some pamphlets on adoption agencies.

By Chris Wright

If, like me, you consider car (and perfume) adverts to be little more than pretentious audio/visual litter then this may not be your cup of tea.

That said, Audi's pre-El Clasico (I think I'm right in saying they sponsor both Barcelona and Real Madrid in some capacity) viral has a really nice pay-off after a few minutes of obligatory slow motion a huge piece of football artwork that you'd think they'd have made a bit more of, rather than just flashing it up on the screen for a split-second at the end.

Wrong sport Watch this footage from the World Cup qualifier between the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait and see if you can spot Ali Abbas' subtle tug on opponent Bader Al Mutawa. The eagle-eyed referee somehow spotted the incident and dished out a yellow card to Abbas. Harsh.

By Chris Wright

With Newcastle riding high in the Premier League, the cynic in me suggests that Mike Ashley may have bided his time to announce that St James' Park is to be renamed with 'immediate effect' as an exercise in PR damage limitation but there we go from henceforth, the Toon's ground will be officially listed as the 'Sports Direct Arena'.

Liverpool legend Kevin Keegan was pleased with Liverpool's victory over West Brom yesterday, and after the game, he - like everyone else - was singing the praises of Luis Suarez, who was once again voted man-of-the-match.
Liverpool barely had to break sweat to beat a very poor West Brom side, but the team couldn't turn their dominance into more goals, something that Keegan believes might be a concern for Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish:
"It was never a game today.

If the sign of a good team is winning when not playing the most coruscating stuff then I suppose our lot are trundling towards half-decent, and the Top Four goodies contained therein. Although things picked up in the second half, today we were certainly not at our Give-Scousers-The-Run-Around-And-Score-Goals-For-Fun best.

Cristiano Ronaldo: Tested To The Limit - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

In an innovative documentary, Castrol pushed Cristiano Ronaldo to the limit in a series of tests designed to measure Ronaldo's footballing skills, strength, agility and mental toughness.

It is arguably the most rigourous scientific examination of a football player ever taken as Ronaldo (a Castrol global ambassador) is literally tested to the limit our inside sources told us of how, after several hours of grueling tests, Ronaldo was almost ready to collapse from fatigue but still managed to put in 110% in every single test he was presented with.

'8-2, eight bloody two' as Michael Palin almost said in Ripping Yarns (8-1).
The morning after Arsenal's worst defeat since 1896 was a sobering one.

The 8-2 capitulation at Old Trafford was slow-motion carnage or schadenfreude at its sweetest, depending on your opinon of the Gunners and Mr Wenger.

Denis Doyle/Getty Image (Bleacher Report)While some of these may not have been as embarrassing at first, in the time since they have become much more laughable as in most cases the replay footage does not lie.
The truth comes out when you get put into slow motion, and with so many to choose from it is hard to even stop at 14.

The Copa America kicks off today with host Argentina playing against Bolivia. First played in 1916, this is the 43rd edition of the oldest tournament of national teams in the world. The game will be held at the stadium Unico in the city of La Plata, at 8:45pm, with referee Roberto Silvera (FIFA-URU).

Written by Jamie

I am brewing a pot of coffee, steam rising. I have bread product of some kind with Bacon. I'll be honest, I've lost track which one. I still don't know what is wrong with Bacon between two slices of bread but now it's all focaccia and ciabatta and I couldn't tell the difference if you laced one with a month old Estonian herring.

For so much of this season, Cardiff City's promotion to the Premier League has had a feeling of the inevitable about it. Perhaps it was the arrival of Craig Bellamy on loan from Manchester City at the start of the season. Bellamy has matured with age, and had the feel of being a player around which Dave Jones could build a team capable of getting back into the top division of English football for the first time in half a century.

STARTERS
Milan won Serie A. Congrats to them.
dN
8th seeded Chivas has knocked out #1 seed Tigres out of the Mexican playoffs!
dN
Where oh where has Oguchi gone? Onyewu has not been playing at all lately for his club Twente, and did not even dress as they won the Netherlands KNVB Beker aka League Cup.

The Philadelphia Union's clash with the Portland Timbers on Friday, May 6, will be the first of Fox Soccer's newly branded "Soccer Night in America" broadcasts. Playing off of "Hockey Night in America," which is broadcasted by a Fox affiliate in Canada, Fox Soccer has dedicated new technology and graphics to its weekly broadcasts of MLS games.

Morning.

No happy results yesterday mean that we've got to take three points today at the Reebok to just stay in touch. I haven't watched Match of the Day or anything like that but United scoring late on is, to me anyway, the definition of mental strength. That doesn't mean they're not cunts or anything but they do it with such monotonous regularity it was hardly a surprise to anyone.

The New England Revolution lost a tough one to the Houston Dynamo last night 0-1, thanks to a controversial goal from Hunter Freeman. The defeat dropped the Revs to a tie for 6th in the in the Eastern Conference with only five goals scored in six matches.

New England struggled to create chances in the match and probably didn't deserve a positive result anyway, despite the presence of their brand new finishing specialist, Rajko Lekic.

Just one of those weeks, things conspire to make it a time of thought and reflection. Work overflowing with problems, unsettled elsewhere. The game is as enticing as always, it's just that sometimes the mind dallies along the way.

‘Glory glory hallelujah' rolling out from the east upper (so it seemed) threw me.

Rooney's chubby middle finger to science and the so called ‘laws of gravity' were the main talking points of the weekend just gone. A goal so good that even after the slow-motion had revealed that it was the grizzled striker's shin bone doing most of the work, it was still lauded as the bestest ever by pretty much any United fan with the inclination to declare such things.

Por Halftown
El Atlético de Madrid dejó a su máximo goleador de la pasada temporada comiendo pipas en el banquillo del Camp Nou, y salió con los dos laterales izquierdos de la plantilla uno delante del otro con la remota esperanza de trastabillar a Dani Alves y Leo Messi. Derrotado desde el túnel de vestuarios, el equipo pasó de puntillas por Barcelona y marchó contento de haberse llevado menos goles de los 3,18 que lleva de promedio en liga el FCB.

Even now, well after the fact, it's difficult to try and make sense of what we saw yesterday. Never before in Premier League history has any team let a 4-0 lead slip. I don't think too many Arsenal fans are that surprised that it was us. I'm going to try and do this in sections to make it easier for me think about it as I write, so:

First half

What can you say?

With the league title slipping away from Real Madrid's hands, their two cup competitions, the UEFA Champions League and the Copa del Rey, could be the tournaments that they can realistically expect to win. Real can stamp its name in the final of the Copa del Rey on Wednesday night if they can navigate a more than tricky second leg tie against the current holders of the cup, Sevilla.

That Andy Gray and Richard Keys have been suspended from duty by Sky Sports for this evening's Premier League match should come as no great surprise. The issue of their off-the-microphone comments regarding several different issues relating to the role of women in football has spiralled out of the control of the broadcaster and hasn't blown over in the manner in which Sky might have hoped.