You know that baby wanted a photo with Martin Palermo... but his family stopped Veron's sleek black ride instead as it drove up to Estudiantes' training ground last week. The baby's got the "Papa, you lied. We were supposed to go to Boca's training ground, dammmit!

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After an extended vacation, I am back writing the blog. The coming week could turn out to be the most important week for FC Barcelona this season. After achieving a historic treble, no team would like to be thrown out of UEFA Champions League in the group stage, but the chances are pretty high for that to happen. Click to continue reading...

Uruguay struggled to tame Costa Rica before booking their place in the World Cup finals with a 1-1 draw at home in the second leg of their South America/CONCACAF play-off on Wednesday. The match was held up for nearly five minutes near the end because of fighting between a Uruguay camera crew near the touchline and the Costa Rica bench amid a nervous denouement. Click to continue reading...

Uruguay have claimed the 32nd and final spot at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa by drawing 1-1 with Costa Rica in Montevideo in the second leg of their Intercontinental Playoff tie. Final full time score :- Uruguay 1-1 Costa Rica ( Sebastien Abreu 69′/ Walter Centeno 73′) Uruguay beat Costa Rica 2-1 on aggregate, and [. Click to continue reading...

Is to wait and see how this one plays out. To the Columbus fans, welcome to the silly season.
Lest we forget, everything in the transfer window is dramatic with Guille. Remember when he first came to Columbus? It took forever to get the deal signed, McCullers was back and forth, the deal was announced before it was finalized, and yours truly was beside himself:

So McCullers can introduce this guy to the press.

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First things first that's Tigre midfielder Matias Gimenez in the picture above. Dressed as a tiger. Holding two live chickens. With a demonic look on his face. In what appears to be the backyard of a meth lab/child abductor's hideout. I have no answers for any of that. I found the picture here.

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The papers are very entertaining. Over the last few weeks, not a day has gone by without another back page headline about Chelsea being ready to splash the cash in January either on some La Liga mega-star or a Brazilian wonderkid currently plying his trade in South America.
Last week I wrote an post on how Chelsea had – since the suspension of the transfer ban – been linked with 17 players.

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The papers are very entertaining. Over the last few weeks, not a day has gone by without another back page headline about Chelsea being ready to splash the cash in January either on some La Liga mega-star or a Brazilian wonderkid currently plying his trade in South America.
Last week I wrote an post on how Chelsea had – since the suspension of the transfer ban – been linked with 17 players.

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The fourteenth round of the Torneo Apertura ended on Monday. Relegation strugglers Racing claiming a hard-fought win over the champions of South America, Estudiantes de La Plata, thanks to a goal from a former Estudiantes player. Estudiantes' city rivals Gimnasia tore Huracán to shreds, running out 4-1 winners in a match which saw two superb [. Click to continue reading...

A friendly between Uruguayan clubs Paysandu and Cameta turned not so friendly (see what I did there?) when defender Carlos Eduardo decided to play a little prank on the linesman. While Eduardo's Paysandu teammate was being stretchered off the pitch, he went up to the linesman and, in his own words:

"I said, 'Boy, you're very jumpy' and threw water on him, which was very hot.

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New Zealand's qualification for the 2010 World Cup is the direct result of 2 actions by the FFA.
1. The move of the Socceroos from Oceania to Asia, thereby giving New Zealand its 5th spot. Also the '5th spot' moving from South America to Asia.
2. The A-League lifting the performance of players who otherwise would only have achieved local experience on the small NZ scene. Click to continue reading...

Uruguayan skipper Diego Lugano scored the only goal of the game midway through the first half to give La Celeste a 1-0 win in the first leg of their playoff tie against Costa Rica in San Jose. Costa Rica ended up with ten men after Randall Azofeifa received his marching orders in the 52nd minute [... Click to continue reading...

Noted world leaders Fat Ronaldo and Israeli President Shimon Peres meet at a hotel in Sao Paulo. Fat Ronaldo discusses how he forgot to wash his upper lip. And how he ate his necktie on the way over.

[Photo: Getty]

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This video quickly goes from the worst non-offside call in history to the worst offside trap in history to the worst goalkeeping in history. In essence this video should have all its copies burn and rid from the earth so as to avoid being viewed by a young, impressionable footballer. There are three clips: in the [. Click to continue reading...

World Cup play-offs dominate the week. It's squeaky bum time for several countries around the world. We have the second leg in the Asia vs Oceania play off, the CONCACAF v South America showdown, and the games that will decide which European sides will join those already qualified. Our guest this week is Lilika, a Liverpool fan living in Japan.

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It's finally happened. Fat Ronaldo has admitted that he's a chubby tub of goo. (A very talented chubby tub of goo, but still a chubby tub of goo, nonetheless.)

In an interview with Globo television, The Fat One, who has 11 goals for Corinthians this season, said that he wouldn't call himself up to the Brazilian national team right now, that he will put forth perhaps the greatest effort of his career to make the team, and that he thinks the first half of 2010 will be vital blah blah blah.

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While Sir Alex once again displayed his ref insulting Tourrettes after his side's loss to Chelsea, what Palmeiras president Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo had to say about referee Carlos Eugenio Simon after their 1-0 loss to Fluminense makes the sum total of Fergie's ref rants look downright complimentary by comparison.

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The World Cups have, especially in the start, been the complete dominance of South America and Europe. Therefore, throughout the 1950's and 1960's, the "rest of the world", that is, Asia, Africa and Australia had to play between them for one meager qualifying spot.For the 1966 World Cup in England, this "rest-of-the-world" spot went to the small and closed Communist dictatorship of North Corea. Click to continue reading...

Quit partying or you'll get it! Players at Argentine outfit Godoy Cruz found threats painted on their cars yesterday after their third successive defeat led to the sacking of coach Diego Cocca. The graffiti politely suggested the squad might like a few quiet nights in. The threats said: "You got the coach sacked to go on partying. Click to continue reading...

Adriano has been doing really well since returning to Brazil and getting his head back together. So well, in fact, that people are even using his image on their products. Unfortunately, those products are drugs.

From the Corriere dello Sport:

Now that Adriano is back in Rio de Janeiro and is the top scorer in the Brazilian championship with Flamengo, he's so popular that his picture is even selling packets of drugs.

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Sickening arm injury Hopefully your breakfast has digested before you decide to watch this video. Vasco Da Gama's Rodrigo Pimpão puts his arm down to break his fall, but the momentum of his body had other ideas. The arm stays put and the body keeps rolling. Although it looks sickening the injury proved to be only [. Click to continue reading...

Since 1958 Pelé had become known as the best player in the world, and there were great expectations to the Brazilian national team as the World Cup returned to South America, to Chile specifically.It was sadly one of the most vile tournaments in terms of fair play and bad refereeing, with some matches that will only go over to history for their violence, notably Yugoslavia-USSR and Chile-Italy. Click to continue reading...

On this week's show we put the spotlight on Honduran football as we continue to take a look at the countries that will be competing in next year's World Cup.

• Read our football news review in the good, the bad and the ugly
• Check out a new football expression in English for Football
• Follow the weekly predictions battle between Damon and Damian in the Predictions competition
• For learners of English check out our Football Language Resources page with:
• Football glossary (a huge collection of football vocabulary, football cliches and football phrases)
• Worksheets and transcripts from previous podcasts
  

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South America is a million miles away from contemporary, cosmopolitan western Europe. Distances are vast, mass salaries are low, air travel is expensive. There has been little significant mass immigration to the continent in decades. Click to continue reading...

DC United saw their season come to a close after this weekend with their draw at Kansas City and FC Dallas winning at Seattle. The time has come to decide what the team needs to do next season. This is the second season in a row United has not made the playoffs with winning the Supporter's Shield the 2 years prior.

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This has been a fantastic weekend to hate somebody and wish him ill almost everywhere around the world. As Daryl pointed out earlier, this weekend's fixture calendar was overflowing with big derbies and heated rivalries including three different flavored clasicos, inter-city and intercontinental matches. Click to continue reading...

Each day, I scour the Internet looking for fascinating stories regarding the Premier League and share most of them on my Twitter account and my shared items on Google Reader. But I often come across some mouthwatering stories that I save to share with you on EPL Talk instead. Trouble is I often run out of time and I'm not able to post them.

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Damian keeps pulling away from the crowd Damon and guests. Can anyone stop him? This week a huge game for Rafa's Reds in the Premier League, top of the table action in Germany and a six-pointer at the bottom of La Liga. Games from South America and Japan complete this week's predictions. This week's guest is Sayumi, a Kawasaki fan living in Tokyo, Japan.

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Cheerleaders have invaded soccer. They've been part of the game in Central and South America for some time. Now Europe is catching on. This includes footballing powerhouse FC Barcelona. This is the casting call video for the Dream Cheers or FC Barcelona Cheerleaders. Based on what we can tell, they'll make most of their appearances at [. Click to continue reading...

World Cup qualification in South America came to a close with only one change from the previous two campaigns. Brazil, Paraguay and, in the end, Argentina made it through once again, while Uruguay claimed fifth spot, the play-off position, for the third time running. The sole modification is that Chile have qualified instead of Ecuador. Click to continue reading...

[video sent to us from See the Cup] Brazilian team Santos won the inaugural ladies Copa Liberatadores on Sunday, or to give the tournament its full and excellent sounding Spanish language title: Copa Libertadores de Fútbol Femenino. A healthy crowd of 14,000 were in attendance at the Estádio Urbano Caldeira to see Santos beat Paraguay's Universidad Autónoma [. Click to continue reading...

Just in case his comments to the press weren't enough to get across his preoccupation with revenge based fellatio, his emphatic/psychotic gestures from the window of the team bus should really cement his message.

Then again, I'm not sure if that's a taunt or an offer.

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Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have both been ruled out of Liverpool's trip to Sunderland on Saturday because of injuries picked up on international duty.
Gerrard, Liverpool's captain, suffered a groin injury in England's World Cup defeat to Ukraine last weekend and limped out of training two days later, subsequently missing the home win against Belarus. Click to continue reading...

Here's the setup Going into the last day of the Maranhão State League second division season in Brazil yesterday, two clubs sat atop the league with the same number of points: Viana and Moto Club. On this decisive day, Viana hosted Chapadinha, a club they had a scoreless draw with the last time they played, and Moto Club took on Santa Quiteria.

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Liverpool co-owner George Gillett claims to have been ''pleasantly surprised'' on a visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss new club academies.
Liverpool recently announced they had reached an agreement with Prince Faisal bin Fahad bin Abdulla of Saudi Arabia to set up a number of academies in the Middle East. Click to continue reading...