In light of her maiden voyage from Hamburg last week, allow me to introduce The Eclipse, a £724 million ($1.2 billion) 557 ft yacht owned by your favorite and mine, Roman Abramovich. Click to continue reading...

Officiating in modern day football has already received its fair share of flak. Of course, whenever a certain team is at the receiving end of harsh refereeing decisions, its passionate fans jump at the opportunity to hit back at the match officials with great force. In this article, however, I will not go ahead with the oft-repeated idea of accusing the referees of lacking the ability to call big games without the heavily proposed use of technology.

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Most people haven't attended a refereeing course, but we can only assume that Lesson One covers what to do when a player hits the round thing between the two white posts – or maybe not if Crystal Palace's recent trip to Bristol City is anything to go by.
It did not take long for the season to witness its first truly calamitous piece of refereeing, or for those in favour of introducing technology to aid officials to re-issue their orders to drag the game into the 21st century. Click to continue reading...

They Think It's All Over... sneaks a look into the future of the game and decides if we're heading somewhere good... Click to continue reading...

The Technology in Sport series will delve in to many ways in which science and technology are being applied to the various components of Soccer – from balls to the goal line, and beyond. In this part, we take a look at a new medical technique – Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy – and try to [...] Click to continue reading...

This weekend I am going to BarCamp NOLA, a meeting for Technology people in New Orleans, being held at Launchpad. I am looking forward to listening, participating, and engaging with some very smart Tech people. I want to learn everything I can on becoming a better Tech person and making my Online Soccer Academy and social media efforts as best I can for my players and readers!

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Football FanCast columnist Mike Harvey feels that technology in football is not the answer.

Officiating in football is headline news these days. The past few weeks left a sour taste in the mouths of many fans. FIFA is at a crossroads and how they choose to handle this problem will affect the game for years.

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Dear athlete,

Whether you know it or not you are, quite literally, a marketable product... but unless you're one of the few headliners in your league, chances are you just can't afford a team of people to get your name out there, build a cool website, or create a personalized marketing campaign.

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WPS, and our Commissioner in particular, recognizes the unique opportunity social media presents us. I've started to compile a comprehensive list of all the WPS Tweeters. Here's the ones I already know are in the Twitter-mix off-hand (more will follow - I will keep a comprehensive list for you here and on my Big Soccer blog). Click to continue reading...

Let's face it, the game of football is a high-pressure affair. Throw in two clubs playing a local derby or a must-win match, a crowd full of supporters going absolutely mental and a ball and you have yourself a potential recipe for disaster. That's not to say that every match between rival clubs or nations is [. Click to continue reading...

So I spent the better part of my weekend sorting out all my bookmarks and RSS feeds. Then, I posted all the WPS team Social Media links on my Big Soccer blog at http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=3803SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The Ultimate WPS Social Media Resource is on Big Soccer", url: "http://www. Click to continue reading...

Nike recently posted a video on their site which gives a rare look into their production and R&D processes of football boots/cleats. It's fairly interesting to see how these boots are designed, made and put together. I wouldn't mind knowing what glue they use to hold the upper to the bottom plate so I could [. Click to continue reading...

Nike recently posted a video on their site which gives a rare look into their production and R&D processes of football boots/cleats. It's fairly interesting to see how these boots are designed, made and put together. I wouldn't mind knowing what glue they use to hold the upper to the bottom plate so I could [. Click to continue reading...

The new Nike Mercurial Vapor 5 isn't too far away apparently. I've been searching around for info about them and have managed to collate bits and pieces from a few different sources. Expert football's forum has some pics and info although the early pics look mostly looks like the IV to me. The colour schemes [. Click to continue reading...

The new Nike Mercurial Vapor 5 isn't too far away apparently. I've been searching around for info about them and have managed to collate bits and pieces from a few different sources. Expert football's forum has some pics and info although the early pics look mostly looks like the IV to me. The colour schemes [. Click to continue reading...

Rob Penner, the Director of PR here at WPS, just sent this article out to all our teams about the change in media coverage for professional sports. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "L.A. Sol Bloggers - Anybody out there? C'mon you've got MARTA!", url: "http://www.amandavandervort.com/blog/2009/01/la-sol-bloggers-anybody-out-there-cmon-youve-got-marta/" }); Click to continue reading...

Amanda's top 8 social media sites. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Amanda's Social Media Sites Exposed", url: "http://www.amandavandervort.com/blog/2009/01/amandas-social-media-sites-exposed/" }); Click to continue reading...

My photo stream on Flickr... http://www.flickr.com/photos/24522405@N08/sets/72157612598365435/ SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Live Photos from the WPS Draft!!!!", url: "http://www.amandavandervort.com/blog/2009/01/live-photos-from-the-wps-draft/" }); Click to continue reading...

I just sent this email to the Women's Committee, and I wanted to share it with you. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Email to the Women's Committe - Good links!", url: "http://www.amandavandervort.com/blog/2009/01/email-to-the-womens-committe-good-links/" }); Click to continue reading...

Another indication that the technology crunch on the mainstream media is happening at a much faster pace than first anticipated. A memo went out today to ALL Gannett employees that said ALL employees must take a one week off without pay before March 1st. It's a wider problem than just the local tv station, as their [. Click to continue reading...

Burger King, through their insanely creative advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (see their recent Burger King perfume launch), launches a Facebook application that encourages users to remove Facebook friends. Sacrifice ten of them and you got a free Whopper. 233,906 friends were removed by 82,771 people in less than a week. Click to continue reading...

$695 bucks get you hotel room (double occupancy - $250 extra for single occupancy), breakfast, transportation to/from games, meeting rooms, field rentals, NSCAA notebook, and entrance to all Algarve Cup games.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Wanna Go To Portugal in March?", url: "http://www.amandavandervort. Click to continue reading...

Stuff to read while you watch Franck Ribery steal the Bayern team bus...... Mardona is a ManU spy. (Unprofessional Foul) The good and bad from the weekend of La Liga. (La Liga Loca) What would Martin O'Neill do? (EPL Talk) Talking football and technology. (SoccerLens) Talking Sevilla's current manager. Click to continue reading...

We should've known. This season has been no different to any of the seasons before it. Sooner or later, the age-old football technology debate becomes a central feature of pub discussions and television sensation. Every year the pro-technology side of the argument seems to be getting more and more frustrated as other walks of life embrace [. Click to continue reading...

I read a blog post a while back that read, "...While MySpace's popularity is starting to fade and more people are embracing Facebook, we thought it'd be good timing to point out which famous footballers are on the cutting edge of social networking and who have their own Facebook pages. 1. Peter [. Click to continue reading...

I quite like this one. Ronaldo leaves his undershirt behind and silly antics ensue. Big fan of the nike compression under tops actually. Seems to help pull the sweat away to keep you fairly cool as well as offering a little support too. Click to continue reading...

Italian referees could use some damage control PR today, after managing to royally fuck up two games. In Palermo-Fiorentina, Alberto Gilardino - who is quite hot at the moment so we can maybe forgive their assumptions he'd magically huffed and puffed the ball into the net - scored with what appeared to be his hand. Click to continue reading...

Turns out that one of the few, most notable, soccer writers in the country was in Chicago this weekend for a couple big events.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Beau Dure from USA Today visits the Chicago Red Stars office", url: "http://www.amandavandervort.com/blog/2008/10/beau-dure-from-usa-today-visits-the-chicago-red-stars-office/" }); Click to continue reading...

The fiasco that passed off as a "goal" at Vicarage Road when Reading visited Watford once again raised the question of video technology. Hell! – I am still recovering from the second "goal" in the 1984 FA cup final! Steve Sherwood clearly had the ball in both hands before that cheating Andy Gray headed it [. Click to continue reading...

It was first reported two months ago that Major League Baseball was moving to allow instant replay for in-game use - but for limited purpose of determing home runs. It is said that this will be the only circumstance in which the technology, which espn.com reported today, will be used. On Thursday, months of speculation will cease when the use of intsant replay will be made flesh. Click to continue reading...

USA soccer fans gathered at the Globe Pub in Chicago to watch the Olympic team defeat Brazil for the Gold Medal! The breakfast was sponsored by the Chicago Red Stars.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "News Video From The 'Golden Globe' Pub Olympic Viewing Party", url: "http://www.amandavandervort.com/blog/2008/08/news-video-from-the-golden-globe-pub-olympic-viewing-party/" }); Click to continue reading...

Last week, we went mobile, now we have decided to start a Twitter site that will allow us to send up dates to the site from a Blackberry or mobile phone. All of the updates will appear on the right hand side of the site, under the Twitter headline. We will be able to update from different tailgating events and even while watching games, so look out world here we come. Click to continue reading...

The use of technology in soccer for things like goal line calls, offside, and more has always been experimental, and even then has been controversial. While arguing over a referee's call is often a soccer fan's favorite pastime, few fans or officials support its use in the beautiful game. However, more often than not the debate is about technology's impact on the flow of the game, not accuracy. Click to continue reading...

There could be tough times ahead for Luca Toni. The Bayern Munich striker, just recently crowned Bundesliga champion and currently leading the scoring charts with 21 goals, may soon be confronted with an unsurpassable obstacle... of the robotic kind. Its name is Goalias (or GoalIAS if you prefer), and it's the first robot-goalkepeer capable of [. Click to continue reading...

I am just off a conference call with the National Soccer Coaches' Association of America Diversity Committee. The purpose of this blog post is to suggest using the Internet for (1) PRIVATE commitee websites, and (2) PUBLIC marketing campaigns. Click to continue reading...