photo: Globo.com

With one round left in the second division of Brasileirao, the 3 tickets left for a place in next year's first division were taken. The clubs promoted are Guarani, Ceara and Atletico- GO. The promotions happened after Figueirense, the only club with chances left, lost at home, which made the other results just a detail.

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Thierry Henry like many afore him says "it's up to the referee!"
But what about decency from himself and the French team. Not once but twice did the ball "hit@ more like he quided the ball with his hand...and what gaul, what cheek to celebrate and blame the referee!
Imagine a French side that wins the World Cup, Henry as captain would receive the trophy. Click to continue reading...

This weekends MLS Cup final in Seattle is David Beckham's biggest game in the U.S. So how is Becks preparing for the game? In a cast of course!

I was shocked when I saw this picture from Splash News of Beckham with a cast on his foot, a la Tom Brady before his last SuperBowl game. And we all know how that turned out for Brady.

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Be honest, you'd forgotten entirely about the Under 17 World Cup and that's if you were aware of its running in the first place. We'll also accept admissions from those who confused it with the Under-20 World Cup (Lite) in Egypt won late last month by Ghana.

But it happened, and Switzerland yes, Switzerland took home the trophy, their first of any kind in FIFA territory, from Lagos against what had to be the heavily favored and exceedingly overaged hometown Nigerians.

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This weekend was the World Cup qualifying climax in Africa, and there was plenty of qualification drama to go around. The winners of each of the five groups qualified for World Cup 2010, and everyone else missed out. But there was a pretty decent consolation prize for the ten second and third placed teams, as World Cup qualifying doubles as Africa Cup of Nations qualifying and the top three in each group qualified for the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations (also known as the African Nations Cup, ACN and CAN) in Angola.

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Atletico Madrid winger Jose Antonio Reyes says it's time for Arsenal's young players to deliver on their promise.
Unlike his own career, which has seemingly gone into terminal decline since leaving the Gunners, Reyes believes the Gunners are finally poised to reclaim a major trophy this season. Click to continue reading...

There seems to be a lot of confusion over how much Liverpool paid/will eventually pay Roma for the services of Alberto Aquilani. Figures such as £20m, £17m and £5m (!) have been bandied about, but the truth is the total outlay could (potentially) turn out to be much more.
On the 8th August 2009, Roma released official details of Aquilani's transfer fee. Click to continue reading...

As in the guys that aren't Mr Kasey Keller. Due to injuries Keller played essentially all competitive matches. Next year with the potential for a dozen more matches in the season and Kasey passing 40 in just a few days the back-up keeper will be much more important. While he does feel healthier at the end of this season than in the past, he made many statements that it was due to the nature of MLS playing basically once a week.

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In today's installment of the bootcamp..... a year has passed since the selecao last voted for the Brasileirao awards (Ay mi dio, now this is weird!) which recognises the best players in the league. Someone hand Adriano a trophy now..... no, not the sausage eating one!

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Whenever it seems like Liverpool are on the verge of making a giant step forward, something always seems to go wrong and the opposite ends up happening. Why is that? ALEX MILLER looks at how history seems to be repeating itself once again.
So here we are then: Mid-November and we are already out of the title race; on the verge of being eliminated from the Champions League and already out of the Carling Cup. Click to continue reading...

Although they lost the away leg of their Copa del Rey fixture against Real Madrid 1-0, third division Alcorcon still completed their shock 4-1 aggregate upset over Spain's most expensive team and advanced to the fifth round (of eight) in the tournament.

For Alcorcon, this was their championship, though, and without a doubt the club's defining moment (it was only founded in 1971).

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...and I would really appreciate it if I had an Arsenal win to enjoy, sadly that does not seem to be the case due to another round of utterly pointless internationals.

There is only one bit of news and I wouldn't really call it news.

Jack Wilshere is looking forward to playing Citeh at Middle Eastlands in the Carling Cup and believes we can go all the way to Wembley, Jack the Hobbit said:

"It will be good to play against Manchester City and I hope they play a full team.

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First off, congrats to Sounders FC forward Fredy Montero on being named MLS Newcomer of the Year. I'm note sure he wasn't the second-best newcomer on his own team, but it's a nice honor for the kid (who has definitely had an up-and-down year).
Also, Chivas USA goalkeeper Zach Thornton pulled in his second award in being named MLS Comeback Player of the Year. Click to continue reading...

The Football League Cup or Johnstone's Paint Trophy continues on Wednesday with Southampton taking on Charlton Athletic. The match will be covered live on our other site, Free Live Sports TV, at the following link below.

Southampton v Charlton Athletic LIVE English Football League Cup (JPT) Wednesday, November 11, 2009 19:45 GMT, 14:45 EST

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No? Well, Liverpool FC have...

Why would they take the piss out of themselves like that?? Who reckons Stevie will have already entered? Doing it this way has got to be better than never at all, right?

"Ever Wondered What It Would Feel Like To Lift The Premiership Trophy? Click to continue reading...

The English Football League Cup or the Johnstone's Paint Trophy resumes matches this week with the northern and southern quarterfinals. The current leaders in the English League One, Leeds United, face Grimsby Town on Tuesday, November 10, 2009. The match will be covered live on our other site, Free Live Sports TV, at the link below.

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So we comfortably dispatched of Wolves in the end, the first 20 minutes or so were a little nervy but Diaby picked up a calf strain bringing Alex Song into the fray, we never looked back as minutes later one of two slightly fortuitous goals was scored.

The final two goals were class though, the first involved a lung busting run from Cesc Fabregas to get on the end of a move, his finish was coolness personified.

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This is a photo of Las Senadoras --of Republica Deportivo fame-- getting their mitts all over the Philip F. Anschutz trophy. For this it is The Luckiest Trophy in the World, Todayâ„¢. Also it should be noted that there was an obvious caption for this photo but it was just too obvious, even for a blogger as hackey yours truly. Click to continue reading...

Rafa Benitez revealed he has held talks with Liverpool CEO Christian Purslow about the consequences of failure in the Champions League this season, about which Benitez said: "The first thing though is that we have confidence we can still reach the last 16 this season".
That is going to need already qualified Lyon to Beat Fiorentina away, not going to happen. Click to continue reading...

I might be a bit premature in saying this, but with our Champion's League hopes hanging by a thread, I was looking at the B competition, The Europa League.
In it you have some of the powerhouses of European football such as Stum Graz, FC Sheriff, Fc Twente, Bate, Dinamo Zagreb, Austria Vienna and other Luminaries of the game! Click to continue reading...

Columbus center back Chad Marshall has trophy-cased his second straight MLS Defender of the Year prize.Seeing as how he suits up in a few hours to decide the Crew's first round playoff tie, the award celebration will be either delayed and heightened or subdued.- Greg Seltzer Click to continue reading...

Make that two straight Defender of the Year awards for Columbus' Chad Marshall. The league announced today Marshall won the award for best defender.

Marshall helped lead the Columbus defense that only allowed 31 goals during the regular season, a record low for the Crew. What's more impressive is that he only played in 18 games for the Crew this season as he missed a few games with the US National team and a few others to injury.

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Most would agree that the Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year awards are the two biggest individual honours a footballer can win. Bigger even than my Netherton Colts East U-14 Manager's Player of the Year Runner-Up trophy (pictured?). But which award is really the one to win? The Ballon d'Or has the [. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool legend Dietmar Hamann has come to Rafa Benitez's aid by saying "People calling for Rafa's head are very premature, he has been there five years and has improved them every season.
Rafa has got everything a top-class manager needs, he will be turn it around. The team is good enough to pull through, they were pretty unlucky against Fulham. Click to continue reading...

The top of the league collectively dropped points, allowing Hoffenheim to close the gap but not much more. The bottom of the league collectively dropped points, allowing Hertha to keep dreaming about Bundesliga survival but not much more.

Rookie Coach of the Year. Also known as the Markus Babbel Trophy.

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With the Carling Cup sending us back to Manchester Shitty for a rematch sooner than any of us imagined, VP has given the boss the perfect excuse to add more experienced first teamers to a Carling Cup squad, which, we have to admit, would struggle against Shitty's first team if we sent just kids. He has made it very clear that he wants to play this one, and you just know he wants revenge for what the ex-25 did. Click to continue reading...

Just when you thought the Italian tactician and master of success couldn't get any more focused; England manager Fabio Capello has banned a fans' and players' favorite: the World Cup song.

Not content with prohibiting WAGs from attending the England base next summer, Capello is again trying to take the Englishness out of English football by restricting the players' voices.

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"I don't have to win a trophy."

Maybe a bit sensationalist to leave that excerpt as the lead-in, but the overall thrust of an article from the Times(among other sources) is that Rafa Benitez feels that progress alone is an acceptable indicator of success. Since there's plenty of ammo here, I figured it's best digested quote-by-quote:

"I don't agree with people when they say you have to win trophies.

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Its got to be Liverpool's worst run in years.Five defeats in the League already, beaten twice in the Champion's League and we will be going out unless we win our last three group matches, plus out of the Carling Cup alreadyIt is Rafa Benitez's poorest spell in charge of Liverpool since he joined us five years ago. Click to continue reading...

The Thai Port blog is reporting Thai Port, who recently ended a trophy drought of 16 years, are interested in signing PEA defender Rangsan Vivatchaichok. Which is interesting because I understand Indonesian side Persib may also be resurrecting their interest in the Thai international.
Persib will have to pull their finger out though as the final registration for players is tonight! Click to continue reading...

I've written that Garber keeps his ideological cards close to his chest, but in fining DCU Prez Kevin Payne $5000 today for calling a spade a spade—that the onfield product in MLS is not good enough and won't draw in more fans until it is—means that the guy isn't hearing what needs to be heard.
This is really not good, especially in light of the fact Payne didn't even mention bringing better players with more money, everyone's favourite MLS bugbear. Click to continue reading...

Our hunt for another trophy will continue for yet another competition after we were valiantly knocked out against a vibrant Arsenal side at the Emirates in a 1-2 defeat. At times in domestic cup competitions, we have looked toothless and our reserves have looked lost and out of sorts. Today, this was not so much [. Click to continue reading...

Please take a moment to give Spike Jones the slow clamp this morning for doing something we've all wanted to do: slap someone who's too busy on the Blackberry to pay attention to you/slap Kanye West. Dude basically did the double here and that deserves some sort of trophy for that, if not two. Click to continue reading...

Kyle McCarthy runs the rule over the eight MLS Cup contenders and assesses which teams are in the best spot to lift the trophy at Qwest Field. Click to continue reading...

Its Carling Cup time! The trophy that no big club wants to win, but if they win it they'll be happy to gloat about it anyway. Visions of Mourinho celebrating back in 2007 when they beat us in the final still make me sick.

Rafa's red revolution received a massive boost when they humiliated Utd on Sunday.

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