Almost is nothing in sport. Costa Rica played much better over 90 minutes in Montevideo than they ever did in San José, and they had Uruguay reeling toward the end, suffering as they always do, but at the final whistle it was the South Americans progressing on to South Africa and the Central Americans returning home without an official match for another 16 months. Click to continue reading...

Thierry Henry is the villain of the soccer world today. He will be for a while.
In one of the shadiest moves on the big stage in recent memory, the French legend (after being offside) intentionally handled the ball in setting up the game-winning goal to send his country to the World Cup, and unfairly end Ireland's dreams. Click to continue reading...

The final six World Cup 2010 places all get decided today, with the second legs of the four European playoffs and the CONMEBOL vs CONCACAF game, plus the special Algeria vs Egypt single game playoff for the final African qualifying spot.

It's all very very tight. The winners of these six ties get the the glory, the losers learn firsthand the meaning of the word "nearly".

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Jeff Winter has been causing a bit of a fuss of late with his seemingly totally biased and negative opinions against our manager.

No manager has ever been given a touchline ban for comments he made about a referee but Winter went as far as claiming Ferguson should have been given a FIFA stadium ban!

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So reportedly this is how the kerfuffle following the first leg of the Play-Off between France and Ireland broke out at the final whistle. Keith Andrews was about to slump to the floor in the knowledge that overturning a one goal deficit back in France is a tough thing to do. Along comes Lassana Diarra and rather than come over to offer him a handshake he reportedly said the following.

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The Telegraph ran this story about a new set of Premier League rules being passed, giving the press and media rights holders wider access to the managers and players.

The gist of the story was:

1. players can be interviewed immediately after a match [ie, players of winning teams only.

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Two years ago, when he was still playing for Chelsea, Lassana Diarra would rather would rather flee in terror than speak English and now he's apparently going out of his way to insult the Irish in the frightening language.

After France won the first leg of their World Cup qualifying playoff 1-0 over Ireland on Saturday, Diarra allegedly went up to the home side's Keith Andrews and made an insulting comment that was so bad Andrews refused to reveal what it was:

"I don't want to say exactly what he said, but he knows what it was, which was a disrespectful comment and it was typical of him, to be honest, and the way that he was.

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Lincoln City 1
Cheltenham Town 1
League 2
Sat. 14th Nov. 2009
I listened to the last 15 minutes of the game in the car. My wife was in the passenger seat looking into the far distance. She was miles away. I was preoccupied with the game but she became still and almost vacant. Click to continue reading...

We did it. First solid step towards South-Africa has just been taken. Bruno Alves scored and helped give us a momentous scare just before the final whistle as Bosnia hit the iron twice. Overall I think Bosnia showed very little of what it's capable of and we always looked a Click to continue reading...

Galaxy 2 Houston Dynamo 0

Who would have thunk it at the outset of this season?

Two extra time goals by Gregg Berhalter (!) and Landon Donovan - his 17th postseason goal, the most in MLS (he was tied with Carlos Ruiz previously) - has given the Galaxy the win before an energized 25,373 even though it's past 11:30 p.

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Recently, Palmeiras and Sport played some thrilling and decisive matches, with one side side usually celebrating at the end. Sport eliminated Palmeiras from Copa do Brasil. Palmeiras eliminated Sport from Libertadores and before that they battled in the group stage.

Last night in Sao Paulo, Palmeiras and Sport tied in 2 goals for the 35th round of Brasileirao.

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Wow, I never thought at this age level that I would see a game like we had Tuesday night against OSA Inferno. These girls were big and not afraid to throw down! Literally within the first 3 minutes an OSA forward leveled our middle defender. She wasn't going for the ball in any way. It was a knee driven into the thigh and a hip-check as Taylor brought the ball to her right. Click to continue reading...

A petition had been sent to the Vatican to begin the process of recognizing all Valencia CF fans as saints.

Its to be expected of course seeing how much suffering we are forced to endure week in and week out.

My blood pressure is high and my finger nails are non-existant.

Valencia will surely be the death of me.

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To recap:

* David Ngog opened the scoring with a stunning volley from six yards after some good Liverpool pressure.

* Liverpool concede the equalizer from a set-piece: Brum get three headers in the box, the last by Chucho Benitez past Pepe Reina.

* Albert Riera aggravated his hamstring injury (again) and had to come off.

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"The Galaxy made one play." The extent of Chivas USA head coach Preki's reaction to his team's 1-0 loss to crosstown rivals LA Galaxy Sunday night. With the loss, Chivas made its fourth straight first round playoff exit. After the final whistle a visibly irate Preki appeared to have words with Galaxy midfielder Demo Kovalenko, though the two were quickly separated.

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Galaxy 1 Chivas USA 0

Game story

The Houston Dynamo are up next at 8 p.m. Friday in the Western Conference Championship. (live ESPN2).

Notable: This will be the first ever postseason meeting between the Galaxy and Dynamo (the former Earthquakes, of course), which advanced to the Conference Championship today with a 1-0 aggregate goal series win over the Seattle Sounders.

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Galaxy 1 Chivas USA 0

Chivas ch-ch-chokes (again)

Galaxy advance to play Houston at 8 p.m. Friday in Carson.

Dema Kovalenko made a crude gesture as the final whistle blew toward the Chivas USA bench as if to say, "we screwed you again."

Chivas USA Coach Preki blew his top and tried to get to Kovalenko.

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The shrill of Franck de Bleeckere's final whistle had barely subsided when the phone-ins started, looking to apportion blame for Liverpool's Champions League struggles.
Predictably, the names were the same. Angry of Anfield and Worried of Woolton all knew which players were culpable for stopping Liverpool securing a win in Lyon which would have kept them in control of their European destiny. Click to continue reading...

Are we a club in crisis? While I hate to disappoint the doom-mongers and mischievous press-men, it is a little too hasty to go down that route just yet.

Come the full-time whistle we ought to have a clearer idea of where we stand. Naturally, this being White Hart Lane, moderation is not welcome.

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Elizabeth Lambert is a college football defender playing for New Mexico in the Women's Mountain West Conference college tournament. In the game against Bringham Young University (BYU), things got a little rough with Elizabeth. Things got so rough that she earned the nickname Elizabeth "cheap-shot" Lambert.

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Despite Liverpool's desperate start to the season John Aldridge still believes manager Rafa Benitez is the right man for the job.
The Reds' hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League are now out of their hands following Lyon's late leveller on Wednesday night. Click to continue reading...

Chelsea's unstoppable striker Didier Drogba struck twice in the span of six minutes to silence over 50,000 Atletico Madrid fans at the Vicente Calderon stadium. Atletico's Argentine sensation Sergio Aguero netted either side of Drogba's brace, but that was not enough to prevent the Rojiblancos from UEFA Champions League elimination.

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It was a hard ending to swallow for FC Barcelona as they battled Osasuna to a scoreless draw late into the second half of the match. Early in the first half the Barcelona defense looked a little off as they were not clearing the ball out of the back field and giving the Osasuna offense too much space to move the ball around.

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By the time the final whistle blew today I was wondering when United were going to get started. That's the measure of Champions isn't it, being able to win when still in first gear? Well that's all fine and well but with Chelsea and Arsenal building up their goal differences each week, we could do with battering the teams we totally outplay.

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Little to say after what promises to be one of the most surreal thirty minutes in recent memory.

Chronologically:

-Torres off, Ryan Babel on. Apparently uninjured. Maybe with the midweek Champions League fixture in mind...but after that first half stunner, tough pill to swallow.

-Goal Fulham.

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So OK, let's get this one out of the way up front:
Does Onstad throw his shoulder at Montero? Obviously yes.
Does Montero drop to the ground like he just took a .50 cal round to the head? Obviously yes.
Does Onstand then do the "I'm checking to see if my face is bleeding" act like he's Chuck Wepner or something? Click to continue reading...

Well, we didn't win. Houston took our best shot and is still standing. A couple thoughts on last night's game.
1) Houston is *way* more talented than we are, up and down the field. Brad Evans played out of his mind last night, Ljungberg had a good game, our defense was ok, Keller earned his paycheck, that was for sure. Click to continue reading...

Blood, noise, yellow cards and a disputed whistle outnumbered scoring chances as expansion Seattle made its MLS postseason debut with a scoreless tie against the more experienced and bullish Houston Dynamo on Thursday night.
Seattle couldn't take advantage of dominating possession, or the energy created by 35,807 fans at Qwest Field. Click to continue reading...

Football fans have become better educated in the mysteries of football finances over recent years out of necessity as much as anything else, but just occasionally old naiveties come to the fore. It might just be that they can't believe that things could be as bad off the pitch as on it at the moment, but Hull City fans are less concerned than they should be about the lack of financial information coming out of their club in recent times, and now that the information has come out and has proved as grim as one may have feared, they still don't sem to believe that things can be as bad off the pitch as on it; despite the phrase "significant doubt over their ability to continue as a going concern" appearing not once, but three times in a relatively short annual report and statement of accounts for the Tigers' promotion year.

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Celtic captain Stephen McManus earned a straight red for his waaaay late challenge on Hearts striker Andy Driver just before the final whistle in Hearts' 1-0 CIS Insurance Cup quarterfinal win on Wednesday.

The referee initially only showed McManus a yellow card, but then the assistant ref pulled him aside and side something to the effect of "Are you serious?

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Well, more suffering for fans at Qwest. It's beyond a cliché to say that MLS referring is subpar, but there were two hugely controversial calls that will soon be reverberating over the interwebs. First is Onstad getting off with just a yellow. It's hard to see how that's not a red, and the Montero yellow is also mystifying.

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MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP/Getty Images

With a different looking lineup than Barcelona fans are accustomed to, Pep Guardiola and his men visited third divison side Cultural Leonesa. Today's lineup featured Bojan, Gai Assulin and Pedro upfront and early on the kids looked like they were going to have an easy time moving the ball around the Leonesa defense.

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No LIVE today for our U-17 World Cup kickoff, but I will come back at halftime with an update and a few words, naturally followed by all the roundup regalia after the final whistle.Here is your USA line-up, we start this one off at the top of the hour:Edwards; Kitchen, Herold, Watts, Polak; Gil, Palodichuk, Duran, Shinsky; Jerome, McInerneyAs always, you can follow along at US Soccer's Click to continue reading...

United deservedly lost 2-0 at Liverpool on Sunday, going into the game all the talk was of crisis at Anfield, the focus was on Rafa Benitez, but when the final whistle blew the focus of attention had switched to the performance of rookie referee Andre Marriner and Manchester United, who were pretty much second best all over the pitch. Click to continue reading...

Despite tonight's heartbreaking, gut-wrenching 2-2 draw in Kansas City, there is still a chance for United to advance to the post-season. The only way the Black-and-Red book a ticket to the MLS Cup playoffs is if Seattle and Dallas play to a draw tonight and New England loses to Columbus tomorrow.

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