This weekend will make and break the careers of some coaches and players. The European play-offs which will begin on Saturday the 14th November and conclude on the following Wednesday, will definitely be a must win for the likes of France, Portugal and Russia.

A world cup without the reigning world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo is simply unimaginable.

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Seven stories from The Offside and World Cup Blog this week: Nominate your player/manager football ubermen Gigi's Buffon's incredible Champions League save Ballon d'Or or FIFA World Player of the Year: Which is shinier? Norwegian homage to Brazilian airport ad The return of Johan Cruyff. To Catalonia. Click to continue reading...

Portugal will most likely be missing Cristiano Ronaldo when it hosts Bosnia-Herzegovina on 11/14/09 as it looks to build some momentum prior to the return leg in Bosnia on the 18th of November. Unfortunately for the Portuguese the latest report claims Ronaldo will be out for about a month which means he will not feature in both matches for the national team.

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I understand that FIFA have other priorities, you know, the small matter of the World Cup in June next year. Surely though, they have a dedicated team that watch as many as matches of clubs from around the globe. Looking at the current list of nominees however, leads me to question whether FIFA has actually watched domestic football since 2006.

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So we're halfway through the season now and I think the teams that will challenge for the title, Brisbane Roar, Sydney FC and the Central Coast Mariners, have separated themselves from the pack.
I still think that Brisbane are the team to beat (can anyone say depth? they have it in spades), but there are also a few variables that I think may just come into it. Click to continue reading...

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...

FIFA announced the 10 finalists for its 2009 Women's World Player of the Year Award last week and half of them—Marta, Cristiane, Sonia Bompastor, Kelly Smith and Abby Wambach—played last season in Women's Professional Soccer. In spite of her accolades, however, only one of these WPS players, Cristiane, did not have her WPS option picked up for next season and still remains out of contract. Click to continue reading...

The candidates were announced last week for the Fifa World Player of the Year award. Am I the only one out there who's not too interested?
The point is proved by a brief look at the performances this year of one of the favourites. Based on what he has done for Barcelona, Lionel Messi would be a worthy winner - but that would certainly not be the case if the criteria was restricted to his form with Argentina. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has hailed the World Player of the Year nominations received by silky striker Fernando Torres and talismanic attacker Steven Gerrard; indicating that it bodes well for the club that two of their influential stars have won external commendation.
The Spanish gaffer also noted the increased form of Argentine battler Javier Mascherano insisting that he believes the midfield anchor is returning to his best form. Click to continue reading...

FC Barcelona would be looking to continue their two match winning streak at Osasuna tonight. After the set-backs suffered at Valencia and against Rubin Kazan at Camp Nou, Barca looked to have got their campaign back to the right track, but still this will be a huge test. The defeat against Rubin Kazan had made the return leg on wednesday a must win affair . Click to continue reading...

Cristiano Ronaldo has given United fans more to be frustrated about after the World Player of the Year stated his desire to see Manchester United's Wayne Rooney line up for Real Madrid. Ronaldo joined Los Blancos from United over the summer in a world record breaking £80 million, and the former Red Devils believes that Rooney would flourish in Spain.

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The 23 member shortlist for the 2009 FIFA World Player of the Year award has been announced. The winner will be announced on December 21, 2009. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres, who finished first, second and third respectively last year, are also in the running for this year's award. Click to continue reading...

Something to read while you enjoy the Top 30 A-League Goals of All Time (so far)... English football 1991-92 season in review (EPL Talk) FM2010: Digital Sunderland is the new digital Newcastle (Football Manager Offside) End of an era at Pro Vercelli (Run of Play) Ten players who played into their 40s (Podcast Offside) An alternative take on the Ballon [. Click to continue reading...

Something to read while you enjoy the Top 30 A-League Goals of All Time (so far)... English football 1991-92 season in review (EPL Talk) FM2010: Digital Sunderland is the new digital Newcastle (Football Manager Offside) End of an era at Pro Vercelli (Run of Play) Ten players who played into their 40s (Podcast Offside) An alternative take on the Ballon [. Click to continue reading...

Real Madrid will be travelling to Milan on Tuesday without Cristiano Ronaldo. The current "World Player of the Year" is still recovering from his ankle injury but will miss at least one more Champions League match.

Real Madrid has to hope to turn around their recent run of poor form with a victory in Italy but Milan is a side who are steadily improving.

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FIFA has announced its shortlist of 23 players for the Men's World Player of the Year award, and 10 players for the Women's World Player of the Year Award. National team captains and coaches will now vote (but not for players from their own country) and this final five will be revealed in early December, with the winners announced at FIFA's World Player bash in Zurich on December 21st.

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FIFA has announced its 23-man shortlist for World Player of the Year. Lets discuss who we think should win and why.

Michael Ballack
Gianluigi Buffon
Iker Casillas
Diego
Didier Drogba
Michael Essien
Samuel Eto'o
Steven Gerrard
Thierry Henry
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Andres Iniesta
Kaka
Frank Lampard
Luis Fabiano
Lionel Messi
Carles Puyol
Franck Ribery
Cristiano Ronaldo
Wayne Rooney
John Terry
Fernando Torres
David Villa
Xavi

Club-wise distribution

Chelsea 5
Manchester United 1
Liverpool 2
Valencia 1
Barcelona 6
Real Madrid 3
Sevilla 1
Inter 1
Juventus 2
Bayern Munich 1
Arsenal 0

Oh wait !

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Fresh off her 101st career goal and a U.S. 1-0 win against Germany yesterday, it was announced that Women's National Team and Washington Freedom forward Abby Wambach is the only American nominated for the FIFA Women's World Player of the Year Award.

Freedom teammate and French National player Sonia Bompastor is also on the list of ten nominees.

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Fresh off her 101st career goal and a U.S. 1-0 win against Germany yesterday, it was announced that Women's National Team and Washington Freedom forward Abby Wambach is the only American nominated for the FIFA Women's World Player of the Year Award.

Freedom teammate and French National player Sonia Bompastor is also on the list of ten nominees.

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US Women's National Team and Washington Freedom forward Abby Wambach is the only American nominated for the FIFA Women's World Player of the Year Award. Freedom teammate Sonia Bompastor is also on the list of ten nominees. There are 23 nominees on the Men's side, with both lists reduced to five in early December. Click to continue reading...

This morning Man United striker Wayne Rooney has been shortlisted for the FIFA World Player Of The Year award. He has been named alongside other English Premier League stars Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and John Terry.
Other Premier League players named are Michael Ballack, Didier Drogba, Fernando Torres and Michael Essien. Click to continue reading...

Mia Hamm of the United States has been named as ambassador for the 2011 Women's World Cup Games in Germany. The prestigious honor means that Hamm will be going around the world to represent the games and help promote women's soccer. She was named world player of the year back in 2001 and has brought home gold medals for the United States for the last two summer Olympic games.

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In anticipation of World Cup 2010, from time to time Premiership Talk will review some of the interesting topics in international football. This week we'll start with the list of the ten best players who have never appeared in the World Cup, courtesy of World Cup Odds. You can vote for your choice at their website.

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You heard it here first! Unless you have been on the dailymail site prior to this which would make us second. But a worthy second I reckon.

And I hear you saying HOW? How could Ronaldo, the current World player of the year, be retiring in four months time. Well apparently a witch has placed a hex on the former Man Utd man after a former girlfriend hired him (lol, a man witch, gay).

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Imagine a world cup without Lionel Messi. Impossible!. Well this was almost becoming a reality on Wednesday when Argentina took on bitter rivals Uruguay in the sentenario stadium in Montevideo.

Argentina emerged victorious but only just. They needed an 84th minute goal from substitute Mario Bolatti to send them through as one of the automatic qualifiers in the South American region.

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In 1991, some 30 years after the Ballon d'Or was first awarded to Sir Stanley Matthews, FIFA commenced the awarding of their own award. The FIFA World Player of the Year.

The award uses a Borda Count system to tally votes. Simply put a Borda count involves voters ranking their candidates in order of preference.

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By now you've heard the news: 2006 World Player of the Year and Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro failed a doping test in late August, testing positive for cortisone. The Italian football establishment players, coaches, officials, media came out in his defense. "The cortisone was lifesaving treatment for a bee sting!

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Barcelona may be the treble winners last season. In addition, they may also be the side with arguably the most potent attack in Europe, comprising of the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry, Bojan Krkic, and FIFA World Player of the Year hopeful Lionel Messi. On top of that, they also possess one of the most powerful midfield combinations in the continent in the form of Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez.

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The Beauty:

Sylvie van der Vaart is a Dutch model, TV personality, and award show host and presenter. She is famously hot in the Netherlands for her modeling career and jewelry line Pure By Sylvie. In 2008 the gorgeous lady hosted the FIFA World Player of the Year award ceremony.

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The ‘spectacular sporting project' that Florentino Perez envisioned might just be starting to gel smoothly. The question however is if this new ‘galacticos' era will bring Madrid the titles they have very much craved for. There is no doubt that with players such as Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo Real is a formidable side although I still feel that their glory days are long gone.

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- Barca coach Pep Guardiola stars in a new book entitled "Paraula Pep", or "The World of Pep". The book is the result of the success of a television program by TV3 under the same name, which was broadcasted in the week before Barca's CL victory in Roma. Editor Ernest Floch was quick to take the initiative to commision the book, which records the phrases that have been considered outstanding in the path of Guardiola on the bench of FC Barcelona, and that define his philosophy. Click to continue reading...

Arsene Wenger's rapidly increasing dependence on youngsters within his squad reached new heights this midweek when he chose to start off the Champions League group stages with rookie Italian goalkeeper Vito Mannone between the sticks.

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Fernando Torres hailed Steven Gerrard the ‘greatest player in the world' and insists: Liverpool would be lost without him.
Speaking ahead of the launch of his new book, Torres added he believes their inspirational skipper is ‘irreplaceable' and has vowed to help land him a long overdue first ever Premiership winners medal - and the World Player of the Year Award. Click to continue reading...

Like England last year, 1998 World Cup winner France might miss out on a major tournament after a second straight draw. Group 7 leader Serbia held the French to 1-1 in Belgrade to leave them trailing by four points with two matches to go.

Portugal could also be relying on capturing second place and a playoff to reach South Africa, although the side - featuring world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo - boosted its chances by leaving Hungary with a 1-0 win.

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World football's hottest property Christiano Ronaldo got off to a flying start for his new club with a debut goal on the opening day of La Liga. Real Madrid's most high profile "Galactico" acquisition of the summer scored from the spot in a 3 - 2 opening day thriller against Deportivo to make a dream start to his football career at his self confessed dream club. Click to continue reading...