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...

Some advance warning: This post is going to be mildly critical of Zinedine Zidane. Nothing too harsh, because as for many people he was one of my favourite players to watch. The vision, the touch, the roulettes, the shiny bald patch. Loved it. But that's also the reason I'm about to mildly criticize him.

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Movies and soccer. Two things that traditionally don't mix well. In documentary form, maybe. But in scripted Hollywood form? No. For various reasons, it usually ends in either cheesy emotions, unconvincing action, or Robert Duvall's Scottish accent in A Shot at Glory. But not always. There are a handful of good football movies out there. Click to continue reading...

I've seen the above game described as a "catfight", but that absolutely does not do it justice. Bringham Young University vs New Mexico in the Women's Mountain West Conference college tournament last night was more like the roughest game of soccer ever captured on YouTube, and it featured the roughest display of defending I've ever [. Click to continue reading...

Richard Farley from "Inside the Six" interviewed yours truly to bring you up to date with the latest news on the Team Owners Association (TOA).

"Inside the Six" is part of the World Soccer Reader network and Richard Farley is well versed in football from around the globe as well as the US.

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Richard Farley from "Inside the Six" interviewed yours truly to bring you up to date with the latest news on the Team Owners Association (TOA).

"Inside the Six" is part of the World Soccer Reader network and Richard Farley is well versed in football from around the globe as well as the US.

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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...

The United States will face perennial world soccer power Italy on Wednesday in the FIFA U-17 World Cup, and making it to the knockout stage of the tournament has been behind the backbone of a stingy defense. Click to continue reading...

YouTube videos (and blog posts, including some of mine) often come with hyperbolic titles. So when I see anything titled "Worst _____ Ever!", I immediately reach for my skeptical spectacles. However, the above YouTube video titled "Worst football miss ever!" made me put them down again. I'm not saying that it's categorically, definitely, no takesy-backsies the [. Click to continue reading...

I don't know if anyone else reads World Soccer but I have a subscription to the magazine and in the most recent issue, they raised the point of the best striker in the world. I'll explain how they came to their conclusion in a moment but I was wondering what other people thought was required in a striker and who they feel is the best.

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Is it just me, or are football clubs digging deep deep holes for themselves every time they sign a manager to a big money multi-year contract? News broke over the weekend that former Inter coach Roberto Mancini had finally reached a settlement with his old club. A settlement that apparently made him €8m richer. Click to continue reading...

For a long while there, Stephen Appiah was an international footballer only. The midfielder has not played a kick of club soccer since late 2007, but still managed to captain Ghana through a successful World Cup 2010 qualification campaign. Which is ridiculously impressive when you think about it.

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Dear Mr. Goodell,

What has been witnessed all season long at Qwest Field in Seattle is the potential of professional Soccer in the U.S.� Interestingly, it has all taken place at a football stadium.� Who would have ever guessed, 14 years in,� that MLS would make� its biggest� impact in a football stadium.

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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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This past week I was asked by Inside The Six's Richard Farley to discuss about MLS, the last match at Giants Stadium, Red Bull New York,� MLS as a whole and the situation of the USL & the future of American Soccer.

Richard Farley who has been� a guest many times on the MLS Talk Podcast with Kartik Krishnaiyer was gracious enough to allow me to share my thoughts on the game here in the USA.

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Remember how last year we were complaining about viral football videos. About how they'd jumped the shark because it was all CGI and lies. Well, we take it back. The latest viral I've seen has a commercial interest, in that it's designed to promoted English indie band Kasabian's new single "Underdog". Click to continue reading...

Have you ever heard of the Golden Foot award? I absolutely hadn't, until this morning when I read on ONTD that Ronaldinho had won the 2009 edition. Which led me to do some searching and find out exactly what this thing is. Random, is what it is. But also kind of interesting. Each year, the Golden [.. Click to continue reading...

Battle of the Brands In the world of soccer sponsorhip, there are two big boys. Adidas and Nike. Adidas sponsors footballers like Leo Messi and Ricky Kaká, Nike sponsors footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Ibrahimović. Neither are particularly shy when it comes to telling us about this. In fact, after spending millions on getting the players [. Click to continue reading...

On FIFA's web-site promoting the start of the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria the event is hyped as a chance to "discover the stars of tomorrow."� And while there is an impressive list of former participants (including, for example, Ronaldinho, Michael Essien, and Luis Figo) another look at the history of the U-17 World Cup offers more cautionary tales than burgeoning stars.

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We have three big derbies happening this weekend: We have El Súper Clásico in Mexico, the Superclásico in Argentina and what I'd consider the equivalent in England when Liverpool host Man Utd (can we call it The Super Classic?) Here's a quick lowdown on the three big games, and a question: Which game or games will [. Click to continue reading...

After a hectic weekend in European competition which didn't go particularly well for some of the Premiership teams, we're back to the bread and butter (or should that be the champagne and caviar) stuff. No doubt about this weekend's biggest game: Liverpool v Manchester United on Sunday.

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Martin Rogers, the senior World Soccer writer for Yahoo! Sports joins Kartik Krishnaiyer to discuss the epic clash that defines English Football: Liverpool-Man United. This Sunday's game however is different than so many in the past as Liverpool comes in having lost four on the trot while United sits atop the table.

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I'm not quitting, and neither is Rob. But we both have other blogging commitments and so could definitely use some help here on England WCB. Especially as we begin the buildup to the big football show that is World Cup 2010.

Much like Fabio Capello, we won't settle for just anyone.

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Do you know who the unofficial world football champions are? It's not Italy, they're the official world champions by virtue of being World Cup holders. The unofficial world champions are in fact the Netherlands. Who says? The Unofficial Football World Championships people says, that's who.

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Sepp Blatter was in Budapest today to unveil the all new FIFA Puskás Award, named after legendary Hungarian Ferenc Puskás. The award will be bestowed upon whichever player is deemed to have scored "the most beautiful goal" of the year, and presented to that player at the FIFA World Player Gala on December 21st, [. Click to continue reading...

Just over a week ago, I gave everyone two hypothetical options. Option A: Your club wins the league title. Option B: Your country wins the World Cup. Club vs country. The most popular answer by far was "country" and winning the World Cup. The second most popular answer was "country, but if you'd said [. Click to continue reading...

Have you heard the story linking Thierry Henry with a move to Major League Soccer and the New York Red Bulls? I know it's been around for a while now, ever since the Designated Player/Beckham Rule came into effect, but for some reason it kicked up again this past weekend. All of a sudden the rumour [. Click to continue reading...

Indonesia's bid for the 2022 World Cup will be marketed as the "Green World Cup" and be themed around saving the planet - "For the Game. For The World. For Our Planet Safety"

FIFA is scheduled to announce the 2022 host on Dec. 10, 2010.
Indonesia's national squad is currently ranked 144th in the world.

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The dangerously addictive Football Manager 2010 will officially be released on October 30th. Good news for gamers. Bad news for pets, plants, and people you know. Especially people who need you to look away from the screen and talk to them when all you want to do is make sure you sign this wonderkid before [. Click to continue reading...

When you look at the list of nations bidding to host World Cups 2018 and 2022, it's very very easy to dismiss Indonesia. The nine other bids all have either superior football traditions or superior infrastructure or superior financial muscle. Or in most cases all three. There's also the question of letting a team ranked 129th in the world qualify automatically.

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Before the international break (which I refuse to complain about) we restarted The Offside's Fan for a Match series, where we pick one of the world's lesser known clubs, tell you a little about the team and its history, and then support said team for the weekend. The first recipient of our support was the [. Click to continue reading...

Time for a bit of shameless self-promotion. Along with Taylor from Man Utd Offside, I've been co-hosting a public radio show titled the Total Football Soccer Show. We're eleven episodes in, and have been posting each show on Podcast Offside. I wanted to bring the 11th and most recent episode to you attention here on [. Click to continue reading...

Norwegian former professional footballer Bjorn Heidenstrom is on a mission. A mission to make the world's biggest football shirt.

He's cycling from Oslo, Norway all the way down to Cape Town, South Africa, and collecting signed shirts along the way. He's pictured above (right) taking possession of a signed shirt from Belgian club Mechelen, and has already collected many many more.

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Bit of controversy in European World Cup qualifying, with the powers that be pulling what looks like a commercially motivated bait and switch with the playoffs.

Here's what's happened: The nine European group winners all qualify automatically. So that's Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia, Germany, Spain, England, Serbia, Italy, Netherlands all going to South Africa.

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Something to read while reminiscing about the Danish team of the mid-80s. Here's a quick vid of them in action, overturning a two goal deficit to beat Belgium at Euro '84... TV is the spiritual home of football, says Jim Lovetoy (Football Ramble) Collected footballers tweets (FootballFilter) Sven in turning down payday shock! Click to continue reading...