Ireland striker Robbie Keane has already become Aston Villa's in-game gaffer by shouting out pitch instructions to his short-term colleagues.
Keane has ingratiated himself to team-mates and fans alike with his brilliant double in the 3-2 victory at Wolves last Weekend and it capped an amazing full Villa start for the 31-year-old Irish captain who is currently on loan from LA Galaxy.

It's no wonder why Pepe is nicknamed "The Butcher."

The Real Madrid defender, who is either known for physical play or malicious attacks on his opponents depending on who you talk to, could face disciplinary action for deliberately stomping on Lionel Messi's hand during yesterday's Clasico.

Newcastle have been linked in the last few days with Young Boys striker Emmanuel Mayuka. Emmanuel Mayuka 21 year-old 5'10″ striker at The 21 year-old 5'10″ striker says that Newcastle are a dream club, and of course he'd love to join Newcastle United (who wouldn't). But whether there's any truth in this we don't know, but [.

By Dario Camacho - MIAMI, FL (Dec 19, 2011) US Soccer Players -- When you are a kid living in Bogota, Colombia there comes a time and realization that one day, you must pick a side. The eternal battle between the local teams, Millonarios and Santa Fe de Bogota is one of the countries oldest rivalries.

Three Swindon Town Centre of Excellence players are spending this week training at Premier League side Liverpool.
The three players are Jordan Young (U13), Ryan Wood (U14) and Lee Marshall (U15) have been selected to spend a week's training at the Liverpool Academy.
The trip has been organized as part of their continued development with the club already having close links with the Anfield side.

For many a tortured soul, Peter Crouch's exit from Tottenham was as good as a new signing. A two-season career which peaked in Manchester on that famous evening- briefly spiking into the green with a Young Boys beating hat-trick and the heroics in Lombardy- withered somewhat terminally in its final months.

Young boys in the park with jumpers for goalposts, or battering a ball against a garage door, dream of pulling on that jersey, of scoring the winner at Wembley, of lifting the World Cup. Of making a name for themselves. And yet some players make a name for themselves inadvertently, their footballing achievements and exploits overlooked or forgotten.

He may not have any role. He may not be asked to participate.
There is, though, a possibility that Bob Costas will have something to say for MLS broadcasts on NBC in 2012.
He'd probably look forward to the challenge.

Kenny Dalglish saluted his Liverpool side after they overcame Chelsea 2-1 at Stamford Bridge courtesy of Glen Johnson's superb late goal.
The spoils looked set to be shared after Daniel Sturridge cancelled out Maxi Rodriguez's first-half opener before Johnson's intervention.
The former Chelsea full-back collected Charlie Adam's raking cross-field pass, nutmegged Ashley Cole and the slotted home after driving into the box.

January will soon be with us and while the striking situation at White Hart Lane doesn't seem quite so desperate as it did last season, it still seems likely that Spurs will be entering into the market at some stage for reinforcements.

Despite Pav's wonder strike against his compatriots from Rubin Kazan last week, he has had a lacklustre start to the season and could well move on this winter.

Thanks to all that took part in the recent competition to win a Spurs COYS shirt courtesy of COYStheshirt. There were some good entries, and some strange ones, but the winning caption to the picture of Redknapp and Wenger was from Nevbrand with this:
HR - 'Don't get so cross, - I only wanted to talk about the problems we had with Young Boys'
Nevbrand wins a COYS shirt in a colour and size of their choice.

Another day, another striker linked to Tottenham Hotspur and today's transfer rumour involves Ivory Coast centre forward Seydou Doumbia who currently plays his football in Russia with CSKA Moscow.

Doumbia was with our old adversaries Young Boys where he played for two seasons before travelling to the Russian league in 2010.

Steve Clarke has admitted he has been encouraged by the performances of the club's talented youngsters since he came to the club.
Martin Kelly, Jay Spearing, Jon Flanagan and Jack Robinson have been regular members of the first-team squad since the return of Kenny Dalglish to the Anfield hot seat, and Clarke insists they are there on merit.

Steve Clarke has admitted he has been encouraged by the performances of the club's talented youngsters since he came to the club.
Martin Kelly, Jay Spearing, Jon Flanagan and Jack Robinson have been regular members of the first-team squad since the return of Kenny Dalglish to the Anfield hot seat, and Clarke insists they are there on merit.

It has been a highly eventful start to the autumn for HJK. First, maintaining their devastating form in the league, the Helsinki club all but secured the Veikkausliiga title already in August. Then, ‘Klubi' gave Schalke a proper run for their money in the Europa League play-offs, beating the Germans 2-0 at home until imploding in the second half of the away leg as the hosts ran rampage with a 6-1 victory.

Ireland captain Robbie Keane has admitted Tomorrow's Euro 2012 qualifier with Russia is a game 'The Boys In Green' cannot afford to lose if they are to maintain hopes of qualifying for the finals in Poland.
Giovanni Trapattoni's side were held by Slovakia last Friday in a disappointing performance in the Aviva Stadium and trail Russia by two points with three rounds of games remaining in Group B.

After last week's emphatic 5-0 victory away to Hearts you could have been forgiven for assuming that Spurs would go into the home leg with a changed side to give some fringe players a run out. With a crucial game against Manchester City coming up on Sunday and the tie in the bag, it's a good chance to look at some youngsters but according to Joe Jordan, the strongest possible team awaits our opponents.

First match of the season then, a Europa League qualifier against Hearts. Will the first 11 be rested for Man U or will they be given match practice, are they well rested or are they lacking sharpness? Thursday night will see these questions, among others answered, as we kick off for another year of ups and downs and the hands of Dawson & Co.

THFC1882 is pleased to welcome back guest writer Gareth Johnson for his thoughts on our upcoming Europa League game against Heart of Midlothians on Thursday.

As Luka Modric took to the pitch in our pre-season friendly against Athletic Bilbao, he was perhaps a little surprised at the rapturous applause that broke out around the ground after his summer of discontent.

What I meant in this post is really young talents, 12 years only or younger. There are a lot of interesting videos in the net and YouTube. I came across three of them that I like to share:
The first one is my favorite and it is not much the goal as much as the mature team work in it:
The second is an interesting finish, that most people will enjoy a lot:
Finally, this video from a very interesting talent from Japan.

Apologies.

That's Nassim Ben-Khalifa, a young boy playing for Young Boys, and that's his rather poor attempt on a completely wide open net from dead center in the box. Luckily, Young Boys would still win, 3-1, so it'll all be fun and incessant ribbing at training for, oh, ever.

The look on the face of the defender at the end really makes the miss, though.

Apologies.

That's Nassim Ben-Khalifa, a young boy playing for Young Boys, and that's his rather poor attempt on a completely wide open net from dead center in the box. Luckily, Young Boys would still win, 3-1, so it'll all be fun and incessant ribbing at training for, oh, ever.

The look on the face of the defender at the end really makes the miss, though.

By Chris Wright

The 2011/12 Europa League may still be in it's fledgling stages, but we'd wager that Young Boys striker Nassim Ben Khalifa's (there's got to be a pun in there somewhere) atrocious open-goal fluff against Westerlo is still going to be the worst miss of the tournament come the final next May.

Kenny Dalglish acknowledged his disappointment at seeing Liverpool go down to a 3-0 friendly defeat to Galatasaray on Thursday, but believes the game can stand his squad in good stead for the season ahead.
Two first-half goals from former Anfield forward Milan Baros and a stunning volley from Johan Elmander condemned the Reds to defeat in Istanbul.

After a brilliant season last year, Francesco Guidolin steered Udinese to 4th place and a place in the Champions league qualifying stage, with this a lot is expected in the coming term. With all the success, vultures have swarmed Udine and are looking at their best players. The very talented forward Alexis Sanchez is turning heads with both Manchester United and Manchester City interested, along.

Good morning. I hope this finds you hearty and well and enjoying the delights that only a summer can bring. Rumour, innuendo, frustration, constant refreshing of websites, trawling the NewsNow feed, and now, for the first time, Twitter has become a 'tool', and I use that word quite deliberately, for the mischievous to play with the delicate minds of football fan.

With Jonathan Woodgate having left the club, the centre back positions are looking very thin and although we know that Ledley will remain in the ranks for the forthcoming campaign, everybody knows not to expect a full season from him.

With that in mind, the deadwood report turns its attention to Sebastien Bassong and here is another player who seems to split opinion down the middle.

If Australia wants to win a World Cup then the style of play and individual performances at the U17 and U20 World Cups are always a good guide to how well or otherwise a national team might perform in coming years and certainly to their style.
Australia has shouted long and loud about how we are going to change, indeed are changing our style of play, but after todays performance the Kaz Patafta inspired U17 team of 2005 under Ange Postecoglou was no worse than this performance.

Il suo soprannome è "Speedy", un nomignolo che, evidentemente, sottolinea la sua dote maggiore, ovvero la grande facilit di corsa. Parliamo del nuovo acquisto di una scatenata Lazio, il 25enne Senad Lulic, giocatore nativo di Mostar (citt della Bosnia-Erzegovina) ma con passaporto svizzero, e proveniente proprio dal club elvetico dello Young Boys.

The official Spurs website is full of reports from players looking back on the 2010-11 season and while there's nothing that you wouldn't expect them to be saying, it was interesting to see them comment on the pivotal tie of our season.

Rewind 12 months from today and we were looking forward to our first Champions League tie with some trepidation and we knew that there were some dangerous sides in the preliminary rounds.

Rating and slating the players can be the best part of a blogger's 'job'. When your strikers have scored just 18 Premier League goals between them all season, however, it's more of an annoyance than anything else. Still, without further ado, presenting TBFWHL's official player ratings for 2010-2011:
Heurelho Gomes
Last year: 9
This year: 5
For every outstanding performance, there was a match-costing clanger.

Going, going, GomesThis blog sincerely hopes none of you out there are feeling especially downtrodden or disheartened. Our fate was sealed at 4-0 in Madrid. There may have been a tiny chance of a miracle comeback, mainly because we're Spurs and it's what we do. But there can only have been a handful of Spurs fans who could have genuinely said that they thought we'd drag it back at the Lane.

As the last person to leave remembers to flick the porch lights off, close the back door and slide the key under one of the many overflowing bin bags that've been piling up since last September- thus saying a fond but hearty fare-thee-well to Tottenham's maiden Champions League voyage- perhaps now's a good time to look back on the whole remarkable experience and say: well that was a bit of alright, wasn't it?

Being in the Champions League's been great, hasn't it? The comeback against Young Boys, van der Vaart's all-emotions performance against Twente, Bale vs Inter, winning in Milan, all of it. If we are to fail to make it next season, it'll be a real shame to have to resort to Thursday nights on ITV4 in the Europa League.

So, the dream has become a reality and Spurs have made it to the Quarter Finals of the Champions League. After being three nil down against those pesky Young Boys in the first qualifying round, Harry Redknapp and his European soldiers are now just four games away from the final of Europe's biggest football competition.

Some leagues are given more Champions League places than others so that the competition can be made up of the best teams in the continent, some of which hail from the same country. That Tottenham, in fifth place in the Premier League, can deservedly beat the team that has led Serie A for much of the season proves that England are ready to be awarded a fifth place in the competition, at the expense of one awarded to Italy if need be.

Morning,

the post-Barcelona fallout continues with the news from UEFA that Arsene Wenger and Samir Nasri have been charged for comments made to referee Massimo Busacca after the game. I'm unsure of the specific charge but I suspect it's something that contravenes the 'Don't tell a shit ref he's shit, it'll really hurt his feelings' law.

Benfica vs Stuttgart February 17, 2011- Europa League Final score:- Benfica vs Stuttgart 2-1 ( Oscar Cardozo, Jara/ Martin Harnik) Two late goals from Cardozo and Jara allow SL Benfica to take a narrow 2-1 lead to Stuttgart for the second leg of their Europa League Round of 32 clash. Benfica vs Stuttgart 0-1 ( [.

AC Milan vs Tottenham San Siro, Milan- February 15, 2011 Final score:- AC Milan vs Tottenham 0-1 ( Peter Crouch 80′) Peter Crouch's late goal gives Tottenham Hotspur a priceless away win plus a clean sheet against Italian league leaders AC Milan, who had a late goal from Zlatan Ibrahimovic disallowed.

This week marks the return of Champions' League football to the European calendar, with the first night featuring Tottenham going back to the San Siro, this time to take on A.C. Milan.

Last time they were in Milan, Spurs started out about as badly as is possible, being 4-0 down at half time and down to 10 men against Internazionale (a position they enjoyed so much, they repeated it against Fulham in the FA Cup last month).