There are some pivotal battles to be fought in the upcoming Matchday and while some groups look to have clear patterns emerging, others could go down to the wire. Let's take a whirlwind tour of the current state of the groups along with my speculations on the ties on Matchday 5. Group A A win […]

I thought I would share with you some of the articles that have caught my eye over the past couple of days: Kartik of Major League Soccer Talk argues that Landon Donovan's trial with Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich is a good move for the player. Kudos to Werder Bremen for taking a tough stance on […]

Its been awhile since a La Liga Team Of The Week has been awarded. My bad, I've been slippin. Don't worry I got my good writing boots and there will be no more slippage. The winner of the La Liga Team Of The Week played matches and or made headlines during the week of Oct. 20 – […]

Most pundits agree that Miami is odds-on favorites to get a Major League Soccer team in 2010 or 2011. After all, with a name like Barcelona tied to the club, how could MLS refuse? While the vast majority of articles about the expansion bid have been positive, I wanted to get a few things off […]

In a new experiment, I am going to try a weekly wrap-up of news stories that caught my eye but that I don't think require pages of analysis as I am prone to doing 🙂 So, here they are, concise and hopefully interesting. UEFA are expected to formally confirm in December that Wembley will host […]

Former footballer Michael Robinson tackles one of the biggest questions in world football today- what happened to Ronaldinho? This is part of Informe Robinson, one of the most successful sports magazines in Spanish television.In the piece that Canal Plus produced, Robinson inteviews everyone from the neighborhood he grows up in to his teammates at Barcelona […]

For the 2008/2009 season, Barcelona are again wearing a home kit designed and manufactured by Nike. I was able to get my hands on the shirt recently and here are my thoughts regarding the shirt. There are some replica soccer jerseys that are perfect for wearing in the street that are more aesthetics than a […]

The group stage of the Champions League begins today with several intriguing matches as well as the return of Chelsea and Liverpool to continental football. Be sure to set your DVRs for the following matches on TV today in the United States (all times eastern). Bordeaux vs. Chelsea: 2:30pm ESPN2/ESPN360.com Sporting Lisbon vs. Barcelona: 2:30pm- […]

What do Werder Bremen, Villareal, Atletico Madrid, Panathinaikos, PSV Eindhoven, Marseille, Dynamo Kyiv, Celtic and Fenerbahce have in common (hint: the answer is not "They're all in the Champions League group stage which starts today")? Give up? Well, all of these clubs are in fact in the group stage of the Champions League, but the […]

FC Basel 1893 How They Got Here:Basel beat Vitoria de Guimaraes (also known as Vitoria SC) 2-1 on aggregate in the third round of qualifying. Basel won the Swiss League last season. Star Performer: MF Benjamin Huggel. An experienced member of the Swiss national squad, Huggel is a strong presence in central midfield. In his […]

I'll have more analysis and comments later but for now just a quick update on the results of today's drawing. Some of the groupings, as in past seasons, was almost a bit too predictable but there are some interesting matchups ahead (Real Madrid – Juventus springs to mind as does Manchester United – Celtic and […]

Argentine national coach Alfio Basile called up his 23 men to face Peru and Paraguay in September. There were two surprises on this list as Internacional´s Andrés D´Alessandro and Porto's Ángel Di Maria were called up for duty. This left out Benfica midfielder Pablo Aimar and Inter striker Hernán Crespo. He also left out Boca […]

Hopefully this becomes great news for LLT´s Barça nut R.D. Baker as Zenit St. Petersburg officially stated that negotiations with Tottenham Hotspur over Euro2008 revelation Andrei Arshavin broke off earlier on Wednesday. This leaves the door wide open for Barcelona to come in and swipe the player, but there is very little time. Zenit mentioned […]

So Alexander Hleb has moved from Arsenal to Barcelona in a £11.9m transfer. While some Arsenal fans may fret about the loss, I'm not worried. To me, Hleb isn't a huge loss. When I first saw him play for the Gunners in a friendly match in the summer of 2005, I immediately liked the player […]

After a long wait FC Barcelona have finally made official the signing of right-back Dani Alves from Sevilla. Alves, who can play on the right of defence or midfield, joined Sevilla from Bahia for less than one million euros in 2003 and was an outstanding player as they won back-to-back UEFA Cups in 2006 and […]