Peter Nowak's decision to adjust his tactics (ironically enough in line with what most American Soccer Spot readers suggested the other day) shows a tactical savvy and willingness to take chances that many American coaches have quite frankly lacked in big competitions. Since the debacle of Steve Sampson 3-6-1 in the 1998 World Cup, American […]

Imagine how many hundreds of thousands of words were wasted discussing the possibility of Cristiano Ronaldo moving from Man United to Real Madrid this summer. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the word count went into the millions as the story was the biggest tease from June through August. While the episode appears to […]

This Sunday marks the traditional beginning of the top flight of English football when Portsmouth battles Manchester United in the Community Shield Final at Wembley Stadium in London. If you're like me, you're excited about seeing the return of English football after being without it since the end of May. But the biggest story in […]

Just like Manchester City and Everton, Portsmouth is coming off their best season in England's top division in years, and I'm not sure there'd be much argument from the South Coast side's supporters by saying it was the best season in club history. Portsmouth wound up in 8th place, their highest-ever finish in the Premiership […]

Solomon Kalou of Chelsea celebrates the Ivory Coast's goal with a teammate / AP PhotoMatchday one is in the books for 2008 Men's Olympic Football tournament with Argentina, Brazil, the United States and Italy all recording victories. However some performances were more impressive than others: Brazil for example were outplayed badly by Belgium for much […]

A look at Bayer Leverkusen's Bruno Labbadia concludes our The New Gaffer: Introducing... series this week. So far we've examined, in order: the journeyman, the company man, the stranger and, er, Martin Jol. Labbadia is a mix between a poor man's Jürgen Klinsmann and a poor man's Christian Bale (take a look!). In other words, […]

It's certainly been a busy summer at White Hart Lane this year as Juande Ramos begins to weed out the players he feels are holding Spurs back over the last few weeks and looks to bring in the kind of players he feels can bring more silverware Tottenham's way. With the exception of Robbie Keane, […]

Manchester City's 2007-2008 campaign was their best since rejoining the Premiership after a few years of purgatory in England's lower levels. Manager Sven-Göran Eriksson compiled a very respectable 19-11-15 record in his first year on the job, guiding the club to a 9th-place finish, a trip to the Carling Cup quarterfinals, and a berth in […]

The best of MLS Players in Olympics Nigeria Emmanuel Ekpo entered the match in the 89th minute in the the 0-0 draw. USA Stuart Holden scored a goal for the US in its 1-0 win over Japan. Marvell Wynne set up Holden's goal and played a full 90 minutes at right back in the US […]

The second qualifying round brought two big upsets as Rangers and Anderlecht became two of the biggest clubs to be knocked out at this stage. A 2-1 win (video highlights here) in Lithuania saw FBK Kaunas (pictured celebrating at the right) take full advantage of the 0-0 draw they earned at Ibrox to send the […]

The UEFA Cup (perhaps soon to be known as the Europa League as we covered a while back) is in some ways more interesting to me as the diversity of nations represented is much higher. If Michel Platini is successful with his reforms, we may see more diversity soon in the Champions League but for […]

On Sunday, when Manchester United take on Portsmouth in the annual Community Shield fixture at Wembley, a marker may have been set for the future of our game and the respect that referees rightfully receive in times to come.We may look back in ten years time and say that that was the day when football […]

When TechCrunch announced in June that a new social network for football fans was being launched in beta, football aficionados flocked to the site to see what all of the fuss was about. A couple of months later, EPL Talk has followed up the co-founder of Footbo.com to see how the site has evolved since […]

Well the US gets three valuable points today. A few observations: For the third major tournament in a row (2006 World Cup, 2007 U-20 World Cup, 2008 Olympics) the US has come out in a 4-5-1. The fact that this has been done under three different coaches tells me its is the ideal formation for […]

Manchester City's new third shirt for the 2008/2009 season is orange, or is it? The new shirt has been uncovered on the Internet and published by our friends at Football Shirts. However, it's quite possible that the shirt design is fake. The design and creases are exactly the same as the ones featured in this […]