Germany – Lukas Podolski By The Scout This player is an obvious but a very necessary choice. Having just turned 21 recently, Lukas is now set to star for Germany at this year's World Cup. He spent last season at FC Cologne but after they were relegated from the Bundesliga, he was sold to Bayern […]

The Guardian newspaper ran an interesting article about America and the World Cup yesterday. In it, reporter Steven Wells revealed the interesting split between those die-hard soccer fans and the mainstream. Interestingly, I wrote a similar piece for EPL Talk Magazine (which was just released last night and is a free download). If you live […]

ALL GAMES AVAILIBLE IN HD FRIDAY JUNE 9TH 11:55 am Germany vs Costa Rica ESPN 2 Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa 2:55 pm Poland vs Ecuador ESPN2 Adrian Healey and Tommy Smith SATURDAY JUNE 10TH 9 am England vs Pargauay ABC Dave O'Brien and Mareclo Balboa 11:30 am Trinidad vs Sweden ABC JP Dellacamera and […]

In an ironic move, former U.S. National Team defender and current LA Galaxy GM, Alexi Lalas fired his former U.S. Men's National Team Coach, Steve Sampson. I guess winning the MLS Cup last year wasn't enough for Sampson. Yes, the Galaxy are struggling this year but this move smacks of a personal vendetta against Sampson […]

Yahoo Sports has a good feature on Eddie Johnson. How do you beat Brazil? SI's Gabrielle Marcotti has some answers.

In interesting news, Graham Bell and Gazza Richards from The 2 G's have launched their own new soccer radio channel entitled Champions Soccer Radio Network. The 24/7 station is available as a streaming broadcast over the Internet at http://www.the2gs.com The network is currently airing The 2 G's, The Treble and select EPL Talk podcasts. […]

France has experienced opposite extremes in the past two World Cup finals. In 1998 the French did double, both hosting the event and winning it. Two years later this the greatest generation of French Soccer won the European Championships. France entered the 2002 finals as a co-favorite but instead provided no offensive punch and embarrassing […]

If you blinked, you may have missed it, but this past weekend ABC showed two World Cup shows to get Americans excited about the World Cup. The first, "American Soccer's Ten Greatest Moments," might sound like a joke to most readers outside the US, but much of the content was focused on the US women's […]

The tenth episode of the EPL Talk Podcast is now live featuring an interesting interview with soccer podcast-aficionado Phil McThomas from Soccer Shout. Phil, and his co-host Tony, have been making a lot of progress recently and have even been featured in the Sunday Times of London and on BBC Radio's Five Live. Interestingly, Phil […]

Brazil is the only South American nation to have won a World Cup outside of the Americas with wins in 1958 and 2002. With World Champion coach Carlos Alberto Parreira back at the helm after stints in Major League Soccer and Saudi Arabia, the Selecao look set to go the distance yet again. But the […]

If you're visiting this blog from the link at the BBC's web site (so far, that's 36% of you), welcome aboard. While the focus of the EPL Talk blog is on the English Premiership League, we'll also be covering the World Cup this summer. Let me take this opportunity to also introduce you to the […]

Will the USA advance or will we take a step back to our 1998 World Cup form? This question has troubled all of us since the draw was announced in December 2005, and we realized that the USA were to be placed in a group with two of the top squads in the world as […]

Portugal were among the biggest disappointments at Korea/Japan 2002. From John O'Brien's goal that put USA in the lead early in the opening match until the final whistle in a hard fought loss to South Korea, it seemed Portugal's vast talent was being wasted in desperation comeback mode. This time will be different for passionate […]

When the Premiership season concluded on May 7, many people (myself included) were commenting how next season will be a four horse race instead of two. Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United are worthy contenders for the 2006/2007 title. How quickly things change. With Chelsea's acquisition of Shevchenko and Ballack, the west London outfit has […]

Group C is without question the group of death at Germany 2006. In fact, this group may be one of the all time toughest with four squads that in my estimation could win the group and could win just about any other group in the competition. However, Argentina and Ivory Coast appear to be slightly […]