Any one got a pointer to a place where a Yank can lay a wager down. 80-1 and Italy at 14-1 sure look pretty. Still though from what I've seen which is minimal at best it hard for me believe that Argentina isn't A or A-1. I guess they have no faith in Maradona getting done as the coach?

World cup final; John Terry gets drawn back by his sexual misconduct and with rio injured Englands centre backs are Ledley and Dawson. its written in the stars

Seeing how Argentina do is gonna be fascinating. It won't happen but can you imagine if Maradona actually leads them to the final and they win?!?!? The place will go insane.

the most certain bet is that Argentina will not win.

honestly, if results go as predicted, then they'd play Spain in the semis then either Brazil, Holland or England in the final. Who knows? Maradona sticks to his meds? Mascarano doesn't get sent off? Messi and Tevez click up front? A few wonky decisions in their favour? Stranger thing have happened.

Soooo, has anybody been watching any football lately?




Last night FK Rudar Pljevlja completed the lineup for the UEFA Champions League second qualifying round after easing to a comprehensive 7-1 aggregate victory against SP Tre Fiori.

Leading 3-0 after last week's first leg in San Marino, the Montenegrin titleholders were never quite as dominant as the scoreline suggests. They forged further ahead through captain Predrag Randjelović's early goal before Fabio Vannoni's equaliser. That is how it remained until 23 minutes from time, when Randjelović finally ended any hopes of a comeback.

Late goals from Nedeljko Vlahović and substitute Miroje Jovanović sealed victory and Rudar, making their UEFA Champions League debut this season, will now face PFC Litex Lovech in the second qualifying round. The first leg takes place in Bulgaria on 13/14 July, with the return the following week.



Obviously, it's a good result for the Montenegrins, but you have to feel sorry for the San Marinians who saw their dreams of winning the Champions League go up in smoke that early in the competition. Anyone think FK Rudar Pljevlja can go all the way this year?

Without knowing the first thing about FK Rudar Pljevlja, I'm gonna hazard a no.

i dont know, with the right amount of youth and experience we could see an upset.

West Ham have just signed Mexico winger Pablo Barrera. Does anyone remember if he was good or not? Does anyone remember him at all?

leeds need to sign hooper pronto if they want to make a serious push for the prem and not just a mid table performance.

p.s. i dont remember him sorry^

I'm wondering if there's even been a team with an unpronouncable name win the Champions League.

ixxzakxz moscow?

I remember a sports broadcast where the presenter had to read the UEFA-cup results and when it came to Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk he just said "AZ Alkmaar who played against... ehm, there you can see it on the screen".

Don't remember the Mexican dude.

tonight's AIK - Rosenborg will be an interesting match. come on gnaget

For those interested (me for sure) tonight's game between the Allstars and Man U. is on ESPN2 starting at 8:00 pm EST with 1/2 hour buildup game time at 8:30 pm EST. thank you ESPN

i spotted this yesterday, watched it online on ESPN3, game started around 6:51 my time (7:51 texas, 8:51 EST) -- was this an online delay or was it real time?

anyway, the game got a bit dull after the first 2 manchester goals, but what goals! allstars change the rhythm in their favor but couldn't score. then things picked up again in the 2nd half.

allstars was a bit of a mess, i mean, it's not a real team, and there were so many changes it was hard to keep up who was playing.

a couple of the manchester u goals were beautiful though, holy shit, that free kick was impossible for the goalie to stop, over the barrier and next to the goalpost with spin, wow, and cleverley's play for the goal was nothing short of gorgeous. good times. ah, if we had teams like that here!

I've noticed a lot more pubs showing pre-season friendlies this year. It's almost like a sweetener following the poor taste left by England's poor showing in the World Cup. Sky obviously want to market their product as a top quality one and want to erase the bad memories of their flagship brands like Rooney by showing them 'back on form'. It's gonna be really interesting to see just how a number of star players are going to be received by supporters once the season actually starts. There's a real despondency about English football and footballers across the country now, and it's gonna be interesting seeing how the marketing men deal with it.

England was definitely guilty of having an arrogance about the quality of its players but this was fueled largely by our media hyping them almost as superhuman. The public won't buy that now and companies like Sky, with massive business interests in the Premier league will find it hard to overcome that. Even if Rooney ends up as top scorer, there'll be a new ambivalence about him that Sky certainly won't have had to deal with before. I'm expecting that Rupert Murdoch is brushing up on his Spanish right now.

rooney wasn't playing and macheda is italian and barely 18! so watch out in years to come, this fucker was amazing. chicharito hernandez (mexican) also played and scored. the english national team could be crap and this team would still be amazing. i guess the perception in england is that it's an "english team" but for furrners like me it's like this is the "earth allstars".

haha, yeah. Nobody in England is under any illusion that a team like Man U reflects the abilities of English players. I'm thinking more about individual players who now look increasingly like they're being carried by top grade foreign imports. How many English players are signed to top quality Spanish or Italian clubs? Last time i looked it was precisely none. Every single player in that WC squad played in their domestic league. either that's because the English league really is the 'best in the world' (as Sky likes to constantly remind us) or the top teams in La Liga and Serie A just don't think English players are worth the money. There's always talk about the likes of Lampard or Rooney or Gerrard being courted by teams such as Barcelona and Real but, weirdly, nothing ever comes of it.

The coaching situation is even more depressing. No English manager has ever led a team to win the Premier League (Ferguson and Dalglish being Scottish), an astonishing statistic compared with the likes of La Liga or Serie A. And that's not even going into the whole debacle surrounding our national team being coached by an Italian - a situation that a lot of people are deeply uncomfortable about.. Never mind the fact that only one English club side (Spurs) competing in this season's Champions League is English-owned.

So yeah, "Earth All-Stars" is spot-on.

hey, regardless of nationalisms, you get to watch some great games, either in a stadium or on regular TV? i used to go to RFK in DC (it was cheap and it made for a nice afternoon) but the games weren't anything extraordinary. often downright frustrating. and catching english, italian or spanish games or the bundesliga here? there's some kind of secret cable tv deals or something, but i don't get cable. when i saw those man u goals it made me wanna cry, ha ha ha. seriously, no matter who owns the team or what country are the players from you get to see amazing games every week. ah, the jealousy!