SSN is a digest of the day's soccer/football/futbol articles with a focus on the top European leagues and the United States National Team. Below, you’ll find links to articles and video, as well as additional features and commentary. We locate the top news of the day so you can stay updated with ease.
Some even coined a term, “Brazilian superstar disease”, which was allegedly afflicting Ronaldinho as well as his national teammates Adriano, of Inter Milan, who admitted to having a drink problem, and Ronaldo, whose allegedly ballooning waistline provided acres of newsprint in Madrid and Milan. The low point came a few days before Barcelona’s trip to Ibrox, when Ronaldinho was dropped for a league match after returning late from an international qualifier in Rio de Janeiro. According to local reports he missed his flight after staying out until 11am, a feat the 27-year-old achieved by bribing nightclub staff to stay open for him and his friends. 1) David Beckham, 32, LA Galaxy - £112m
2) Michael Owen, 27, Newcastle Utd - £37m
3) Robbie Fowler, 32, Cardiff City - £30m
4) Wayne Rooney, 22, Man Utd - £30m
5) Sol Campbell, 33, Portsmouth - £28m
6) Andriy Shevchenko, 31, Chelsea - £25m
7) Rio Ferdinand, 29, Man Utd - £25m
8) Ryan Giggs, 33, Man Utd - £23m
9) Michael Ballack, 31, Chelsea - £18m
10) Steven Gerrard, 27, Liverpool - £15m
They both showed me their City tattoos. D has two. D and Biddo
have been City fans all their lives. These guys are busy consuming as
much beer as they can before the bus comes. Great quote: "you have to
get pissed to watch City". Not wanting to stand out, I had a couple
of pints. Interesting fact: at the game, you are not allowed to bring
beer out to your seat.
The coach arrives (late), we board (10 pounds) and head towards
Manchester. This is a rented tour bus and on it are a friendly
assortment of very devoted City fans. They are of all ages, teenagers
to retirees, mostly men. These guys go to just about every game all
over the country. Recently when City was in the UEFA Cup, D
traveled to all the games around Europe. I expected non-stop singing,
but the bus ride was a fairly sedate affair.
Even though the bus was late, we arrived about 45 minutes before the
8pm kick off, so D and Biddo take me to a pub called The Manchester
which is across the street from the stadium. This place is run by a
well known ex(?) hooligan, who apparently drives a Bentley and is not
to be fucked with. The place was absolutely packed with mostly drunk
large English men. Most with bald or shaved heads, some singing very
loudly. Oasis is cranked on the stereo (apparently Oasis are huge
city fans). Several odes to City are played, including a punk version
of Blue Moon (the official City anthem). It was a volatile
environment, but the strange thing was it wasn't scary or threatening.
D said that it sometimes gets a little unpleasant in there. At
some point a couple of police came in and the energy level went up a
little bit. We left soon after, and as we did we saw that a van full
of police was unloading outside. Not sure if they went in there or
not. We headed to the stadium.
The stadium is a very modern building maybe about five years old. It
is pretty impressive looking all lit up with blue neon. Inside, along
with food and drink vendors there are betting areas where you can bet
on the outcome, who will score, or the score at half-time.
The seats were great, probably about 10 rows back from the field about
1/2 way between the goal and center field. The great thing about the
stadium-- which they got all wrong at the Home Depot Center-- is that
the first row is literally about six inches off of field level. So
you are really very close to the field and you can tell. And what a
field. Really vibrant green with a light mist rising off of it.
In the stadium you could see many empty seats, but as soon as the
music switched to this sort of eerie Tubular Bells sort of soundtrack,
the place quickly filled up. The Who-esqe Premiere League anthem was
played and the players came out. The crowd was on their feet
applauding.
City actually didn't play that well, but the did score a great goal
and that was all that mattered in the end beating Sunderland 1-0.
Manchester City 1 - 0 SunderlandArsenal | Played 11 | Points 27 | |||||
| Man Utd | 12 | 27 | |||||
| Man City | 12 | 25 | |||||
| Chelsea | 12 | 24 | |||||
| Portsmouth | 12 | 22 | |||||
| Blackburn | 11 | 22 | |||||
| Liverpool | 11 | 21 | |||||
| Everton | 12 | 19 | |||||
| Aston Villa | 11 | 18 | |||||
| Newcastle | 11 | 17 | |||||
| West Ham | 11 | 15 | |||||
| Reading | 12 | 13 | |||||
| Fulham | 12 | 12 | |||||
| Birmingham | 12 | 11 | |||||
| Sunderland | 12 | 9 | |||||
| Middlesbrough | 12 | 9 | |||||
| Tottenham | 12 | 8 | |||||
| Wigan | 12 | 8 | |||||
| Bolton | 12 | 7 | |||||
| Derby | 12 |
Things did not go as planned for The Bruce in New York...What is more likely, though, is that he will emerge with microphone in hand, ready to let rip with a stream of acidic comments from the sanctity of the television commentary booth. There, he will have the license to sound off all he likes and it won't matter.
Stadio Olympico, Torino, Italia
When I was a kid, Sunday nights were ritually employed for baths and hair-washes, in preparation for the rigours of school the next day. The practice dies hard (well - I try to bathe more than once a week now, honest) but Athletic Bilbao v Revreativo de Huelva, my old mates, was just too hard to resist, especially given that Bill, my Scots friend, had been granted annual permission to fly over and indulge in some live La Liga action. I'd suggested he come over for this one, a game between Spain's two oldest clubs.
In my opinion, this is the biggest clash on the EPL calendar. Whenever these two sides meet, the tension is palpable and you get the feeling that things could boil over at any moment. Traditionalists will argue that Manchester United and
The spoils were shared in last week's crunch match between Fifth-placed Blackburn face
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Friday 2nd November (all times local)Saturday 3rd November
15:30 Werder Bremen v Hansa Rostock
15:30 Bayern Munich v Eintracht Frankfurt
15:30 Bayer Leverkusen v Arminia Bielefeld
15:30 Nürnberg v Stuttgart
15:30 Hamburg v Hertha Berlin
15:30 Hannover v Borussia Dortmund
Sunday 4th November
16:00 Bochum v Wolfsburg
16:00 Karlsruhe v Duisburg
Hamburg – Hertha Berlin
Bayern’s closest challengers face Hertha Berlin at the HSH-Nordbank Arena. Huub Stevens’ side are currently riding the crest of a wave with nine wins in their last ten games and find themselves just four points behind Bayern Munich. They have also shown they are more than a one man team, as influential skipper Rafael van der Vaart has been missing since the international break with an injury although he is now ready to return. A 3-1 win over Freiburg on Wednesday has seen the Hanseaten advance to the last 16 of the German Cup.
Lucien Favre sees his Hertha side nestling comfortably in mid-table. Five wins have been mirrored with five defeats and a single draw. The capital club were sent tumbling out of the Cup in midweek by Wuppertaler SC, which was the big shock of the second round. Their recent home form has been better than their away form, so HSV should be confident of gaining another three points.
38 Dalglish resigns, February 22, 1991 Sir Alex Ferguson, with characteristic obscenity, says his greatest achievement is “knocking Liverpool off their f****** perch”. When Kenny Dalglish resigned as manager after Liverpool threw away a quartet of leads in the 4-4 draw with Everton in the FA Cup, the team were top of the league. Dalglish left, emotionally in tatters, another victim of Hillsborough. Manchester United filled the vacuum created by tragedy, that’s all. But expecting humility from Ferguson is too much. Grim years loomed ahead.
26 Liverpool 0 Everton 0, League Cup final, March 25, 1984
During the dark days of Thatcherism, a match in London was as much a political statement as a football trip. Thousands of ski-hatted Scousers, Blue and Red, disgorged from trains into Euston station singing in support of the Miners and Liverpool’s Militant Council. Scouse power in action.
If you surveyed players in Major League Soccer, most would name RFK Stadium as the toughest place to win a playoff game. The boisterous supporter's section and normally potent D.C. United attack make for a troubling combination for any visiting team hoping to get a result in the nation's capitol.Any team except the Chicago Fire, which has had more success at RFK than any visitor. The Fire's perfect playoff record against D.C. (4-0-1 after its Game 1 victory last week) is well-publicized, but their playoff record at RFK is more staggering. Two postseason visits to RFK (in 2003 and 2005) have resulted in two shutout victories by a combined score of 6-0.
D.C. United vs. Chicago Fire: Preview
