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.
Maybe there's a new dimension to Jose Mourinho's specialness, one we've so far overlooked. In fact, perhaps it's the single biggest feat of his managerial career. In the two seasons he was at Inter, the club was, well, "normal." No senseless infighting. No ripping up blueprints from one day to the next. Everybody pulling in the same direction and a clear medium-term plan. Arguably, except for the early part of Roberto Mancini's five-year regime (before the vicious row with the club's medical staff, the allegations of wiretapping and the resignation on live television), it's something Inter haven't enjoyed since Giovanni Trapattoni's tenure more than 20 years ago.
Liverpool's owners may imagine a younger, hungrier and sleeker squad but, unless up to 10 players leave, the danger is that theirs will be a bloated group containing several with little prospect of first-team football, especially in a season that won't involve European football. There are men such as Milan Jovanovic (reported earnings: £120,000 a week) and Joe Cole (£90,000), who prove that free transfers can be a false economy. There are players who were loaned out, forgotten but not gone, but now returned, such as Emiliano Insua, who at least has shown promise, and Philipp Degen and Nabil El Zhar, who have revealed none. Then there are Roy Hodgson's recruits. Raul Meireles apart, the summer of 2010 was a nadir for Liverpool in the transfer market. Hodgson may not bear sole responsibility for the signings of Cole and, in particular, Jovanovic, but his reunions with Paul Konchesky and Christian Poulsen were all his own work.
Marshall, 25, died along with his wife when his car collided head-on with a truck close to Costa Rican capital San Jose while they were travelling from his grandfather's funeral.
Just five days ago, the AaB defender scored his side's equalising goal en route to a penalty shootout loss against Honduras in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. It was his only international goal in 19 appearances.
Leeds United have defended their decision to ban a great-grandmother for a year for running on to the pitch at Elland Road. Margaret Musgrove, 63, was given an automatic ban by Leeds after she went on to the grass during the last game of the season in May. Mrs Musgrove, who says she has 13 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, was caught by TV cameras walking across the penalty area with her arms in the air at the end of the match against Burnley. She was grabbed by stewards and taken to holding cells but was not charged with any offence.Off The Ball never rests in its mission to scratch around the underbelly of professional football to find the most bizarre, humorous and inexplicable stories.
This week, Women's World Cup hosts Germany launch an Octopus Idol-style hunt for a psychic successor to Paul, Diego Maradona takes a pop at Pele and Neymar, Zenit striker Danko Lazovic is Tasered while giving his shirt to a fan and Barcelona president Sandro Rosell bans colour photocopies in a bid to raise transfer funds.
So this is what it comes down to.Just after Belgrano went ahead 2-0 early in the second half, dozens of hooligan fans - at least one wearing a mask - ripped through a fence, raced across the pitch and taunted and shoved River Plate players.
Rather like tyrannical dictators, who don't expect to die quietly in their beds, one somehow never expected Jack Warner's professional death to happen offstage in press releases and leaked reports. After all, only a few weeks ago the Fifa vice-president was threatening to unleash "a football tsunami", so at the very least one expected him to open fire like Tony Montana at the top of the staircase at Fifa's Zurich HQ, or even advance out of the building in his pyjamas and dressing gown, unloading endless submachine gun rounds, in the manner of Albert Finney in Miller's Crossing. Instead, a spot of bother with the ethics committee appears to have persuaded Warner to pension himself off, presumably because he wants to spend less time with what Sepp Blatter calls "the Fifa family". Lovely as it is to see the back of him, I do feel cheated, just as I would if Ernst Stavro Blofeld resigned from S.P.E.C.T.R.E. to devote more time to the cat show circuit.
The image endures: U.S. national team and Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard charging at his own defenders, gesticulating wildly and screaming corrections at them after a play, veins surging to the surface of his buffed dome.
Clint Dempsey has revealed how paying an emotional tribute to his late sister last weekend gave him extra motivation to lead the United States to victory in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The USA forward was given special dispensation from coach Bob Bradley to jet to Texas for the wedding of his younger sister Crystal on Saturday, then joining up with his teammates hours before the team’s 2-0 quarterfinal win over Jamaica in Washington, D.C.
The wedding ceremony included a moving scene where Crystal laid her bouquet at the grave of her and Clint’s eldest sister, Jennifer, a promising tennis player, who died of a brain aneurysm at age 16. Throughout his professional career, Dempsey has pointed to the sky every time he has scored a goal, in remembrance of Jennifer.
In the boardroom, he will have to please the club's hire 'em and fire 'em billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. In the dressing room, a number of players - notably John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba - are entering the twilight of their careers and will need replacing before too long. Abramovich and many of the Chelsea players will know the 33-year-old Portuguese coach from his earlier stint at Stamford Bridge, when he worked under former boss Jose Mourinho. Villas-Boas provided, among other things, in-depth scouting reports on opposing teams that took as long as four days to prepare.
Brazilian club Santos and Uruguay's Penarol square off on Wednesday June 22nd in Sao Paulo in the final of the Copa Libertadores, one of the most important club competitions in South American football. Penarol have won the prestigious tournament in 1960, 1961, 1966, 1982 and 1987. Santos, meanwhile, won the Copa Libertadores in 1962 and 1963, when their team featured the young Pele. 
SSN friend and Brazil expert Chris Gaffney will speak tomorrow at noon on the preparations for World Cup 2014 in Brazil. If you are in the area, please consider attending. Chris is well-versed in the nuances of Brazilian football, life and politics, and the talk should be fascinating. Details for the lecture are below and a link to Dr. Gaffney's blog is located in our Blogs and Links section on the right side of the page. -Editor
A TALK BY
Christopher Gaffney
Visiting Professor
School of Architecture and Urbanism
Universidade Federal Fluminense
Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22ND
NOON TO 1 P.M.
(A light lunch will be served)
HAITI LABORATORY
FRANKLIN HUMANITIES INSTITUTE
BAY 4, SMITH WAREHOUSE
DUKE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Gaffney’s work on the World Cup has recently been quoted in Al Jazeera, The New York Times, the Guardian, Reuters, the Associated Press, ESPN, and multiple Brazilian media outlets. His first book, Temples of the Earthbound Gods (University of Texas Press 2006), examined the history and culture of soccer stadiums in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. Gaffney was a lecturer in the Departments of Geography and International Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill from 2006-2008, covered the Carolina RailHawks for the Independent Weekly and frequented the Triangle’s pick up soccer games. His website, www.geostadia.com, analyzes the shifting political, economic, urban, and social dimensions of Brazil’s current mega-event cycle. He lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.
All are welcome. Parking is available next to the Smith Warehouse, along Buchanan Blvd.
New Fulham manager Martin Jol says he always harboured ambitions to return to English football after his spell in charge of Tottenham.
Jol was today unveiled as Mark Hughes' successor at Craven Cottage, having come close to joining the London club last summer.
“When you’re older, you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren you were at Upton Park the day Joe Cole signed his first professional contract.” West Ham PA announcer, 1998 “Lionel Messi can do some amazing things but, anything he can do, Joe can do as well, if not better.”
Steven Gerrard, August 2010
Still regarded by many as the most gifted player England has produced since Paul Gascoigne, hype is something Joe Cole has had to live with for a very long time.
This is the man parts of England’s World Cup squad almost went to war with Fabio Capello over last summer, and someone who can look in his trophy cabinet and see at least three Premier League and two FA Cup winners medals gleaming back at him, along with more than 50 England caps.
But while this time last year, Cole was seen as the saviour of England’s dismal World Cup campaign, this summer he is contemplating a backward step. A move away from one of England’s biggest clubs and into the second, or maybe even third, tier of Premier League sides.
The playing days of lumbering Argentine striker Martin Palermo were one prolonged battle of a man to overcome his own limitations. Sensing and identifying with the essential nobility of the struggle, the fans of Boca Juniors took him to their hearts. Palermo's career ended on Saturday on a note of appropriate drama. His last touch as a professional, deep into stoppage time, was a nod down which set up team-mate Christian Cellay to score Boca's equaliser against Gimnasia of La Plata.
Chicago interim coach Frank Klopas and his players forged a bond well before he took over for Carlos de los Cobos on May 30.
Most of the players under his stewardship arrived because he brought them into the club as technical director. His future with the Fire is invested in them. Their future remains in his hands.
As ever, South America is providing some of the most sought-after signings in the transfer window and Alexis Sanchez will not be the only player making a high-profile move for a large fee this summer.
It sounds like a simple assignment: acting as general manager, assemble a soccer team featuring the best player in the world at each of the 11 positions. But as anyone who follows the sport knows, choosing that team is a complicated exercise. You want to reward the most talented individuals, of course, but you also want a coherent team. What's more, the result represents a sort of personal mission statement. How do I want to see soccer played? Is it possible in the 21st century to combine great aesthetics with winning fútbol?
It's been 18 years since Argentina has last won a major trophy and with the world’s best player in its ranks the time is ripe to set the record straight. On home soil and when all of its attacking players are fit and at the peak of their careers, this is the best chance for Argentina to end their drought at el Monumental. The Argentinian football association has taken an interesting decision to award cities like Mendoza, Jujuy, San Juan, etc(some of which are home to clubs from the second tier of Argentinian club football) hosting rights for some of the games in this edition of the Copa America. As most of the National team is based in Europe, the fans from these cities will be relishing the prospect of watching the likes of Messi, Kun Aguero, Di Maria in action and will be certainly turning out in huge numbers to support their team.
Denmark and England have been left to rue a lack of goals as they exit the UEFA European U21 Championships. The hosts' main issue was converting chances, while for the Young Lions a dearth of creativity was to blame. Two goals in the last three minutes for Czech Republic dumped England out of the tournament. The Young Lions thought they had made the semi-finals when Danny Welbeck scored in the 76th minute but the Czechs had the final say. Substitutes Jan Chramosta and Tomas Pekhart both scored to clinch a 2-1 win for the Czechs.
