Sid Lowe in Spain

Real Madrid's defeat to Sporting Gijón ended José Mourinho's mind-blowing unbeaten home league record – and his title hopes.

After nine years, 151 games and four clubs, José Mourinho's record ends.

UEFA Champions League: Tuesday's Previews

Real Madrid vs. Tottenham
Preview

Dominic Raynor: All pressure on Real Madrid
Sid Lowe: Ronaldo can make Real predictable
Phil Minshull: Can Real win it all?
Paul Hayward: Spurs feed off inferiority complex

Key Battles






Inter Milan vs. Schalke 4
Preview I
Preview II
Schalke fear Inter backlash after Derby defeat

Chris Birchall living the American dream with LA Galaxy

You could be forgiven for thinking there is only one English-born player currently turning out for Los Angeles Galaxy in the MLS.

Given that the player in question is David Beckham, arguably the most famous footballer of his generation, you can understand why.

But there is another, and it charts another remarkable chapter in the football career of Chris Birchall.

He made his debut for Port Vale at the age of 17 in a League Cup tie at Charlton in September 2001.

Since then, he has played for six different clubs in three different countries and also represented Trinidad & Tobago at the 2006 World Cup, despite growing up thousands of miles away from the Caribbean.

Is the Premier League the angriest in the world?

Everyone in the Premier League from managers and players to fans seem angry or miserable, irrespective of results. Just relax and be happy and your fortunes may change, advises Ralph Ellis.

Raphael Honigstein in Germany

The 18-year-old's sensational goal against Hannover 96 brought tributes likening the attacking midfielder to Lionel Messi.

Mario Götze holds his nerve to calm Dortmund's title jitters.

Paolo Bandini in Italy

Edinson Cavani's hat-trick for Napoli would have stolen the show in Serie A this weekend, but for Milan's 3-0 derby win over Inter.

Edinson Cavani answers Napoli's prayers as leaders Milan slay Inter.

Chelsea striker Didier Drogba confronts Chelsea fan after draw with Stoke City

Chelsea striker Didier Drogba was involved in a heated exchange with one of his own supporters at the end of a disappointing draw with Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium that effectively ended the club’s slim hopes of defending their Premier League title. (video)

Wayne Rooney swearing furore is damned by its double standards

There is a double standard to a game so capable of engaging and enraging. Where the great bulk of the audience is concerned, the match is served up to people who are at home or in a sociable pub. So it is that a Sky presenter has to beg pardon of the nation, even though we all understand that football rights are worth so much because the game provokes, excites and often forgets good manners entirely.

If Rooney is troubling, it is more because of his psychology. Here was a man who seemed to be taking revenge rather than pleasure in a contribution that flipped a 2-0 deficit into a 4-2 win. At his best Rooney can look a world-beater but his stance is that of someone who also has a score to settle with the entire planet.

Football's modern-day delinquents make me pine for George Best

It is not always just nostalgia that gilds the past. The 60s did, in reality, swing. The 70s did too, so eat your heart out if you missed them because there is no chance of their being matched, certainly not for the uncomplicated happiness they generated on football pitches, or heaving terraces.

And George Best at his dissolute worst was unarguably a sunnier presence at Old Trafford between 1963 and 1974 than another teenage genius who arrived there 30 years later.

It will be difficult to erase the image of Wayne Rooney's crazed snarl at the world through TV cameras after completing the hat-trick that rescued Manchester United against West Ham. Here, captured forever, was a beast of his age, angry for reasons it was hard to fathom at the time, and impossible for impartial observers to justify now.

Steve Davis on the USA

More than 10 years have passed since the last time a gaggle of fresh faces has caused such a fuss around the United States national team. Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley and other members of the first residency class in Bradenton, Fla., began spicing up the national team scene late in 2000.

Three relative newcomers around Bob Bradley's team have fans similarly stoked today. Young defender Timmy Chandler and even-younger striker Juan Agudelo notched their first U.S. starts against Paraguay. Agudelo held up fairly well; Chandler was nothing less than a revelation. Tim Ream, not exactly a newcomer but hardly a national team icon just yet, improved his standing with an impressive collection of peppy passes.

A 1-1 draw with Argentina and a 1-0 loss to Paraguay were all about prep for this summer's Gold Cup; the team won't gather again until training camp in late May for the regional championship. So while everyone buzzes about the new kids, here are other lessons from the pair of contests:

Steve Davis on MLS

Know your Major League Soccer -- Five things you should know about Week 3:

Uli Hesse in Germany

Was it really just two years ago that Hoffenheim were the only Bundesliga club apart from Bayern Munich everybody had an opinion about? This season, they seem to be the only team in the league nobody is even mildly interested in. If Hoffenheim's aim was to become an established Bundesliga club, they have achieved their goal faster and more thoroughly than they bargained for, because the club is now more than merely established - Hoffenheim have become so normal they are boring.

Phil Ball in Spain

What an extraordinary weekend here in Spain, where events in La Liga took place in a counter-intuitive fashion, and more or less set the seal on the destiny of the league title, give or take an improbable implosion of form at Barcelona FC over the next eight weeks. As the weekend turned out, Real Madrid were probably wishing that the strike over television rights had gone ahead after all. The 1-0 win by Sporting de Gijon in the Bernabéu was one of the most extraordinary results of the season for a variety of reasons, as if the gods of destiny had decided to have a fun weekend and spoil the party down below - for some anyway.

Michael Jackson Statue Unveiled at Craven Cottage

The Big Interview: Ricardo Carvalho

The defender has proved himself at Real Madrid to be a valuable member of a third José Mourinho side.

Monday MLS Breakdown

The premise appears perfectly suited for such a tongue-in-cheek day: a perennially unsuccessful franchise ships away its unsettled local star on a day best reserved for timely injections of humor. The April Fools Day blockbuster struck between New York and Toronto FC surely would have constituted a prank for the ages if it had not actually occurred.

Alas, cruel jokes often turn into saddening doses of reality in the tone-deaf world TFC inhabits.

Dwayne De Rosario departed for New York on Friday night to cap a sequence of events that included the seemingly requisite tomfoolery surrounding any major decision by the Reds – in this case, a series of incredulous reactions from beleaguered fans for mounting a major move on such a lighthearted day, a set of half-hearted afternoon denials from TFC coach Aron Winter and a dinnertime confirmation from both clubs.

Gabriele Marcotti: St. Pauli on the Other Side of 'Otherness'

No club in world soccer is perhaps as beloved by the cognoscenti as St. Pauli. To some, the smallish team from the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's red-light district, is a kind of anti-corporate utopia. St. Pauli celebrated its centenary last year, but it was in the 1980s when it became the darling of non-conformism in soccer.

Bundesliga game called off after St Pauli fans pelt linesman with coins, lighters and a cup of beer

Friday's German Bundesliga game between St Pauli and Schalke 04 was abandoned one minute from time after a linesman was hit in the back by a plastic cup full of beer thrown from one of the stands after he disallowed a goal for the home side.

Check 1:12

Ben Findon in Milan and Rome

Italian football in decline? Not on the evidence of Milan derby and Roma-Juve's Serie A meetings.

Assou-Ekotto is not your typical pro

None of the Tottenham players will be daunted by the prospect of Tuesday¹s eagerly-anticipated Champions League quarterfinal against Real Madrid. After all, three of its likely starting lineup have reached this stage of the competition before -- Heurelho Gomes (PSV), William Gallas (Arsenal/Chelsea) and Peter Crouch (Liverpool) -- while another six have represented their countries at major tournaments.

One of the latter group will be particularly relaxed: Benoit Assou-Ekotto never gets nervous before big games, only watches his future opponents in team meetings and has a bugbear about players showing too much emotion during matches (don¹t get him started on badge-kissing after scoring goals). He also admits that his peers take themselves far too seriously, and that he only plays soccer for the money.