So the draw for Euro 2008 was made today and it looks like a resonable group for Sven Goran Erikkson's sucessor. The other home nations and Ireland have a lot more of an uphill struggle to qualify. Groups D and B look tasty.

Group A
Portugal
Poland
Serbia & Mont
Belgium
Finland
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan

Group B
France
Italy
Ukraine
Scotland
Lithuania
Georgia
Faroe Islands

Group C
Greece
Turkey
Norway
Bosnia
Hungary
Moldova
Malta

Group D
Czech Republic
Germany
Slovakia
Eire
Wales
Cyprus
San Marino

Group E
England
Croatia
Russia
Israel
Estonia
Macedonia
Andorra

Group F
Sweden
Spain
Denmark
Latvia
Iceland
N. Ireland
Liechtenstein

Group G
Holland
Romania
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Albania
Belarus
Luxembourg

#
Joint hosts Austria and Switzerland qualify automatically
#
Games start on 2 September

robbie fowler back at anfield.

Yeah I just heard that too. Bit of a surprise but a great move for him.

and Major League Soccer's newest team will be known as:

Well, actually the team is being relocated to Houston from San Jose.

In other news, here is the current state of the new Chicago Fire stadium in Bridgeview:

It should be a nice venue for soccer--more intimate than Soldier Field. I really enjoyed going to games when the Fire played at North Central College back in 2002--back when they had DaMarcus Beasley and Bocanegra.

Liverpool need to dump Cisse. He's probably the worst player in the Prem right now. Fowler is a great signing. He's scoring goals all of a sudden and loves the club. He'll be out to impress.

FA Cup action this weekend.

Not for me, My team exploded like ratbags in the first round!

Lampard a late equalizer against Everton. Not surprising. Chelsea were all over them the last half hour of that match.

Sunderland going out of the FA Cup to a League One side?

It sucks that we get no coverage of the African Cup of Nations. I'd love to see the Egypt v. Ivory Coast match today.

Don't need to watch that. It's a draw, I have money on it.

(I can watch the highlights later after I watch Arsenal lose.)

Wait, their team name is the '1836'?

Also, the Fire stadium should be pretty fun, its a pretty ethnic nieghborhood around these parts. I'm just hoping that the stadium will get the orange line extended past midway or get the Central bridge over the railyard built. The Midway el stop is the closest one to me, but if there's parking by the stadium and a future el site, it might be free, and would be worth a slightly longer drive.

Oh, but stay off Harlem once that stadium is up and running.

Yep. It is part of MLS' plan to try and name teams similarly to how Europe does. Real Salt Lake, DC United, and now Houston 1836.

Spartak Housten.

Egypt beat Ivory Coast then, bit of a shock as draw would have put them both through. Nevermind the main man Stelios got me some wonga for his splendid diving header.

BBC announces World Cup coverage

England's opening 2006 World Cup game against Paraguay on 10 June will be exclusively live on the BBC.

The BBC will also have live coverage of England's first knockout clash - possibly against hosts Germany or Poland - if they qualify.

First choice of quarter-final also goes to the BBC, which would again be England if they make the last eight.

And any England semi-final or final appearance would also be on the BBC as well as ITV.

ITV will be showing England's group games against Trinidad & Tobago and Sweden.

The BBC's coverage, revealed on Monday, will also feature the opening game of the tournament - Germany v Costa Rica in Munich on 9 June.

Brazil's two peak-time matches - against Croatia and Japan, kicking off at 2000 BST - will be on the BBC, as will Italy's opening game against Ghana.

All three group games involving France will feature on the BBC as well as Germany v Poland and the final group games involving Italy, the Czech Republic and Spain.

BBC Radio will have commentary from every match at the World Cup, with broadcasts on both Five Live and Five Live Sports Extra.

This website will also provide extensive coverage of every match.

Games to be shown on the BBC:
9 June (1700 BST): Germany v Costa Rica
10 June (1400): England v Paraguay
11 June (1400): Serbia & Montenegro v Netherlands
11 June (1700): Mexico v Iran
12 June (1700): USA v Czech Republic
12 June (2000): Italy v Ghana
13 June (1400): South Korea v Togo
13 June (1700): France v Switzerland
13 June (2000): Brazil v Croatia
14 June (2000): Germany v Poland
16 June (1400): Argentina v Serbia &Montenegro
17 June (1400): Portugal v Iran
18 June (2000): France v South Korea
19 June (1400): Togo v Switzerland
19 June (2000): Spain v Tunisia
22 June (1500): Czech Republic v Italy & Ghana v USA
22 June (2000): Japan v Brazil & Croatia v Australia
23 June (1500): Ukraine v Tunisia & Saudi Arabia v Spain
23 June (2000): Togo v France & Switzerland v South Korea

Story from BBC SPORT:

how about Robben yesterday, that slap didnt look very hard.

what is happeneing with Shaun Wright philips. a year ago he was thehottest player in the prem, now, he looks like heis haveing a nightmare with lack of playing time. CHelsea bought him to stop him going to arsenal and i hope he bounces cause this is one of themost exciting talents.

Sol Campbell, what happened tp him also, sounds like he wants to retire after a bizzare incident,

Sol Campbell needs to get a grip. Letting problems with his love life affect his game yet again. He will be lucky to go to Germany at this rate. His lack of the form is the main reason Arsenal have struggled away from home this season.

Robben behaved like the playacting diver people have always accussed him of being on Sunday. Shameful. Seems Chelsea are after Adu today.

Ivory Coast are winnning against Nigeria

nigeria is my heritage, born and bred, we just lost i think. damn, at the 94 world cup we looked like we might be an emerging super power, now we just look lost.

This could destroy Italy. The dude is one of the top 5 in the world IMO.

Ouch, Yeah without him they are only a B class team, same as England and Rooney.

Alan Smith had a nasty injury this weekend. Broke his leg AND dislocated his ankle in Man Utd.'s defeat to Liverpool.

Have you seen Nike's new "Play Beautiful" commercials featuring Cantona? I think it's funny he's the spokesman for that campaign considering he beat the shit out of a Crystal Palace fan once.

I know they were introduced last week, but the USA is wearing their new World Cup kits against Guatemala today.


In my opinion, these kits are quite an improvement over the former kits.

I guess Nike is calling the new design modern-day retro--for its likeness to the kits from the 1950 World Cup and the kits the USA wore in the mid-90's.


Overall, it's an upgrade for the USA...at least the USA will not be wearing a template kit for the World Cup.




Yeah, I saw it on Fox Soccer Channel. I thought it was pretty entertaining. Going back to the Parklife commcercial Nike did several years ago, they have had some quality soccer commercials.

They've had 2 or 3 excellent commercials released in the past few months now. I'll be interested around May and early June to see what they come up with.

As for the new US kits, I really dig the blue long sleeved one they are wearing today. Agree with you on the improvement.

EJ got a goal today and then ran past the bench with his back facing it pointing at his name and number.

FA Cup quarter-final draw

Charlton Athletic v Middlesbrough

Aston Villa or Manchester City v Bolton Wanderers or West Ham United

Chelsea v Newcastle United

Birmingham City v Liverpool

Ties to be played on 20-23 March

Shame that only one from Charlton, Boro, Man City and Bolton could potential reach the final. Would love to see Newcastle win it and Shearer sign off in style.

Wishing Alan Smith a quick recovery and Joe Cole looking more and more like the best player in the world, ( far to early to say that I know but to me this guy always impresses me of late, basically has an end product to his game now).

Wembley dropped for FA Cup final

This year's FA Cup final has been switched to Cardiff, the company building the new Wembley stadium says.

Multiplex, which had on Monday denied it had confirmed the stadium would not be ready, made the claim in a statement to the Australian stock exchange.

It said the Football Association made the decision because it needed "100% certainty" Wembley would be finished.

The Press Association news agency has reported that the FA will offically announce the decision on Tuesday.

PA said that FA chief executive Brian Barwick had visited the site of the stadium on Monday with Wembley chief executive Michael Cunnah, and subsequently had a meeting with Multiplex's UK managing director Martin Tidd.

The decision to abandon any hope of staging the FA Cup final at Wembley this year is said to have been taken at that meeting.

Multiplex said in January there was a "material risk" it would not be ready by the day of the final, 13 May.

The Daily Mail reported on Monday that the Australian firm had told the FA the stadium would not be able to stage the game.

In response to that report, Multiplex told BBC Sport no decision had been made.

In January, Multiplex admitted that there was only a 70% chance of the 90,000-seat stadium being ready to stage the FA Cup final.

The company said then it could not afford any further delays if it was to meet the delayed 31 March deadline to hand the £757m project to the FA.

The original completion date for the stadium had been autumn 2005, with the deadline first extended to the end of January and then the end of March.

Multiplex will be penalised £1m a week for over-running the deadline.

Multiplex issued six profit warnings between February and December last year, largely due to cost increases at the project to rebuild Britain's iconic soccer stadium, causing its shares to drop 42% in 2005.

Even if the work is finished by the end of March, the management of the new stadium would have had to train up hundreds of staff and satsify safety officials that they could stage major events.

PA said Wembley was due to announce on Tuesday whether several pop concerts scheduled to be staged at the stadium this summer would go ahead.

I can't believe it took them this long to admit it.

Liverpool were given such a gift with Birmingham. Newcastle knocked out Chelsea last year and are on a bit of a run. Well, 3 matches in a row for Newcastle is a run now a days.

Champions League is back, thank fuck, given all the leagues this year are pretty much over.

i'll be watching real v arsenal

Oh man, ManU are ripping Wigan apart 4-0. Ronaldo scored the 3rd and then the little jag bag took his shirt off and got carded.

Yeah this game is wasting my attention. Should get Wigan into Europe of course depending on who plays in the F.A. Cup final.

England snatched a late goal to come from behind to beat South American opposition, bodes well for the Paraguay game. Pousa's goal was great, unstoppable. Terry made good runs from the back, Cole was great all night. Darren Bent did well but not quite enough to warrent going ahead of Jermanie Defoe, Michael Carrick looked really solid, def worth going. For a change Erikkson's subs worked, Wright-Phillips standing next to Crouch was laugh of the night. They both did really well when they came on.

100 days to go!!

I listened to the England match on the internet. The BBC Five Live announcers were hilarious today.

Nice to see US topping Poland - and doing it on Euro soil. How about Italy thrashing Germany and Slovakia topping France?

I was laughing at Sweden losing to Eire as well.

And Croatia beating Argentina, all good stuff

I'm starting to believe the US will make it out of the group stages.

It could happen, It could be the case that one mistake by a ref or a defender could spin the group right round. I wouldn't out money on it though personally.

Uefa ponders use of two referees

Uefa is to investigate the use of two referees in matches as it tries to stop players faking injury in an attempt to get opposition players sent off.

On Saturday West Brom boss Bryan Robson accused Chelsea's Didier Drogba of diving in the league leaders' 2-1 win.

Uefa chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson told BBC Five Live's Sportsweek programme: "The use of two referees will be discussed in the summer.

"Previous tests haven't been successful because of communication."

Olsson added: "We haven't foreseen any tests in the near future but it is one of the matters that has come up in discussion with clubs in terms of dealing with this behaviour."

The Uefa chief also believes that diving has become a real problem for English football.

"It seems it has been significantly more in Britain than in the other parts of Europe, although there have been reports from international games as well."

Olsson also warned racist fans could cost their clubs points after the abuse Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o received at the hands of some Real Zaragoza fans last week.

Olsson said: "We have been discussing also within Uefa whether we should have other measures, such as taking points away from a club, for example, or changing a result.

"But this is a very tricky one because you cannot have the matches decided in the boardroom or by the disciplinary bodies.

"It should be decided on the pitch, so our first objective has to be to get everybody involved around the match to create the correct atmosphere."

The Spanish FA's reaction has been disgusting. Zaragoza should play to an empty stadium for a year.

The Spainish FA could sent a message out after the England friendly but they choose not to. It's only going to get worse, not better.

Spurs Vs. Blackburn, first game i've actually enjoyed watching in the premiership this season. About time, this season is all but finished and the battle for 4th is the only thing that's keeping me interested.

Indeed. The Champions League is what has my fullest attention. And with Liverpool unable to score, and already a goal down going in to Tuesday, that competition could become a disappointment as well.

Is Roma the best team in Europe right now? Unfortunate to give up that late goal to Inter, but they might be more dangerous without Totti. Like a wounded animal now.

Messi just went off. Barcelona can't stop backheeling it when ever they can. They don't look quite as impressive without Messi, Larrson doesn't quite fit the system. Chelsea still have a chance of getting extra time I feel. Between them Chelsea and Barcelona have lost 5 from 54 this year. That pitch looks bigger everytime I see (and I've stood on it.)

Rangers are winning in Valencia.

Larrson worked much better in the 2nd half. Deco really seems to pull the strings on the team. Shame Chelsea and Barca had to meet so early. I know Jigga is saying Barca aren't that amazing, but I really don't see any other side left beating them.

Juve pulled one out of their asses today too.

The match ups tomorrow are even more intriguing IMO.

Yeah Juve look like they rode their luck. What was that penalty for at Barcelona though?

Still can't see Arsenal going through. Real will score two in quick sucession then that will be it.

Terry went down in the box, but it was a 50/50 call.

I can't believe Arsenal or Real at this point will be in the final 8.

Look at this quote from Jose, he is so fantastic.

"Under normal circumstances the team which scored more goals deserves its victory," Mourinho said. "But if we are talking about both games, there was a key moment when (Asier) Del Horno was sent off. Barcelona plays fantastic soccer, it can't be denied, but when it was 11 against 11, Chelsea was the winner."

Yeah I laughed when he said that too. Says it without shouting which is what really annoys people like Sir Alex Ferguson!

I cannot believe Arsenal are the English representation in the final 8. Fucking Liverpool wasted all that money on Crouch, Morientes, and Cisse. Worst strike force I've ever seen. Now Perry is being all fucking coy about how much money he is going to give Rafa in the off season. Is he trying to drive him to Real or Inter?

Whatever.

Now I hope someone like fucking Lyon wins out.

I remember seeing Crouch play for QPR about 5 years ago. He was about an inch shorter. It's pretty random Arsenal finally getting further than any English team and the parallel's with Liverpool last year are uncanny. Could they finish 5th in the league to Spurs and win the whole thing forcing a repeat of this season?

Liverpool need to get Fowler back permanent.

Besides Stevie G and Xabi Alonso he is the only player showing he wants to score. Fuck, even Carragher got his head on the ball today.

see this shit?

MetroStars renamed Red Bull New York

I don't know much about soccer/football but I am disapointed in yesterday's game between Real and Ars. The game was so good but I hate scoreless games. sorry for sounding stupid but how does the aggrigate work? Arsenal won with a 0-0 game.

Real vs. Arsenal is the match my friend and I have been playing on fifa 2003 for the past few years, always close. (I'm Real Madrid) so I always root for Raul and the boys but honestly henry is one fast guy.

who are in the quarters now?

Arsenal won 1-0 at Real Madrid. The game at Arsenal's ground was 0-0. So Arsenal win 1-0 on aggreagate (overall)

AC Milan, Arsenal, Barcelona, Benfica, Inter Milan or Ajax Amsterdam (playing next week) Juventus, Lyon and Villarreal are in Friday's draw for the quarter finals.

Thankfully you didn't ask about away goals or cricket

Also after 40 mins
Middlesbrough 1 - 0 Roma L
A Yakubu 12 (pen)

oh ok, I actually caught that game too. thanks, I shoulda figured that one out myself.