Fightback against racism in Europe and World Cup shocks all feature on this week's good, the bad and the ugly, our weekly review of the football news. Click on the links below to find out more about the stories. Good Finally UEFA are at least trying to do something about eliminating racism from football. Click to continue reading...

Not one to dwell too much on what the reaction might be, Rafael Benitez has never shirked away from making controversial choices because people might not agree with them. Few of his decisions, however, will match the levels of surprise hit the last time Liverpool travelled to Goodison Park.

With the game stuck at 1-1 and Liverpool struggling to build play, Benitez came up with a strange solution: take off Steven Gerrard and replace him with Lucas Leiva. Click to continue reading...

Rafael Benitez, previously renowned for his rotation policy, has indicated that Fernando Torres will remain one of his "untouchables" despite the goals drying up for the Spain striker. The Liverpool manager, who was left frustrated by Saturday's goalless draw against Stoke City at Anfield, argued that the 24-year-old will be better off playing his way back to full sharpness rather than resting. Click to continue reading...

Ahhh, hopefully we can have a slight respite from the recent Franco-Italian war that has errupted in our comments section of the post-Lyon-Fiorentina CL match, and during the lull in hostilities, get back to enjoying some L1 action!

Saturday, Lyon travel to Le Stade Jules Deschaseaux in the the northwestern region of Haute-Normandie to take on one of this year's promoted clubs, Le Havre AC.

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European heavyweights Liverpool, FC Barcelona, Chelsea and Inter Milan opened their Champions League campaigns with victories Tuesday. But the most striking results on the first night of the group stage came from the competition's newcomers on the road, with Romanian team CFR Cluj upsetting AS Roma 2-1 and Anorthosis Famagusta of Cyprus holding Werder Bremen 0-0. Click to continue reading...

A draw would have been enough, so a win is quite and added bonus. Liverpool played well trying to exploit the gaps left as Marseilles pressed forward but the tiredness from last Saturday showed. Marseilles, on their part, were very good and had they scored an equalizer no one would have complained. Their attacking play was full of inventiveness and nice flicks but, fortunately for us, they were unable to get that final touch right. Click to continue reading...

Reina

Arbeloa Carragher Skrtel/Agger Aurelio

Babel Alonso Mascherano Riera

Gerrard

Torres


Normally, when one plays away from home, in Europe, against a team who love to play quick tempo football, you will try as hard as possible to try and slow the game down. Click to continue reading...

There's a strong resilience building amongst the players, as we've had to come from behind 3 times already this season to win. Thankfully they didn't keep us waiting too long this time, with Gerrard scoring a brace of goals.

Despite all the rumours about being injured, Mascherano played, but I'll bet we don't see him this weekend as he looked very tired. Click to continue reading...

GROUP A: 1. Chelsea, 2. Roma, 3. Bordeaux, 4. Cluj-Napoca
The top two clubs should have no problem advancing here and will rack up four wins a piece of the group doormats -- who I don't know much about. Head-to-head I give the advantage to the Blues. Roma doesn't have the firepower to match the English side. Click to continue reading...

The UEFA Champion's League Trophy.
The UEFA Champion's League group stage draw took place today at 12:00 EST. Lyon are in Group H, and drew: FC Bayern Munich, FC Steaua Bucuresti and AFC Fiorentina. This looks like one of the most balanced of the groups. There is no power imbalance in this group- like Barcelona last year- and Bayern, Steaua and Fiorentina are certainly stronger than Rangers, Stuttgart and an injury-riddled Lyon last year.

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(he's like do I really have to wear this?)

The superstar Argentine, that Columbus doesn't deserve, has won MLS Player of Week for the third time.

That ties him with LanDo for most this season.

Good stuff dude. Keeping the good fight over in Ohio.

• Talking Sounders business.

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Benzema celebrates after scoring Lyon's only goal in last year's 2-1 loss to Lorient.

This week, Lyon travel to Brittany to face FC Lorient at Le Stade Moustoir. Lorient is currently tied for 2nd place with seven other teams in L1, having defeated Le Mans 1-0 in the first week.

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As we've reported here previously, Standard Liege's American defender Oguchi Onyewu has drawn interest from FC Koeln, Fulham lately (not to mention Marseilles an Lazio back in January). With French legend Lilliam Thuram being forced into retirement by a heart condition, PSG remain in the market for a central defender. Click to continue reading...

France's Ligue 1 got underway tonight as 19 teams try to break Olympique Lyon's 7-year grip on the championship. American defender Carlos Bocanegra anchored the central defense for Stade Rennais in a battle with traditional power Olympique Marseille. It did not help matters that going into the match, star striker Sylvain Wiltord had been suspended after criticizing coach Guy LaCombe in an interview with L'Equipe. Click to continue reading...

This is a cute story. Something you might hear when a cheerleading squad wants new uniforms.

Marseilles fans want Chelsea forward Didier Drogba back so much that they're raising money to cover the star's transfer fee.

They have a website and everything! With online contributions faith-based promises to contribute, they might be up to two million euros -- which is still a long way from the 20 some million required. Click to continue reading...

Signed from Marseilles, he is Arsenal's newest signing. Rumoured to be the next Zidane. Click to continue reading...

Anyone watching the US team's 2-0 loss to England this week probably had the same sick feeling some of us had during the 1998 World Cup - that the US team looks (and is) not even second rate.

Frankly the US was quite lucky not to fall 4-0 last week in London as the home team spent the last 20 minutes toying with our team the way a cat plays with a mouse it has caught (before eating it). Click to continue reading...

Pepe Reina 5.5
Clean sheet much to the work of his defense, so basically the average outing for the Spaniard. Marseilles was off-target most the day.

Alvaro Arbeloa 6.5
A zonal marking beast throughout who probably kept possession for the longest durations, but in reality had a poor passing day. Click to continue reading...

If I've ever watched back-to-back Liverpool matches that were exact opposite affairs, I can't recall. Where we dominated the Reading match yet loss, Marseilles was technically the better side today, yet had no chance to win. Where our side was most impressive today was essentially the deciding factor. Click to continue reading...

Trophies only bring ephemeral happiness, like a drug that only feeds the desire for more... but that doesn't mean they're not worth the pain and suffering. No matter what though, I expect them to leave it all out on the pitch. Bury your heart at Stade Vélodrome, boys.

Here's the line-up:
Reina
Riise
Carra
Hyypiä
Arbeloa
Kewell
Gerrard
Mascherano
Benayoun
Kuyt
Torres

Bench:
Itandje
Finnan
Aurelio
Babel
Crouch
Lucas
Hobbs

Honestly, I believe this our best XI, so I don't see how Rafa can be blamed or praised from the start, no matter the result. Click to continue reading...

I'm still in shock that Lucas didn't see the pitch on Saturday. Not that I think it would have mattered. The official had already cashed the check.

Honestly, I have no clue what kind of side Rafa will field tomorrow. Whether Agger or Alonso will be available is unclear. The only thing that I'm sure of is that Hyypiä will start, everything else is a guessing game. Click to continue reading...

Fernando Torres has jumped on the Rafalution bandwagon, epitomized by the fans on the march yesterday. The enigmatic Spanish striker has praised Benitez as 'one of the greats' and 'more than just a manager.' He also added how impressed he was by the display the fans showed at Anfield yesterday, stating: "And we all had an idea that he's somewhat special here but, honestly, what I saw at Anfield tonight was really impressive. Click to continue reading...

I just wanted to clear this up since there seems to be a misunderstanding of what it will take for us to advance. First off, our destiny is basically in our own hands. If we win out, we advance, it's (almost) that simple.

The only way we don't advance by winning out is if Marseilles has a greater goal differential in the overall group and we beat the French side by the exact score of 1-0. Click to continue reading...

The AS Saint-Étienne midfielder scores a similar goal against Marseilles to what l'OM midfielder Mathieu Valbuena did versus Liverpool earlier in the week in Champions League play.
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As you probably would expect, most the news coming out of Anfield is about our 1-0 loss to Marseilles yesterday in Champions League play. What doesn't surprise me is that Rafa is not sharing his true opinion of the match. Why should he? There's no reason to give the English press more fodder to spin.

The only Benitez statement of remote truth that made print was him saying the Besiktas match in three weeks was now a must-win. Click to continue reading...

Ha ha ha, what a joke. Somebody got their fix on. Not to take anything away from Marseilles, but it took a wonder goal, three non-called handballs, and two very questionable yellow cards to beat us. Not to mention Crouch might as well have been wearing blue.

As a team we made some vast improvements in the second half and were really unlucky not to score. Click to continue reading...

Blah, blah, blah, same old crap. We look unmotivated, disorganized, are failing to use the flanks, and our spacing is horrid (especially Torres and Crouch).

First things first, someone needs to tell Crouch he's not a midfielder. If anyone should be playing that role, it's Torres. El Nino is much better on the ball and doesn't throw it away as much as Crouchy. Click to continue reading...

Here it is:
Reina
Aurelio
Carragher
Hyypia
Finnan
Leto (--------->)
Sissoko
Gerrard
Benayoun
Torres
Crouch

Bench:
Itandje
Arbeloa
Riise
Babel
Voronin
Kuyt
Mascherano

Leto to start! Can't wait. Babel must be in the dawg house with Benitez. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool 2, Marseilles 1

Anfield gives the Reds a huge advantage even with former players Djibril Cisse and Bolo Zenden on the opposing Marseille side. The French side should be better rested, but ten days is almost too long and it's not as if Liverpool played just two days ago. Four days should be adequate rest for the Reds especially since they'll infuse some players like Peter Crouch, Ryan Babel, and Steve Finnan into the line-up, none of which played on Saturday. Click to continue reading...

- Apparently Cisse was injured in practice at some point in the last couple of days and may or may not be able to go tonight. I'll be shocked if he isn't at least on the bench. I expect him to start though and I'm not playing this up to mind games, but it wouldn't surprise me.

- Despite the fact that it's been thirty years since we've allowed less goals in league play and that we've yet to concede a goal from open play with Pepe in the net, Rafa still demands improvement on the defense. Click to continue reading...

I couldn't help but laugh after reading this article from the official site. Not that it probably isn't true that Zenden will be able to provide 'inside information' about our side to Marseilles, but Bolo did a poor job carrying out and participating in such tactics while in a Liverpool shirt. Unless turning over the ball incessantly and dribbling the ball out of bounds were a big part of the game plan. Click to continue reading...

- According to this article, we're going to make a £10m bid for French superstar Samir Nasri. Bullocks. I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to have him, but first off, he primarily plays central midfield and we're kind of loaded in that department. He is versatile enough to play the wings as well, but unless he's going to be content sharing time there, he won't approve the transfer. Click to continue reading...