The National Soccer Hall of Fame has added a 2008 U.S. Open Cup display to honor United as the tournament's most recent champion. Luciano Emilio's game-worn and autographed jersey, Fred's game-worn and autographed shoes and the game ball signed by the entire team flanks the Dewar Challenge Trophy with a newly minted 2008 champion's plate.

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Now the conference season is well under way Chris Butters steps up to the podium once more to take a shaky lead in this week's Predictorship battle for the premiership title. Meanwhile, Pete Yoder is campaigning in the wings and shows his colours, reaching an all time high position as he eyes up Chris's shoes [. Click to continue reading...

I've been away from the blog for various reasons, here and there.

So to get myself back into the groove, I'm going to blog about our beloved Valencia CF for 30 straight days, beginning today.

Let's see if that holds up.

Ok, enough about me. What's up with our football club?

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With Rene Meulensteen taking on the new role as First Team Coach, filling the shoes of Mike Phelan who was promoted to Assistant Manager, he believes Sir Alex Ferguson has made the right decision in trusting in stability and continuity when appointing the two men. "Part of the success at Manchester United over the years is [. Click to continue reading...

Confession. I only saw the last 20 minutes or so of this game due to other commitments and a need to change shoes. It's a long story. Suffice it to say I have very little intelligent to say about the game. I arrived when it was already 2-0 to Real Salt Lake, saw a bit of honest running from the likes of Omar Cummings and very little actual shots on goal. Click to continue reading...

An overview of great goals is never complete without Mr Glass from Finland. Jari traveled Europe as an apprentice before Louis van Gaal signed him for Ajax. Dan Pedersen - Denmark - was the chosen one to fill Dennis Bergkamp shoes at Ajax after he'd left. But when the Dane Click to continue reading...

Ah, yes... a win and a goal from Torres. What could be better? For starters, the entire first half could have been better. In fact, let's pretend that the first half didn't happen at all because some other team wearing our kits showed up and attempted to play football.

Sami Hyypia's first couple of touches made it look like Sunderland had twelve men on the field.

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Keano's missus braves Liverpool in tasteless shoes What the hell are those on Claudine Palmer's feet? They look like sci-fi stripper wedge heels - and they are mos' definitely NOT in this summer. Or any summer. As for Robbie, he... Click to continue reading...

Wenger is "too busy" to sign someone at present, it seems - well I'm too busy to be fooled by that. We all know a player will come in and we all know it will be soon - so let's not spiral into a trough of gloom about it. He's giving out mixed messages about it because he doesn't want it to detract from our big night on Wednesday.

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I'm a soccer gear junkie.

Whenever I travel I make sure to pick up a kit or two. I've got a million jerseys and t-shirts. Posters, shoes, shorts, you name it.

Recently I was turned on to SoccerPro.com, which has tons of great gear for all you soccer junkies out there.

The other day I got a pair of the most comfortable sandals I've ever had for just over $30 -- which pushed my Michael Owen sandal to No. Click to continue reading...

FC Dallas confirmed on Friday afternoon that midfielder Juan Toja had successfully completed a transfer to Romanian club FC Steaua Bucuresti.

Toja, 23, has become one of the league's most promising stars since joining the Hoops from legendary Argentinean club River Plate before the start of last season. Click to continue reading...

With outgoing goalkeeper Brad Guzan's transfer to Aston Villa being finalized on Friday, Chivas USA wasted no time in picking up a veteran goalkeeper to fill his shoes, acquiring Zach Thornton from the New York Red Bulls in exchange for "future considerations".

He is expected to immediately challenge current Chivas goalie Dan Kennedy for the starting spot. Click to continue reading...

Sir Alex Ferguson conceded that his time as United manager would be up within the next "two to three years", meaning our immediate thoughts went to which man would be good enough to fill his shoes. At RoM, Carlos Queiroz was the man backed to do the job, after spending years at the club where [...] Click to continue reading...

Folks, I'm getting old. And back in my day – I can use that phrase because I'm getting old – the only soccer "tricks" I knew about were juggling and the rainbow.

I long ago mastered juggling and the rainbow but for some reason, this "around the world" ball trick was something I'd never seen before! Click to continue reading...

Last month we reviewed the Nike Euro 08 shoes over at the football kits blog - and our friends from SoccerPro were kind enough to send us a sample pair to test out and review. The Euro 08 category features the Mercurial Vapor IV and Air Legend boots from Nike - we had already reviewed [...] Click to continue reading...

David Ornstein writing for the BBC on the failure of the French national team at Euro 2008:

The 56-year-old also turned to players such as Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka, Florent Malouda, Jean-Alain Boumsong and Eric Abidal, who had all struggled for form with their clubs. There was considerable anger in France that the likes of in-form. Click to continue reading...

As I promised last week, I'm going to be throwing some reviews up on FBF from time to time, probably at rate of one per month or so. The initial entry comes to you courtesy of SoccerPro.com in the form of the Nike Air Ronaldinho Rival Indoor Shoe. First Impressions I'm late to the "colored kicks" party by a long way here, having relied upon monochrome footwear up until these puppies arrived in Click to continue reading...

*the picture thing ain't working so i'll put one up later

Lowlights here

# 1 Roberto Donadoni can't fill Marcello Lippi's shoes:

Well, it isn't really a new thing, but the last time Italy played Holland the score wasn't exactly the same. The thing that frustrates me the most is the DumbDon's all around stubbornness is costing Italy some points.

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It is time for a new contest. I have noticed that the Houston fans really like some of the Dynamo players more than the average fan. I mean REALLY like them. I have?been getting?emails asking for player's email addresses, phone numbers, shoes, dates and some other odd requests that I won?t mention. I figured I [. Click to continue reading...

It is time for a new contest. I have noticed that the Houston fans really like some of the Dynamo players more than the average fan. I mean REALLY like them. I have been getting emails asking for player's email addresses, phone numbers, shoes, dates and some other odd requests that I won't mention. Click to continue reading...

So I've finally had a chance to thoroughly test out my new mercurial vapor IVs with a couple of matches so I thought I'd get round to writing this review. I've also taken pictures side by side with my old mercurial vapor IIIs (which are just over two years old now) so you can see [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Nike mercurial vapor IV review", url: "http://www. Click to continue reading...

So I finally got my FG mercurial vapor IVs today after a mix up where I ended up with the wrong size and had to send those ones back! I haven't had a chance to test them out in a full game yet, I've just tried them on around the house. The first noticeable thing is [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Mercurial vapor 4's have arrived finally", url: "http://www. Click to continue reading...

The LA Galaxy's latest attempt to address their defensive problems are now in the shoes of Greg Vanney. The club dealt for Vanney's player rights today from DC United. The news of the Galaxy trading for Vanney doesn't surprise many after the recent retirement of defender Ty Harden. According to Ives, Harden is retiring after one [. Click to continue reading...

Nike have officially launched their latest viral ad campaign at the site www.whoisthefastest.com (which redirects to a skysports page with a feel much like the usual nikefootball.com site). The ad puts Aaron Lennon and Gabriel Agbonglahor through their paces on a test circuit where they have to weave through slalom poles with and without the [. Click to continue reading...

So I finally put in an order for a pair of Nike Mercurial Vapor IVs today after spending some time trying to decide what boots to get next after my Nike Mercurial Vapor IIIs finally started to show signs of wear and probable failure some time not too far away. The IIIs have pretty much [...] Click to continue reading...

I had the chance to try out a pair of the new Adidas predator powerswerve boots today. I haven't used a pair since the predator pulse boots from a couple of years ago that I own but I was pleasantly surprised with the powerswerves. They're part of the new Adidas range along with the adiPURE [...] Click to continue reading...

Continuing on with my posts of late, I found an interesting video about the research that went into the nike mercurial vapor III. A bit late with the IV coming out very soon but I was good to watch and this is still my favourite boot (who knows until I try the IVs out). Basically [...] Click to continue reading...

Below is some footage of Kaka' in the new adidas adiPURE boots talking about some tactics and also a spot of blindfolded juggling. Impressive stuff. Since the video is him talking in Portuguese I'll translate what he said. "The first thing you have to do is have good ball control, as when you can control it [. Click to continue reading...

Well the Nike Mercurial Vapor IV's are out soon and I came across this cool post on ballhype about a special variety of the new mercurials. I have the video at the end of the post if you want to see for yourself. Basically they get Asafa Powell, some terribly fast sprinter (so I'm told), [...] Click to continue reading...

To go with the release of the new Predators, the Adidas Predator Swerve as discussed on footy boots and to follow up my post about the Nike Mercurial Vapors, I thought I'd post about a pair of Predators that I've owned (well, in fact still use on occasion), the Predator Pulse. These were released in 2004 [. Click to continue reading...

Following on from a couple of posts I made about the technology involved in soccer (first with soccer balls then monitoring/statistical equipment), I thought I'd look into the latest innovations in soccer boots/cleats. What better shoe to start with then the Nike Mercurial Vapors. Not that I'm a Nike man or anything but I've [...] Click to continue reading...