Gael Clichy, last season's sure footed defender is now becoming a byword in blooper of the week.

BBC is reporting that William Gallas has been relieved of his duties. He was also not present on the bus to City.

Gallas days are over at Arsenal as I see it. He burned up precious goodwill with his team mates following his rant and embarrassed Wenger in the process. While Gallas might not have meant it that way, it came close to insubordination.

"I replied: 'How are you speaking to me? Who do you think you are? You are only 20 years old. I am not your friend. He said: 'Me neither, I am not your friend'."

OK. What other response do you think "I am not your friend" gets you? Is the 20 year old going to say "I'm sorry, I thought you were my Christmas tree.

On 5 September 2008, Senegal met Algeria at the Mustapha Tchaker Stadium in a World Cup qualifier. In the 81st minute, Cheikh Gueye scored an own goal which leveled the game for Algeria. 7 minutes later, Rafik Saiki stuck a dagger into Senegal by scoring the winner. Algeria won the match.

This movie could easily have been titled, Little Zizou: A Gratuitous Reference To or the Incredible Vanishing Zidane. Apart from some TV clips and some newspaper articles of him visiting Bangladesh there was nothing else on Zidane.

I happened to see it in a recent NY festival.

I think the verdict has been quite positive.

Typically El Diego sucks up all the oxygen where ever he is. Instead we saw no outbursts or wild gesticulations on the sidelines or haranguing of officials which we typically associate Maradona with. He was sober and subdued though his first match as manager, with nary a whisper of emotion at Maxi Rodriguez's goal.

So it appears that Argentina played like gangbusters for the first 20 minutes and then faded away letting Scotland have some decent chances, a combination of hustle and and an uneasy Juan Pablo Carrizo in goal. This is what usually happens with Argentina who have been unable to sustain their bright starts and let teams back in as the game progresses.

Most Americans now prefer diplomacy towards Iran rather than seek a knee jerk military solution.

After virtually turning off the charm school for eight years and surrendering foreign policy to the unilateral wet dream of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, Americans have woken to an unfamiliar sense of vulnerability brought on by two draining wars and an unraveling economy.

Pim Verbeek looked like he wanted to pluck every nose hair off Harry Kewell. Why Kewell remains on this team is beyond me. He lacks speed and gives up the ball too easily.

Then again he wasn't the only Socceroo who looked like he was on Mary Jane. The Socceroos somnambulated through the match.

Terry Butcher has to now live with the fact that Maradona will be the topic du jour of the soccer world and the subject of pundit chatter everywhere.

What can he do to exact revenge for that goal?

He can hire a fat man wearing a Maradona mask to run onto the field after the match, drop him with a sliding tackle, and then administer an enema all the while looking at El Diego.

Maradona measures the miss in the 1966 final

I had no idea that Argentina was playing England.

A proxy war has broken out between the two rivals with England a bit sniffy at the Scottish adoration of the one that broke their hearts with the most infamous goal in the game's history.

The overwhelming response to Bayern's visit in May this year when 120,000 fans came to see Oliver Kahn play his last match obviously did not go unnoticed. And so Karl Heize Rummenigge, one of soccer's legends and Bayern's executive director paid a visit to Kolkata to sign a MOU for a soccer academy to be set up in Burdwan on 25 acres of land.

Finally, it would appear that the Kolkata clubs, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are showing signs of life. East Bengal ran out winners against league leaders Sporting Clube de Goa, 3-1 while their city rivals Mohun Bagan beat JCT, 2-0.

They are now bunched in the middle of the table along with minnows Mumbai FC who have not been able to sustain their fantastic start and have lost some momentum in recent weeks losing to Air India and drawing with Churchill Brothers.

For the price he is asking for. Not at this time.

Zabeel Investments backed out of spending money on the Addicks which was going for a far cheaper price than Newcastle. They are a big moneyed player in the ME which is in far better shape than the English economy now projected to be in a deeper recession than previously forecast.

Ibisevic scores his Bundesliga leading 14th goal as our favourite team 1899 Hoffenheim continues its dream run beating Wolfsburg, 3-2. They have scored the most goals, 34 in all with hefty contributions from Demba Ba and Chinedu Obasi.

Anytime you talk about Arsenal, you have to qualify it with the paeans that Arsene Wenger so richly deserves. We did not see this sort of soccer in England as a system till he came on the scene. But Jason Burt clearly lays out the head in the sand mentality that seems to have taken hold of Wenger.

Al Ahly scored first as Ahmad Hassan cleverly flicked a Mohamed Aboutreika cross into goal. Abdoul Karim Lassina equalized and then Ousmaila Baba put Coton Sport ahead. Al Ahly evened the score once more after Mohamed Barakat was brought down in the box and the resultant PK was converted by captain Shady Mohamed.

Real is ruled by a cabal of madmen and amoral shysters straight out of Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God. They have no allegiance to anything or anyone, not even to a title it would appear.

Real's vote of confidence in Bernd Schuster should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Lots of Terry Butcher who would like nothing better than giving Maradona a black eye and jail Scottish blaggards who give Maradona their unconditional love.

Diego Maradona landed in Scotland just before Wednesday's game and with a curt "I don't speak English" blew by TV crews, hundreds of reporters, and throngs of adoring fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the most famous name in soccer. (Video here)

He was protected by a dozen police officers and private security guards who escorted him to a waiting bus.

Sinisa Ubiparipovic should now be worth more than his $33,000 annual salary.

One of the standouts in NY's historic playoff march has been Ubiparipovic. And he is a flesh and blood person, although his name suggests a character out of a Dostoyevsky novel.

Ubiparipovic was an in and out presence on both attack and defense during the regular season stepping in for the fading Jorge Rojas and provided two invaluable game winning assists, including the one that scored the fastest goal in club history in the season opener against Crew in April.

The man best known for ending Brandon Pollard's career shows no love for his former coach, Juan Carlos Osorio. After RSL's loss to the Red Bulls there will be should be even less love.

For the record there were three players in the RSL squad with connections to the Red Bulls/ Metrostars who took the field in the Western Conference finals.

Arsenal vs Villa was supposed to showcase the best and brightest talent. But only one team showed up to play and it was not Arsenal. Yet again.

Arsene Wenger deservedly receives many plaudits for encouraging youthful talent but on Saturday we were reminded that Martin O' Neill has been no slouch in that department either.

Jones puts a crimp on Gazza

Man City is in the midst of collective player angst and Elano adds to the chorus who have abandonment issues with Mark Hughes.

The problem is that City lacks gritty players who so populated Hughes' Blackburn squads. These squads were always bit discomfited with the finer aspects of the game.

Now it is Oscar Ruggeri.

Maradona wants the former Boca defender and 1986 team mate as his assistant. Ruggeri, an outstanding defender for his country has a poor record in managerial positions. It has led to a standoff between Julio Grondona and Maradona, with threats that he will resign if Ruggeri is not included.

The UK is probably going to get shafted if this is true.

Obama's election as president has so boosted the US in the eyes of FIFA honchos that if it turns out infrastructure and organization are similar between the leading contenders, the deciding factor could be Obama in awarding the 2018 World Cup.

A flurry of articles examining Obama's relationship with soccer.

David James believes Obama's transformational presidency will be good for the game.

Obama's club of choice, West Ham sends this "We are delighted that Barack Obama has an association with West Ham and are sending him our congratulations and an invitation to attend a match whenever he is in Britain.

Remember Alexi Lalas and his grandiose pronouncements on how Becks would single handed turn the MLS into a world beater. It seems like eons ago. Well, he isn't too happy at the way his man has inveigled his way to Milan (Sports Business Daily, Nov 7, subscription needed).

"Hello, a courtesy telephone call, a little bit of respect to call the coach so that head coach Bruce Arena knows what's going on, knows that you're being shopped around.

New England Revs drew 5,221 fans for their first leg game against Chicago. Just woeful. The other games were somewhat better but it is an overall problem with MLS playoffs. Don Garber pathetically defers to better TV ratings and media coverage compensating for the no shows in the stadium amongst the spectators.

Just a trifle better than Sarah Palin. The guy is so not looking forward to this journey. The VW road to the MLS Cup. I would not be too sure of soccer's popularity or Routan sales after this.

Richards puts on the burners

The NY Red Bulls came through for the greatest win in their 13 year history. Leading the charge was Dane Richards who had the game of his life and a hand in all three goals. He scored the first goal, was responsible for the PK that Juan Pablo Angel converted for the Red Bulls second goal, and then sealed the deal when his pass was converted by John Wolyniec for the third and final goal.

Today, in the longest time, the US will get to that mountain top.

The Wizards went ahead with a 53rd minute goal by Arnaud and then played the last 15 minutes a man down when Hercules Gomes was sent off with a red card. They stemmed the tide of chances till the very last minute when Steven Lenhart scored of a Moreno pass in the 92nd minute.

KC travels to Columbus for the second leg to play the team with the best home record.

The hottest team in the MLS is without Josh Wolff but Claudio Lopez is peaking at the right time. Lopez is vying for newcomer of the year with Darren Huckerby and Andre Rocha. He has scored six goals and assisted in seven more. They meet Columbus Crew and Guillermo Barros Schelotto in one of the marquee playoff matches.

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FYI, SoccerBlog endorsed Obama a while back...