Super sub Dani Alves – there aren’t many other teams in world football that can afford to leave a player of his quality on the bench – silenced the hosts’ vuvuzelas with a killer goal just two minutes before full time in last night’s Confed Cup semi final. It was a poor game, although the [...]

Who saw this coming!? Not me. Not anyone really. And so the USA prevented the Spanish from setting a new world record of 36 matches without a defeat. Somone had to stop Del Bosque’s men – I just didn’t expect it to be the States. Who’s to say Bob Bradley’s team, which is peaking with [...]

West Ham’s most powerful fan, Barack Obama, is set to accept an invitation to attend the opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup. The President is a self-proclaimed “soccer” fan - he’s publicly backed the States’ bid to host the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. “He accepted [the invite],” a proud Sepp Blatter said [...]

After two comprehensive defeats, the US needed a six-goal swing to reach the Confed semis. But, against Godzilla-sized odds and with a lot of help from Brazil, Bob Bradley’s team dominated a frankly pathetic Egypt to win 3-0 (it should have been more). Fulham’s Clint Dempsey scored America’s third goal, from a cross by West [...]

Egypt’s players found the stray contact lens in no time Another terrific day in South Africa, land of the vuvuzelas (I’m learning to tune them out now). In the Group of Certain Death, an utterly abject USA (FIFA says they’re the 14th-best team in the world. Come on!?) were torn apart by Kaka’s Brazil, while [...]

Despite the scoreline, Spain’s win against Iraq was fairly comfortable, but the European champions didn’t bring their shooting boots and missed several good chances. In the other game in what I like to call “the weakest group in the history of international football”, hosts South Africa notched their first win of the tournament with a [...]

Warning: these two men can severely damage your goal difference The Confederations Cup (come on, I know you can feign interest with me…) kicked off at the weekend. Pre-tournament favourites Spain demolished New Zealand, thanks to a Fernando Torres hat-trick, while in the other game, hosts South Africa played out a scrappy goalless draw with [...]

Pies needs you! To support England’s 2018 World Cup bid, I want to hear your all-time World Cup XIs (in a 4-4-2 formation). John Barnes, who is one of the ambassadors for the bid, has chosen his all-time World Cup XI – all you have to do is guess which players he chose. The reader [...]

Landycakes is not happy. Tim Howard is not happy. Carlos Bocanegra is… you get the message. Bonus fact! Landon Donovan’s voice is being used by the US military as a new form of smart weapon: a 20-second clip of Landycakes speaking is enough to put even the most alert of enemies into a deep coma [...]