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The Guardian is reporting that Malaga winger, Santi Cazorla will be the next transfer arriving at the Emirates for a reported £16m. Malaga is in serious financial trouble unless the Qatari businessman, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Al-Thani, bankrolling them does not come up with a last minute cash infusion. But he maybe monitoring Spain's feeble economy, teetering on the edge, as 10 year bonds soar to record interest levels.

Cazorla has had difficulties getting paid at the club and he's complained off broken promises in the past. In selling, Malaga have waived off the main sticking point, his £40m buy out clause.

The 27 year old winger became a Villareal legend for his bombing runs down both flanks, sort of Gareth Bale like, and was instrumental for taking Malaga to their first ever Champions League after their fourth placed La Liga finish last season. Cazorla doesn't score too many goals but there is no denying that he's an impact player. A workhorse who also provides plenty of spark. A Scott Parker with craft and brains.

A bit of David Luiz with more experience and maturity

A £10m reported offer by Arsenal for Everton centre back Phil Jagielka has been rejected. This is £2m less than Wenger offered last summer for a defender he supposedly admires. One wonders if Arsenal work on an EBITDA like scheme for football players to come up with such a reduced offer. And here we go into paroxysms on how Sandro Rosell wants to knock of a couple of million because of Cesc Fabregas's hamstrings.

With Jagielka showing no inclination to move to Arsenal there is really very little hope the Toffees will budge from the £20m they want for him. Besides ever transfer in this area is vitiated by Man Utd coughing up close to £20m for Phil Jones, a U21 prospect. So realistically, Arsenal better do better if they want a quality central defender whether it is Jagielka, Gary Cahill, or Chris Samba. Or else start look elsewhere away from the overpriced European market where even Jacques Tweedledee will cost in that range.

Wenger's scouts in the Copa America should hopefully be sending back glowing reports on Venezuela's Oswaldo Vizcarrondo who was the standout in this competition. He's a year younger than Jagielka at 27 years of age and about 3" taller. For his height he's shown he moves quickly (refer to Brazil, Paraguay, and Chile matches), tackles with elan, and gets to all those aerial balls on set pieces at both ends. Then there is the X-factor with his physicality and competitive spirit that should stand him in good stead in the bruising Premier League. He will come at a third of the price for the budget conscious Arsenal manager. Now all that is needed is to take a chance. Vizcarrondo and Vermaelen sound like a good match.

12+ minutes of highlights

Cashley Cole skying his PK was extra icing for Gunner fans still recovering from the marvelous Barca victory. But for Chelsea their season got a lot longer as they were dumped out by Everton losing on a 4-3 PK shootout.

The teams fought each other to a 1-1 standstill in regulation and extra time. And as the PK progressed it was Everton in danger of falling as Lampard and Drogba were on target as Leighton Baines the extra time hero for Everton had his effort saved by Cech. But Jagielka converted to narrow it down to 2-1. Tim Howard provided the first turning point as he saved Nicholas Anelka's casual effort. Mikel Arteta restored parity as he drilled the ball past Cech. The unflappable Michael Essien shot Chelsea into the lead but Johnny Heitinga following up made sure that the Toffees were in the game. Then came Cole's extravagant mistake and in a flash, Everton were on the doorstep. Veteran Phil Neville made no mistake.

For Carlo Ancelotti the loss makes his position very vulnerable. Already there is talk of his resignation and if he dithers then the boss will show no qualms following through with a pink slip. The transfer of Fernando Torres has not provided an instant lift and Didier Drogba is way off from his usual cracking high standards.

Which begets the question: Will this be Drogba's last season at Chelsea?

Behind the daily parade of Barca players who talk about Cesc Fabregas return to Barca in the emotional terms of a homecoming or a Homeric saga - is the fact that Barca might not be able to afford him.

They took out a bank loan to cover player and employee wages and they have now set themselves a transfer limit of 50 million euros. Still healthy and far more than about 95% of the clubs - including Arsenal.

But with the Gunners digging their heels and rejecting a 35 million euro bid, the margin for landing him are getting slim. Sandro Rosell, the new Barca president has warned that the club will need to put into place "austerity measures". Other indications are shifting priorities- Pep Guardiola maybe targeting Juan Mata of Valencia. Even Sergio Busquets seems to accept that landing Fabregas might be very difficult.

Octopus Paul's life could be in danger threatened by angry Germans and now Spanish authorities are stepping in with suggestions to keep him alive. Spanish PM, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero:

"We will send Paul a team of bodyguards," he said after Spain's win over Germany.

Environment Minister Elena Espinosa would like to file for endangered species status so that Germans do not eat Paul.

A better idea would be to offer asylum to Paul, so he can live in a country that clearly worships him.

Luis Aragones who led Spain to its Euro 2008 glory weighed in on the defeat and he pulled no punches criticizing the Spanish effort.

" Spain lacked speed without the ball and they failed to find open spaces quickly"

Aragones also faulted Del Bosque for playing two holding midfielders in Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets slowing down the game and making it more defensive minded.

Del Bosque should not have abandoned the successful Euro 2008 tactic of using one holding midfielder. Marcos Senna who was so effective in that position was one of the major factors in Spain's success.

At this point, I have no idea why Sergio Busquets ever finds himself in the national team. Xabi Alonso should be enough.

Alexis Sanchez could be the star of Group H

Honduras vs Chile, Group H, Nelspruit, Wednesday 16 June

No David Suazo and no Carlos Costly leaves the attacking burden on the legs of veteran Carlos Pavon. Attacking midfielder Julio Cesar de Leon was also ruled out by a muscle injury.

The other big name Wilson Palacios is expected to recover in time for the match from a thigh injury which should be a huge boost to Reinaldo Rueda's injury depleted team.

They will go up against a well disciplined Chilean team coached by Marcelo "Loco" Bielsa who insists that Humberto Suazo, the heavy set Real Zaragoza marksman will be back from his injury.

Bielsa also has in his ranks, El Nino Maravilla aka Alexis Sanchez now at Udinese who burst through in the U20 ranks to become a national star. Then there is Mark Gonzales, formerly of Liverpool whose devastating left foot was put to good use in a recent CSKA Moscow Champions League match against Sevilla.

Honduras needed the Jonathan Bornstein Good Samaritan Act to get through to the World Cup while Chile steamed in majestically at the expense of Argentina and Uruguay who had to huff and puff to get there.

The expectations are high for the Andean team in its 7th World Cup appearance. 32 goals scored in qualifying, one less than top scoring Brazil is the outcome of a well distributed attack.

Ivan Zamorano, of Real Madrid fame and a national legend shares this optimism:

" We've got a great team - never better in my opinion - a great coach who has stamped his philosophy on the side, and the complete commitment of the players. You can see all that out on the pitch. They've been playing well and getting good results and I've never been more certain that we can have a great World Cup."

Coach Bielsa is desirous of exorcising the bad memories of the 2002 World Cup, when under his tutelage, the Albiceleste crashed out in the group stage itself.

" I think we have done all the necessary steps to prepare for this important competition without major difficulty, or just the normal difficulties at least. We are fine and we are ready to begin."

Chile run a 3-3-1-3 with Matias Fernandez as their attacking central midfielder just behind Gonzalez, Suazo, and Sanchez. Bielsa has built the attack around speedy wing play.

Look for an quick paced game with Alexis Sanchez posing all sorts of problems for the Honduran defense. We should also see quite a few goals in a welcome change.

Unless you have one of the official cable providers, you can't watch ESPN3. I don't why they're doing this, it is so anti-Internets!  The Internet is for all, ESPN!

The best option I've found so far is Univision. The coverage is spot on - check it out here >>

Disfrute!

Here comes the opening game!

A good read by Piers Edwards on the Algerian team, in the same group as USA, England, and Slovenia.

Algeria regularly provided exceptional players to France before the independence struggle began in the 1950s. That was when many of the Algerians like Monaco's Mustapha Zitouni and St Etienne's Rachid Mekloufi, considered sure prospects for the 1958 World Cup gave up playing for France to join the FLN, (Front de Liberation National) immortalized in Gilles Pontecorvo's classic "The Battle of Algiers".

More recently, a number of Algerians having risen up through the youth ranks in French clubs have returned to their country of origin with Raymond Domenech filling his squad with players from French overseas territories and West African Francophone countries.

Madjid Bougherra, Nadir Belhadj, Mourad Meghni and Hassan Yebda have strengthened Les Fennecs with Yebda and Meghni even winning the U17 World Cup title representing France.

Antar Yahia, the central defender who was Algeria's hero in the tense battle against Egypt at Khartoum by scoring the only goal became the first beneficiary of FIFA's rule change allowing a player with dual nationality and under the age of 21 years to switch his national allegiance. Yahia a former U18 French international was able to play for Algeria in the 2004 Olympics and scored a goal for a 1-0 win over Ghana.

With Samir Nasri, Karim Benzema, and Hatem Ben Arfa being left out, the nationalists would say that there will be no divided loyalties and no more embarrassing moments when Les Marseillaise is played. However, when opportunities close, others open up elsewhere. Les Fennecs are benefiting from these reverse migrations.

Jerome Boateng, Kevin Prince Boateng's half brother, has been playing diplomat, meeting with Michael Ballack and apologizing on his brother's behalf.

When Kevin Prince takes the field in the Ghana vs Germany encounter in the World Cup, there will be tension on the field and a good chance that these could translate into extra-curricular activities.

Jerome has already said that his brother deserved a red for his tackle on Ballack. But he defends him in an interview with Bild when asked if it was intentional:

"Many people are certain that this was the case. But this is far-fetched. Kevin-Prince does not have the best reputation. He would like to undo it. "

When asked why they were so different:

"Other brothers are too! We did not grow up together. He also had it harder than me. No matter what happens: He's my brother! "

Kevin Prince should be thankful that his brother is his best spokesperson and a visible one at that. When Germans think of the Boateng brothers, the one that they should remember is the sane one.

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Raul Meireles second half strike sink Bosnia's hopes.

Last evening I caught a bit of the RSL and Houston Dynamo game and I was reminded of the incessant verbiage of Max Bretos and Christopher Sullivan who have the attention spans of fruit flies. Their attention to the match waxes and wanes as they offer their diatribe on what the match should look like which bears little resemblance to how the match is actually playing out.

I have no idea how Sullivan divines the coaches intentions as he neatly compartmentalizes what each club should do. Does Dominic Kinnear understand that the only way his club can win is if it capitalizes on set pieces? Does Jason Kries know that unlocking Robbie Findley is the only way to keep their playoff hopes alive? Sure, we all do it and I am sure each coach understands the strengths and weaknesses of their clubs but I have never heard anyone lay a narrative down in such bulleted fashion. Its like a Powerpoint presentation.

These prescriptions fall by the wayside as the game devolves into an untidy smorgasbord of bodies tumbling, yellow cards, red cards, stray passes, and very few goal scoring chances. Meanwhile Sullivan is droning on about RSL missing Yura Movsisyan. On the pitch, Clint Mathis has lost his mind once again. He is freaking out at the referee. Then he is ejected. The two chatterboxes suddenly stop their word cloud and pay interest. There is talk about Mathis low boiling point. But wait, every psychosis has a causality. The film rewinds and shows Findley clearly obstructed a number of times in the Dynamo box for a potential penalty call before the referee books the striker for a foul which sets off Mathis.

This was a golden chance for the two to take a stand on whether a penalty was missed, to offer an opinion on whether Mathis might have had a case, to actually comment on a pivotal moment in the match. But they never uttered a word as the footage rolled by. The moment was lost. It was time to cut to a commercial. It was time for me to switch to Deportes.

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When did he fade?

Actually his career almost came to an end with a spate of injuries at Liverpool and Marseille. His Liverpool stay was complicated by a horrific fracture of the tibia and fibula that required internal fixation of the left leg. Most of his success came as a winger using his breakaway speed down the right flank, a transformation begun by Rafa following that injury.

By this time Cisse was fighting for first squad duty and actively began looking for a transfer. Marseille came knocking but on the eve of the World Cup, he broke his right leg. His loan delay put a crimp on Rafa's transfer plans. Cisse thus left Anfield with a cloud over him and a penchant for indiscipline and hirsute pursuits.

His slow start at Marseille frustrated impatient fans who thought his speed would complement Mamadou Niang and Samir Nasri and restore the club to its 1990s glory. It was left to Marseille great Jean Michael Papin to counsel patience. Cisse's return to form was a major factor in L'OM returning to CL competition in the 2007-2008 season. His loan transfer was taken over by the club and made permanent.

It was a matter of time before his success attracted Premiership attention including Man City. However he became one of Roy Keane's makeover of the 2008 Black Cats by signing a year loan contract and heralded his Premiership return with a winning goal against Spurs. In between he scored important goals against arch rivals Newcastle and Blackburn.

On April 18th he scored a disputed goal in a crucial win against Hull, which probably did enough to save manager Ricky Sbragia's job and give the club some breathing space in the relegation struggle.

For the season he has scored 11 goals which is almost as many as he scored in Liverpool and will be a major factor if Sunderland pulls off staying in the Premiership. Befittingly, Cisse wants to make this move permanent and Ricky Sbragia would only hope that chairman Niall Quinn obliges.

Here is Cisse's winner against Hull >>

An Aragones statement caught on camera calling Thierry Henry a "black s**t" to Jose Antonio Reyes four years ago prefaces any encounter with Arsenal. It provided a backdrop to the Spain vs France encounter in the 2006 World Cup.

Wenger has since then moved on after concluding that the Spanish coach was guilty of an over the top comment but not inherent racism. He intends to shake hands with Aragones. But Aragones, known as the Wise Man of Hortaleza, with his pride at stake, has never apologized to Henry.

When Aragonés was asked yesterday whether he would apologise to the forward in person tonight, he said: "No, no, don't go down that road. Henry knows through Reyes, through everything [how I feel]. I won't talk about it for another second. It's a topic that isn't worth talking about. Why? Because it's not like that. I have black, Gypsy and Japanese friends, including one whose job is to determine the sex of poultry."

Aragones has had less success with Fenerbahce, his first overseas club and the Turkish side have struggled in the domestic league. Arsenal are missing three out of four starting defenders with Sagna, Gallas, and Toure sidelined. A rejiggered defence with Silvestre, Song, and Djourou will be called upon to provide an answer to giving up eight goals in four CL away games.

Fenerbahce will feature Dani Guiza, Spain's super sub whose goals provided a spark in Euro 2008 and the crafty Semih Senturk playing just behind him. Their attack will have to compensate for missing Emre and Josico in midfield.

I have no idea why the French federation continues to repose its confidence in a manager that his team has stopped responding to.

Raymond Domenech might be relieved that Maximilian Robespierre and the Jacobins are not around. But it is hard to to avoid bad puns. The embattled France manager finds his neck on the line and against a good Serbian side, he is minus Samir Nasri.

Domenech also probably suffers from a finely tuned sense of persecution that the media is out to get him. After all the team's shoddy showing at the Euro 2008 and the defeat against Austria did not really happen. This really takes living in a bubble to the extreme.

At SoccerBlog.com, we fancy ourselves as soccernerds. Now there's a way to measure that nerdiness.

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The aftermath of the bitter and divisive 2000 US presidential elections spawned a myriad of political blogs disillusioned with the bias of the mainstream media (MSM) narrative. On either side of the divide, blogs became agents of change challenging the MSM and supporting candidates who hew more closely to their vision. Blogs have become a potent counterpoint to the Washington echo chamber, a tight knit cabal of talking heads who push narratives like McCain is a maverick and tensions between Hispanic and African Americans voters will determine Barack Obama's candidacy. An establishment that now appears to be on the defensive as millions turn to blogs who espouse a more unfiltered point of view, frequently are quicker on their feet, and do the legwork to expose fallacies and inconsistencies. Blogs have become so influential that candidates solicit their financial support, post up their opinions, and participate in their yearly conventions. The 2006 mid term elections that saw Democrats capture the House and Senate was engineered by the election of many candidates supported by progressive blogs. Many MSM outlets now have their own talking heads who write blogs or invite prominent bloggers to guest column. Blogs are now an accepted part of the political environment with a proven track record of influencing election outcomes.

By the same token, we do not have a similar seminal point in sports blogging. Deadspin, an anti-corporatist website that rails against ESPN, Fox Sports, and other mainstream sports media (MSSM) outlets has been chiefly set up to knock down sports as nothing more than providing entertainment. It is thus irreverent and tongue in cheek, mocking self important talking heads. Deadspin would be required reading for those sickened by Bob Costas and his saccharine sweet jingoism which grates every Olympics, ane event coming up soon. However for all its popularity, Deadspin has not forced a change in the narrative of the MSSM which is driven by above said Bob Costas and Bryant Gumbel who eulogize athletes with crushed ribs and bad parenting.

Deadspin is a US based blog and as such it is targeted primarily towards American sports. Fortunately, the winds are changing, more specifically towards a soccer based activism. Blogs that follow EPL clubs lead the way which makes sense as it is the most widely followed league in the world with more than 200m followers. The enormous bile towards the Premiership proposal of expanding its matches to overseas markets is forcing Richard Scudamore to rethink his proposal. Managers, sports pundits, and administrators have come out against the proposal. The FA hardly an activist organization is dead against the soccer expansion. But it is blogs who have coalesced fan anger, accusing the EPL of being anti-player in its mercenary pursuit of exploiting new markets for merchandising.

The process of forcing change has long been hampered by the fact that fans rarely have a say in the economic matters of the club or its club ownership. But last summer proved to be a milestone as blogs exposed the shady past of Alisher Usmanov as he tried engineering an Arsenal takeover. These Arsenal friendly blogs helped disseminate an unflattering article written by a Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan even as Usmanov's lawyers sought to muzzle them in a cease and desist motion. The club's governing board was forced to action and installed a lock down agreement that would prevent a hostile takeover. In contrast, Liverpool's takeover proceeded with little opposition. However, later on, the US co-owners dubious solvency and irresolute behavior gave anxious Liverpool fans enough reason to believe that their club would once again be on the market. Blogs channeled this widespread discontent which led to a proposal by a group of committed Liverpool fans to buy out the club and run it as a co-operative. The proposal was passed onto blogs and their readers who crashed the group's website.

We apologize for the hiatus as our bandwidth provider bailed on us. Our postings will resume shortly with all the great videos and commentary.

Here's an interesting site dedicated to fighting cheating in the Premiership.

Midnightjester (not his real name, or is it?) wants you to:

(1) sign a petition against cheating,
(2) send emails to the FIFA, the FA and Barclays, sponsors of the Premiership, and
(3) boycott products that sponsor cheats

SoccerBlog.com support this grass roots effort. Visit the site and get involved!

A new Chelski blog with quality photos!

Check out bluechampions.com...