Never one to shirk hyperbole, Goal.com dropped a HASHTAG NEWSBOMB that exploded all over Twitter with the force of a…bomb. Roberto Martinez, former-Villa manager(ial favourite for about ten seconds) and current Wigan manager has been approached ‘through a third party‘ (a mandrill?) to see if he’d be interested in the Liverpool FC job.

Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the Reds’ American owners, made contact with Wigan boss Martinez last week through third parties and sources have described the...

"This ought to get Henry Winter off my back for a while..."

Well, as we’re in the dead zone between the end of the season and the Champions League final (here’s Jonathan Wilson’s intriguing match preview for SI, by the way), I now have to time to mull over those meta issues that surround the sport of football, including who am I, and what am I doing here?

And so on to a Tweet that stuck out among the...

In lieu of anything else interesting going on save the obvious below, here is Higuain pretending to hit his head on a glass door in a Kuwaiti airport.

Kenny Dalglish leaves Liverpool

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) May 16, 2012

Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish is no longer the manager of Liverpool Football Club. Few details out now, although I have a source (an actual source!) that tells me this decision was made at least 24 hours ago, if not more. Awaiting more details as they emerge, but it seems the British sports media narrative is that Fenway Sports Group “don’t know what they’re doing.”

Which is at least partly true,...

One would like to think managerial decisions, particularly with regard to team sleections, would have advanced significantly beyond the “he’s got a good head on his shoulders,” and “he’s a natural leader.” Which is why England manager Roy Hodgson’s remarks explaining his decision to go with Arsenal midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain leave a bad, Graham Taylor-esque taste in the mouth:

“He’s a very very exciting player, who has made an impression on me on quite a few occasions this season. I...

Without any matches to talk about until Saturday we continue our review of the 2011/12 season. Today’s installment features La Liga champions Real Madrid.

Sit back and watch Ronaldo, Ozil, Marcelo, Benzema, Kaka et al. dazzle with their incredible ball skills. You’ll need to pick your jaw up from off the floor when it’s finished.

The Lead

The Roy Hodgson Honeymoon among the Englerland faithful is sadly over, and the dark reality of a long marriage with the former West Brom manager has only started to set in. Indeed, as one Tweeter noticed, the #hodgsonout hashtag made its debut a mere ten minutes after he made his one and only meaningful decision as England manager—the provisional 23 man squad going to Ukraine and Poland for Euro 2012. Via the Guardian, here’s the selection:

England’s...

Happy birthday to the Dominion of Canada Football Association! In a week and a half, on May 24, the organization in charge of Canadian soccer marks its one hundredth anniversary. In honour of this momentous occasion, last week the CSA gathered the luminaries of the soccer world, or at least those members of the media who happened to be in Toronto plus a couple Toronto FC guys and Kara Lang, to model glamorous new centennial kits that will appear on...

If YOU were going to the Champions League Final this year…what would YOU do? @TomArnold will be at his first UCL Final this Saturday.

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) May 15, 2012

Booking agent: Tom, it’s Sandra, can we talk?

Tom Arnold: Sandra, I’m doing the Beethoven: Death of a Titan shoot right now, can it wait a little? I’m up to my nips in dog shit here.

Booking agent: Listen, I’ve got Fox Soccer on the other line, they’re...

Not everybody was caught off guard by Cesare Prandelli’s decision to include an uncapped 20-year-old Serie B midfielder in his provisional Italy squad for Euro 2012. “I’m not surprised: [Marco] Verratti knows how to play football,” declared Zdenek Zeman, the player’s club manager at Pescara. “He has natural talents and significant room for improvement. He must watch and learn from the greats, but he is on the right path.”

If that much is true, then Verratti has Zeman to thank....

Last week in this column, I focused on how the analytics movement in football will follow a slow, evolutionary rather than an overnight revolutionary path in changing how we understand the sport. Part of the reason for this is—as is almost de rigeur to point out in these discussions—soccer is not a bat-and-ball sport. Team interaction is fluid, positional duties on the pitch are not static, and it’s much more difficult to discern meaningful statistical data sets and accompanying...

Michael Cox joins James and Kristian for a special Champions League Final preview ahead of Saturday’s championship encounter between Bayern Munich and Chelsea.

You can download the video and watch it here.

If you’re not a fan of video you can listen to the audio here

Subscribe directly to the YouTube channel here.

New! Subscribe to the video podcast on iTunes here.

Subscribe to the audio version on iTunes here.

Throughout the year BBC’s Match Of The Day served as the Footy fan’s elixir. In their season recap we relive the euphoric, somber and captivating moments of this past season.

Is it August yet?

The Lead

Whether because it involves a relegated club, or because it rubs up uncomfortably against Britain’s punitive libel laws, most of the English papers have offered scant coverage of the leaked video of Blackburn Rovers manager Steve Kean, secretly filmed while the club was on tour in East Asia.

The video features a possibly intoxicated Kean accusing Sam Allardyce of being a “fucking crook.” The timing of the release, by a site calling itself the BRFC Action Group,...

No, he almost certainly does. This screen capture from the Manchester City parade. Oh dear indeed.

So much to talk about yet so little time. Today on the Vod Manchester City wins the title in the most dramatic of finishes. Paolo Bandini discusses Juventus’ unbeaten season and Del Piero’s farewell. Ruud van Nistelrooy retires, and much more.

You can download the video and watch it here.

If you’re not a fan of video you can listen to the audio here.

Subscribe directly to the YouTube channel here.

New! Subscribe to the video podcast...

There is something of a vague resistance movement within some English circles to the pervasive intrusion of the Television Machine in domestic football. It’s partly because TV earns clubs quite a bit of money from overseas rights packages, which a) allow them to either revamp their existing stadiums or build new ones with a bigger seating capacity, thereby driving up ticket prices, b) contributes to inflated player wages and transfer fees wreaking financial chaos throughout the domestic table and c)...

In our last Premier League round-up for the 2011-2012 season, James Sharman, Kristian Jack, Thomas Dobby, Richard Whittall and Brendan Dunlop discuss one of the most incredible endings to a football season, perhaps ever. We’re also subjected to our Premier League predictions, some of which were bang on, others which were…well, have a listen.

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THE FOOTY SHOW...

The tears didn’t come right away—not from the unbearable frustration of the first ninety minutes, nor from the surreal and profound joy of the last five.

No, the intensity of those moments didn’t allow for much more than the most basic emotions, a grunt here, a ‘Come On City’ there, with the occasional meek and stressful rendition of Blue Moon. It was only after, among the stunned and delirious crowd at Opera Bob’s Public House in Toronto, that I started...

It’s official! Break out the bubbly!

Aston Villa can confirm that Alex McLeish’s contract has been terminated with immediate effect.

The club has been disappointed with this season’s results, performances and the general message these have sent to our fans.

The board wishes to assure supporters that we are conscious in every sense that Villa expects and deserves more and we will strive to deliver this.

Mcleish confirmation is apparently taking so long because he’s clearing his desk. Too...

For even the best writers it’ll be hard to sum up yesterday’s events in words – our own Kristian Jack did an excellent job in his season review, you should really check it out.

For your listening pleasure, commentators from around the world describe Kun Aguero’s magic moment at Etihad stadium:

Argentina:

Norway:

Poland:

UAE:

How awesome is this sport? What a day.

The Lead

Football. Fucking football. Imagine not being into it. Those poor, poor half-alive bastards.

— Danny Baker (@prodnose) May 13, 2012

I don’t really have the words to add to the above following an incredible final day of the European domestic season (read KJ’s superb season round-up here), which saw Del Piero score in his final game with the same club after 19 years to help keep Serie A champions Juventus unbeaten, Ruud van Nistelrooy play his final...

A historical reflection on the 2011/12 Premier League season

By Kristian Jack

It was special. There is nothing quite like the unscripted drama of sport. Just when you think you might have seen everything it reminds you just how wrong you are. Heading into the final day we were told it was the best season in the Premier League’s 20 years and those who disagreed lost their case in five amazing injury time minutes at the Etihad Stadium just before 5pm...

There were so many moments over the course of the English Premier League season where one was tempted to say, “There. That’s it. They’ve got it now. Done and dusted.”

There was Manchester City’s loss to Swansea in early March, and the defeat at Arsenal a few weeks later when Mario Balotelli was sent off and handed a three-match ban. For a time it looked as though Manchester United, who cruised to the top of the table in early spring,...

Borussia Dortmund completed the domestic double for the first time in their history, Saturday, beating Champions League finalists Bayern Munich 5-2 in the DfB Pokal final in Berlin.

Some observations from the match:

• Shinji Kagawa was immense for Dortmund, scoring after just three minutes and setting up Robert Lewandowski’s first of three goals just prior to the break. The 23-year-old Japan international, who scored 17 goals and earned 13 assists in 43 matches for Dortmund this season, always seems to...