Socrates, very sad this. Was only 57 .

A lot of people regard him as the second best Brazillian footballer ever. Which is such a great compliment. Rip Soccy!

______________________________________________

Ballon d'Or -

Messi, Ronaldo, Xavi are the three players. Which I think have been the same three players for the last 3 years running? Lol.

Its always Messi - Ronnie - Xavi.

But im not sure if Ronaldo should win it this time. He outscored Messi with a weaker team. Admittedly only slightly weaker team! Lol.

Fergie - Guardiola - Mourinho should be the top 3 managers. But I cant see Guardiola not winning it.

Goal of the year award...

Straight away, first goal I thought of was the Messi goal, where him and Xavi 1-2'd it and then Messi chipped it over Arsenal keeper, and then slotted it in.

But the favourite is Rooneys overhead kick against Man City.

Apparently Naymars goal against Flamengo was special though, So I shall try hunt that down!

But Messi is tipped to win everything basically, Lol.

This is the champions league of awards. There is nothing better than this for club football and its voted by managers, journalists and international captains.

Neymar -



Messi -



Rooney -

And for good measure -

Balotelli interview -



Celebration fail -



I dont no but its funny as hell! -

Good result for Fulham, I never watched the game but what is the difference between Liverpool beating chelsea at stamford bridge and liverpool losing away to Fulham and drawing with Swansea?

Can KK not get them fired up?

The ref is the difference. We played well we even scored. Oh yeah that got disallowed because the linesman is as much an authority on what happened as Stevie Wonder.

We got a man sent off for tackling the ball and catching the man on the way through. Worse sending off than the Rodwell one against us. That's how bad it was.

The red was just like the Rodwell incident, which was stupid then as well.

We didn't play great, we should have won, we didn't win, had no luck and lost.

My main worry is how we are going to cope without Lucas. It's not got off to a good start.

I think when someone like Lucas is out, the entire team is affected. It will just take some getting use to.

A lot like Essien out for us.

I'm going to watch carefully to see if Liverpool keep making defensive errors, lose the ball at the back... basically, to see if they play like us ha!

Best Goal Neymar!

That was a great effort from his first touch!

Messi's for me wasn't that special has he does that week in week out.

And Rooneys well it was amazing definatly don't get many like that!

Yeah, even though I don't like the guy or the way he scavs the ball, Neymars goal was the best.

Reckon Messi will win the lot though!

Im so excited but nervy! Lol.

I dont think I have ever witnessed a game like this in a group stage of the CL where we needed to win. so this istruely a first!

Mata 3-0 Mata to score them all lol.

Lyon, Milan, Chelsea & Levekusen is my bet main bet. Have many variations!

No Torres or Lampard, Alex and Anelka won't play again for Chelsea its said and as soon as the window comes they are both gone.

AVB is finally shaping the team to how he wants it.

Come on you blueees!

Chelsea looking very good tonight best i've seen them play all season, Drogba showing why he should be in the team every game, absolutely brilliant tonight!

Juan Mata is top quality. Chelsea really need more players like him.

Suarez has been charged for his middle finger gesture towards Fulham fans... fair enough, but The FA then charge us with failing to ensure our players conduct themselves in an orderly fashion because of Jay Spearings tackle.

Corrupt doesn't cover it! :\

Edited at 18:54 Wed 07/12/11 (GMT)

LOL

Channel 5 and John barnes... Welcome to Manchester! Ha!

The last 32 of the Europa league looks quite strong.. Is it groups or knock outs?

Manchester have a new reality T.V program to be hosted by ITV4 and Channel 5. Its called Manchester does TOWIE - The only way is Europa.

Apparently, a little birdy has told me, that ITV4 are switching to a better ITV1 slot and that Sky are desperately trying to buy out Channel 5 for the games.

Thats corrupt.

Chelsea -

We were awesome! I said all along we need to give the opponents the ball. We get dominated in possession, we soak up pressure and power forward and look, we spanked Valencia, who are no mugs. Drogba is the reason why we didnt really need Torres. Im not blaming Torres or doubting his ability, but we should never of bought him. It crippled us last season.

As a result, Anelka is off to China (what a waste of sheer talent) Drogba forgot how to play football, Lampard doesnt start games, and we have a £50m pricetag on the bench.

I dont care what anyone says, Luiz is quality. He is a bit of a liability, but he has the talent and potential to be the best CB in the world. He is quick, can head, can tackle, has strenght, can dribble, can shoot, can score! Talented young man and a great buy.

City on Monday for us, ovbiously wont be easy and they will be trying to prove they are CL quality.

Dont say this often, but Fergie made mistakes tonight.

Rooney was isolated. Nobody ran beyond him and Basle had 3 on him all night. United were tame and weak in all areas. Keeper, defense, attack and especially midfield.

Anyone see the Lyon/Ajax saga?

Lyon needed a swing of 7 goals to progress. Madrid beat Ajax 3-0, in which Ajax had 2 goals wrongly disallowed (both decisions not even close) which would have put them up 2-1 at the time, and then Lyon come from a goal down to win 7-1 against Dynamo Zagreb.

Fix?

I backed this. Lyon were 8/1 to progress. But I said Lyon would score at least 4 and Madrid would win by a few.

Zagreb got a player sent off and then scored.

Lyon scored 4 goals in 5 minutes or something just after the 2nd half started.

But Zagreb 10 men... they arent very good.

Made me a fortune so I dont care if its a fix! But I dont think it was a fix.

Looking at the Zagreb defenders, they seemed to be 1) very tired, 2) letting Lyon score.

They were one of the worst teams in the competition though!

Onto United, their team looked pish today. A defender, a right winger and a 38 year old left winger all playing centre midfield? A centre back playing full-back, what is going on?

The best part of the night is this from Evra: I play for Manchester United to play in the Champions League but some players dream of playing for United in any competition and you have to respect that.

What a gimp. He says he is embarrassed to be in the Europa League.

Someone needs to tell him he's a terrible left back, and only idiots think he's good, cos Sky say so!

He has declined rapidly the past year, he's lucky to play for a Europa League side!

The funny thing is listening to all the United fans crying because they are in the Europa League. Behave, we have 5 Champions League crowns (in case you were wondering ) but we are still proud of our 3 UEFA Cups.

Rio went up in my estimation today by saying he wants to win it. Is right!

Also worth a mention is Xherdan Shaqiri. That guy is quite some player, think he will get a big move sooner rather than later.

What a night! It will be interesting to see if Fergie puts out a second string team in the Europa league, so that MU can concentrate on the league looool.

The Lyon result does seem a bit extravagent, but in the end, they got what they needed and over here nobody is complaining about their qualification.

While on the topic of French football, didnt Samir Nasri leave Arsenal to play European football at a higher level..??