The Fan Hub

The United States soccer team is preparing for its most pivotal week of games in two years, but for the first time in over a decade, they're doing it without their most famous player.

Forced to sit amongst the visiting AC Milan fans for their Champions League match at Barcelona’s Camp Nou, Sean Melia was happy to just get out alive.

The hoopla surrounding incident with Eden Hazard and a Swansea ballboy was merely the next logical step in the increasing role of theatrics in the sport.

America has never had a great soccer program, but recent games show that this team demands respect.

In a relatively stagnant summer transfer window, Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s completely move to Paris Saint-Germain caught everyone off guard.

Belgian wonderboy Eden Hazard has finally made his big time transfer. Last week, Hazard made his intention to join the Blues clear from his twitter account. “I’m signing for the champion’s league winner.” Hazard tweeted on May 28th. On Monday, the signing became official. Hazard was to transfer from LOSC Lille in Ligue 1 to the Premier League, an ambition he made clear once he hit the world spotlight. Hazard was on English soil saturday when Belgium played England at Wembley Stadium in a tune-up match for the upcoming EURO 2012 competition. Hazard is expected to pair with Brazilian player Hulk from FC Porto as the two biggest signings of Chelsea’s september transfer window.

Things were beginning to look up for American soccer fans. A trip to America by the juggernaut known as Brazil put us back in our usual somber place.

Landon Donovan is the hat-trick hero in his return for the stars and stripes, as a dominant US side never let off 47th-ranked Scotland.

Chelsea FC have grabbed the ultimate European Glory, and their man of the match in the final is set to leave the club after having accomplished it all. Questions surrounded the final year of Didier Drogba’s contract at Stamford Bridge, and now Drogba has confirmed that he will leave the club when it expires. The 34-year-old striker from the Ivory Coast was signed to Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was manager. Scoring 157 goals in 341 appearances, he helped the Blues win 10 titles, including the Barclays Premier League, the FA Cup, the English League Cup, and now, the UEFA Champions League. “It has been a very difficult decision for me to make and I am very proud of what we have achieved, but the time is right for a new challenge for me. As a team we have accomplished so much and have won every single trophy possible,” Drogba said.…

A handful of the 20 teams who kick off on Sunday in England at 10 am will have everything to play for.

The Madridstas have overcome Barcelona for the first time since 2008 to win their 32nd Primera División title.

Chelsea and Bayern Munich have managed to snatch home victories in their Champions League semi-final matches, giving them the edge going into the second leg in Spain.

Roberto Di Matteo’s stellar performance as Chelsea FC manager may see him enter into a long-term role with the club, but for now, he has denied that he has begun talks with the club to maintain his position full time. The Blues face a crucial fixture list in the next few weeks, in their attempt to win the Champions League and FA Cup, and advance enough in the Premier League to grab the fourth and final Champions League Spot. After defeating Barcelona 1-0 on tuesday, Chelsea will play at the Emirates Stadium on saturday in a crucial fixture. Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has been trigger happy with managers recently, firing Carlo Ancelotti after one season without a trophy in 2010-2011. Ancelotti had won the double with Chelsea the year before. Andre Villas-Boas was the man that Abramovich hired, and subsequently fired in March 2012. Chelsea have a chance to break…

Will Chelsea or Liverpool salvage a woeful season in the Premier League with a win in the FA Cup final?

It may not have been an eventful few games, but the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quaterfinals provided us with a few lessons on where this year’s league can go.

Neymar scored a spectacular hat trick in the Copa Libertadores, right after the transfer speculation surrounding the 20-year-old Brazillian star had finally quieted.

The United States has finally beaten Italy, giving Jurgen Klinsmann his first big win as US manager. What are the implications of the victory?

The 21 year old Belgian winger has been setting France on fire. With a plethora of big clubs interested in his services, where is Eden Hazard to go?

Sources close to Chelsea FC have revealed that will be without skipper John Terry for two months, as he suffered a knee injury and will not play versus Napoli in a round of 16 UEFA Champions League fixture. The Chelsea captain will have surgery on his knee on Wednesday. Terry has recently caused controversy regarding his lost role of English national captain, which caused the exit of manager Fabio Capello. The incident occured in a Chelsea fixture against Queens Park Rangers where QPR defender Anton Ferdinand accused Terry of using racial slurs towards him. Terry is set to miss England’s upcoming friendly versus the Netherlands.

In the midst of a disappointing season for Chelsea FC, manager Andre Villas-Boas has to wrestle with qualms about his job security — many coming from his own players. Roman Abramovich, Chelsea’s billionaire Russian owner, is known to have a short fuse for managerial downfalls. The president of AVB’s former club FC Porto, Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, has weighed in on AVB’s struggles, noting that AVB is still shadowed by the success of current Real Madrid and former Chelsea and Porto manager Jose Mourinho. The Porto boss has suggested that Chelsea player relationships with old coach Mourinho have made it more difficult for AVB to mesh with his new team. “He needs time to mold his own team, and he can’t do that as long as there are players, as I’ve heard, who exchange text messages with Mourinho.” Costa noted. Chelsea currently sits in the 5th position on the…

Coming off their second win under new head coach Jurgen Klinsmann on Tuesday, a 3-2 win friendly win over Slovenia, the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team got their initial schedule for the qualifying stages of the 2014 World Cup. It will kick off with a home match against Antigua and Barbuda on June 8, 2012 and be followed up four days later at Guatemala. The team will then have their Summer break before resuming the qualifying in September.

In the two and a half months since Jurgen Klinsmann took over as head coach of the U.S. Men’s Soccer team, the team has just one win in five matches, the latest being a 1-0 loss to Ecuador on Tuesday night. But as TheFanHub’s Zak Kulin writes, Klinsmann’s plan is focused on the long-term, and patience is needed before everything falls into place.

The two best soccer players in the world, by most accounts, are Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, two players who play for hated rivals Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, respectively, and couldn’t be more different from the standpoint of their personalities and public displays. And yet despite all that, there seems to be very little friction between the pair, or even acknowledgment of the other’s existence. It should be the most compelling rivalry in the world and yet it falls woefully short, a scenario that Brian Phillips of Grantland attempts to explain. As Phillips writes, it may come down to a simple matter of everyone aside from Madrid fans loving Messi and disliking Ronaldo. Messi’s effervescence and love of the game is palpable when he plays, and he has a certain air about him that, despite his generally accepted title as the world’s greatest player, shows a remarkable lack of…

Thus far into his Chelsea tenure, Fernando Torres has been every bit the disappointment that he was at his previous stint in Liverpool, and no moment was worse than his unbelievable miss-hit in the second half of the Blues’ 3-1 loss to Manchester United on Sunday. Torres has scored just two goals in 19 games since coming over the Chelsea last season, though his teammate, goalkeeper Petr Cech, is confident that he’ll soon find his scoring touch.

The last-minute transfer of Raul Meireles from Liverpool to Chelsea caught everyone by surprise, and as Meireles would tell it, himself included. That’s because he knew that Chelsea had been interested for several days, and eventually thought there wouldn’t be enough time to make a deal. The report of Meireles’ £12 million purchase by the Blues came immediately following the revelation that he had handed in a transfer request, which he says was done due to the flattery of being wanted by Chelsea manager and Meireles’ former manager at Porto, Andre Villas-Boas. What this sounds like is basically that there was a last-minute appeal by Chelsea to Meireles. And while it’s obvious to see why a reunion with his old manager would appeal to Meireles, the fact that he was essentially left without a chair in the Liverpool midfield after Kenny Dalglish retooling this summer must have had something to…

The European transfer window came to a close with a flurry of deals in the past few days, with the biggest last minute move being Diego Forlan’s transfer to Inter Milan. But the real activity was done earlier in the year, when Manchester City and Manchester United had a spending war and Barcelona nabbed a long-term target. They’re the easy choices for the winners of the transfer window, and Arsenal’s decimation at their collective expense makes for an obvious loser. Sergio Aguero has had an immediate impact on ManCity, and Ashley Young has had a similar effect for ManU, with both teams sitting atop the EPL after winning their first three matches. Meanwhile, Arsenal has had a predictable beginning after losing their two star midfielders, with Samir Nasri moving north to ManCity, and Cesc Fabregas to join Lionel Messi in Barcelona. One club that Yahoo’s Martin Rogers does not touch…

Not exactly a surprise here. Argentinian striker Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona became the first winner of the UEFA Best Player in Europe award after a season in which he scored an eye-popping 53 goals, including 12 in the Champions League.

Chelsea added another weapon to its forward ranks with the purchase of 23-year old left winger Juan Mata from Valencia FC of La Liga. The Spanish Mata had previously been a target of Liverpool earlier in the transfer window, but the Reds opted to sign 27-year old Stewart Downing instead. So Mata goes to the Blues instead for a transfer fee that was not disclosed, but which reports have estimated at around €27 million.

Chelsea added another key piece with the EPL season already underway in Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, who comes over in a transfer from Anderlacht for a fee believed to be between £15 and 20 million. Still only 18 years old, Lukaku should be a mainstay on the Chelsea front for years to come, and should take over as the club’s number one scoring threat once 33-year-old Didier Drogba moves on. Lukaku will be ready to go when Chelsea plays its next Premier League game on Saturday against West Brom.

The Spanish Super Cup came to a close on Wednesday with a 3-2 Barcelona victory over Real Madrid. After a contentious 2-2 draw last weekend which featured tempers flaring on both sides, Wednesday saw more of the same. Barca striker Lionel Messi gave his club the lead with just three minutes remaining, Madrid’s Marcelo committed a vicious tackle of new Barca midfielder Cesc Fabregas, leading to his dismissal and all 22 players on the field entering the fray.

The long-awaited transfer of midfielder Cesc Fabregas from Arsenal to FC Barcelona, the club that he supported growing up, was agreed upon on Monday. The next step is for Fabregas to clear a medical test on Monday, and then agree to a personal deal with Barcelona, after which he may be able to suit up for their return leg in the Spanish Super Cup against Real Madrid on Wednesday.

Following their loss to Mexico in the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final, the United States Men’s Soccer team received a major shakeup last month when head coach Bob Bradley was fired and replaced by the former head coach of Germany, Jurgen Klinsmann. They underwent their first test on Wednesday in a friendly against Mexico, who had won the last three meetings between the two teams in convincing fashion. The match ended in a 1-1 tie, but it was about more than that for Team U.S.A.

Chelsea striker Fernando Torres was the most expensive acquisition British football history when the club purchased him from Liverpool in January for a transfer fee of €50 million. But in 14 appearances, Torres scored just one goal for Chelsea as they fell short of catching Manchester United for the EPL title. And had it not been for a concussion suffered earlier this week, he likely would have suffered the indignity of being benched for the club’s season opener against Stoke City on Sunday.

Following their 1-1 draw with Mexico in the friendly on Wednesday night, the new U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann was understandably reserved in his praise for the team. But make no mistake about it, this is a good sign for Team U.S.A. They still haven’t beaten the Mexican team since February of 2009, as Mexico had taken the last three meetings by a combined score of 11-3. So for Klinsmann to have righted the ship, if not completely turned it around, in his debut since taking over for former head coach Bob Bradley. Next up for the U.S. team is a pair of friendlies against Costa Rica and Belgium on September 2 and 6, respectively.

Arsenal had already had an underwhelming offseason, failing to make any significant additions to a squad that finished fourth in EPL play last season. And things could take a drastic downward turn, as reports are surfacing that their leading playmaker and captain, central midfielder Cesc Fábregas, will be heading to Champions League winning-FC Barcelona for a transfer fee of €35 million. If the deal does go forward as anticipated, Arsenal is going to be hard-pressed to qualify again for European play during the EPL season, which kicks off on Sunday.

Just three months after winning the UEFA Champions League Final over Manchester United, FC Barcelona went out and made a significant addition to their forward ranks, paying a €29m transfer fee to Serie A’s Udinese for striker Alexis Sanchez. The 22-year old Chilean now has the benefit of playing alongside the greatest player in the world in Lionel Messi, an experience that will benefit him in both his club career as well as his international one with the Chilean national team. And as his coach for Chile, Claudio Borghi couldn’t be happier.

The English Premier League is set to kick off next weekend, and there is no lack of compelling storylines. Manchester United and Manchester City are both improved from last year’s first and third place finishes, respectively, and their blossoming rivalry is one to watch all season. The two will write a new chapter on Sunday when they face off in the Community Shield match at Wembley Stadium. Meanwhile, after two seasons of failing to qualify for European competition, Liverpool is sporting a revamped roster and ready to claim their rightful place among the EPL elite. Elsewhere, with a squad that’s almost identical to last year’s Arsenal might not have added enough to improve upon last year’s fourth place finish. And after a second-place finish last year, Chelsea’s biggest change came on the managerial front with the hiring of Andre Villas-Boas.