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51 year old Tommy Burns lost his battle against cancer. Burns spent 15 years as a player at Parkhead, making 352 appearances for the Hoops between 1975 and 1989, scoring 52 goals.
He managed the club for three seasons between 1994 and 1997, winning the 1995 Scottish FA Cup.
Burns played eight times for Scotland between 1981 and 1988.Gordon Strachan leads tributes to Burns..

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ESPN2, ESPN, ESPN Classic and ABC will combine to present all 31 matches live and it will be the first EURO to be broadcast live in the United States.Videos below of an ESPN ad campaign to give US viewers a taste of what is to come .
The Italians

The Greeks

The Portuguese

The Germans

The Spaniards

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The Iranian Football Federation plans to reduce the number of teams in its top flight from 18 to 16—and then maybe even 14.....and FIFA is apparently saying that the EPL should do the same too.Report here..

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Umaru Rahman, alias Gallon Pan - a former Sierra Leone international footballer has composed a song to celebrate Manchester United winning the English Premier League.
"Come join us in our dance to celebrate Manchester United's victory," he sings.You can hear the song.There's an audio file somewhere in the middle of this page over here...

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Sven-Goran Eriksson is expected to be relieved of his responsibilities with immediate effect after Middlesbrough inflicted an 8 goal thrashing on Manchester City yesterday.

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Ronaldo earlier scored his .er..41st..? [I've lost count] and then Ryan Giggs came up with this beauty to make sure Man U crossed the finishing line first.

At Stamford Bridge Chelsea stumbled at the last hurdle.Shevchenko scored a messy looking goal (video) but Bolton equalised (video) and Chelsea's game and season and titles hopes ended with the score reading 1 -1.

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The Premier League counts down to a most dramatic finale.It is only the fourth time in the Premier League's history that the title has gone down to the last game of the season.Fergie seems to be using a bit of psychological warfare by asking what kind of performance Bolton would be able to put up against Chelsea after going "out all week celebrating".
Grant the "Unlikely One" on the other hand is dourly predicting that this time Stamford Bridge will prevail over Old Trafford.

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Former team captain Pep Guardiola is Barca's new manager.“We the players feel very guilty about everything that has happened, we think we could have done much more to stop things from coming to this" says Xavi .And the video shows the goals from the straw that broke the camel's back.Real Madrid giving Barcelona a 4 -1 drubbing.

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Goalias is a robot goalkeeper invented by the Stuttgart University automation institute (IAS).Lehmann and Kahn now have some serious competition.
Players from first-division side VfB Stuttgart, including Germany team player Mario Gomez, tried last week to outwit Goalias, shooting indoors at a full-size goal mouth from 11 metres out. Scientists have since fine-tuned Goalias and it can hold every second kick from Mario Gomez.
The robot uses three video cameras to calculate the ball's trajectory and move a plastic keeper figure on a rail left or right to block it, all within 400 milliseconds.
Goalias' weak point: it could still be fooled by some hard curving shots with plenty of spin.More on that story here...

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Karel Poborský's famous lob at EURO '96 has been voted the best individual goal in the latest Carlsberg Goal of the Day poll on euro2008.com.The next competition can be found here..

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Croatia football coach Slaven Bilic's fan song for the Euro 2008 championship with his rock band.The song is called "Fiery madness"

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Beckham was voted Major League Soccer's player of the week after he took his team back after being two goals down to earn a 2-2 tie with Real Salt Lake on Saturday.The first goal was really quite good and the second was a reminder that he still has a few free kicks left in him.

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More than 40,000 English fans are expected to converge on Moscow's Olympic Stadium for the Champions League final on 21 May.Here's a bit of the history of that stadium that many will be unaware of.An excerpt from an article titled "Moscow's secret tragedy - hundreds of fans crushed to death"...
"On the evening of 20 October 1982 Spartak were playing Dutch club Haarlem for a place in the last 16 of the Uefa Cup. They would win the match on the way to a 5-1 aggregate victory, but it was also the night on which the greatest disaster in the history of Russian football took place. Officially, 66 fans lost their lives, crushed to death, but several subsequent investigations and eyewitnesses put the death toll closer to 350."
The entire story can be read here....

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This hare and the turtle race is a fight to the finish.With just one game each left Chelsea have nothing to lose and Manchester United have everything to throw away.If the matter is to be decided by goal difference then Man U have to defeat Wigan at the JJB stadium whereas Chelsea have a comfortable home game against the Bolton Wanderers.The historians are telling us that the last time the two main contenders were level on points was in 1968 – when Manchester City edged out Manchester United for the title.And this time around in 2008 Manchester United have the goal difference but Chelsea have the momentum.And in a race you know - momentum is everything.If you are the betting kind it's a tough call to know which horse to back in this hare turtle race....!
The video shows Chelsea's two goals against Newcastle yesterday.

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Real Madrid faced a hostile 18,000 crowd waving Basque flags.They were down to 10 men.Fabio Cannavaro was sent off early in the second half and Real were down one goal.Arjen Robben equalised Gonzalo.Higuain waited for the last 60 seconds before scoring the winner.10- man Madrid beat Osasuna 2-1 at the hostile Reyno de Navarro stadium in Pamplona and the Primera Liga title was clinched in sensational fashion.Highlights below..

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This is supposed to be part of a Nike Ad.Cesc Fabregas dresses up in a silver fireproof spacesuit and then the whole thing literally goes to the blazes.He juggles with a football which is on fire and he himself catches fire and I can't imagine Nike telling anyone to "Just do it" at the end of it all.
Video - if you are interested - can be viewed here...

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Man U were reduced to 10 men for 53 minutes after this red card.Nani and Zidane can share notes now now on what's the next best thing to do when you lose your temper.

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Manchester United beat West Ham 4-1.Two of those came from Cristiano Ronaldo - taking his tally to 40 this season.West Ham's only goal came off a great scissor kick from Dean Ashton Report...

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That's the bus that will be carrying the team from Greece.
Fans were invited to choose from three inspiring messages to be painted on each of the 16 brightly-coloured coaches carrying the teams to and from games at the final tournament in Austria and Switzerland. The selected slogans are the ones below.You can get a look at what the other 15 buses will look like if you click here...

You can also read the slogan in the original language at the same site and check if anything has been lost in translation.
Austria -We can only win together
Croatia - Together with the fans to the top of Europe
Czech Republic- Let's go, let's win, let's fulfil our nation's dream
France - Live together, celebrate together
Germany - Germany – one team – one purpose
Greece - One team, one dream
Netherlands - One team, one spirit, together we are Orange
Italy - The sky is always bluer
Poland - because only sport and good fun matter
Portugal - This coach is powered by the will to win
Romania - Romania, we are proud of you and we love you
Russia - Russian hands are all for one, Russia is proud of her sons
Spain - Whatever happens, SPAIN FOREVER
Sweden - Sweden team = top marks
Switzerland - Final destination: Vienna
Turkey - Can this bus contain the passion of Turkey ?

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The unheralded dark horses Zenit St Petersburg routed Bayern Munich by a stunning 4 goals to 0 to go through to their first ever UEFA cup final.Last season’s Russian league champions can now attempt another feat -to become the second Russian side to win the cup since CSKA Moscow defeated Sporting Lisbon back in 2005.

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Gerrard took the ball off Avram Grant on the sidelines at the Chelsea - Liverpool game yesterday - without bothering to say 'please' or 'thank you' -and knocked him down while doing it.Not very polite.Maybe its because Avram was saying things like this.. earlier.

However the victory went to Avram,made more special for him by the fact that it was Holocaust Remembrance day.It was an emotional day for Steven Lampard too.It was his first match back since the death of his mother Pat on Thursday and he scored the all important penalty that put Chelsea ahead.Drogba's two goals put the matter beyond all doubt.

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