I'm switching my entire sporting attention to a blend of cycling and proper football. At least until Baseball's opening day. To that end, here are some links readers of this blog from the United States might find useful:

Manchester United Official Web Site

Official Site of the F.A. Premier League – Barclays Premiership News, Fixtures & Results

Juventus: notizie ufficiali, foto, biglietti e gadget; i comunicati stampa (although, reallly, I'm just waiting for them to resurrect themselves after the demotion/scandal)

Lega Nazionale Professionisti

IVANBASSO.IT

Alexander Vinokourov – Official Website

Official website Robbie McEwen

Tour de France : bienvenue sur le site officiel

Gazzetta – Giro d'Italia 2007

FOX Sports – England – Wenger: Beckham alone can't lift U.S. soccer

"David Beckham alone won't transform soccer in the United States. It will take an influx of other European stars to make a real impact.

"That's the view of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, one of the most successful coaches in the English Premier League."

I saw somewhere today that Beckham is the highest salaried athlete in the world. For that kind of money he better be able to do something. Personally, I'm thinking Wenger is right, there needs to be a proper influx to raise the level of the game overall in order to make a real difference. Individually, someone more obviously creative like Ronaldinho would have more of an impact. I bet you could put one of those Ronaldinho highlights reels on for even the most anti-soccer American and you'd get positive reaction.

Here's one now:

"The most recognized player on the planet — fashion icon, tabloid fixture, marketing giant and husband of a former Spice Girl — is taking his game and fame to Tinseltown, and he's going to be earning an estimated $250 million for the five years of his contract."

50,000,000 a year? That's in USD? Not Yen? That's fucking insane. Completely and utterly insane. The entire MLS can't make that much money annually, can it? I'm guessing they think this will break soccer in America. I wish them all the best, obviously, but I just don't see him being worth $50,000,000 a year.

ESPNsoccernet – MLS – Coming to America: Beckham to sign with Galaxy

"Ooh! Aah! Cantona!

The world's most dysfunctional club

"If you were asked to name the most dysfunctional soccer club in the world, which would you choose?

La Liga's Real Madrid would be an obvious candidate. Not a day goes by without some bizarre story coming out of the Santiago Bernabeau. You could almost swear it was Michael Jackson's Neverland… "

"… because instead of fighting for each other, Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer were fighting each other. It's almost of unheard of for teammates to square off on the pitch. The question is just how do teammates end up in fisticuffs when the team is flying high?"