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Blatter chimes in on the MLS again: This really is nonsensical. All the criticisms that he's levelled against the current season either apply to other leagues like Brazil and Russia (problems with international calendar, the transfer window and players transferring to/from summer-season league) or make no sense (leads to players moving abroad.) Yeah, the reason Americans move abroad is because the MLS has a summer season. Is that why Brazilians move abroad as well? No, it's for the cash more often than not. At the very highest level, a few Americans and Brazilians probably move for the sake of competition, but that isn't affected by the summer season. Forgetting all of which ... the MLS is clearly trying to move in this direction. More clubs are moving into their own stadiums and it's definitely on the agenda. I do firmly agree that it would be an advantage for the whole world to be on the same calendar, but the reasoning he's using is bizarre. I'm convinced that this is just a way of Blatter bitching about Beckham's time share agreement, but in his PR-obsessed mind he realises Beckham is more powerful than FIFA.

Jose Mourinho suspected of punching a United fan outside the ground last night. Wherever these guys end up is gonna be able to give the Mean Machines guys a run for their money now they have a top class manager.

That's fine and that's why I specifically said that I'm not saying that Nintendo are making a poor business decision. I said that that quote from Miyamoto is so far up his own revolutionary-developing arse it's unreal. Two screens and touch screens did not blow anyone away. Casual gamers do not care about hardware at all and I honestly believe that plenty wouldn't even realise that it was a revolutionary feature. Besides which, I'm personally not interested in the business side of things. Sales figures very rarely make for interesting discussion and we're not on a forum of business analysts, we're on a forum of opinionated wrestling nerds. What we like and dislike is the crux of conversation and then things like profit margins are used to supplement that. Again, I'm not complaining about what Nintendo as a company choose to do, I'm explaining why I personally have no interest in that product and adding to that my belief that Miyamoto is totally out of touch (or cynically promoting his own product.) There's a horrible preachy undertone to that article if he really thinks what the DS represents is revolutionary. It's a slick, ergonomic product with excellent advertising, an array of attractive products that fills a niche for casual games neglected by Sony and Microsoft in their battle to dominate the hardcore market. There isn't anything revolutionary there, so I object to the language he uses. Good Pokemon and Mario Kart games with easy multiplayer features. Nintendogs, a concept that's been around since Cats and Dogs over a decade ago. Animal Crossing, Zelda, Mario Bros, Tetris - the platform is built on solid, reliable franchises. Backwards compatibility with GBA. Superficial redesigns to keep the product seemingly novel. The DS is nothing revolutionary, it's a good product. That's it. The very fact that Miyamoto is so enamoured with two screens shows that he's totally removed from the casual fan. The closer you get to a product, to an industry, the more the little details interest you. The less engaged you are, the less you're able to differentiate between those smaller variations.

So did the two screens 'make the entire world go crazy' or did the products? That statement, and the rest of the article, smacks of someone who spends his entire life looking for something interesting to design in a sector he's totally immersed in, not the point of view of a casual gamer. That's someone who doesn't really know or care about games as much as the obsessed fanboy ... and that's fine. If this is all about appealing to the non-gamer then I stand by what I said - they don't give a shit about two screens. Maybe they care about a touch screen, but they care far more about the products than they do about the technology. Brain Training, Nintendogs, Pokemon and Mario Kart. These are some of the biggest products for the DS and none of them are advertised primarily for the touch screen. How much does the touch screen affect sales of Chrono Trigger? That's my opinion on his 'two screens' statement and I guess apart from that I probably have missed the point. I'm not saying they're wrong for making these games or anyone else is wrong for liking them, but I have no interest in paper-thin, 'buy and then forget about them' games. Not that this needs proves anything, but I've got 4-5 mates who bought Wiis and not a single one of them still plays it at all. Yeah, it costs half as much as the 360, but they're not even playing it any more. What's the point? Casual games are always going to be a big slice of the industry, but there's a preachy out-of-touch slant to what he's saying and I personally find myself in the completely opposite camp to Miyamoto.

Yeah, but I don't give a shit about the games industry. I don't give a shit about the non-gamer or the new generation of Nintendo fans. Fuck casual games. Fuck games for my mobile phone, fuck the Wii and fuck the Xbox Arcade. I don't want to play a game that satisfies me for about a day no matter how cheap it is. I don't want to pay for a gimmick that looks great in a TV advertisement or wanky industry interview. If I want to fritter away my time I go onto miniclip. I'm not going to pay for some triumph of design if it gives me 10 hours of fun. I want a game that I get into, with a storyline or the possibility for hours of gameplay. They don't all have to be Bioshock. Guitar Hero is as casual as it gets but I've been playing it or versions of it every day for well over a year. It doesn't matter that it's expensive, I get every penny because of the number of hours that I've put into it. And I'm still more in touch with the casual gamer than Miyamoto: Honestly, people didn't give a shit about two screens. No pensioners or businessman or little girls bought a DS because it had two screens, they didn't even realise that it was the only system with 2 screens. It wasn't revolutionary, they bought it because of the products and the advertising, not because it had two screens. He's absolutely out of his mind, or he's more cynically promoting his own product in advertisingspeak than I though.

Anelka would have been too easy #19 is infuriating me because I should be able to get a West Ham question. I can't think of many Welsh defenders we've had that aren't at the club any more. I'll guess Julian Dicks because he was from the south-west. Maybe Rob Lee? Purely because he seemed like a nice guy #20 another scattergun approach, but I can only guess from a few black English Wigan strikers - Nathan Ellington, Jason Roberts or Marcus Bent?

I was hoping we might get to see keepers taking penalties, that's always awesome

Yeah, but a penalty when you're already a couple of goals up (I think) and showboating can never be as bad as in a CL penalty shootout.

That is the worst penalty I've ever seen in my life. Wow.

Two guesses for the Bolton forward (#4) Djorkaeff or Diouf. Only French-speaking forwards I can think of. Maybe Okocha? What language do they speak in Nigeria?

#1 Has to be Anders Limpar. I will edit in more guesses, I just wanted to make sure I got one before anyone else EDIT: #10 might be Joe Royle for winning the FA Cup. #11 Solkskjaer? #13 Philippe Albert? #18 Bryan Robson? Only WBA legend I can think of.

What happened to his 100% scoring rate (or whatever it was) a couple of years ago?

Quito won the Libertadores, not the CWC, which is what Matt was commenting on. The winners of the CWC are Corinthians, Sao Paulo, Internacional, Milan and Man United. Barcelona, Liverpool and Boca are teams that have lost this competition, there's nothing to do with 'some Japanese team' there. I think I remember reading that Quito is owned by some immensely rich family/company who invested heavily in players for the one calendar year, which is easier to do in South America where the player and coach turnover is much higher. Regardless of which, it's like saying the CL is meaningless because Porto vs. Monaco was the final 5 years ago or the European Championships is worthless because Greece won it. Yeah, they were an upset winner, but that doesn't mean the competition is a joke. Why can't Cristiano Ronaldo just die? ANSWER ME THAT?

The World Club Championship's been won by three Brazilian teams, AC Milan and Man United. None of them slouches.

No, footballers just mocked him because he was posh and liked reading in the changing room or something. He's married, I think. I also heard that the O'Shea rumour was false, but I dunno. Wasn't he going out with some ludicrously hot woman for a while?

I definitely don't agree that the result was a foregone conclusion, but Real Madrid have been dire for years now (despite winning the league last season they weren't all that impressive.) They haven't got a Champions League quarter final in 5 years. They lost both legs of their tie to Roma last year, before Roma then lost easily to United. The Spanish league itself has been a bit of a merry-go-round with Valencia and Deportivo on the decline, Villarreal basically being plucky underdogs punching way above their weight and Atletico being their old inconsistent selves despite being established in the league again. Real haven't even looked all that solid during their unbeaten run under Ramos, they were squeaking out victories against poor teams and riding on the wave of Raul-adulation and Robben-wankery. van Nistelrooj being out for the season and Sneijder disappearing means they've lost some of the quality they had last season. Sergio Ramos has been absolutely out of his mind for most of the season from what I've seen and Pepe is a complete liability. Lassana Diarra is the only strong defensive player they have any more and Casillas is one of few players with CL-winner quality. I'd say that Chelsea, Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Inter, Milan, Bayern and Lyon are all definitely more dangerous than Real in European competition, and probably Juventus as well. I'm not sure how you can argue that Milan aren't, even though they aren't in the competition this year they won it two years ago and it's hard to argue that their experience wouldn't help them in the CL. Again - Real haven't got past the first knockout round for 5 years!

Middlesbrough have been absolutely dire for a couple of months. Until they beat West Ham in the cup they were barely scoring, so they'll be hoping that result and the win over Liverpool are enough to turn them around. I'm not even sure their problem is consistency as much as it was terrible form for a while. I still think they're going down, though.

Yeah, in the first version they definitely over-compensated for the 'can't sell decent back-ups for love nor money.' It infuriated me when you couldn't even sell good Championship-level players on free transfers. I remember in a Weegie update during the period where Tevez and Mascherano were at West Ham I sold Tevez to Chelsea for £110m right off the bat, no negotiation. I probably could have got more

The Barce shirt is amazing There are actually dozens of people who wear suits for the in-game cup final. There was a thread on the SI forums where loads of people posted pictures of themselves in their finery. Only one had a flower in his lapel though (N)

I did the BBC Predictor thingy just now and had United winning the title by 14 points, City getting 7th place on goal difference ahead of West Ham and West Brom, Middlesbrough and Newcastle getting relegated. Stoke and Portsmouth only escaped by one point and both had inferior GD to Newcastle in 18th. Arsenal beat Villa to 4th by 1 point despite both winning on the final day and Spurs made it up to 11th.

I think I'm slowly drifting away from Lost. I'm still going to keep watching because of how amazing a few of the characters (Ben, Locke, Desmond) are, but I just don't really care about the meat of the show any more. I was always more interested in what the causes were of all the oddities and now it seems like it might boil down to 'a weird island that produces unexplained phenomena and time travel.' I'm just not satisfied by this whole process of going back and fitting every single oddity into one breakneck time travel stream. Lost isn't even a story any more, it's a plotline. The writers have thrown as many balls into the air as they possibly could, made the show as complicated as they possibly could and then tried to attribute it all to time travel. I'm not criticising them for making this decision because I know it's a pet peeve of mine, but I'm just instantly turned off. I like sci-fi and fantasy and gritty realistic drama like The Wire and this is the one explanation they could have given me that makes me tune out.

Arsenal/Hull vs. Chelsea Man Utd vs. Everton Probably the best draw United could have hoped for. Odds on a Hull/Everton final?

Yeah, they did, but that's where the 'not at the expense of making it seem like an anti-climax' bit comes in. Portsmouth vs. Cardiff is inherently an underwhelming cup final. That's why something like Liverpool/West Ham or even Portsmouth/Man United would have been better cup finals. Saying that, United vs. anyone outside the top 4 would probably be seen as almost a foregone conclusion at the moment. Even Everton and Villa would be up against it if they were facing a United team going for the last leg of a treble/quadruple/quintuple.

Yeah, I think I worded my sentence badly. I didn't really mean a 'supportable' underdog, I meant an underdog with a believable chances of winning. You want the game to be unpredictable but not at the expense of making it seem like an anti-climax like last year.

I'd be more interested in one Big Four team vs. anyone than I would a final with no Big Four teams or two against each other. Another United/Chelsea-type game is no more attractive than Portsmouth/Cardiff or whatever else. The best Cup Final in recent years was Liverpool/West Ham because it's a big team against a team that has more than a slight chance of winning. That's the most exciting set-up, I think - a big team vs. a supportable underdog.