Antonio Puerta, the tall, elegant left-sided midfielder for Sevilla and Spain passed away today. He had been in hospital in critical condition for the past 3 days after collapsing during Sevilla's game over the weekend against Getafe. He had had multiple cardiac arrests, and there was brain damage that had arisen from those that made the situation very, very complicated. He was just 22 years old, and had a baby on the way as well. Clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United and Real Madrid had been watching him for a while now, and he was one that was surely destined for the top.

It's a sad day when such a promising, young footballer passes on, and we would like to wish his family all the best.

Two OleOle Bloggers have been offered the chance to attend the preview screening in London of a new football film called "IN THE HANDS OF THE GODS". It looks like an excellent film, and is based around dreams and passion in football, and 5 street footballers using their skills to raise enough money to go and see their idol Diego Maradona.

It's going to be on Tuesday, August 21st in London, so if you're interested, then get in touch now!

Just wanted to let you guys know about our presence on those other sites, we're still trying to make sure that everybody knows where to come for their football fix.

If you're a MySpace user, add us at: http://www.myspace.com/oleolefootball

If you're on Facebook, check us out and send us a request at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=82834042

We've also got a group on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2258798103

And you can use Facebook's event feature to confirm whether you're playing our Fantasy game, and even invite your friends: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4062107956

See you all soon!

Well, why not? This might be a fun weekly thing to do. So... welcome to the inaugural Footbollocks Quiz.

This week's (slightly England-centric) questions:

1. Which Norwegian has played more Premiership games than any of his countrymen?

2. Which South American footballer has won the most Premiership titles?

3. Which former French international has won more top-level silverware than any of his compatriots?

4. In the last decade, at least 3 pairs of brothers have plied their trade in the German Bundesliga, at the same clubs. Name them.

Enjoy!

And if you'd like to contribute any questions, just send me a message via OleOle with your bit of trivia. It's going to be hard work coming up with questions every week!

Iraq's fairytale run to the final had already brought joy to the strife-ridden country (and some sorrows), and the Asian Cup final was a chance to take that even further. Iraq are the new pitied nation du jour, and winning a prestigious tournament like this would give them a chance.

They did not disappoint, with captain Younis Mahmoud scoring the only goal of the game in the 71st minute. Iraq were by far the better team, and even 2 or 3-0 would not have been an unfair scoreline. They attacked well, and although they were wasteful, the Saudi 'keeper Yasser Al Mosailem was largely responsible for keeping his team in the tie.

Iraq have never been a particularly fancied football country, but they showed great strength and resolve to reach this final. Mind you, they are not short of technical ability - Younis Mahmous was player of the tournament, and Nashat Akram (a rumoured target for Premiership clubs) is an unbelievably inventive, skillful players - but they had to put in a whole lot of guts and determination as well. They beat much more fancied teams en route to the final, and this had a lot to do with their team spirit, and will to fight for their country. The Iraqis had to train and play all their qualifiers in neutral countries, many have lost friends and family in the fighting, and the coach had just 2 months to put the team together - it really is a fairytale story of triumphing against all the odds. What makes it so much more heartening is that the squad is composed of a mixture of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds; it's what Iraq needs to see right now... its various factions coming together to progress.

Well... not madness per se, but again a great example of how British players just seem to cost so much more than they need to.

Dave Nugent has signed for Portsmouth for a fee of  just over £6 million. He joins from Preston North End, where he has played well enough to earn an England cap (and score a goal too).

The former Bury youngster is only 22, and has a bright future ahead of him, but the fee is still on the higher side, considering that he has no Premiership experience and that his record of 33 goals in 96 games for PNE is hardly prolific.

I think Nugent has chosen well with Portsmouth though. He could have signed for Sunderland, but at Pompey he doesn't have to have the pressure of relegation and expectation, and he's also got an experienced manager who knows how to get the best from his players. He'll have better players around him as well, and be in a settled team that is financially able.

John Utaka also signs for Portsmouth from Rennes. The fee is undisclosed, but is probably around the £3-4 million mark. This is a transfer that has been going on for ages, and Utaka let the media know a while ago that he was looking forward to joining his compatriot Kanu at Portsmouth.

Utaka is a good, but inconsistent player; very talented, but seemingly very raw at times. He's 24, and Redknapp will need to work on him a bit. Still, he's tall, strong, fast, and an exciting dribbler. He's skillful, although a hit-and-miss finisher, and is also not too bad in the air. This is going to be an exciting signing for Pompey fans, and it's nice that they have options in attack now.

Hopefully you cringed at that photo, I know I did. Well gimpy, chavvy, wannabe enfant terrible Craig "Bellers" Bellamy has signed for West Ham for a reported fee of £8 million. EIGHT! Somehow... Liverpool managed to sell Bellamy on for a profit. A player who signed for £6 million, scored just 7 league goals in 27 games, got arrested for hitting a girl in a nightclub, and hit a teammate with a golf club, has somehow been sold on for a profit. Lovely!

Bellamy is a serious talent - quick, tricky, left-footed and with a powerful shot, but he has the personality of a menstruating Satan. He first arrived in the Premiership at Coventry, as a replacement for the Inter-bound Robbie Keane. Since then, he's gone to Newcastle, Celtic, Blackburn, Liverpool, and now West Ham all in the space of 6 years (giving Anelka a run for his money). Anyways, good luck to West Ham, Eggert Magnusson and "Bellers".

Jason Koumas, has signed for Wigan for £5.3 million. This probably tops the list of ridiculously priced transfers, and furthermore the present Wigan manager Chris Hutchings has one of the worst transfer records ever. When Jewell left Bradford, it was Hutchings who stepped up from Assistant to Manager, and spent about £10 million (that Bradford couldn't afford) on awful players, got them relegated (and was sacked), and they are suffering in League One now. Wigan are a stronger side than that, and chairman Dave Whelan has money, but spending this much money on Koumas is wild.

Now don't get me wrong, Koumas is a talented guy, as he kid he was very highly rated and in West Brom's first season in the Premiership he had some great moments. He then went through a huge slump, and was out of favour and on-loan at Cardiff. But last year at the Baggies he had a great season, helping them to the playoffs, and was named the Championship player of the year. But he's 27 now, and has only really had ONE season at the top of his game, and that too in the Championship.

Carlos Tevez has been confirmed as having agreed to join Manchester United. The transfer fee is rumoured to be £20 million and it is expected that he will be signed and unveiled after Argentina's Copa America campaign is complete. West Ham are trying to do everything in their power to keep him, and will try to challenge this. Legally (technically, rather), they still own the player, but as was exposed by the Premier's League's investigation a few months ago, they really don't own or control him. Tevez has previously been seen showing up at a news conference in a Man United shirt, so it doesn't come as a huge surprise that if he had his choice of clubs, he picked United.

This leaves Manchester United with an army of attacking midfielders/strikers - Anderson, Tevez, Giggs, Scholes, Rooney, Saha, Nani and Cristiano Ronaldo, and it's thought that the last of those will finally be on his way to Real Madrid. All throughout last year Real kept chasing him and releasing statements about how they wanted him, and he in turn was completely non-comittal towards United. But he signed a new 4 year deal, amidst much celebration from the club, fans and the media. However, those with elephant-like memories might remember both his agent and Real Madrid making statements afterwards that went something like "one should never rule out a transfer". Well, this might still happened, or might have even already been agreed. It's possible the new contract was signed because they wanted full focus and as much high morale as possible to maintain their title run. It's possible also that they made an agreement with Ronaldo that he could leave (and maybe even with Real Madrid). Remember also, that Manchester United are financed completely by debt, and that they don't have Roman Abramovich to give them unlimited cash. The Glazers are money-makers, and on Tevez, Hargreaves, Nani and Anderson, they have spent a massive £70 million. Fake Ronaldo going the other way for £30-40 million would make the deficit more reasonable.

And lastly, Christian Chivu, who has been linked with both Barcelona and Real Madrid is quite possibly on his way. Real however are the more likely destination since Barcelona signed powerhouse left-back Eric Abidal (who can also play in the centre when needed). The Madridistas are also more in need of a solid centre-back than any other club, and Chivu would be perfect for them. Roma have spoken of late about how Chivu is not going anywhere, and how they don't want to sell him, but it's gone somewhat unnoticed that they've signed the excellent Brazilian international centre-back Juan from Leverkusen. Juan is not the kind of player that you keep on the bench, so unless they plan to let Philippe Mexes go (unlikely), they have already prepared for Chivu's departure.

... but of a different kind. Poor Sheffield Wednesday have had their stadium completely flooded because of the recent deluge of rain in England.

Wednesday, in the Premiership not-so-long-ago, and then fighting for promotion in League One not too long after, had finally stabilised themselves in the Championship. However, this will be a big blow to their fortunes... quite literally.

The flooding will cost the the Owls a massive £120,000 pounds in repair money! Fine, it's only a week's wages for Thierry Henry, but it's a big deal for struggling Wednesday. Let's hope that it doesn't affect them too badly, because they are one of the oldest institutions in English football.

Pictures courtesy of Soccer Investor Weekly:

After Liverpool have painstakingly gone ahead with meeting Atletico Madrid's massive transfer demands, they now have to face up to the prospect of meeting exorbitant wages for the increasingly diva-like Fernando Torres.

El Niño has apparently asked for a massive £31.2 million contract! He has allegedly demanded a 6-year deal, worth £100,000 per week, because those are the same terms that Inter Milan offered.

I have no doubt that Inter offered ridiculous wages, but were they even serious about signing Torres? They've already got Ibrahimovic, Crespo, Adriano, Julio Cruz, Alvaro Recoba and now David Suazo. Perhaps they offered Torres this ridiculous contract as a means of trying to coax him into making his situation with Atletico very sour, and thereby lowering the transfer fee? Who knows.

In any case, Liverpool will have to negotiate trickily with this one, because there are very few players in the history of the Premiership who have been on £100,000 per week or higher. Thierry Henry, Michael Ballack, Andriy Shevchenko, Steven Gerrard and Cristiano Ronaldo are all proven talents and performers, and even Frank Lampard and John Terry haven't been able to bump their contracts up to that level. Not only will Torres earning that much ruffle a few feathers, but given Torres' inconsistency and the fact that he is not yet at the top of his game, it will be quite a financial burden on the 'Pool.

Of course it could all just be paper talk. After all, only a week ago it was rumoured that Torres' had the words "You'll Never Walk Alone" on the underside of his captain's armband, and that he was desperate to join Liverpool.

A strange old match. Brazil's midfield and attack boasted some of the world's most talented youngsters, the Polish side had some decent players, but were mostly a fit, organised bunch. An early goal, a quick sending-off and then dogged determination saw the Polish under-20 team upset Brazil.

Alexandre Pato of Internacional is probably the biggest star of this tournament, and he took the attack to Poland in the opening minutes. However the Poles, even though they weren't anywhere near as skillful, played intelligently, and looked to counter at every opportunity. No chances of note were created, and then in the 23rd minute, Krychowiak put Poland ahead from a free-kick. It was a decent strike, but not very powerful, and i'm of the opinion that the Brazilian 'keeper could have done much, much better.

The elation of taking the lead was then brutally ended when Polish midfielder Krol was sent off. It was a hard tackle, and definitely deserving of a yellow, but somehow the young Pole received a red from Premiership ref Howard Webb. There's no disputing that it was a foul, but both teams got away with the same thing throughout the match, with only yellows or free-kicks being issued. Harsh decision, and it really put Poland at a disadvantage. I'm not sure if Krol maybe swore or said something to the referee, but I couldn't see that.

Brazillian fans might say that on balance of play they deserved to win, because they attacked the most, had the most possession and dominated the game, but they did so against 10 men and never managed to look like scoring. They would probably have dominated against 11 men as well, so the Polish team had to show incredible, incredible bravery and determination to come away with the victory. Time and time again there would be last-ditch tackles, headers and blocks to deny the Brazilians, who despite all their trickiness and skill were less-than-effective, most often passing too narrowly and intricately and allowing the play to breakdown. In fact, Poland 'keeper Bartowski only had 2 or 3 real saves to make... the best of them being from a dribble and shot from Jo.

The Brazilian players really didn't show up either. Much of the focus had been on £18 million Chelsea-target Alexandre Pato, the Internacional attacker and current golden boy of Brazilian football, but he was missing his renowned composure. Manchester United and Arsenal target, Renato Augusto from Flamengo, was flickering but ineffective, and CSKA Moscow's Jo (prolific last year until injury) was threatening but lacked support. It was another talented midfielder, Leandro Lima, who was the most impressive Brazilian on show today, constantly tricking his way past defenders and trying to make things happen.

With 12 shots to Poland's 2, the Brazilians were clearly missing any kind of end product, and they will look to fix this in the next game.

Oh, and the pronunciation from the Canadian commentators is awful.