It's well known that Thierry Henry wasn't a big fan of Alexander Hleb. The Belarussian was often on the end of a withering stare from Henry after another pass went astray or a move broke down.

Of course the pair get to continue their great friendship at Barcelona now that Hleb has signed for the Catalan club. Henry was at the press conference last night to announce Hleb's arrival and this picture really does speak a thousand words.

heh, classic.

I'm not a Man United fan, as you well know, but if I were I'd be most unhappy with the comments made by FIFA President Sepp Blatter. Talking about Cristiano Ronaldo he says:

In football there’s too much modern slavery. I’m always in favour of protecting the player. If he wants to leave, let him. 

What about contracts then? What about protecting the clubs who pay large transfer fees and extortionate wages to players? Imagine if the club said 'We don't feel like paying you', what kind of outcry would there be then? 

A player saying 'I don't want to play for you' is the same, except he still gets his wages every week, doesn't he?

Blatter, of all people, should be trying to create some stability in the game yet now more players will look at the head of FIFA saying this and think the way players act these days is acceptable. Not that anything Blatter says is susprising. Does he have friends at Real Madrid? Would that explain why he's so in favour of allowing Ronaldo to leave United?

And for him to say players are 'slaves' is absolutely reprehensible. How can somebody being paid what professional footballers are paid be a 'slave'? I'd happily be a slave for £40,000 a week or £20,000 a week for that matter. In a world where real slavery still exists it's an incredibly tasteless remark from an incredibly tasteless man.

The game is being ruined by money and sadly those in charge of football these days are driven by cash, not by what's good for the game. Blatter, once again, has shown himself up as a man with no great interest in the game, only in how much money can be siphoned from it.

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For those wondering about The Week in Football podcast our summer holidays, so to speak, are ongoing. Tom Thom(p)son is travelling around the upper-delta region of County Cork while I'm typing this from the Holiday Inn in San Jose. Or, from my house, whichever suits you best.

We'll be back next week to cover pre-season, Italy, Spain and all the usual bits and pieces. 

We're also going to make the blog more bloggy this season, with more comment, pictures, news etc etc so do bookmark.

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Happy Thursday to you all and welcome to another Eurocast and another round of predictions. 

As usual we'll start with predictions and only ElTorro got one yesterday, correctly predicting the Turkish win over Switzerland. For today's game my completely incorrect guesses are:

Croatia 1-2 Germany

Austria 1-3 Poland

As usual leave your predictions in the comments.

Now, in today's Eurocast Tom and I discuss Portugal v Czech Republic and Switzerland's exit at the hands of the Turkey. There are some of your emails and voicemails too as well as a preview of today's games.

But please don't forget we want to hear what you think about the games, the performances, the tactics, the fans, the lovely girls, the rain, whatever. Anything at all to do with Euro2008 is ok by us please do get in touch.

To contact us use the info below:

UK -  +44 20 7193 6971

SWISS - +41 44 586 62 08

But that's not all. If you have Skype you don't even have to pay for a phone call. Simply add 'oleole.com' as a contact then use Skype to call us. It'll go directly to the voicemail.

And if that's not enough we're happy to get your emails too - send them podcast@oleole.com

You can subscribe to the Eurocast using iTunes by clicking here, if you want to subscribe to the feed itself the feed URL is here, you can download directly here or you can listen from this page:

Till tomorrow, folks.

Firstly,

congratulations to 4andyL who got both games exactly right in yesterday's predictions. That's a cracking start.

Let's have your predictions for today's game then in the comments. Mine are as follows:

Austria 1-3 Croatia

Germany 2-1 Poland

Now, the very first Eurocast is ready for download. This time it's mostly me with some email comments from some of you guys but we really do want to hear from you via the voicemail systems we've set up. Just make a phone call and tell us what you think. The more you guys get involved the better it'll be. You don't have to be a fan of any particular country to give us your opinion.

One of the emails today said that Ronaldo showed against Turkey why he was the best player in the world. Did he? Was he that good? You tell us.

Plus we're looking for correspondents for a number of countries, have a listen and see if you can get involved.

To contact us use the info below:

UK -  +44 20 7193 6971

SWISS - +41 44 586 62 08

But that's not all. If you have Skype you don't even have to pay for a phone call. Simply add 'oleole.com' as a contact then use Skype to call us. It'll go directly to the voicemail.

And if that's not enough we're happy to get your emails too - send them podcast@oleole.com

You can subscribe to the Eurocast using iTunes by clicking here, if you want to subscribe to the feed itself the feed URL is here, you can download directly here or you can listen from this page:

Right then, until tomorrow.