For the second game in a row, the Red Bull fans have voted goalkeeper Bouna Condoul as their player of the game. I believe that's who the voters are -- no one, even among the Red Bull staff, seemed very sure.

Message from ESPN: Americans still don't know anything about soccer, so they'll have to be taken by the hand and have it explained to them ... by, who else, the Brits.

The complaint, often heard these days from Europe, is that the major leagues there are becoming too predictable. This is hardly a new gripe, but we get to hear much more of it lately because of the English Premier League.

When you consider the dozens of things that could go wrong with the opening night of a brand new stadium -- I mean, I can think of plenty, starting with me not being able to claim my accreditation (didn't happen, all was smooth efficiency) -- then surely the opening of Red Bull Arena proceeded without a hitch.

One of the great moments in New York soccer history is now almost upon us. Pity it has to happen in New Jersey, but I guess, just this once, we can go along with the Red Bull's impertinent claim to be the New York Red Bulls.

Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, the soccer gods turned on David Beckham, and cut him down while he was doing the very thing at which he was supposed to be divinely inspired: playing soccer.

I have not found the prospect of the upcoming World Cup overly enthralling. Quite aside from the obviously political and anything-but-soccer reasons for staging it in South Africa, I find am finding it difficult to get excited about the soccer itself.

Stand by ... your intrepid columnist is about to go where few dare venture -- and of those who have thus ventured, none has so far survived intact.

So no sooner do I tell you that coaches never say anything nasty about their own players -- just 10 days ago -- than up pops Bert van Marwijk, the coach of the Dutch national team, to seriously berate one of his players.

It's gratifying to see that the International Board (IFAB) has not let us down. It has shored up its reputation for avoiding serious issues by postponing action on a couple of tricky matters that were included on its agenda for last week's meeting. Both came under the heading "Items for Discussion and Decision."

What do you suppose clubs and coaches -- and general managers -- look for when they're signing new players? What comes first? It's worth pondering, for the answer may well tell us what sort of soccer a team wants to play. Or conversely, what sort of soccer a team has given up trying to play.

I would have thought that it was by now blindingly obvious that goals are, in the soccer sense, an endangered species. They occur much less frequently than they have ever done in the 150-year history of the sport, and the chances of there being a sudden surge in scoring I can confidently predict at absolute zero.

Another horrendous injury to an Arsenal player. At Stoke on Saturday 19-year-old Aaron Ramsey was taken off the field on a stretcher, breathing through an oxygen mask, his right leg broken. The soccer future of one of the most promising -- I would say the most promising -- of British youngsters is now at risk.