Carlos Alberto, one of the sport's true greats, dead at 72. Unexpected, almost unbelievable. For me, a personal loss, for I learned so much from Carlos, talking with him, watching him play during his years with the Cosmos.

So we've seen the last of Mauro Diaz for this season. He will not be part of the Dallas bid for the MLS title. A serious injury -- ruptured Achilles apparently -- will keep him sidelined for months.

You will have been aware of the recent game between Liverpool and Manchester United. Won't you ever. The hype will have seen to that. Liverpool coach Juergen Klopp told us, "The whole world will be watching." Last time these two teams played, the global TV audience was estimated to be as high as 700 million. I'm not sure it gets much higher than that, unless you can persuade half the world's population to stay awake until the early hours.

Wayne Rooney's career is coming to a close. Which seems ridiculous, given that my memory informs me that it was only last week that he was being hailed as a 16-year-old prodigy with Everton. My, how time has raced by.

Poor Sam Allardyce. Well, maybe. Depends how you see things. Not long ago, Allardyce was one of the few English coaches in the English Premier League ... he had a lowly job with a lowly team -- Sunderland, which he just managed to save from relegation last season. But that background -- really, nothing more than showing he's good at teaching a poor team how to play survival soccer -- was enough to get Allardyce his dream job