England’s team captain Rio Ferdinand has been ruled out of World Cup play following an injury sustained in the team’s first practice session in South Africa. The 31 year old center back injured a knee ligament in a scrimmage at England's training ground near Rustenburg. Tottenham Hotspur defender Michael Dawson will take Ferdinand’s place on the roster, while Liverpool striker Steven Gerrard becomes acting captain.

As of Tuesday morning, Jose Mourinho is officially still under contract to Inter Milan. Despite this, every indication is that ‘The Special One’ is set to take the reins of Spanish La Liga club Real Madrid. Rumor has it that the two sides even have a deal in place—hammered out the night before Mourinho coached the Italian Serie A side to a Champions League victory. Separate reports also suggest that Inter has quietly begun a search for Mourinho’s replacement at the San Siro.

Heading into the European soccer offseason there was much speculation that Barcelona would be very active in the transfer market, and they wasted no time getting things started on Wednesday with the announcement that they’d signed Valencia’s David Villa. Barcelona paid a 34.2 million Euro (approximately $43.5 million US) transfer fee for the rights to Villa. Villa, the leading goal scorer in La Liga this season, will sign a four year deal paying him a reported 7 million Euros (approximately $8.8 million US) a season.

Soccer pundits like to joke that not only is the World Cup a quadrennial event, but so are players complaining about the latest technology in the official Adidas ball. 2010 is no exception—ever since Adidas released their new ‘Jabulani’ official World Cup a growing number of soccer players have griped about any number of its traits. Some suggest it’s difficult to control, others say it’s a knuckleballing nightmare for goal keepers. Now Adidas is responding vociferously to the nature and timing of the players’ criticisms.

Great day for Italy and world wide fans of the Internazionale de Milan as the blue squad wins Champions League cup 2010.

Even as Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho celebrated his team’s Serie A title, the questions about his future continued hot and heavy. Although Mourinho again insisted that he won’t take time to consider his own plans until after next Saturday’s Champions League finale, his statements did little to quell suggestions that he’d be coaching somewhere else next season. Mourinho has been linked to a number of clubs during his time at the San Siro, but the most viable scenario would have ‘The Special One’ heading to Spain to take over Real Madrid.