Real Madrid Vs. AC Milan This August At Yankee Stadium

I am a pretty big fan of European soccer clubs doing summer tours in the United States, it gives newer soccer fans a taste of what the top teams around the world look like; even more so when they play in historic, non-traditional venues like Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium.

This August 8, Real Madrid will face AC Milan. That's right, Real Madrid head coach and superstar Cristiano Ronaldo will be in the Big Apple as the Spanish giant travels across the U.S to play one of Italy's top teams.

Real Madrid is slated to play at the Los Angeles Galaxy on August 2, against Juventus in Las Vegas, NV (which could be brutal given the desert heat) on August 5 and they wrap things up in Philadelphia, PA with an exhibition against Celtic on August 11. This will be the third straight summer that Real Madrid has used a preseason tour of the U.S. prepare for its grueling La Liga regular season.

AC Milan will play Chelsea on July 28 in Miami and they have another match in Pittsburgh, PA on August 4 against an opponent to be determined.

If you're wondering, there has never been a soccer game at Yankee Stadium (which opened in 2009). Chelsea faces Paris Saint-Germain on July 22 in what will be the first soccer game there, a prelude to Real Madrid vs. AC Milan. Over the last few years, there have been college football games-(Notre Dame vs. Army) and the Pinstripe Bowl-in the Bronx but this should bring a much more diverse and lively crowd since they'll be drawing from the biggest city in the U.S. that is chock full of every nationality you can think of.

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Apologize for the lack of posts

Our apologies for the lack of posts recently. With our jobs taking up much of our time and real life stuff to deal with, we haven't been posting at all lately.

With a day off from work and snow limiting my options of things to do, I thought I'd whip through some things we haven't touched on.

To sum up the important stuff we missed lately: Messi won men's player of the year (again), Marta won women's player of the year, Jose Mourinho was coach of the year, David Beckham is training with Tottenham, Ronaldinho has gone home to Flamengo (a Brazilian club), Oguchi Onyewu is with Dutch league champion Twente (on loan from AC Milan) and Edson Buddle is going to Ingolstadt (a second-tier German team).

Finally, Liverpool (Roy Hodgson out, Kenny Dalglish in) and Inter Milan (Rafael Benitez out, Leonardo in) got rid of their head coaches and hired new ones.

Still crazy after all these years

It's probably a few years too late but Ricardo Carvalho and Jose Mourinho have reportedly been reunited once again: this time at Real Madrid where the former tries to keep his career going and the latter begins his latest coaching stint.

The pair were together at Porto in their native Portugal before Mourinho took over at Chelsea and brought in one of his favorite defenders.

Carvalho has agreed to a two-year deal worth approximately eight million pounds.

A club statement read: "Chelsea Football Club can confirm it has agreed terms with Real Madrid for the transfer of Ricardo Carvalho. The transfer is subject to a medical and the player agreeing personal terms. Chelsea would like to thank Riccy for his six years of service, and we wish him well in his future career."

At the weekend, Jose Mourinho suggested that Carvalho's advancing years meant he was unlikely to link up once again with the defender, who under the new Real coach won the 2004 Champions League with Porto and two Premier League titles with Chelsea.

However, Real saw their bid to sign Inter Milan right-back Maicon collapse and while Benfica's David Luiz and AC Milan's Thiago Silva were alternative targets, they have turned to Carvalho in an effort to improve their defence.

Carvalho, who joined Chelsea from Porto in the summer of 2004 for a fee of £19.85 million, recently claimed he has been given permission to leave Stamford Bridge and that he would go to Madrid "swimming or running", such is his desire to be reunited with Mourinho.

The Portugal international picked up a third Premier League title last season but has seen his first-team chances reduce in recent seasons, with Brazilian defender Alex finding favour under Guus Hiddink and then Carlo Ancelotti.

If Carvalho does complete his move to Real then he will join Joe Cole, Michael Ballack, Deco and Juliano Belletti in leaving Stamford Bridge this summer.

I'm Portuguese, Mourinho is my favorite manager in soccer and I was a big Carvalho fan when he was at Stamford Bridge. However, I'm a realist and I realize that he probably won't have much of a role at Real Madrid and therefore, this will not end well.

Mourinho can't get out of Italy fast enough

It only took four days after winning the Champions League final with Inter Milan for Jose Mourinho to pick up his stuff and say: peace out suckers.

It's all going to be finalized on Monday with the Special One signing on with Real Madrid.

Pairing him with Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the World's top 3 players, should make for fascinating stuff.

Madrid sacked Manuel Pellegrini on Wednesday and outlined their intention to replace him with Mourinho once both they and the Portuguese had negotiated his release from Inter.

The two clubs had been struggling to reach a compromise as Inter were insisting they must be paid the full €16 million due to them under the terms of Mourinho's contract.

However, an agreement, reported to be worth €8 million, has been reached after a meeting between Real president Florentino Perez and his Inter counterpart Massimo Moratti in Milan.

A statement from the Italian club read: "The president Massimo Moratti and Florentino Perez met this afternoon.

"In light of the excellent and constructive relations of friendship that exist between the two clubs, an agreement was reached on the contractual clause that binds Jose Mourinho to FC Internazionale. The time and the manner by which the agreement will be honoured has been defined.

"Massimo Moratti thanks Florentino Perez for his willingness to join him in Milan and for his courtesy, which confirms, once again, the strong link between the two prestigious club.''

Real director general Jorge Valdano said earlier on Friday that the reason for Pellegrini's sacking was that the board believed the Chilean's record in Real's key games was not good enough.

"Pellegrini created a very good working environment, avoiding dressing room conflicts and he had an impeccable record in the league," Valdano said. "But in the most important games of the season he was not able to succeed and so we decided to dismiss him.''

Valdano was also adamant striker Gonzalo Higuain would not be leaving the Bernabeu despite speculation in England linking him with big-spending Manchester City.

Higuain was Madrid's leading scorer in the Primera Division with 27 goals in 32 appearances in the recently-completed season and his fellow Argentinian insists he is not for sale.

Valdano said: "Higuain is under contract for three more years. He has been a benchmark for others and is not available for transfer.''

And as Shimer said on Sunday when we saw the first reports of this, Italian football is not for Mourinho. Their boring, defensive style is not what he favors and putting him in Spain should allow him to continue to flourish playing an exciting, attacking brand of football.