Former England team captain David Beckham is eager to represent his country in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He got a deal with AC Milan, allowing him to stay in game shape in Italy over the next few weeks during Major League Soccer's off-season.

England team manager Fabio Capello will decide whether or not he will name the Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder to his 23-man roster for this year's World Cup in South Africa. Capello has publicly stated that Beckham must be playing first-team soccer at the highest level in the buildup to the World Cup to even be considered for the English national team this summer.

Beckham has made a handful of appearances for AC Milan and figures to be a regular starter for the Rossoneri as they attempt to chase down city rivals Inter Milan, currently in first place in Serie A, for the Italian league championship. But will that be enough to get him a spot in the England national team?

''He is a leader and an inspiration to his teammates. Equally, he is feared and respected by all of his opponents. He's vastly experienced on the international stage. He's a big-game player who doesn't get intimidated by anyone,'' CBC Sports soccer commentator Nigel Reed said.

David Beckham was sent to exile when he earned a red card during...

And after failing to qualify for Euro 2008, it has been a long four years for England fans to wait and remember what it feels like to get behind their team in a major international competition. Now that England is in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, English football fans couldn't be any happier.

England head to South Africa confident, having easily secured their place for this year's World Cup. And for the first time in quite a long time, English fans can finally look forward to the World Cup with a sense of optimism.

With players such as Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard ranking amongst the best in the world, together with the other members of the talented England squad, Fabio Cappello could well be the man to guide England to World Cup glory for the first time since 1966.

The draw for the 2010 World Cup took place in Cape Town and with the way the countries have been drawn, it looks like lady luck is really smiling on England. They got a great draw coming up against USA, Slovenia and Algeria in Group C, making the English team as the clear favorites to win the group.

Looking back at England's history in the World Cup, England has entered all 14 post-war competitions. They qualified through play in the preliminary competition on...

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is fast approaching and eyes will be set on South Africa with matches held in nine cities across the land. The world's greatest footballers will be on display too as football fans around the world are eagerly anticipating a month of football bliss.

On that note, here's an early rundown of the top five countries to watch out for in this year's World Cup, starting with the country that won the last biggest tournament in football, the Euro 2008 champions Spain.

Though Spain has never won the World Cup, this may be their best chance ever. Their forwards score goals and their midfield is among the best in the world. At goalkeeping, Iker Casillas is equally very impressive, helping them to engineer a 15 game winning streak to set an international record earlier in 2009.

Although the United States' victory over Spain late in the year was one of the biggest upsets in a long time, Spain remains the team to beat. They are in Group H along with Switzerland, Honduras and Chile.

Another team to watch out for is Argentina primarily because they have on their roster the best footballer in the world right now in Lionel Messi. Argentina also has the best defensive midfielder in the world, Javier Mascherano along with a number of very talented youngsters, including Sergio Aguero.

Their manager knows what it takes to win. While they did suffer...

And it was only a matter of time before David Beckham played in his first home game with the Los Angeles Galaxy. The problem is, it was against the very team he wanted to save him from MLS soccer for good, AC Milan.

Five months ago, the Los Angeles Galaxy sent David Beckham on loan to AC Milan. It turned out to be a wrong move in LA's part since it was then when Becks realized just how much better playing for Milan is than with the Galaxy in the MLS. When Beckham pleaded the Galaxy to make his move to Europe permanent, soccer fans from Los Angeles were not happy and they made sure Beckham will know just how unhappy they were last Sunday.

Playing in his first home game with the Los Angeles Galaxy against AC Milan, David Beckham got a somewhat hostile reception. Yes, Beckham was booed the whole time he was on the pitch. Heck, the jeering got worse to the point that Beckham confronted a fan at halftime.

Yup, the frequent booing and derisive banners clearly angered Beckham. With homemade signs that have messages directed at Beckham like, ''Go home fraud'' with a red slash through his no.23 jersey number, ''23: Repent,'' ''Hey Becks, Here Before You, Here After You, Here Despite You,'' and ''Is evil something u are... or something u do,'' Beckham has every right to be pissed.

Of course, Beckham can only blame himself and his...

You read it, Cristiano Ronaldo, the former Manchester United winger, suggested that the Spanish La Liga is now THE league to be in European football and he claimed that one of the reasons was that star players enjoyed greater protection from referees in La Liga.

The Portuguese, who just set a record by singing a £80m contract with Real Madrid, made no secret of his dissatisfaction at what he perceived to be rough treatment from Premier League opponents during his six years at Old Trafford. Sir Alex Ferguson, his manager at Old Trafford, had even hinted that Ronaldo might be driven away from England if he was not better protected from bad challenges.

Ronaldo, the world footballer of the year, has switched to Real together with Kaka from Milan to play for a league that he claims will protect its stars better.

While Ronaldo may have a point in saying that the Spanish La Liga should now be superior, he knows that it isn't just about the officiating. La Liga should now be superior because of the fact that it now has the two greatest footballers in the world too.

''The Premier League is a very good competition,'' Ronaldo said, ''but I think that the Spanish league is going to have a little more...''

And while we all know David Beckham will be there just for show, (just like any other Galaxy game that saw Beckham in uniform...) what could be interesting here is how will Beckham and London Donovan co-exist inside the Galaxy locker room. You see, Beckham was having all sorts of issues with Donovan, one of the captains of the Los Angeles Galaxy, while he was still on loan to AC Milan.

Yes, despite the fact that Beckham was miles away from Hollywood playing alongside Kaka in Italy, they STILL found a way to still talk about the guy in Los Angeles and this time, the city has MLS veteran, Landon Donovan to thank for it.

Donovan actually called Beckham a bad captain, portraying him as stingy in an upcoming book. Now I don't know if Donovan was just pissed about the fact that Beckham wanted to stay with AC Milan for good and leave him and his Galaxy teammates with nothing but the fact of the matter is, what Donovan said in his book was uncalled for.

That's probably why NOBODY gives a flying fuck about them or soccer in general in the...

With the hot and sexy Maria Sharapova out followed by Ana Ivanovic tapping out of center court because of an injury, having the Williams sisters STILL around is really one big swift kick to the balls.

In case you didn't get that, I don't really expect you to. What I know is that the two huge reasons why the male population watch tennis is now long gone and there isn't really nothing to look forward to in the 2009 Wimbledon Championships anymore but for it to be over, and soon.

For the rest of you, well, both Venus and Serena Williams are still around, each hoping for a possible Williams sisters face-off in the semifinals. Of course, they have to get rid of their respective quarterfinals matches first.

First, Serena. The younger Williams will look for revenge as she faces off with the same beyatch who kicked her ass in the final of last April's Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Victoria Azarenka. Serena knows that Azarenka is a good player and if there was one player with everything to lose, it would have to be her.

''She's obviously a good player, and she's really young,'' said Serena Williams, a winner in 56 minutes over another hottie, Daniela Hantuchova in Monday's fourth round. ''She has nothing to lose. It will be a really good match.''

Older sister Venus Williams, on the other hand, was...

With a shocking 2-0 lead over the five-time World Cup champions Brazil after the first half of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup final, it looked like this Cinderella run the Americans have been having will get them their first big championship in the sport.

After the United States soccer team shocked the world by beating a football-crazy nation like Spain in the semifinals, they started to want more than just respectability in the arena of international football. And you can tell that the Americans were inspired to win it all last Sunday too, jumping on the Brazilians right from the get-go with Clint Dempsey kicking it off with a goal on the 9th minute.

U.S. team captain Landon Donovan followed it up with another goal on the 26th minute, giving the U.S. a 2-0 lead over the Brazil football team before halftime.

Unfortunately, that's where the Cinderella run ended for the Americans as the Brazilians took over in the second half. Down 2-0 with the Confederations Cup at stake, Brazil rallied as Luis Fabiano kicked off his team's comeback with two goals, one on the 46th minute and another on the 73rd minute to tie it 2-2.

And just before the fixture could go the full 90 minutes, Lucio came up with Brazil's third goal of the night, giving the Brazilians the 3-2 lead on the 83rd minute. Just then, it dawned on the Americans that the dream is over as Brazil marched on towards...

In case you didn't know, the United States just qualified for the final of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup by doing the unthinkable, holding Spain scoreless en route to a shocking 2-nil victory.

You read it, the United States soccer team just beat a bona fide football-crazy nation, beating Spain 2-0 in the Confederations Cup semifinals. Oh yeah, Spain is not just a football-crazy country by the way, Spain IS considered as the top-ranked country in the sport and for an American soccer team to go copping their asses like that was, fucking unbelievable, to say the least.

What's even more shocking is the fact that the Americans were ready to go back home last weekend. Nobody saw that these guys will be able to come up with probably the biggest upset in sports since that United States hockey team shocked the Soviet Union at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

The Americans' win over the Spain football team enabled the Red, White and Blue to reach it's first FIFA final since starting play in 1916. Yup, it took them that long to finally stop making a fool of themselves on that pitch.

Jozy Altidore kicked it off with a goal on the...

In what has been a chaotic series of events for football fans, Real Madrid just signed the two biggest stars of the sport. After signing Kaka to a whopping €67.2 million, the entire blockbuster deal involving the Brazilian is now yesterday's news with the club now having finalized a deal involving Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United.

You read it, Real Madrid just signed Cristiano Ronaldo to a mind-boggling €80 million contract, eclipsing the deal Kaka just signed with the club. The ex-Milan ace, however, has no problems vacating the spotlight for the Portuguese and, if anything, he is looking forward to playing alongside the soon-to-be former Red Devil.

''I rejoice in the signing of Cristiano,'' Kaka said when, upon touching down in Johannesburg, he was informed that his new employers had made an official bid for CR7. ''There's no doubt that Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best players in the world and he will help Real Madrid fight for every title next season.''

Kaka became the world's second most expensive footballer following his switch to the Spanish behemoths, but he was soon demoted to the third spot on the list after Ronaldo's mega €80 million transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid went through.

As expected, questions have already been raised about...