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02/16/2012 - Amsterdam, Netherlands (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ashley Young and Javier Hernandez scored in the second half as Manchester United opened its Europa League round of 32 series against Ajax with a 2-0 win Thursday.
With a combined seven European titles, United and Ajax highlighted the last 32 pairings, and Young and Hernandez made sure the club's Champions League slump did not carry into the Europa League.
United was eliminated from the Champions League following a loss to Basel, but the road win has the three-time European champions on target to capture their first Europa League, formerly the UEFA Cup.
Four-time European champion Ajax will have to overturn the two-goal deficit at Old Trafford next Thursday to advance.
Atletico Madrid also got off to a good start on the road as Falcao scored two goals in a 3-1 win over Lazio in Rome, while last season's Champions League semifinalist Schalke needed a late goal from Klaas-Jan Huntelaar for a 1-1 tie at Viktoria Plzen.
Felipe Caicedo scored the game-winner in the 70th as Loko Moscow beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1, Adam Maher scored as AZ Alkmaar edged Anderlecht 1-0, Andre Filipe Santos scored in the 88th as Sporting Lisbon tied 2-2 at Legia Warsaw, and two goals from Jonathan Cristaldo gave Metalist a 4-0 win at Red Bull Salzburg.
<< Red Wings' Cleary placed on IR
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Red Wings placed forward Dan
Cleary on injured reserve, retroactive to February 8, on Thursday.
Cleary has been out since then after re-aggravating an existing knee injury.
In 55 games th
<< Timbers sign Cameroonian midfielder Songo'o
Portland, OR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Portland Timbers signed Cameroonian Franck
Songo'o, a former Barcelona youth player, on Thursday.
The 24-year-old Songo'o, capped one time by Cameroon, left Barca in 2005 and
began his pro career in the
<< Burke placed on administrative leave
Emmitsburg, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mount St. Mary's men's basketball coach
Robert Burke has been placed on paid administrative leave.
The school did not divulge details, saying the action was requested by Burke.
Assistant coach Matt
<< Azarenka, McHale reach Doha QFs
Doha, Qatar (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - World No. 1 Belarusian stalwart Victoria
Azarenka and rising American teenager Christina McHale were among Thursday's
third-round winners at the $2.168 million Qatar Open.
The Australian Open champion
Saint Francis names Benzel co-defensive coordinator >>
Loretto, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former Robert Morris assistant football coach
Scott Benzel was named co-defensive coordinator and assistant head coach at
Saint Francis on Thursday.
Benzel has spent the last nine seasons at Robert Morris, incl
MLS signs U.S. striker Johnson >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - U.S. national team striker Eddie Johnson will
return to MLS this season, it was revealed Thursday. It will take one more day
to determine which team he will play for, however.
The 27-year-old Johnson, who le
Berdych, del Potro land in Rotterdam quarters >>
Rotterdam, Netherlands (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former Wimbledon runner-up
Tomas Berdych and former U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro reached the
quarterfinals at the $1.6 million ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament.
The second-seeded Ber
Oilers, Ducks swap players >>
Edmonton, AB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Edmonton Oilers acquired defenseman Bryan
Rodney from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for center Ryan O'Marra.
The 27-year-old Rodney has five goals and 15 assists in 41 games with the
Syracuse Crunch
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.
As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.
The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.
Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).
But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.
Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.
Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1
Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2
New York Giants - 9 - 2
Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).
Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.
So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.
And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.
They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.
Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.
But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.
Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.
Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.
Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.
Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?
Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.
In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.
Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.
Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.
The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.
The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.
Visit MySportsbook.com for free sportsbook odds RSS feeds go to MySportsbook.com for all your betting football needs.
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