One of Hansson's assistants from the all-Swedish crew that officiated the France-Ireland playoff was omitted, Fredrik Nilsson, and replaced by Henrik Andren. The other assistant, Stefan Wittberg, will join Hansson at the World Cup.
Hansson is among 30 referees chosen to travel to South Africa this summer.
It didn't take long into Saturday morning's Hull City/Manchester City telecast for the commentators to remark how American striker Jozy Altidore had played in 18 previous Premier League matches without scoring a goal. When strikers go that long without finding the back of the net it becomes a weight on their shoulders that gets heavier and heavier the longer the drought lasts -- something that television talking heads can't help themselves from repeating.
Roughly 31 minutes later the 20-year-old New Jersey native made sure that the ignominious statistic was a dead issue, when he finally opened up his Hull City scoring account. Altidore collected a nice one-two pass at the top of the penalty area from teammate Jan Venegoor of Hesselink and curled it past Shay Given for his first Premier League goal, helping Hull lodge an important 2-1 victory.
In a move that probably surprises absolutely nobody, England national team manager Fabio Capello stripped John Terry of the captain's armband in the wake of his alleged affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the ex-girlfriend of his former Chelsea teammate Wayne Bridge.
The affair, which may or may not cause the British media to collapse in upon itself, has been headline material for almost two weeks, leaving Capello with almost no alternative other than to demote Terry from the role he assumed on a full-time basis in 2008.
It is tempting, so tempting, to consider the dirty laundry aired on both sides of the Atlantic this week and imagine that the England team that takes the Royal Bafokeng Stadium field on June 12 will be a miserable, fractured shell of its former self.
The English press is in fits speculating about whether or not central defender/philanderer John Terry will keep his captaincy, whether he and left back/cuckold Wayne Bridge can coexist, whether the locker room will take sides and whether coach Fabio Capello can keep it all together. The answers to those questions are "doesn't matter", "doesn't matter", "no" and "most definitely", and it would be foolish to think that the comparisons now drawn between this year's England and the 1998 U.S. team we're now being led to believe imploded because of John Harkes' affair with Eric Wynalda's wife hold any water at all.
While its rival to the south, Mexico, has announced a veritable fiesta of pre-World Cup friendlies -- including up to six on U.S. soil -- the U.S. men's national team has just two schedule games between now and its highly anticipated June 12 showdown with England in South Africa.
Thursday U.S. coach Bob Bradley announced his 23-man roster that will begin training at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., on Feb. 10 in anticipation of a Feb. 24 friendly against El Salvador in Tampa, Fla. Unlike the group that trained last month, this group of players are is entirely domestically based in MLS.
.jpg)
In a move that probably surprises absolutely nobody, England national team manager 
It is tempting, so tempting, to consider the dirty laundry aired on both sides of the Atlantic this week and imagine that the England team that takes the Royal Bafokeng Stadium field on June 12 will be a miserable, fractured shell of its former self..jpg)
While its rival to the south, Mexico, has announced a veritable fiesta of pre-World Cup friendlies -- including up to six on U.S. soil -- the U.S. men's national team has just two schedule games between now and its highly anticipated June 12 showdown with England in South Africa. 
