Welcome to the August 7th, 2006 edition of the Carnival of Football. This is the second edition of this blog carnival!

This week the football world has seen some interesting transfers and shocking results in the new season of the Scottish Premier League, but what have Football Bloggers been talking about?

We are looking for hosts for the Carnival of Football so if you are interested contact us.

Without further ado lets get on with the 2nd Carnival of Football here are the 8 excellent posts submitted by the football blogging world with prominent International news.

Our Pick of the Week

Passion wins through this week as Ahmed from Soccerlens, fights back against a piece written by Rob Smyth of the Guardian on Manchester United. Entitled “Everyone wants to kick Manchester United”, this heated and in depth post really states that he is sick and tired of hearing negative coverage about the club with which he has such affinity.

International

Mikey of World Cup Australia asks does the Wizard of Oz (Harry Kewell) have what it takes to become the new Soccerroos Captain?

Antonello Cuschieri at the Soccer Blog reports on 3 players being caught for testing positive for banned substances in Malta.

Soccer Dad of onthepitch.org provides us with a very detailed insight into Soccer Camps in the states, what is wrong with them and what needs to be addressed in the future to make the good ones better and the bad ones shut down.

Carlos Parreira is Happy to Land a Job as the new South African coach reports Fifaworldcup.com. Signing a 4 year deal he will coach the squad through the World Cup in 2010.

English Premiership

Danny of Bitter and Blue has posted about the sale of three of Manchester City’s players and questions, will it come back to haunt them?

The Gaffer gives us a cracking insider’s view of Chelsea at pre season training and a press conference, noting that a couple of players looked razor sharp. EPL provided a photo album of that day with team training and some player close ups for anyone who is interested.

As the fifth most expensive signing at the club, Carrick was given the number of Manchester legend Roy Keane, 16, who already retired from the game. Milo Paulo milo G. Riano of Footie.com notes that the number is a message telling all fans to expect a legend in the future from the 25-year-old former Spur.

Thats it for this week, make sure you get your posts submitted for next weeks Carnival.

The next carnival will be hosted by Soccer Dad at OnthePitch.org.

Just a quick reminder on the last day, to get your submissions in to the Carnival of Football. A Funny Old Game will be hosting the Carnival posted tomorrow. You have until this evening to get your posts in for consideration.

Any news from any league, team, player or country will be considered. We look forward to receiving your entries.

Welcome to the July 31, 2006 edition of the Carnival of Football. This is the very 1st edition of this blog carnival! 

The Carnival of Football was started to spotlight the best blogs and bloggers in Football. The initial response has been good and cheers to all of the blogs that submitted posts this week. We are looking for Football Blogs to host future editions of the Carnival of Football. At present we will host the carnival for a few weeks or until we have a number of Blogs that would like to take this on.  The deadline to submit posts each week is 3pm on Sunday, so please submit before then.

Lets get on with the 1st Carnival of Football here are the 9 posts submitted by the football bloggers of today. Well it is pre-season for most leagues, so the majority of the posts are football transfer talk.

Our Pick of the Week

It was a tough call, but Blogfc scored the winner with their post on the difference between Damian Duff and Ashley Cole. There is so much BS in football, it’s great to see a player that wants to play and that money isn’t the sole purpose in life.

The following posts are presented in no particular order of merit.

World Cup 2006

After the world cup Mike Baptiste of On the Pitch wants to help design the Dave O’Brien training program. He is a baseball commentator in the states, who was chosen for the World Cup by ESPN, bad choice guys over 5000+ fans have signed a petition to get him kicked out.

English Premiership

Ahmed over at Soccerlens reported that Manchester United are 2 Steps Away From “Totally ……”. Where do Manchester United stand in the transfer market this summer. Selling their best striker of the past five years and buying a talented midfielder for twice his value. United are, quite literally, two steps away from the edge.”

“Warning – this post may contain offensive language. Read at your own risk.”

The Gaffer at epl notes the Premiership countdown 37 days to go and looks at the impact of the dreaded 4-5-1 formation that was so prevalent during the World Cup, and wonders how it’ll affect the English Premiership this upcoming season.

Anfieldred discuss the comments of new signing Craig Bellamy, who believes they can challenge Chelsea this year.

Matt Warnes from eatfootball writes a great article on Wenger’s A team (great picture) and the new Emirates Stadium walk round.

Championship

Aff at Joys and Sorrows starts the debate of the Birmingham City first eleven, 41 comments later I think many over there have an opinion on this!

La Liga

Footyblog reports on Ruud van Nistelrooy’s move to Real Madrid.
 

Scottish Premier League + Bits 

Soccershout squeezed a podcast in at the last minute of carnival time in which they deny putting in a bid for Villa, discuss the two big Scottish teams (and Rangers), and conclude that those teams who came up this year Reading, Sheff Utd and Watford shall be getting relegated by the end of this season.

To have a post considered for a future edition of the footy carnival, please remember that you have to pick your best post and submit it! The host is not responsible for “finding” the best posts on the Web, just reviewing the ones that are submitted.

We hope you join us in continuing to read and contribute to the carnival!  For information about how to participate in next week’s carnival, please see the Carnival of Football.

Welcome all to the Carnival of Football/Soccer! This carnival was started by a a funny old game on July 18th, 2006 to bring all the football blogging community together to share commentary, information, ideas and news on the industry. This carnival is open to everyone in the football industry and we mean everyone! Friends of ours in other parts of the world may call the good old game of Football, “Soccer”. So that we all know which game this Blog is about, it is the round ball, not any other shaped ball. Sorry to any American football bloggers a carnival for that can be found here.

Carnival of Football/Soccer FAQ

Here are some general FAQs to explain the ins and outs of carnivals:

General:

Q. What is a blog carnival?
A. A weekly summary of the best blogging posts on a given subject that appeared in someone’s blog during the previous week.  A different Blog hosts the carnival each week. Read more about how carnivals work.

Q. Are there carnivals for other topics?
A. Yes. There are carnivals for general topics, niche topics and strange topics. See all sports topics here.

Q. When does a new Carnival of Football/Soccer post come out?
A. Every Monday by 3 P.M. (GMT) by that week’s host.

Q. Why would I be interested in the Carnival of Football/Soccer?
A. To stay up-to-date with the ever changing world of football; to see what’s being blogged about and discussed in the football community; to have your say on anything going on in the industry; to discover new bloggers; to network; to let everyone know about what your local team is up to!

Q. How are each week’s top posts picked?
A. Each week, the host will select the Blog posts they feel are most interesting and worthy to appear.  Please make sure your post is not 2 lines long with little content, as it is unlikely to be picked by the host.

Q. How is each week’s “Pick of the Week” entry determined?
A. To add some further fun to the carnival, a “Pick of the Week” will be named each week by the host Blog. It is entirely up to that week’s host to make that decision. Unique posts always stand out!

Submitting posts:

Q. How/where do I submit a post for review and possible addition to the carnival?
A. You can submit to any one of these addresses:

Blog Carnival Submission
Conservativecat Submission

Or, e-mail us your entry and please include the following: 

-> Article URL (permalink)
-> Article title
-> Author name
-> E-mail address
-> Blog URL
-> Brief summary of the post

Q. What are the requirements for submitting?
A. Ideally, anything that is relevant to football/soccer can be submitted. It should be original content and has to be a recent post. Don’t submit a post that is just be a compilation of someone else’s quotes or thoughts – the majority of it should be original content created by the author.  Posts on any team, cup, league, player in the world are welcome.

Q. How recent does the post need to be?
A. Less than two weeks old

Q. What topics are allowed?
A. Anything related to the football/soccer industry.

Q. What is the deadline for submitting?
A. Sunday afternoon, 3 P.M. (GMT).  If you are late, it is up to the host’s discretion to review your article for submission.

Q. Will any post that is submitted be included in the carnival?
A. No. Only the Top 10-20 posts should be listed.  But, the host can include additional posts if he/she feels they are really well done and deserve to be included.

Q. May I submit more than one entry per week?
A. No, please only submit one entry.

Q. What if my blog has multiple authors and contributors? Can we all pick our best entry and each of us submit one?
A. No, only one post from each blog address should be submitted per week.

Hosting:

Q. Who can host the carnival?
A. Anyone that regularly submits posts to the carnival can become a host. The key words here are “regularly submits posts,” since it wouldn’t be fair for blogs that don’t participate regularly to host the carnival if they are not sharing in doing the work by writing posts, submitting, and being active in the carnival.

Q. I want to host a future Carnival of Football/Soccer — how do I do that?
A. E-mail us to get on the list and then start submitting posts to the carnival on a frequent basis. Remember, only frequent contributors to the carnival can host a carnival.

Q. What is involved in hosting a carnival?
A. You will need to set aside about 2-3 hours to read and pick the best posts that were submitted to you. Then you create a post on your blog, summarizing and linking to the top 10-20 posts. Publish your carnival post by 3 P.M. (GMT) Monday and then sit back and watch the traffic come to your site. Please make sure you can commit to this!

Q. What is the schedule of who hosts the carnival?
A. You can check the schedule here on the Carnival of Football/Soccer site under “Carnival Hosts” in the right-hand navigation to see who hosted in the past as well as who is coming up.

Guidelines for Hosting the Carnival

In order to sign up to host the carnival, all that is asked of you is to regularly submit posts to the carnival.  For example, if you are not actively writing about football and producing original content to submit, you’re not considered a regular participant and don’t deserve all the goodness that comes with hosting the carnival. Sorry, but it’s like any team you play on — you have to show up for practices in order to play.  If you do actively participate and want to host, e-mail us to get on the list.  Please include dates for any weeks that you know you cannot host (e.g., going on vacation, out of town, too much work, left your blog at the pitch, etc…), because we’d prefer to give that week to someone else.