For those of you who fall into this category and fear being caught short during a water-cooler moment at the office, CNN has put together a bluffer’s guide to the round-ball game and the World Cup.

Phrases to impress your boss

“The referee’s blind!”
An excellent phrase to insert when those around you lament a goal that “never was,” a clear handball or a murderous foul not spotted by the official.

“There’s a case for video technology”
Following your previous observation about the referee’s eyesight, join the calls for video replays to help him make the right decision.

“He’s got two left feet”
As frustration grows with one hapless player in particular, make sure you aren’t left out.

“He missed a sitter!”
When a player misses an easy chance to score.

“It was a blatant dive!”
When a player tumbles to the ground rolling around in apparent agony even though there was no contact from an opposing player.

“Germany are always so efficient”
No fuss, no frills but a victory nevertheless — only to be used if Germany wins a match.

“Can England repeat 1966?”
Use if your boss is an England fan. It’s the only time England ever won the World Cup and the fans there never let you forget it.

Important rules to know

1. Offside
The rule most likely to infuriate players, managers and fans alike. A player is deemed to be in an offside position when he is in his opponents’ half of the pitch and further forward than the last opposition player at the moment a teammate attempts to play a pass to him. Sounds simple, right? When this happens, the opposition wins possession of the ball. All straightforward until your team is denied what looks to be goal by a poor decision by the assistant referee on the touchline. Stand by for plenty of offside flash points and some colorful language.

2. Free-kicks
When a player is penalized for committing a foul, handball or offside, a “free and unchallenged” kick of the ball is awarded to the opposition. Try not to foul a player near your goal because a sharp-shooter like Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo will send the ball crashing into the top corner of the net with deadly precision.

3. Penalties
Another type of free-kick awarded when a player is fouled inside the 18-yard area around an opponent’s goal. The fouled player, or teammate of that player, is then allowed to take a shot from a white spot 12 yards (around 11 meters) from the goal. Prepare yourself for contrasting views from football fans, often less than complimentary about the referee, when a penalty is awarded. This is also the way to decided drawn matches in the later stages of the tournament when you can also liberally use the phrase “nail biting”.

3. Red and yellow cards
Yellow cards are shown to a player by the referee after a particularly nasty foul or if they question his decision in a less than polite manner. A second offense by that player usually leads to a second yellow card, which automatically becomes red and means an “early bath”. Straight red cards mean a player has been particularly naughty and can expect a day off when the next match comes around.

Football terms to memorize

1. Square ball
Refers not to another controversial ball design, but rather a simple pass of the ball sideways to a teammate.

2. Through-ball
When a player passes the ball forward past two or more defenders to a teammate, usually a striker, who is in position to run through on goal to score.

3. Cross
Nothing religious, it refers to the delivery of the ball, either in the air, or along the ground, from either side of the pitch towards the opponent’s goal for a teammate.

4. Dribble
Funnily enough this is a skilful technique where a player runs past opponents with the ball apparently glued to his feet. Watch Argentina star Lionel Messi for a master class.

5. Header
As you would expect. For the best players, the head is as good as their feet. The hardest part of the skull is the forehead so use that for maximum power.

6. Volley
Kicking the ball when it’s reached you in the air, like in tennis. This is a technique which can lead to spectacular goals or derisive cheers from fans if the ball ends up in “row Z” of the stand.

7. Tackle
Taking the ball off an opponent, robbing him of the ball and often leaving him on his backside.

8. Foul
A tackle where you usually hack away at the opponent’s feet first before running off the with ball. Not allowed.

9. Professional foul
A pre-meditated foul, usually a last-ditch desperate act to stop an almost certain goal. The methods have become sophisticated though so it often takes a sharp-eyed referee to make the right call. A professional foul will often lead to a red card (see above).

10. Man-marking
Nothing like as serious as it sounds. Man-marking is when a player shadows an opponent to crowd him out and give him no space to run with the ball or pass it. Some players will hold or grab any part of their opponent’s anatomy to hinder their progress.

TV commentator’s jargon

1. Group of death
With each of the 32 teams split into eight mini-leagues, the competition to qualify for the knockout stages is fierce. Some groups are so tough that a fancied team is bound to fail. For example, five-time winners Brazil, the elegant Portuguese and a talented Ivory Coast side are all in one group.

2. Brazilian flair
Football may have started in England, but it was made sexy by Brazil. Since the days of the great Pele, Brazil’s yellow-shirted national team has thrilled fans the world over with the swagger and individual brilliance of players that often grew up playing on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.

3. Total football
A football philosophy developed by the Dutch in the 1970s in which every outfield player is able to play in the position of any of his teammates. According to football aficionados, this makes the team structure completely fluid, adaptable and ultimately difficult to play against. It nearly worked for the Netherlands, but not quite.

4. Route one
The antithesis of Brazilian flair. It usually involves a more “industrial” method of kicking long aerial passes from defense to big, physical players in attack. Not pretty but it can be very effective.

5. Playmaker
The creative player in the team that makes it tick. Italians refer to this key attacking position as “il Fantasista.”

6. Hand of God
England and Diego Armando Maradona may face each other again more than two decades since the Argentine superstar famously scored with his hand against the English at Mexico in 1986. After the game, Maradona said the goal was scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God.”

World Cup moments not to miss

1. Brazil
Obviously! The mighty Brazilians could probably field two teams, such is the depth of talent available to them. Unfortunately the slightly rotund but prodigiously-talented Ronaldinho has been left out of the squad. However, the team still boasts a mouth-watering array of talented players such as attacking midfielder Kaka, striker Robinho, and the super-fit defender Dani Alves of Barcelona.

2. Diego Maradona
The cigar-smoking footballer turned coach is a god in his native Argentina. He lifted the trophy as a player in 1986, was banned from the competition for doping in 1994, and suffered with drug and alcohol problems after he retired. A troubled figure, Maradona is compulsive viewing nonetheless.

As manager of Argentina’s national team he has arguably the strongest squad in the competition, though critics point to a turbulent qualifying campaign as proof that he cannot mould them into a winning team. Expect interesting press conferences.

3. Lionel Messi
Considered the world’s greatest player, the diminutive Argentine is viewed by many as the next Maradona. However he has yet to reproduce his extraordinary club form with Barcelona for his national team. Capable of beating entire teams on his own, he could easily disappoint if the rest of team play as poorly as they did trying to qualify for South Africa.

4. Wayne Rooney
England’s World Cup hopes rest on the stocky Manchester United striker whose temper has been his biggest enemy in the past. Rooney’s last World Cup ended with one of those red cards after his boot made firm contact with the groin of a Portuguese player. Since then he has become a father and family life is said to have mellowed him.

5. South Africa
Though their form has improved dramatically in the last six months, they could face the ignominy of becoming the first host country to fail to qualify from the group stage. The tournament needs “Bafana Bafana” to make progress from a group that includes Mexico, Uruguay and France to keep this football-mad nation at fever pitch.

The news, though not confirmed by the Old Trafford club, was announced in a statement by JS Limited, the agency that negotiated the new deal.

Park, 28, was a regular in United’s 2008-09 winning Premier League season.

The South Korea international, who signed from PSV Eindhoven for £4m in 2005, has been a valuable option in manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s midfield.

Ferguson said during the summer that he was always confident a deal would be done with Park, whose wages are estimated to be about £65,000 a week.

The only Korean to hold a Champions League winner’s medal, Park began his professional career in Japan in 2000, with Kyoto Purple Sanga.

Three years later he made his move to PSV Eindhoven, where in two seasons he scored 13 goals from 64 matches.

He has been on the scoresheet nine times for United in 87 appearances, and scored in each of the last two World Cup finals.

President Herbert Hoover, throwing out the first pitch for a Senators-Athletics game in 1931, was often showered with boos.

But when the games ended and he and the rest of the crowds filed out of those parks, they were confronted once again with the despair around them.

“Like many other recreational activities, people did go to the ballpark to get away from the economic horrors of empty wallets and ice boxes,” said Robinson, 88, a writer and lifelong resident of Manhattan. “I was very aware of the guys selling apples on street corners for a nickel. Along the Hudson River, you had some of these guys living in ramshackle huts in rags. So going to the ballpark was a big thing.”

Despite the immense popularity of baseball in the 1920s, the 16 teams that made up the major leagues then were not insulated from hard times. Attendance plummeted 40 percent from 1930 to 1933 and did not return to pre-Depression levels until after World War II, when millions of soldiers returned.

Players’ salaries fell by 25 percent on average, yet nearly every team, including the wealthy Yankees, lost money for at least a year or two in the decade.

“Economically, it was a very tough decade for baseball,” said Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College.

As Americans grapple with what could be the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, many are asking whether major league baseball, and professional sports more broadly, will prove impervious to the grim realities of the economic cycle, or will suffer as teams did then.

Optimists point to the shallow dips in attendance in past recessions, guaranteed television contracts, lucrative sponsorship deals and new luxury boxes in modern stadiums. These revenue streams were largely unavailable to owners in the 1930s and have helped modern teams diversify and bolster their incomes.

Optimists also point to the large free-agent contracts signed by C. C. Sabathia, A. J. Burnett, Mark Teixeira and Francisco Rodríguez this winter — evidence, they say, that shows that at least the strong teams have the wherewithal to withstand a severe slowdown.

But Zimbalist and others who have studied the history of the game said the last few recessions were mild enough that even the weakest teams got by. This slump, he said, is more analogous to the economic chaos of the 1930s, and historians should look to that era for hints on how teams will hold up in the coming years.

Clearly, times were tough, though the owners were slow to recognize what was to come. The stock market crashed in October 1929, but baseball enjoyed record attendance the next year, with more than 10 million fans passing through the turnstiles.

At their winter meetings after the 1930 season, the owners made no significant changes or concessions. The National League owners, however, did take the time to note that 5,145 dozen baseballs were used that year, a 10 percent increase, which disturbed their thrifty impulses.

As the 1931 season dawned, Frank J. Navin, the acting American League president and the owner of the Detroit Tigers, saw no sign of the impending collapse.

“Former business depressions have not hurt baseball,” he told The Associated Press, “and I do not think the present depression will materially affect attendance this year.”

But the hard times did arrive, and quickly. Attendance fell 16 percent in 1931, driven not just by rising unemployment but also a decision by the owners to dampen the scoring boom by changing the rules for what constituted a home run and tinkering with the composition of Spalding’s baseballs.

Attendance fell in 1932, when a 10 percent federal amusement tax was added to ticket prices, and again in 1933, when bank holidays left many Americans short of cash. President Herbert Hoover, an avid baseball fan, was lustily booed at games he attended. The hapless St. Louis Browns drew fewer than 100,000 fans for several seasons in the decade. On opening day in 1933, half the 40,000 fans at Yankee Stadium sat in the bleachers, where tickets were 50 cents, according to Charles C. Alexander, author of “Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era,” which was published in 2002.

Many teams, strong and weak ones alike, kept costs down by reducing the number of coaches, or by eliminating them and employing player-managers. Owners opted for 23-man rosters, down from 25. Even the best players — Babe Ruth among them — took pay cuts. Connie Mack sold many of the stars from the pennant-winning Philadelphia Athletics teams of 1929, 1930 and 1931.

Only the two pennant-winning teams — the Chicago Cubs and the Yankees — made money in 1932. In 1933, only the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies finished the season in the black.

The Brooklyn Dodgers, which had gone deep into debt to expand Ebbets Field, received turn-off notices from the power company at its offices on Montague Street, according to Bob McGee, who wrote “The Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” which was published in 2005.

Some weaker teams survived partly because they received a share of the gate when they played against popular teams like the Yankees, the Cubs and the Giants.

Despite the need for new sources of revenue, many of baseball’s hidebound owners continued to resist allowing live radio broadcasts of their games, fearing fewer fans would attend in person. This attitude persisted even though radio had helped generate interest in, as well as money for, minor league teams.

“They finally came to the conclusion that, depression notwithstanding, they would do nothing drastic in the way of retrenchments that would seriously affect baseball’s time-honored customers or, as one owner expressed it, ‘cheapen’ the game,” John Drebinger of The New York Times wrote of the 1932 winter meetings.

Some owners, it seemed, lived in another world. Navin, the owner of the Tigers, bought a racehorse in 1931 even though his players were reportedly having their meal money reduced. Others focused on yachting.

Whatever the predilections of the owners, baseball’s fans, even those not attending games in person, took solace in the game. Pepper Martin, an outfielder on the 1931 St. Louis Cardinals championship team, became a folk hero for his scrappy play in the World Series.

Ruth added to his voluminous legend when he hit a home run at Wrigley Field in the 1932 World Series that, legend has it, he predicted in advance.

Dizzy Dean and his younger brother, Paul, were among the most chronicled players in 1934, as much for their down-home flamboyance as for their feats on the field.

“The times were tough for just about everybody, including the young men who tried to make their way as professional baseball players in a decade of persistently discouraging prospects in most kinds of employment,” Alexander wrote in “Breaking the Slump.”

“Yet the period featured a galaxy of memorable personalities and some of the most memorable baseball ever played.”

The Depression also forced teams to innovate. The Cardinals, for instance, expanded their network of minor league teams. Several teams, including the Cubs, did not charge women for admission, a promotion that East Coast teams soon copied.

A few teams generated income by allowing live radio broadcasts. Taking a cue from the minor leagues, the Cincinnati Reds in 1935 became the first team to host a night game, which proved very popular with fans.

The end of the blue laws in Pennsylvania also helped franchises in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which, until 1934, had not been able to schedule home games on Sundays.

Remarkably, while thousands of banks collapsed during the Depression and millions of people lost their jobs, no major league baseball franchises folded or moved during the period (though at least two changed hands, including the Boston Red Sox).

“The teams muddled through,” said Rodney Fort, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. “We know from this truly historic episode that things didn’t go to hell in a handbag.”

“It was a personal goal of mine just to try to harvest all 28 species,” Mr. Duggan said. “Now 29.”

Rick Duggan tracking tule elk on the Twisselman ranch in California. He had a kill in all 28 classifications in the bow-hunting record book when a category for tule elk was created last year.

For years, 28 North American creatures — including the cougar, the musk ox and the grizzly bear — represented the list of targets recognized by the Pope and Young Club, the conservation organization and arbiter of bow-hunting records. Last summer, the club announced its first new category since 1993, the tule elk, a subspecies of Roosevelt elk found in a range tracing the San Andreas Fault through the Central Valley of California between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

So from August to December, elite hunters have descended on the tule range here in pursuit of a trophy elk. In the Owens Valley Region, home to one of the most well-established tule elk populations in the state, the number of applications to hunt early in the season nearly doubled to 566 in 2008 from 317 in 2007, said Joe Hobbs, the elk and pronghorn coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Game.

“That’s a pretty big jump,” Mr. Hobbs said. The number of applications to hunt later in the season, after the mating rituals in which male elk typically scar or break one another’s antlers, decreased by about 50 percent.

Tule elk (pronounced TOO-lee) grow to an average of 6 feet in length and 450 pounds. Mature bulls carry 40-pound racks of antlers in a backward sweep across their broad necks. They travel in herds of 20 or more, grazing on red brome, cheatgrass and wild licorice. When spooked, they can run 45 miles an hour.

Hunted to near extinction after the Gold Rush, the tule population was protected by California law until its number surpassed 2,000 in the 1980s. Then the state game commission began granting permits to outfitters. Despite the hunting, the population has grown to exceed 4,000 elk.

“We determined that we had enough entries of tule elk to merit a separate category,” said Glen Hisey, director of the records program for the club, which had previously accepted only two submissions of photographs and documentation for tule elk, classifying them instead as Roosevelt elk.

At a national convention in April, after officials have verified antler measurements and other entry requirements, the club will declare a world record tule elk, affording its hunter some measure of renown. But for now, the listing for the new category reads, “No Official Record Yet.”

To merit inclusion in the Pope and Young record book, bow hunters must comply with an ethical code known as Fair Chase. Its rules prohibit taking any animal helpless in a trap, deep snow or water. The code also bans shooting at animals from powered vehicles and boats, night lights, tranquilizers, poisons, herding and some electronic devices.

For many bow hunters, the appeal of the sport lies in the intimacy of stalking for a close-range shot.

“That’s the advantage of bow hunting,” said Jack Frost, a surgeon from Anchorage who hunts in his spare time. “You’re forced by the equipment you’ve chosen to spend more time with the animal.”

Before the creation of the new tule elk category, a hunter named Chuck Adams gained fame in 1990 as the first to kill a member of every classification endorsed by Pope and Young at the time. Mr. Adams achieved his feat, dubbed the North American Super Slam, with a compound bow, a weapon with pulleys and cables granting a range of 60 yards or more.

Among traditional hunters, a friendly competition developed to recreate the Super Slam without the aid of modern engineering. By the early part of this decade, Mr. Duggan, a residential contractor from near Denver, was locked in a race with Fred Eichler, the host of a televised bow-hunting program. In April 2006, after 35 days outside Hermosillo, Mexico, Mr. Duggan completed the feat by killing a desert sheep. Mr. Eichler soon matched him with a kill in all 28 categories.

Finding no success on his summer tule elk hunt, Mr. Duggan returned here last month to the Central Valley for a weeklong expedition. At 54, with a burly build and a steady manner, he estimated he had spent $400,000 in pursuit of his first 28 animals.

Far into the molded foothills still lush despite winter’s first seduction, past silos and stables and a road called Trails End and down a dirt path marked with an antlered skull, Duggan found Nolan Twisselman. Mr. Twisselman, 44, is a rancher whose 80,000 acres, a property that has been in his family for generations, entitled him to buy tags for 12 tule cows and 7 bulls. Across San Luis Obispo County, his neighbors were bringing solar power companies onto the land. To supplement his income, Twisselman, 44, had sold all but one of his tags to hunters, holding the last in reserve for his mother.

As a low roll of threatening clouds hunched over the faraway hills one morning, the men set out across trails of mud on all-terrain vehicles, scanning the horizon for a herd of 22 bulls they had been tracking. After months spent fighting and breeding, the bulls were traveling now in seasonal fellowship.

“There they are,” Mr. Twisselman said, training binoculars on a distant clearing where a handful of elk stood inside a backstop of interlocking hills.

The men sat and watched. In time Mr. Duggan took bow in hand and climbed the far side of the northernmost hill. He moved upward in silence, knowing that an unexpected sound could send his prey fleeing into the mountains forested with junipers.

And then they came into view: Arrayed across a quiet valley was a whole herd, an austere group of magnificent beasts with Chicago shoulders, long necks and proud antlers.

He dropped into a ditch three feet deep by four feet wide. An hour passed. The elk ambled farther into the clearing, away from his position, around the belly of the southernmost hill and out of sight.

In five days of hunting, Mr. Duggan would fire only once, on the run at 30 yards distance, missing entirely. Twice more he would prowl within 40 yards of the herd, once in a blinding snowstorm, holding back for fear of maiming his prey.

By the end of the year, the bookkeepers at Pope and Young had accepted 22 entries, most shot with compound bows. The largest tule elk, scored at 312 5/8 points, was still the one shot by Audrey Goodnight in 1990, the oldest on record.

“We’d been treating it as a Roosevelt all these years,” said Mr. Hisey, the records program director.

But for now, as the rain turned to sleet, Mr. Duggan tracked the bulls across the plain toward distant foothills. He crouched beside a fencepost for hours. Not 50 yards away, the elk grazed, bedded, considered him. Then, on some unseen signal, the herd roamed away in the dying light. He left wet and tired and empty-handed.

For the Nets, home is where the hurt is.

Houston’s Ron Artest drove against the Nets’ Vince Carter.

Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets overwhelmed Yi Jianlian and the Nets, 114-91, at the Izod Center, where the matchup between two of China’s finest players was dwarfed by the Nets’ continued inability to gain traction at home.

They are a sparkling 8-4 on the road, where they return Tuesday to play the Pacers in Indiana. At home, where quality N.B.A. teams pile up quality wins, the Nets stooped to 5-10. They have yet to win consecutive games at home this season.

On Monday, they wilted under the Rockets’ suffocating defense, which was anchored by Yao. At the other end, they were undone by Yao’s putbacks and the blur that was point guard Aaron Brooks.

Brooks blistered the Nets early and tied a career high with 22 points. When he and others missed, Yao was there, amassing 16 rebounds in addition to 24 points.

“One of the core concepts of our team to have a chance to be successful is that we have to outwork the competition,” Nets Coach Lawrence Frank said. “I think tonight, we didn’t do that.”

Another key concept is for Devin Harris and Vince Carter to shoulder the offensive burden. When they are both off kilter the way they were Monday, more often than not the Nets will follow the same slippery slope.

Harris missed his first five shots before connecting on a jumper with 7 minutes 16 seconds left in the third quarter. He finished with a season-low 10 points. Ron Artest and Shane Battier, two of the league’s best defenders, tag-teamed Carter into 5-for-15 shooting. He matched Harris with 10 points, but with the Nets trailing by 21 after three quarters, both players sat out the fourth.

“What it came down to was, we just didn’t hit shots and they did,” Carter said.

Keyon Dooling led the Nets with 17 points.

Before the game, as Yi and Yao, teammates on China’s national team, shot at opposing rims, members of the Chinese news media joined them for close-ups before security guards ushered them away.

Yao, an All-Star, again topped Yi, a second-year player who made 4 of 13 shots and finished with 10 points.

“It’s a moment of significance and pride to represent themselves in front of a country where the sport has exploded,” Frank said. “But there aren’t 200 million people in the stands. We wish there were 200 million people in the stands, but it’s a great opportunity for the sport just to continue its growth worldwide.”

There were not 200 million present Monday, rather a generously announced 16,303. The Nets marketed the matchup as a chance to highlight a global expansion aided by the addition of Yi.

“It’s always a little bit special, but when the clock starts running, you have to know that it’s still a game,” Yao said.

The Rockets knew. With point guard Rafer Alston primed to return from a strained hamstring, the Rockets (19-9) are on the verge of finally becoming healthy. With Battier back, the Rockets shifted Artest to the bench and continued molding into the deep and talented squad originally envisioned.

In the first half, they established a 23-point lead, prompting Frank to use a full-court press. It seemed fitting. The Nets were hard pressed to match the Rockets the entire evening.

REBOUNDS

Yi Jianlian denied a magazine report that said he was born in 1984, instead of 1987, as listed in the Nets’ media guide. Yi’s age has long been debated, and the Chinese-language version of Sports Illustrated cited records from his middle-school registration to support its claim. … Nets forward Bobby Simmons traveled to Chicago for the birth of his child. Stromile Swift missed the game because of personal reasons, and Jarvis Hayes sat out with a mild concussion sustained in Saturday’s loss to the Miami Heat.

After losing quarterback Tom Brady for the season, Patriots Coach Bill Belichick chose to place the season in the hands of Matt Cassel, above.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In September, when Patriot Nation was still trying to imagine life without quarterback Tom Brady, Coach Bill Belichick noted that his job was not to worry about what might have been, even if, in this case, it might have been another Super Bowl. Instead, Belichick said, his job was to play the hand he was dealt.

Little did he know that losing his ace was just the start.

The Patriots have placed 14 players on season-ending injured reserve since the start of training camp, their highest number since 1993. Joining Brady have been safety Rodney Harrison; the team’s best running back, Laurence Maroney; its top linebacker, Adalius Thomas; and the man who replaced Thomas, Pierre Woods.

In this upside-down season, the Patriots find themselves watching the scoreboard entering the final two weeks of the regular season. Although they are tied with the Jets and the Dolphins for first place in the American Football Conference East, their easier path to the playoffs is as the wild card, although they need help there, too.

For a team that has won its division five consecutive times and that had locked up the A.F.C.’s top playoff spot by this time last year, that may seem like a comedown. Instead, the Patriots (9-5) and their fans may be witnessing the best coaching job of Belichick’s career. Some consider his performance — with or without the playoffs — to be better than it was for the three Super Bowl championships and the perfect regular season.

“To win a Super Bowl takes a tremendous amount of focus and preparation to be able to push the right buttons,” said Bill Cowher, the former Steelers coach who is now an analyst for CBS Sports. “But this year he’s been presented with enough challenges. Developing a quarterback on the fly: that in itself is enough.”

Cowher added: “We’re in a results-oriented business. You may do your best coaching job, and yet the results may not show that. With what Bill has done, in terms of having to make adjustment after adjustment, change after change, and yet still perform at a consistent level, two West Coast trips, with back-to-back games, I think it’s almost like how much do you want to throw at a guy?”

The Patriots typically thrive at this time of year, having compiled a 50-10 record in games on and after Thanksgiving since 2001. That is a testament to Belichick’s skill with adjustments, and this season has offered a test like few others.

With Brady all but invisible around Gillette Stadium since he seriously injured his left knee in the first quarter of the first game, Belichick chose to place the season in the hands of Matt Cassel, who had been abysmal in training camp.

The Patriots initially scaled back the passing game, emphasizing the run until Cassel grew more comfortable. He has played well enough for some to suggest that the Patriots should keep Cassel and try for a huge haul of draft picks by trading Brady. All the while, Belichick has continued his mantra to the rest of the team: just do your job.

“Bill is Bill,” guard Logan Mankins said. “I don’t think he’s going to change. He’s had too much success. He knows how to coach in a lot of different situations.”

The tinkering has been nearly constant. The Patriots have used 41 starters this year to cope with not only their star-studded injured reserve list but also the time missed by players like defensive end Ty Warren, linebacker Tedy Bruschi and tight end Ben Watson. That puts game plans in flux: there are things that coaches do with starters that they are less likely to do with little-used backups.

Safety Brandon Meriweather, whose playing time increased when Harrison went down, said all the injuries took a toll on the healthy, too.

“Everybody has to lean on each other because we knew once Tom and Rod and all the other injuries happened, everybody else was going to be against us,” Meriweather said. “We had to pull together and carry each other.”

Still, Belichick, never given to midseason reflection, will not concede even what seems obvious: that this has been an unusually challenging season for the Patriots.

“If we have to make an adjustment or change in personnel, then we make it and do it,” Belichick said. “I can’t rank one week against another. It depends on who you are playing and what they do, too. Some weeks I don’t care if you have 40 20-year veterans. There are some teams that what they do is hard. The degree of difficulty is harder. You have to work at it, communicate a lot of things and recognize it. Other weeks it’s not as hard. I just think it is a week to week type of thing.”

If so, this week will have to include a perusal of the standings. If Baltimore loses to the Cowboys on Saturday night, the Patriots can lock up a wild-card spot by winning out against Arizona and Buffalo. They would also still have a shot at the division title, although they will need much more help there because they would lose tie breakers to both the Jets and the Dolphins.

That is why, incredibly, the Patriots could finish 11-5 and still miss the playoffs. It would make for an odd entry in Belichick’s coaching canon: his finest effort wrapped around a final failure.

Donovan McNabb completed 26 of 35 passes for 290 yards and 2 touchdowns with an interception in the 30-10 victory over the Browns on Monday night.

It could have been the death knell for a starting quarterback, or the masterstroke motivational tactic of the N.F.L. season.

So far, the decision by Philadelphia Eagles Coach Andy Reid to bench quarterback Donovan McNabb at halftime of the Nov. 23 game against the Baltimore Ravens has worked out better than almost anyone thought it would at the time. McNabb was stumbling and bumbling, and the Eagles were going down the drain with him. The benching — the first for McNabb in his pro career — lasted until the next day, when Reid reinstalled him as the starter.

McNabb is still struggling to hide how miffed he remains at the slight, but he has also been on fire ever since. He has led the Eagles (8-5-1) to victories over the Cardinals, the Giants and the Browns, propelling them back into the National Football Conference wild-card playoff race.

In those three games McNabb completed 72 of 104 passes for 741 yards and 7 touchdowns with one interception. He compiled a passer rating of 107.9. He had tossed seven interceptions in the four games leading up to the benching.

McNabb completed 26 of 35 passes for 290 yards and 2 touchdowns with an interception in the 30-10 victory over the Browns on Monday night. After the game, Reid said that he had expected the benching to have this effect. But at the time the move was clearly a last-ditch attempt to right a listing season.

“It tells you about the kid, what a great person he is, great guy and what a great football player he is, and I think that he’s playing right now as well as he’s ever played,” Reid told reporters on Tuesday. “I think it’s a tribute to him and the guys around him. I think that they’ve all stepped their game up a little bit.”

It helps that two of the three victories have come against teams — Arizona and Cleveland — without great pass defenses and that Reid has again turned more consistently to Brian Westbrook to run the ball.

Despite all of the signals, though, McNabb seems to remain unhappy that Reid, his champion since he entered the league in 1999, sat him down while other units of the team were nearly as underwhelming as he was. In an interview with ESPN shortly after the game Monday night, McNabb wondered aloud why he was made the scapegoat.

“I don’t go back to the benching because I personally don’t agree with the benching,” he said on television.

Later, he sounded softer: “I’m always happy. I’m happy to be out here just playing football, and that’s the most important thing. That’s something I told myself no matter what situation I’m in, I’m going to have a ball out here and the people around me are going to enjoy it, too.”

On the day of the benching, the Eagles were trailing the Ravens by 10-7 at halftime. McNabb’s backup, Kevin Kolb, struggled in the second half, and Baltimore rolled to a 36-7 victory.

Whether McNabb’s relationship with Reid has been irreparably harmed will not be known until after the season, when they will have to decide if they can — or want to — coexist for another season. The decision may be made easier depending on the team’s playoff fate. The Eagles must beat Washington and Dallas, teams that defeated them earlier in the season, and hope for a loss by either the Falcons or the Buccaneers to make the playoffs.

Wladimir Klitschko KOs Rahman (Round 7)

GERMANY-Mannheim(HL)- IBF/WBO/IBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (52-3, 46 KOs) easily stopped former champion Hasim Rahman (45-7, 36 KOs) in the seventh round on Saturday night at SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany.

The Ukrainian boxer has started the fight very confidently, keeping Rahman at a long distance and  constantly connecting with his best punch – the left jab. Wladimir also frequently landed the right. Rahman had little luck reaching Klitschko. Having taken the bout on three week’s notice, “The Rock” was sluggish and slow.

Rahman laid on the ropes absorbing punishment for almost the entire third round, much to the dismay of the spectators. Klitschko threw out a considerable quantity of blows, many of which connected to Rahman’s chin. In the beginning of the sixth round, Rahman took three successive left hooks from Wladimir and tumbled to the deck. “The Rock” was up again at seven, only to take more hammering the rest of the round.

In the seventh round, Klitschko staggered Rahman again and referee Tony Weeks made the decision to finish the beating. Hasim argued and wished to continue fighting. Yes, he was still standing, but he had taken many blows.

“Now there are many boxers whom I am ready to meet,” said Wlad afterward, “David Haye, Chris Arreola, Alexander Povetkin, I am ready to fight any of them.”

Vitali Klitschko, who was to have boxed against The Rock in November 2005, informed Fightnews.com “Today Wladimir showed Rahman everything that I would have done. When I damaged my knee and couldn’t box with him, the American boxer spoke bad about me to journalists. Wladimir has avenged that for me.”

With the win, Wladimir Klitschko confirmed his position at the top of the heavyweight division. He could fight against Alexander Povetkin as soon as July 2009.

————————————————————————————————————————————–

When Hasim Rahman had his last throw of the championship dice tonight in Mannheim, Germany he didn’t roll a six, but instead got rolled over in seven. The WBO/IBF/IBO Heavyweight Champion of the World Wladimir Klitschko was simply too much for “The Rock” on this night. The reigning titlist entered a controlled performance built brilliantly on his jab.

Round one began with Hasim fighting out of a crouch position to try and avoid the left of Klitschko that has been so domineering in recent years. He found little solace in this position as “Dr Steelhammer” rammed his head back with the abrasive punch. In the second Rahman adopted some roughhousing tactics on the inside, with a few punches winging past Wladimir’s ear and onto the back of his skull. At this point it seemed like the emotionally fragile Rahman was already going into survival mode, and a glancing Klitschko right ended another one-sided round.

Round three was different only for the fact that Rahman abandoned the crouch, and in fact any movement at all, for a “rope-a-dope” strategy. Ali it was not, as Wladimir effortlessly landed draining punches with no return from his opponent except for the odd feint. The champion stung his challenger with a crisp jab-right-jab combination which inspired Rahman to come forward for the last 30 seconds of the round, however is flailing rights had little effect on the dominant Klitschko.

For the next two rounds Wladimir did not give an inch, stemming any flow of punches from Rahman with his ubiquitous straight left, occasionally hooking with it to great effect. It was the left hook that rendered Hasim horizontal when a barrage of said punches landed, followed by a glancing right to put him on his back in the sixth. Arguably referee Tony Weeks could have stopped the fight here as Wladimir landed a steady stream of punches to end the round, with no real riposte from his staggering foe.

The seventh began with Rahman looking like he wanted to be elsewhere, and Wladimir quickly complied with this as a two-handed barrage in the corner saw Weeks halt the action.

Wladimir Klitschko made this look as easy as most expected he would, by entering a masterful display. In truth Wladimir had this fight sewn up from the first round, but exercised his customary patience and perhaps a touch of reluctance carried over from his knockout setbacks a few years ago to beat Rahman. To his credit, Hasim didn’t look for an exit strategy as he has in the past against the likes of Evander Holyfield and last time out against James Toney. Instead he took his beating manfully and while his efforts came to nothing, he put down more effort than some recent Klitschko foes, Lamon Brewster for example.

It is clear where Rahman should go from here, and that is retirement. He hit his brief career peak seven years ago when he landed the right hand heard around the world on Lennox Lewis, and hasn’t looked close to the top level since his 2005-6 WBC reign. Wladimir on the other hand has possibly his career plateau in front of him as the first mega-money Heavyweight battle since Lewis’ reign is on the horizon if a deal can be made with David Haye. It will be intriguing to see Wladimir step out of his comfort zone, as Haye seems to pose the last existing threat to the brother’s Klitschko and their dominance of boxing’s blue ribbon division. For the first time since “Iron” Mike Tyson stalked boxing’s dark corridors, Heavyweight boxing looks interesting again. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Rahman has now likely lost his last chance to again become world champion. Based on Saturday’s performance, little remains from the boxer who knocked out Lennox Lewis in 2001.

Jason Witten took the blame for slipping on the interception that lost the game.

The gold-and-black sign flapping in the wind like a gigantic Terrible Towel on Sunday night at Heinz Field might have been the final indignity for the Dallas Cowboys. It read: “America’s Real Team.” Ouch.

How many more slaps to the face can the Cowboys possibly take?

From the look and sound of their pin-drop silent locker room after their 20-13 defeat to the Steelers, not many more. Coach Wade Phillips called the loss, in which the Cowboys blew a 10-point fourth quarter lead, the toughest he has had with the Cowboys, which is saying something considering that he has lost enough games that he might not return next year.

Over and over, Jason Witten took the blame for slipping on the interception that lost the game. Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ owner, was ashen, explaining over and over that he was not worried about his team’s heart, but about its numbers.

The critical number is five, as in the number of losses. “I’m sick,” Jones said. “I’m sick for the players. We knew if we got to 8-5 that would put it on us to win the final three games probably.”

The Cowboys play the Giants on Sunday night with an opportunity for Dallas to cling to its wild-card hopes (the Giants have already clinched the division). Imagine how different it would have been if the Cowboys had held on to beat the Steelers and were just two games behind the Giants. Instead, in seven minutes, hope gave way to despair.

The Cowboys are tied with the Atlanta Falcons for the sixth playoff spot (the loser of Monday’s National Football Conference South showdown between Carolina and Tampa Bay, both 9-3, would be in the first wild-card spot). But the bigger problem is that the Cowboys have realized their potential for only fleeting moments this season.

The Cowboys spent a lot of money to build a team designed to outscore opponents. You do not put Terrell Owens and Roy Williams on the field together with the idea that you are going to win a lot of defensive battles. But Owens is ranked 28th in the league in receptions and 19th in yardage, and the Cowboys are just 12th in points per game. Too often, the Cowboys have not been able to push the ball down the field when they have most needed to, as was glaringly obvious against the Steelers.

The wind made passing difficult Sunday, but not impossible, as the Steelers’ biggest offensive playmaker, in this case Nate Washington, showed when he caught three passes in the fourth-quarter scoring drive that ended with a touchdown pass to Heath Miller. The biggest Cowboys playmakers — Owens and Williams — caught five passes total, as many as running back Tashard Choice.

The Steelers were no thing of beauty. They have to get their protection problems straightened out and Ben Roethlisberger has to get rid of the ball faster before the playoffs start. And they have now been stopped three times on the 1 at home in the last month, a weird development for a team that once employed someone nicknamed The Bus. But in the mark of a good team merely having a bad day — rather than a not-as-good-as-we-thought team having a bad year, like the Cowboys — the Steelers did just enough to win. When someone asked Coach Mike Tomlin about his offense’s “terrible” performance, he replied: “Terrible is a strong word. Very poor.”

The Cowboys, despite superior talent, were very poor, too.

After the fourth-quarter interception, Owens was seen yelling at a Cowboys assistant coach. Naturally, Owens intimated that the pass intended for Witten, which ended up in Deshea Townsend’s hands, and in the end zone for the Steelers’ winning touchdown, should have gone to him. He said he had one-on-one coverage and that the Steelers defender was playing 10 to 12 yards off him. That was a fair assessment.

This was not: “It’s his job to go out there and assess what the defense is, and he made that decision,” Owens said, implying that Tony Romo’s decision to throw to Witten was the wrong one.

That is just what the Cowboys do not need, a little more strife in a season that has overflowed with it. Adam (used-to-be-Pacman) Jones returned to action after his latest suspension and it was nothing more than a note.

The Cowboys have three brutal games remaining against the Giants, the Ravens and at the Eagles. The Cowboys have sunk into the depths of adversity before and bounced out, but this time Romo cannot come off the injured list to rescue this season — this team — that looks beyond saving.

“I hope this gives us more fight,” receiver Patrick Crayton said. “But to come away with a loss like this is deflating.”

Confronting Reality

It might be time to just say it: the Detroit Lions are probably going to go 0-16. With an inexplicable tendency to get a lead, and then lose it (something the Lions have done in six of their last seven games), Detroit is steaming toward the ignominious.

They might have blown their last best chance Sunday when they lost to the Vikings, who were led, if you want to call it that, by the former starting quarterback Tarvaris Jackson.

With games remaining against the roaring Colts, the Saints and the Packers (only the Saints go to Detroit), the Lions appear doomed to being a punch line.

They can take some solace from the fact that last year’s joke — the Dolphins, who were 0-13 before finally winning their only game of the season — are now tied for first place in the American Football Conference East. Then again, Bill Parcells is unlikely to leave Florida to engineer a turnaround in Detroit any time soon.

The Vikings should not be feeling too great right now, though. Gus Frerotte may miss this week’s game against Arizona with a back injury that forced him from Sunday’s game. Jackson could take back the starting job, which he lost after two games.

More ominous is that a judge could decide the fates of Pat and Kevin Williams, who were allowed to play Sunday while their Starcaps-based league suspensions were reviewed. If those suspensions are upheld, the Williamses will head to the bench and the Vikings will try to cling to their one-game lead without the heart of their defense.

They Just Keep Going

The New England Patriots are back in a tie for first place in the A.F.C. East thanks, in part, to the extraordinary workers they brought back from furlough this week. Rosevelt Colvin and Junior Seau played a significant number of snaps on Sunday.

The Patriots play the Oakland Raiders this week and, after Tedy Bruschi did not return Sunday after leaving the game with a knee injury, you have to wonder if Lawrence Taylor is next on the Belichick/Pioli speed dial.

The Patriots still could miss the playoffs, but in a season beset by injuries, Scott Pioli, the team’s vice president for player personnel, has done a remarkable job fitting in spare parts to keep the engine running — hello, BenJarvus Green-Ellis.

The Patriots deserved raves last year for the dominant team they assembled, but this season might serve as a quieter, but more impressive example of their resourcefulness. Shouldn’t the Lions make Pioli an overwhelming offer to try to bring that resourcefulness to Detroit?

After two meetings with the Yankees, C.C. Sabathiahas made no commitments. He has been offered a six-year, $140 million deal.

LAS VEGAS — The Yankees are seeking a long-term union with C. C. Sabathia, and conveniently, there is a wedding chapel in the Bellagio Hotel, the site of baseball’s winter meetings. After two sit-downs with Sabathia, the Yankees are more smitten than ever, although Sabathia left town Monday without a commitment.

That is fine with the Yankees, who also met Monday with Sabathia’s Milwaukee Brewers teammate, Ben Sheets, and planned to meet with the agent Scott Boras about Derek Lowe. The Yankees like Sheets, who started the All-Star Game in New York last July but finished the season with a muscle tear near his elbow. They also like Lowe, a proven postseason performer.

But Sabathia stands out among his peers, and the Yankees will be patient as he makes his decision.

“These free agents, especially when they’re the high end, they get the chance to dictate the pace,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “I think by pushing, all that’ll do is push them away.”

Cashman took Manager Joe Girardi and the special adviser Reggie Jackson to Sunday’s two-hour meeting with Sabathia and his agents at the Wynn Hotel, where Sabathia was staying. Cashman met with Sabathia and the agents for another hour on Monday.

The Yankees did not raise the six-year, $140 million offer they made on Nov. 14, and the meetings focused more on lifestyle.

That is an important issue for Sabathia, who is enticed by the idea of playing in his native California and reportedly told the Dodgers’ general manager, Ned Colletti, that he wanted to play for his team.

Colletti’s main priority is to re-sign outfielder Manny Ramírez, but he said Boras had not responded to his offers. Asked if the Dodgers could have interest in Sabathia, Colletti said: “It’s a possibility. It’s an interesting dynamic with anybody that is long-term and a salary that’s higher than most, if not all.”

Cashman said he talked about New York with Sabathia, who has played in the smaller Midwest markets of Cleveland and Milwaukee. The Red Sox also met with Sabathia in Las Vegas, but the Brewers are the only other team known to have made an offer.

“Clearly we talked about everything we have to offer,” Cashman said. “I’m selling the Yankees, I’m selling New York. But I wasn’t talking about other locales at all. His questions were focusing on us.”

Sabathia has three children under 6 years old, including a newborn, and Girardi — also a father of three — let him know that he welcomes children in the clubhouse.

Of course, from Sabathia’s perspective, he could see his family more if he plays near his home in Southern California.

That is why the Los Angeles Angels stand out as another possible landing spot, though they would be unlikely to chase Sabathia unless they cannot re-sign first baseman Mark Teixeira.

The Boston Red Sox and the Washington Nationals are also said to have strong interest in Teixeira, who does not have an offer from the Yankees.

“Our immediate need is pitching,” said Cashman, who met last Thursday with Teixeira and his agent, Boras. “It’s easy to say anybody would want a Mark Teixeira. But I have not made an offer on Mark Teixeira. I have made an offer on C. C. Sabathia. I’m not saying we’re not going to make any offers to other free agents, but C. C. fills a very obvious need.”

Cashman, who included Jackson at the first meeting because Jackson lives in California and thrived in New York, said Sabathia impressed him. The Yankees have done extensive research on Sabathia — on his pitching and his character — and the meetings confirmed good reports.

“I walked out of there saying to myself, ‘That’s exactly the type of person I thought he was from afar,’ ” Cashman said. “Now I get a chance to meet him up close and get a sense of the person. He’s a quality guy. Whether he picks us or doesn’t pick us, I think he’s going through this process with genuine, sincere effort to make the best decision for himself and his family, simple as that.

“We’re not being played, we’re not being manipulated, we’re not being used. I just think that he’s making an informed decision.”

Cashman still hopes to re-sign Andy Pettitte, who was offered a one-year, $10 million deal to return.

Alan Hendricks, one of Pettitte’s agents, said his brother Randy was the point man for Pettitte but added, “Andy’s preference is the Yankees, I know that.”

Cashman said that he had no meetings scheduled with Randy Hendricks but that he would continue communicating through e-mail messages.

Carlos Tevez (right) celebrates with substitute Patrice Evra after scoring his second goal against Blackburn.

Manchester United stormed into the Carling Cup semifinals in style as Carlos Tevez helped himself to four goals in a thrilling 5-3 victory over Blackburn at Old Trafford.

Argentine striker Tevez was credited with the first goal nine minutes before the break, although Blackburn’s South African midfielder Aaron Mokoena was close to turning the ball into his own net from Ryan Giggs’ lofted free-kick.

Portuguese winger Nani added a second four minutes later, skipping past defender Andre Ooijer, exchanging passes with Tevez and then sweeping a shot past goalkeeper Paul Robinson.

South African forward Benni McCarthy pulled one back within two minutes of coming on as a half-time substitute, bullying veteran defender Gary Neville off the ball before firing home.

But Tevez made it 3-1 just three minutes later, picking himself up to score from the spot after he had been fouled in the area by Ooijer.

Tevez completed his first hat-trick in English football with a superb 54th minute goal. Anderson picked the ball up in midfield, fed Giggs, who returned the pass with a back-heel, then swapped passes with Tevez before squaring the ball for the Argentine to slot the ball home.

There was still time for more drama, with three goals in the final seven minutes. Matt Derbyshire pulled another back for Blackburn in the 83rd minute and McCarthy clipped in Derbyshire’s cross in added time to make it 4-3 before Tevez smashed home a fifth for United with virtually the last kick of an enthralling match.

Holders Tottenham are also through to the last four, but they were made to battle all the way by Championship side Watford, coming back from a goal behind to secure a 2-1 away victory.

Harry Redknapp has been Tottenham manager for less than six weeks, but is already just one tie from Wembley, courtesy of a Roman Pavlyuchenko penalty and a late Darren Bent winner.

Watford, led by new manager Brendan Rodgers, took a 13th minute lead when Jon Harley stole the the ball off Aaron Lennon and raced forward.

The ball was worked to Tommy Smith, whose cross found Tamas Priskin with his back to goal — but the Hungary striker turned Jermaine Jenas and fired into the bottom corner for his third of the season.

Pavlyuchenko took advantage of a mix-up in the home defense as Tottenham fought back, but his shot crashed off the crossbar.

However, the Russian striker made no mistake from the spot on the stroke of half-time after Jenas was fouled in the area.

Both sides had chances to win it in the second-half, but it was Tottenham who found the decisive goal when substitute Bent finished at the near-post after the ball rebounded to him.

Ronaldo scored his 42nd goal of the season in the Champions League final

Cristiano Ronaldo has been crowned European Footballer of the Year by France Football magazine.

Ronaldo won the prestigious Ballon d’Or trophy after scoring 42 goals as Manchester United won the Champions League and Premier League last season.

“It is one of the most beautiful days of my life, something I dreamed of as a child,” said the 23-year-old winger.

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi was second and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres was third.

Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard were also in the running to succeed Kaka as Europe’s top star.

However, Ronaldo’s defining role in United’s Double-winning season saw 77 of the 96 journalists on the Ballon D’Or panel vote for him as their number one player of the year.

“Great emotion fills me but I cannot really describe it,” Ronaldo continued.

“I was not worried, because I was aware of what I did in the course of the season.

“But to the people who mentioned my name, I say thank you. Thank you also to my team-mates.

“This (trophy) is one that I want to win again because it is so good.

“Therefore, I will wake and I will say to myself ‘I want to be even better’.”

The Portuguese international became only the fifth player to score more than 30 goals in a Premier League season as United pipped Chelsea to the domestic title.

Ronaldo’s tally of 42 goals earned him the Golden Shoe as Europe’s top scorer, making him the first winger to collect that honour.

And his 42nd strike of an astonishing season came in Moscow as United drew 1-1 draw with Chelsea in the Champions League final. He went on to miss his spot-kick in the resulting penalty shoot-out but United still triumphed.

The only real disappointment for Ronaldo came at Euro 2008.

The winger was expected to be one of the stars of the tournament but he struggled to lift his side and Portugal went out in the quarter-finals.

A summer of fevered speculation over Ronaldo’s future followed after he conceded a dream move would be a switch to Spanish giants Real Madrid.

But United dug their heels in and in October Ronaldo pledged his future to the Old Trafford club.

Torres, meanwhile, enjoyed a phenomenal debut season in the Premier League following his big-money move from Atletico Madrid.

The 24-year-old scored 24 goals for Liverpool, the highest by a foreign player in their maiden season, and went on to score the winner for Spain in the Euro 2008 final.

2008 Ballon d’Or voting

1 Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester Utd) 446 points
2 Lionel Messi (Barcelona) 281 pts
3 Fernando Torres (Liverpool) 179 pts
4 Iker Casillas (Real Madrid) 133 pts
5 Xavi Hernandez (Barcelona) 97 pts
6 Andriy Arshavin (Zenit St-Petersburg) 64 pts
7 David Villa (Valencia) 55 pts
8 Kaka (AC Milan) 31 pts
9 Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter Milan) 30 pts
10 Steven Gerrard (Liverpool) 28 pts
11 Marcos Senna (Villarreal) 16 pts
12 Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal) 12 pts
13 Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) 11 pts
14 Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid) 10 pts
15 Frank Lampard (Chelsea) 8 pts
16 Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich) 7 pts
17 Samuel Eto’o (Barcelona) 6 pts
18 Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus) 5 pts
19 Michael Ballack (Chelsea), Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal) 4 pts
21 Didier Drogba (Chelsea), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Nemanja Vidic (Manchester United) 3 pts
24 Edwin van der Sar (Manchester United), Ruud van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid), 2 pts

Robin van Persie

Arsenal’s up and down season is in the ascendancy again after Robin van Persie struck twice in three second-half minutes to stun Premier League leaders Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

Johan Djourou turned Jose Bosingwa’s cross into his own net after 31 minutes to give Chelsea the lead as Arsenal’s title challenge looked to be in danger of suffering a potentially fatal blow.

And then, with Chelsea the dominant force, Van Persie delivered two crucial blows to earn Arsene Wenger’s side a priceless victory.

He looked well offside when he drilled home the equaliser after 59 minutes, then was on target again on the turn to complete a remarkable turnaround in fortunes.

Arsenal are turning into the Premier League’s great enigmas, responding with victories against Manchester United and now Chelsea just when they were being written off as serious title contenders.

Chelsea, meanwhile, are suffering at the place that was once their greatest strength – Stamford Bridge.

After four years of impregnability at home, Chelsea have now lost to Liverpool and Arsenal this season and have won only three out of eight league games at Stamford Bridge.

Arsenal knew they could not afford to slip up if they were to maintain a serious title challenge, and they started with real attacking intent.

Chelsea keeper Petr Cech was in action in the 13th minute, plunging to save from Samir Nasri’s low shot, with William Gallas – taunted mercilessly by the home fans – just failing to apply a crucial touch from the rebound.

Cesc Fabregas then tested Cech again before Chelsea demonstrated their threat, with a slick exchange between Frank Lampard and Deco almost creating an opening for Nicolas Anelka.

Arsenal’s early promise was then undermined when they conceded the sloppiest of goals just after the half hour.

Goalkeeper Manuel Almunia gifted Chelsea possession with a wayward throw, and when Bosingwa drove in a dangerous low cross from the right, Djourou could only slide the ball into his own goal at the near post.

In contrast to his strike partner Adebayor, Van Persie had been industrious and he tested Cech with a shot on the turn as Arsenal looked to fashion a quick response to Chelsea’s goal.

Arsenal’s carelessness at the back almost allowed Lampard to double Chelsea’s advantage six minutes after the break, the England midfield man failing to make a proper connection with an opening on the edge of the box.

Wenger’s side needed a lifeline from somewhere, and they were thrown one by the officials as they equalised in dubious circumstances just before the hour.

Van Persie looked well offside as he was found inside the area by Denilson’s pass, and as Chelsea waited for a flag that never came the Dutch striker flashed an emphatic finish high past Cech.

And a remarkable turnaround was complete three minutes later when Van Persie struck against to put Arsenal in front.

Adebayor rose to head down Fabregas’ free-kick, and Van Persie produced a stunning low finish to beat Cech again.

Chelsea, inevitably, pressed but Arsenal looked just as likely to add a third, with Cech saving well from Denilson deep in injury time.

Arsenal boss Wenger celebrated with his staff at the final whistle, an indication of just how important he feels this victory can be.

Chelsea’s fans, in contrast, greeted the final whistle with jeers.

Booked: Terry, Ivanovic.

Goals: Djourou 31 og.

Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Djourou, Clichy, Denilson, Fabregas, Song Billong, Nasri, Adebayor (Bendtner 83), Van Persie.
Subs Not Used: Fabianski, Vela, Ramsey, Silvestre, Wilshere, Gibbs.

Goals: Van Persie 59, 62.

Att: 41,760.

Ref: Mike Dean (Wirral).

Plaxico Burress at Giants

LANDOVER, Md. — Giants receiver Plaxico Burress, who accidentally shot himself in the thigh Friday night at a Manhattan nightclub, will surrender to the New York City police on Monday morning and will be charged with criminal possession of a handgun, according to his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman.

Burress will plead not guilty, said Brafman, whom Burress hired Sunday and who has represented high-profile defendants like the rapper Sean Combs.

“I ask his fans and the New York Giants to withhold judgment in this case until the facts come out,” Brafman said in a telephone interview, adding that he did not yet know what the possible punishment for Burress could be.

“It depends on the degree of crime that they charge him with, and they have not told me that yet,” he said.

According to state law, a person carrying a gun outside of his residence or place of business without a permit faces three and a half to 15 years in prison if prosecutors prove that the person intended to use the weapon on another person. If intent to use cannot be proven, the person may still face felony charges that could result in up to seven years in prison.

Burress, whose bullet wounds were not serious, remained at his home in Totowa, N.J., on Sunday, when the Giants played the Redskins here at FedEx Field. He met with Brafman for about an hour, after which Brafman characterized Burress’s emotional state as “clearly not pleased about these events.”

As of game time Sunday, Burress — who had been out of Sunday’s game with a hamstring strain in his now-wounded right leg —had still not contacted the Giants regarding Friday’s incident. He has not returned telephone calls, the Giants’ general manager, Jerry Reese, said.

Officials from the Giants and the N.F.L. said it was too soon to determine how, or if, Burress would be disciplined for the incident that involved Burress’s possession of a firearm without a permit.

The Giants’ president, John Mara, said it was too early in the investigation to make any decisions about Burress’s future with the team.

“Right now, we’re at the stage where we’re going to wait until the investigation plays out and get all the facts,” he said before Sunday’s game. “There are a lot of unanswered questions out there.”

Burress did not have a permit to carry a concealed weapon in New York City, according to the police. It is a felony for a person to possess a loaded unlicensed handgun in a place other than his residence or business.

Also, under the league’s personal-conduct policy, violations of local gun laws can result in a player’s suspension.

Brafman said that Burress held a gun permit in Florida. On-line records show that the permit expired on May 21, but, even if it was renewed, it would not matter. According to New York law, a person must hold a New York gun permit to carry a concealed weapon in the state.

Burress also did not have a permit to carry a firearm in New Jersey, his state of residence, according to Chief Robert Coyle of the Totowa Police Department. He added that a Florida permit is not recognized in New Jersey. “He wouldn’t be able to carry here at all,” he said.

Mara said that the issue of players carrying guns arose when team owners met with officials from the players’ union in February. To prevent situations like Burress’s, the league and its teams meet with players every year to try to educate them about gun possession, and the complications of it.

“Players, for whatever reason, feel the need to carry guns,” Mara said before the game. “It’s not something that we’re particularly pleased about, but that is the choice that they make. You’d like to think that most of them are licensed to do that, but I’m not sure that is always the case.”

Both Mara and Reese said they were still unclear about the circumstances surrounding the shooting, which resulted in Burress being both treated and released by a hospital within 24 hours. The bullet broke through the skin of his right thigh and pierced muscle tissue, but no bones and arteries were compromised.

But it is not the first time they have had to deal with controversy involving Burress, who caught the winning touchdown pass in last season’s Super Bowl and who signed a five-year, $35 million contract with the Giants just before the season opener.

Burress, 31, was suspended for 12 days this season, including for a victory over Seattle, because he missed meetings without explanation. He was also fined by the league for criticized officials during another game.

“I’m disappointed that this happened and that any of our guys would put themselves in this kind of situation,” he said. “Our first concern is for Plaxico’s health and well-being. We’re very relieved to find out that he’s going to be O.K.”

While Burress stayed at home and out of touch, Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce, who was with Burress at the nightclub, was left to deal with the aftermath of the incident that occurred at the Latin Quarter nightclub on Lexington Avenue at 48th Street, blocks from the N.F.L.’s headquarters on Park Avenue.

On Saturday, National Football League security officials interviewed Pierce, who started the game Sunday, at the team hotel in Washington, Giants officials said. Pierce has been cooperating with the investigation.

Michel Platini, the president of UEFA, backs the

LONDON — Michel Platini is about as close as anyone can get to bridging the divide between those who play sports and those who govern them. His vision on the soccer field lighted up France in the 1980s. Now, at 53, he is the president of UEFA, which represents Europe’s national soccer associations.

Platini has become a player in the political arena, too. This week, he is central to an attempt to bypass European Union law so that his organization can gain regulatory power to stop clubs from spending whatever they want on the players they want.

Platini is addressing Europe’s sports ministers in Biarritz, France, on Thursday. He believes that the free market has allowed wealthy clubs — particularly in England — to grow too mighty.

The arrival of foreign investors has injected so much capital into England’s Premier League that Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City can vacuum up many of the best players in the world and thus, some fear, stay beyond competitive reach.

The presence of three English teams in the final four of last season’s Champions League — the European tournament run by UEFA — seems to bolster this view.

European laws forbid the type of restrictions on labor mobility being championed by Platini. No country in the bloc of 27 inside the European Union can bar the free movement of workers from member states.

Platini has the support of Joseph S. Blatter, the president of FIFA, the world governing body. He and Blatter argue that soccer is a special case. Their word is “specificity,” and their view is that soccer should step outside European labor laws.

Blatter’s notion, more or less supported by Platini, has a nationalistic core. It would require that a minimum of 6 players in the starting lineup of 11 be born or raised in the country where the club is based.

Because players are now scouted from almost kindergarten age, the sports ministers are also being urged to endorse Platini’s plan to stop the recruitment of foreign players younger than 18.

Some newspapers have criticized Platini, claiming that he is trying to protect French clubs that are no match for the English.

But Platini will counter by having Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on his side in Biarritz. As a player, with Germany and Bayern Munich, Rummenigge was Platini’s contemporary and sometimes his adversary. He is now the chairman of Bayern’s executive board.

Rummenigge also heads the European Club Association, which last year replaced the G-14 as the organization that represents the interests of European clubs. He may not use the term “youth trafficking,” which has become common parlance in UEFA circles, but he does know a young player who is coveted by clubs wealthier than Bayern.

“We at Bayern Munich had the best player at the 2007 FIFA world under-17 championship,” he said. “He is Toni Kroos, and there were 20-odd scouts from England sitting there. Something must be done.”

Kroos was the star of that tournament, held in South Korea. He was the winner of the Golden Ball, given to the best player. Still, it is more likely that the English scouts had their eyes on the even younger Ghanaians, who, unless they receive big bids from English clubs, will end up being groomed by teams in France or Belgium.

There are markets within markets, and big fish swallowing the smaller everywhere.

Bayern Munich’s coaches, for example, did not develop Kroos. He came to them from Hansa Rostock, the eastern German club that had taken him from his hometown team, Greifswalder.

Greifswalder had Kroos under its wing from 1997, when he was 7 years old.

Why has Kroos moved to Bayern Munich? Because it is the richest and best-known club in Germany, one that not long ago invited a 14-year-old Peruvian to train at its youth center.

Nobody is breaking laws, just bending them to get the best players at the youngest age before even bigger clubs add them to their crowded rosters.

Soccer dominance by clubs from one country is not new. Before England, Italy had the soccer barons and attracted foreign icons like Platini to Juventus, the Fiat-owned team in Turin. And in the 1950s, Real Madrid’s president, Santiago Bernabéu, recruited Alfredo di Stefano, an Argentine, and Ferenc Puskas, a Hungarian, to star on his team.

Now it is England’s turn to be wealthy. Still, it is easy to see why in some quarters the Biarritz meeting is being presented as another France-versus-England contretemps.

France created FIFA. France envisioned the World Cup. In 1984, with Platini, it was the Eurpean champion. In 1998, with Zinédine Zidane, it won the World Cup.

Bernard Laporte, the former rugby coach who is now France’s sports minister, is busy trying to convince his European Union counterparts to support Platini’s vision. Pierre Mairesse, the European Commission’s director for youth, sport and citizenship, is chairman of the Biarritz summit.

And Frédéric Thiriez, president of the Ligue de Football Professional in France, has joined the debate, calling England’s Premier League a threat to sporting justice.

“To counter financial doping, we propose financial fair play,” he said, referring to the debts taken on by English clubs. “If we continue with soccer at two speeds, which sees three English clubs in the semifinals each season, the competition will lose interest.”

Whatever the sports ministers support, they will still have to sell it to the full Europe Union, which, with its predecessor, has spent decades building open borders to professional workers. Soccer may ultimately find that it simply is not important enough to jeopardize the Union.