The draw for the quarter final of this year's Champions League will be made tomorrow, and despite a 4-0 trouncing of Stuttgart by Barcelona, the competition is promising to be an open one which may yet provide us with further upsets. Real Madrid could not progress past an ever-stronger Lyon, in a fixture which proved that a defeat 1-0 away from home in the first leg is not as comfortable a some managers let on.



Bordeaux, CSKA Moscow, Lyon and Fiorentina make up four of the teams who remain over the likes of Real Madrid and Chelsea. All of these four, along with the two remaining English teams in Man Utd and Arsenal, will no doubt hope to avoid Barcelona and Inter Milan.

The Europa League continues tonight with four of the most interesting fixtures yet to conclude. It would be folly for Juventus to take Fulham lightly tonight as they visit Craven Cottage despite a 3-1 lead from Turin, and Liverpool lost 1-0 away to Lille in the first leg. The reds' inconsistency this season is widely reported, but they finally seem to be gelling as a team again. Atletico Madrid vs Sporting Lisbon ended 1-0 in a tightly contested match in Spain, and while a clean sheet away might be important it could easily seem like advantage Madrid, who only need a draw to proceed. Benfica and Marseille drew 1-1 in Portugal, a scoreline totally unrepresentative of the open nature of the play.

Good advice on online sports betting can be hard to find. I tend not to trust the advice you see on international, multi-billion pound revenue gambling sites such as Betfair and tend to look elsewhere at independent sites which, in my eyes, have more integrity. While some are small and often overlooked, these sites should not be given any less time than the writers and pundits on the likes of Paddy Power and Betfair. For help on finding some of the best odds, too, you will need some good sportsbook reviews, and with these reviews you should be able to find some of the best offers and promotional deals going as well.

With European football moving towards the business end of the knockout rounds and the domestic Leagues heading into some of the most intriguing run-ins in recent memory, it can be difficult to know just where exactly to place your money, and on which of the many online sports betting sites to place it. Odds could be long on teams who have been favourites since the start of the season now that things have gotten competitive in the Primera Liga and Premier League in particular, while shorter odds on some teams should not be a deal-maker when looking for a bet to place.

The Gambling Weblog has regular updates on which sites have the best odds on football, so take a look when some of the big matches are coming up!

It can be hard playing in the independent, non-professional football leagues where it often seems that the only people interested in watching are your substitutes on the bench. I was recently at a local lower league cup final, though, and found that many there who had been told enjoyed watching, and this just gave every player on the pitch that extra inch to their sprint.



I got to thinking that the major issue, then, is not one of popularity, but one of publicity. Feeling that, in an age when Sky and ESPN seem to be all that people need to enjoy football, we should do our bit to get people out watching the sport again. We took a look online and were able to find some sites which might help your burgeoning team or struggling league gain a more numerous following. Printing flyers for distribution can be an excellent idea, and if you're stuck on the artistic side then take a look at this graphic design site or these flyer templates online.

Proving that all the money is indeed in European football, the 50 highest earning footballers in the world have appeared in a list compiled by Futebol Finance. It makes an interesting and rather surprising read at times.

One Cristiano Ronaldo does, of course, appear at the top of the list, a clear €1 million a year ahead of second place. The top ten consists of two more of his team mates at the decadent Real Madrid, with Kaka in 5th and Benzema in 7th.

Second and third place make Spain's the League with the most highest-paid players. Third place sees the once-highest paid Lionel Messi on €10.5 million a year while, somehow, the vastly undeserving Zlatan Ibrahimovic is way out in front with €12 million.

While Inter Milan's Samuel Eto'o appears in 4th place (I am sure some of the money they earned in the most ridiculous deal in the sport's history when Barcelona swapped their Champions League final goalscorer Eto'o for Ibrahimovic plus £40 million has made his salary easy to pay), Serie A has a disappointing representation on the list, their only other player in the top 25 being AC's Ronaldinho.

The rest of the top 10 is made up of Premier League players, them rather inevitably being Man City and Chelsea players. The different attitudes, though, are quite apparent, as Chelsea's highest players are two old staples of the club John Terry and Frank Lampard, while two of City's latest attacking signings Tevez and Adebayor are their highest earners.

It makes for interesting reading to see the likes of Gareth Barry on the same wage as Fernando Torres....