A Long Summer Vacation

You're a winner in our book, Andrei.

With World Cup qualification (finally!) coming to a close and the draw for next summer's tournament already taken care of, attention has largely been on the winners, the 32 qualified nations. And while that is all well and good, we here at Femme Football would like to take a moment to offer our sincere condolences to those footballers who will be missing out on South Africa.

For these poor souls something to hang their hat on in the interim, we have created a new honor: the "Best Player Not Playing in This Year's World Cup," abbreviated BPNPTYWC, and known commonly known as the Ryan Giggs Award.

Here are this year's honorees:

4th Runner Up: Petr Cech, Czech Republic (It really has been all downhill since that Steven Hunt incident)

3rd Runner Up: Dimitar Berbatov, Bulgaria (Not scoring goals in a Man Utd uniform to be replaced by not scoring goals in Bulgaria's red and green)

2nd Runner Up: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Sweden (At least you won't fall prey to the tricks of small children off the field or those of wily defenders on it)

1st Runner Up: Emmanuel Adebayor, Togo (We shall miss your strikes, but, as any Arsenal fan will tell you, we'll mostly miss you're class)

And this year's BPNPTYWC/Ryan Giggs Award goes to......Andrei Arshavin, whose Russian side decided to do everything in its power to undo the 2-1 advantage it had going into the second leg of UEFA qualification play-offs. Andrei, you may be king of the house, but your coronation in South Africa was just not to be.

Oh yeah, and congratulations on your win!

Apparently the Placenta Fluid Didn't Work

Robin van Persie will be out until at least April (and very possibly through the end of the season) as the ligament damage he suffered on his ankle during international duty has proven worse than originally anticipated.

Despite his admirable, if unorthodox, efforts to regain fitness, Arsenal will be without their most effective attacking player. This is doubly concerning for the young Gunners, who have traditionally had trouble finishing, and who are without the significant striking presence of the departed Emmanuel Adebayor and the injured Nicklas Bendtner.

As such, Wenger has decided to foray into the transfer market during the January window. Apparently the Frenchman has eyes for Bordeaux striker Marouane Chamakh, but it's still to be seen whether Bordeaux will be willing to let go of their prized player.

The Good, The Bad, and The Fugly: Premiere League Edition (9/12-9/13)

Ade, Ade, Ade-bay-orrrrr....uh-oh...

The Good: Quality Man Utd v. Tottenham - A high quality match all around, with a scoreline, 3-1 United, that belied how closely contested the game was, especially in the first half. Particularly impressive was Man Utd's ability to overcome Paul "I never met a tackle I didn't like" Scholes dismissal on two yellows and persevere in the face of a solid Tottenham side. Props to Rooney for a superb solo effort to cap off the win -Roo, we know that your particular brand of "bull in a china shop" play has been overshadowed in years past by CR7's dribbling pirouettes, but we do appreciate the efficiency and can't bring ourselves to hate on your shine....

The Bad: Blundering Burnley - Listen, in those heady days of August it's easy to get caught up, and we understand that after your wins against Man Utd and Tottenham, you were sticking out your chests a bit...Prem new boys showing "The Man" exactly what you were made of...but then came the set-back at Chelsea, and, then, well, the thrashing this past weekend with the Reds and one Yossi Benayoun running rampant all over your back line (so much for that international duty fatigue...) and now you've conceded seven in those last two defeats and have barely been competitive; well, at least it was good while it lasted....

The Fugly: We here at Femme Football understand that strikers are peculiar creatures often with, um, well stank attitudes (let's just call it what it is). Bitchfests are often induced when a pass is not played to feet or when a striker *God forbid* is actually asked to defend, but, even with this knowledge, we were still taken aback by Emmanuel Adebayor's overzealous celebration and stamping on Robin van Persie.

Ade reacted in both cases with all the grace and composure of a pre-teen boy, scorned by the popular girl at school. Yes, years later when he attends his reunion to find her a washed up former Miss Maine Pre-Teen Princess, he will want to rub it in her face, but he will refrain because he will have the wherewithal to understand that her demise is punishment enough - now if only Emmanuel could leave the mindspace of a pimply thirteen year old, he would realize that scoring on Arsenal was enough and everything beyond that was just cruel...