Believe it or not, but FIFA 10 isn’t the only soccer game around. In fact, Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 just came out in Europe, and was the top selling game there last week. Not the top selling sports game, but the top selling game overall. Yeah, it’s big.

England lost to Ukraine yesterday, thus sullying Fabio Capello’s 100 percent World Cup qualifying campaign record. While I understand that CrunchGear is quite popular in England—we get so much fan mail from Stoke!—I also understand that man of our American readers have no idea what I’m talking about, much less do they care. Au contraire, mes amis, for there is something that might interest you: the result of the online-only broadcast experiment. A toast, then, to the 500,000 or so people who watched the game.

My fellow Americans! I just wanted to let you know that, yes, there are other countries in the world (WHAT?!), and none of them give a damn about the Madden franchise. EA just revealed that FIFA 10 (which I haven’t played, but that’s OK; I hear it’s good) is the fastest selling sports game of all time! So says a fancy e-mail we just received. Olé-lé, olá-lá, ser del Barça és el millor que hi ha!

Once again, the Internet has saved the day. As some of you may know, Setanta, a sports broadcaster, recently went out of business in the UK. The unfortunate thing is that Setanta held the rights to England (football/soccer) away games. England play the Ukraine, in Kiev, next week, in a World Cup qualifier, so that leaves English fans without a way to watch the game. (England have already qualified, so it’s not really a huge deal.) What do do?!

Andrés Iniesta is a good footballer. Cesc Fàbregas is a good footballer. Need I say more? Yes, actually, I do for it to make sense here. Nike has some fancy new soccer boot that’s it’s launching aside an interactive digital training tool that you can use on a Web site, or on your iPhone or iPod touch. Very exciting.

Matchday Two of the UEFA Champions League begins tomorrow. You probably already know this, because, really, who doesn’t love the Champions League? Exactly. But unless you have DirecTV (here in the U.S.), you’re stuck with whatever games are on the Fox networks. These games primarily feature the English teams, because, I guess, the idea is that “Americans speak English, so they probably like English teams.” Maybe it’s a ratings thing, I don’t know. (There’s a point to all of this, believe me.) There’s a company based out of Barcelona called Flumotion that has developed a new, maybe even better, way to watch the Champions League online. If you’re at all familiar with a DVR, then you’re familiar with the company’s new setup.

You would think that with a population of 300 million the U.S. would be a little better at soccer than it currently is. Not that the US Mens National Team is terrible—its victory against Spain in the Confederations Cup in June was all kinds of great—but we’re (yup, Royal We time) not exactly known as a “world power,” mentioned in the same breath with Italy, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina. In steps… EA? Yup, we just got word that EA Sports, makers of FIFA 10, has teamed up with US Soccer to develop and promote a series of training videos that young players can use to improve their game. Is is enough to to give some future USMT the World Cup one day? US Soccer certainly has high hopes.

Soccer fans in the United States of America probably already know that the UEFA Champions League resumes today. Well, the qualifying rounds featuring teams you or I would recognize, at least. (Arsenal vs. Celtic is the big game today.) It’s on Fox Soccer Channel and the various Fox Sports networks, too, so no more ESPN2 ticker getting in the way. But what you may not know is that FSC has also launched a whole bunch of tech/Internety ways to enjoy the tournament.

It’s fair to say that the Internet is a complete waste of time. Aside from the odd virtual museum, or learning about the history of the Bantu peoples on Wikipedia, there’s very little on there that’s worth the time of day, I think. Twitter? Rubbish. Facebook? Old. Hulu? You couldn’t pay me to watch network TV anymore.

Finally! It is my pleasure to let y’all know that Chivas USA’s Sacha Kljestan and Chicago Fire’s Cuauhtémoc Blanco will be on the North American cover of FIFA 10.

Finally! We now know who will be on the cover of EA’s FIFA 10. Well, the European versions, at least. In the UK you’ll find Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, Chelsea’s Frank Lampard, and Arsenal’s Theo Walcott.

Look who Microsoft is throwing money at! Yup, according to Catalunya Informació, by way of Sport, it looks like Microsoft is going to sponsor, in some capacity, the reigning European and Spanish football champions, FC Barcelona.

I can guarantee than maybe 5 percent of you have ever heard of Swindon Town Football Club, but the team’s partnership with EA FIFA 10 should make them a powerhouse in the Manchester City sense sooner rather than later. For this season, and this season only, the team’s players will be running around the pitch with the FIFA 10 logo emblazoned on their chests.

Good news for German football fans who use T-Mobile. The company’s Bundesliga Total service is coming to cellphones. That means you’ll be able to watch every single game played in the first and second division from the comfort of your iPhone, G1 and G2. This is all live, by the way, not cheap-o highlights sent to your phone hours after the game has ended.

New season, new ball. The three big football leagues—England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Italy’s Serie A—begin in just a few weeks, and Nike has developed a fancy, new ball that’s loaded with all types of hi-tech goodness that may pique your interest. It’s called the T90 Ascente. Goalkeepers will hate it; flashy forwards will love it.

Thanks to the Internet, and a healthy disregard for copyright, you, too, can watch Cristiano Ronaldo’s presentation at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu today. Here’s how.

Twitter works great in Brazil. So great that it gets you fired! Former Real Madrid manager Vanderlei Luxemburgo was sacked by Palmeiras, in São Paulo, Brazil, over what he wrote on Twitter two days ago. Is this the first time a professional sports coach/manager has been sacked because of what he has written on Twitter? I couldn’t find any other examples, but I could well be wrong here.

Good news, sports fans in the U.S.! It looks like ESPN will broadcast today’s Champions League final in HD on ESPNHD. Well, at least according to the schedule on its Web site. Why the network didn’t bother showing the whole tournament in HD when UEFA provides an HD feed, I don’t know.

I’ve purposely held this story for a few days in order to let inflamed passions simmer down. As many of you (I hope) are aware, FC Barcelona beat Chelsea FC last week in the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals; Barça now goes on to face Manchester United FC in the final in Rome. What concerns us here at CrunchGear is the use of technology in the game of European football (soccer), specifically the use of instant video replay by referees.

Mobile TV—that is, live TV on your cellphone—is still sorta “meh,” it’s fair to say. That’s why the news that the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is seen by some, including Nokia, as the event that will bring the technology to the forefront, is certainly welcome. After all, nothing attracts eyeballs quite like the World Cup—sort of in the same way that the 2006 World Cup in Germany was HDTV’s mass audience debut.