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.

Forza Motorsport 3, which comes out here in the U.S. tomorrow, was the second best selling game, followed by FIFA 10, Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010.

I’ve always been a PES guy, so hooray for my team! Not that I’m going to buy it this year—I’ll only buy sports games every so often; I can update my own rosters, thank you very much—but thank goodness it did well. You don’t want there to only be one game to choose from, do you?

And I’m pretty sure this screenshot is broken: if Liverpool were to play Barcelona, you figure either one or the other would be wearing their away kit; the colors there are far too close to make them easily discernible.

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 many 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.

You’ll recall that no “traditional” broadcaster wanted the show the game because, well, to be honest, it was a rather pointless one, seeing as though England has already qualified for next year’s World Cup. Why bother paying through the nose for a game that means nothing, and that not too many fans would bother watching? That’s the logic, at least. So in stepped Perform, which specializes in Streaming Stuff.

Perform itself said there were “no issues” with the broadcast, but you’ll have trouble convincing someone that watching a stream on your laptop can replicate the experience of watching on your big screen TV, or at the pub, or, well, at the game itself!

So yeah, if you consider ~500,000 people a success, then it was one. If not, just enjoy your Sunday.

In other World Cup news, man alive was that Argentina-Peru match dramatic! And yes: I watched it on an illegal P2P stream. Oh noes!

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!

EA sold 1.7 million copies of the game since its launch last week, no doubt 100 percent because of that Wayne Rooney commercial. During peak hours, there was more than 150,000 players playing online simultaneously. That’s bigger than the population of SOME CITY!

Maybe this year I should give FIFA a go instead of my beloved Pro Evolution Soccer? I bought last year’s PES and did a season with Barça (undefeated, normal mode!), but I haven’t played FIFA since FIFA 2007, with Ronaldinho on the cover. You know, when Ronaldinho was good, lol! (Man alive, did he fall off the planet or what?)

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?!

You get down on your knees and thank Whomever for the Internet, that’s what. After the BBC, ITV, and other “traditional” broadcasters refused to carry the game—the rights holder probably wanted crazy money, despite the fact that the game itself is pretty meaningless—Perform agreed to carry the game online, on a pay-per-view Internet stream.

The match, which happens on October 10, will cost £4.99, or just shy of $8.

The company is said to stream some 15,000 live events per year, so it’s not like this is some fly-by-night operation looking to make a quick buck. Or quid, as it were.

There’s even going to be a commentary team for the stream (not just the live stadium feed, then), and guess who’s back? Sven! Yup, former England manager and current Notts County director of football Sven-Goran Ericsson will be there to provide his insight and analysis.

And to my fellow Americans who have no idea what I’m talking about: England is playing a soccer game, and the channel it was supposed to be on went bankrupt, so now the game will be broadcast online. I thought it was a neat story.

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.

The boot is the Nike CRT360 Maestri. Nearest I can tell it’s your standard “fancy” soccer boot, but what concerns us here is the interactive training aspect. Each boot comes with a unique code that you can use to see EXCLUSIVE training tips from Iniesta and Fàbregas, either online or by using your iPhone.. Probably eight of you know who these guys are, but let me assure you: they’re very good. In fact, here’s Iniesta sending Chelsea crashing out of the Champions League last year:

You have to understand the drama of this situation. Barcelona was playing, by a country mile, the best football in all of Europe (of the world, probably), and yet Chelsea were two minutes away from winning the game, and thus the semi-final. So Iniesta receives the ball at the edge of the penalty box and smashes it into the top-right corner of the net. I have never been happier watching a sport as I was that day, and that includes when Barcelona actually won the championship a few weeks later. In this video, you can hear the dejection in the British announcers’ voices. Meanwhile, the Arabic commentator LOSES HIS MIND. “Allah, Allah. Allah, Allah, Allah!” The Italian guys do a fine job, as well. Greatest sport on Earth.

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.

The company hooked up with Aragón Televisión to develop a new streaming solution for Champions League games. You can pause the live feed, go make a sandwich, then come back and A) resume the video from where you left off, or B) resume from the live feed itself. I don’t know why you’d pick option B, since option A is kinda The Whole Point of DVRs.

Then Flumotion added all sorts of stats to the side there, so it’s not unlike viewing an ESPN GameCast.

(Flumotion actually helped Real Madrid stream the introductions of Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo earlier in the year. I watched both streams!)

In a perfect world, Flumotion would hook up with Fox Soccer Channel here in the U.S., and offer this type of fancy streaming. That way, if you’re at the office but still want to see the game, well, you can, and you can go on your lunch break and not miss a single kick of the ball.

It does seem to be Europe-only (if not Spain-only), but it’s something to keep an eye on.

And if there is a God, I’d like to see Real Madrid v. Barcelona as the final this year, and see Barcelona totally dismantle the “Florenteam” at their home stadium. That would be outstanding.

Oh, also. That’s Olympique Lyonnais, not Olympique de Marseille in the photo there, Flumotion. Presumably other nerds have already pointed this out to you.

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.

The premise is pretty simple, actually. American kids spend an awful amount of time playing video games, so why not get these kids, kids who have already expressed an interest in the sport, to improve their game a little bit? EA set up a new Web site, Interactive Training, that has a series of tutorial videos that explain the basics of the game to youngsters. (The program is aimed at 8-12 year olds.) So you’re playing a round of FIFA against your son/daughter or younger brother/sister, and you say, “Wow you’re good at headers in the game. Let’s go to this Web site where they’ll teach you how to actually head the ball.”

That’s just what US Soccer would like to see, at least. I talked to John Hackworth, who’s the U.S. Soccer Development Academy Technical Director (a fancy title that means, essentially, he’s in charge of youth development), and he said that, yeah, U.S. Soccer should try to leverage, if that’s the right word, kids’ proclivity to sit down and play FIFA all day long. Why not tell these kids, “Look, you’re pretty good at this game, why not try it out for real?” That way you’ve exposed the sport to a large number of kids who might turn out to be halfway decent one day.

Again, no one expects overnight success here, especially if it’s targeting young kids. But there’s nothing wrong with steps in the right direction.

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.

For one, you can buy streams to whatever match you want for $10 from the new site championsonfox.com. (You can buy a season pass for $100, too.) It works on Mac/Linux this season, given that it uses Adobe Flash 10 to stream the video. (Last season it was some Windows Media Player deal.) Good in case you’re, I don’t know, stuck in class or your boss lets you stream video while at the office. Now you have no reason to use Ustream or whatever.

FSC also developed a Java app for mobile phones called FoxSoccer.com Mobile Match Tracker. It’s as you’d expect: a handy mobile app for AT&T and Sprint phones provided they support Java (ahem, iPhone) with post-match (“near-live” as worded in the press release) highlights, photos, scores from around the tournament, etc.

And while this is great and all, I think I speak for everyone who watches FSC when I ask, Where’s the HD? ESPN will shows its handful of EPL games in HD for the rest of the season—Hull vs. Chelsea was in HD at the weekend—and going back to FSC afterward is sorta yuck.

Meanwhile, in other soccer-tech news, you can set your own price for this year’s version of Football Manager, if that’s your thing.

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.

But on Any Given Saturday, from August to May, the Internet is, in fact, worth a damn. That’s because, thanks to the likes of Ustream, and Justin.tv, and any number of esoteric, China-based P2P programs, I can watch the various European soccer leagues right here on my MacBook. And as much as I’d like to see Aston Villa play Wigan this Saturday, I’d much rather see how this whole Manchester City business turns out. Unfortunately, the City game, against Blackburn, is on Setanta Sports USA, a channel I don’t have. Ustream to the rescue.

Unfortunately, that’s just the scenario that Engl… Barclays Premier League is afraid of. No, it’s not the first time the Premier League has complained about the proliferation of live football streams, but now they’re crying poverty, claiming that “digital piracy is one of the most important threats facing sports rights owners today.” I’m sorry, but I don’t care, and I would think that Sheikh Mansour doesn’t mind, either. He’s rich enough, and some guy in New York watching his new plaything squeak by Blackburn 1-0 on Justin.tv won’t upset him too much.

Not every team is bankrolled by petrodollars from the Middle East, and this is why the Premier League is freaking out. If the League can’t turn to Sky or ESPN when it’s time to negotiate rights contracts and say, “We guarantee that X-Number of people watch every single Premier League game,” why would Sky or ESPN shell out hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pounds? It’s always helpful to keep in mind that these guys, Sky and ESPN and others like them (R.I.P. Sentanta UK,) are buying an audience when they buy the rights to Premier League games. They then sell this audience to advertisers, which is how their money is made.

Right, so if the Premier League cannot guarantee Sky and Co. and audience, how can they charge a premium? In other words, the more people that watch these games, for free, on the Internet, the less of a legitimate audience they have. No audience, no contract with Sky, no money in the League. That’s how the Premier League sees it, at any rate.

In other words, the Premier League is afraid that Sky’s money well will dry up.

Not that any of this matters. Just wait till April, 2010, when Premiership footballers are taxed to death, and then flee to Spain. At least the weather is better there. On some days, I hear, you can even see the sun! Imagine that.

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.

These guys play in the MLS, which is the United States’ excuse for a professional football league. It’s probably around the same level of The Championship in England. Division two, in other words.

Blanco and Kljestan join Chelsea’s Frank Lampard on the game’s cover.

The European covers were released last week.

There’s no FIFA curse, à la Madden, right? That’s the last thing Chelsea needs, an injured Lampard. I can’t even imagine Barça without Xavi…

So, yeah. Mystery solved.

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.

In Germany you’ve got Wayne Rooney and Bayern Munich’s Bastian Schweinsteiger.

And in Spain you’ve got Barça’s Xavi and Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema. Why EA wouldn’t put the most expensive player ever*, Cristiano Ronaldo, on the cover, I have no idea. Presumably it’s a rights/money thing.

I do not know who’ll be on the cover of the U.S. version, since I’m waiting for EA’s little Web site to update. Presumably it’ll have Rooney and an American from the MLS like Alan Gordon or Landon Donovan. Or, if EA really wants to boosts sales of the game here, it should put Lebron James.

Meanwhile, Ronaldinho, a cover athlete from FIFA 09 was last seen partying it up in Barcelona.

I also see that Buraka Som Sistema will be in the game in the form of “Kalemba (Wegue – Wegue).” When I was in Lisbon in February that song was on he radio every two minutes.

Also: why is everyone, save for Benzema, screaming? I smell a meme!

*Actually, I think Real Madrid paid €75 million for Zidane back in 2001, and I’m pretty sure €75 million in 2001 was worth more than £80 million in 2009. Inflation is a pain in the neck.

Look who Microsoft is throwing money at [Spanish]! 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. It’s said to be worth some €2 million.

Does this mean Barça will soon be running around with MICROSOFT on its chest? Doubtful; we all know the team is in a multi-year agreement with Unicef whereby it (Barça) gives money to the United Nations organization.

Barça, as you’re probably already aware, is currently in Seattle for game two of its North American tour. The team plays the Seattle Sounders—also, coincidentally, sponsored by Microsoft—tomorrow night, viewable on ESPN2 at 10:30pm ET.

Apparently Laporta and Co. visited the Microsoft headquarters earlier today.

Some of you know what I’m talking about.

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.

Football and video games have a celebrated history. Who can forget seeing Thierry Henry running up and down the pitch with the Dreamcast logo on his chest when he played for Arsenal?

“Superdepor” also had the Dreamcast logo for a bit.

And MLS fans know that Seattle Sounders is sponsored by Microsoft/Xbox 360.

Now let us never mention yesterday’s Gold Cup loss ever again (even though it was a B team at best).

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 for them 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.

What’s so damn special about the ball? The Nike bullet points are: “360 Sweet Spot,” “Longer Range,” “Increased Visibility,” “Higher Accuracy,” and “Greater Speed.”

Breaking those down, the “360 Sweet Spot” refers to the way the ball reacts to being kicked. Usually, footballs have a “sweet spot,” like the “meat” of a baseball bat, that you’re trained to hit for maximum speeds, accuracy, etc. Apparently the T90 Ascente doesn’t have a “sweet spot,” per se, rather that the whole ball is a sweet spot. That is, wherever you kick it, the ball will react as if you’ve kicked the sweet spot. Good news for Quaresma. (Why do sports compilation videos on YouTube always have terrible music?)

Longer range? That’s pretty obvious, right? The ball is constructed in three layers, and this somehow makes the ball travel two ball lengths longer than previous Nike footballs.

Increased visibility. You’ll notice the patterns on the ball; it sort of looks like the scanner from Half-Life 2:

Anyhow, the patterns are such that they create a “flicker” as the ball spins. That’ll be helpful on those awful, gray winter days in Liverpool.

If you actually had the ball in your hands, you’d see that its surface is textured to a degree that’s probably a little different than the last ball you kicked. Nike calls it “micro-textured,” which basically lets air flow around the ball more smoothly, creating less resistance, etc. You know, like the dimples on a golf ball.

The T90 Ascenete is also faster than previous balls, traveling at about 22.19 m/s (72.17 feet/s). Something to do with the three-layer construction.

All this talk of multi-layer construction reminds me of the great Razor Blade Wars of the past decade. “Our razor has three blades.” “Well our razor has four blades.” “Ha! Our blade has five blades!.

And, uh, if you speak Spanish, watch this video. It explains the technological wonder of the ball.

Nike has its own video, in English, that I can’t embed. (Though, if I were feeling crazy, I could probably just swipe the Flash file then upload to our CG YouTube account. No thanks.) It’s here if you’re interested.

About 15 minutes ago I wrote “Goalkeepers will hate it; flashy forwards will love it.” But now I see FC Barcelona’s goalkeeper Víctor Valdés praising the ball in that Spanish video. Figures.

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.

It’s really not all that hard. If you’re on Windows, you might be able to get as.com’s official stream to work, provided the site even has a stream this week. (AS uses some lame Windows Media codec, one that Flip4Mac refused to play last week during Kaká’s presentation. The Windows guys here, Doug and Matt, were able to see the video just fine.) But for everyone else, may I point you in this direction?

RojaDirecta, which is sort of an Internet clearing house of live sport, has the presentation listed for 3pm ET (12pm PT). Once that time rolls around, you go there, click the appropriate link, which isn’t live just yet, and away you go. You’ll get to see Mr. Ronaldo say, in a wonderful mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, things like, “I’m very happy to be here” and “Hala Madrid.” It’s truly compelling TV.

Something like 80,000 people are expected to cram into the stadium, so, yeah, it’s sort of a big deal today in the wide world of sports. And, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you can be a part of it all! Hooray!

UPDATE It was just brought to my attention that you’ll also be able to watch the unveiling today on bwin.com. (Bwin is a gambling Web site that sponsors a bunch of teams, including Real Madrid.) I don’t know what kind of codec bwin is using to stream the video, but I imagine it’ll be in pretty high quality.

And while you’ll there, why not put a few euros down on who will score more goals next season, Messi or Ronaldo? (The answer is Ronaldo, as much as it pains me to say that.)

This is literally the biggest news you’ll find online today, vis-à-vis technology. Absolutely nothing is happening.

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 [Portuguese] 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.

Anyway, the story is pretty interesting, especially to those of us who follow football. Luxemburgo, who won the São Paulo State Championship with Palmeiras this past season (and who won with Santos the year before), posted to Twitter that he was dissatisfied with the way one of his players, Keirrison, had handled his apparent negotiation with FC Barcelona, which he is all but certain to join in the next few days. Tweeted Mr. Luxemburgo: “Keirrison didn’t show up to training. He also didn’t give me any explanation. If he isn’t sold [to FC Barcelona] he won’t play for me again.” (Yes, I translated that myself. Thanks, college!)

Luxemburgo was sacked by Palmeiras shortly thereafter, which he also tweeted: “I’m no longer the manager of Palmeiras. I was sacked because of disagreeing with Keirrison’s attitudes. Read about it on my blog: [l]uxemburgo.blog.uol.com.br.”

Perhaps Twitter should have what Gmail has, an “are you sure you want to tweet this?” feature?

In any event: don’t use Twitter to air dirty laundry.

UPDATE As Fernando corrected me, “Cotinthians won the São Paulo State Championship in 2009, Palmeiras won in 2008.” Yes, I feel like a dope, but I’m pretty sure only Fernando would have known that fact. I can’t imagine we’re too big in Brazil.

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.

The game sees the champions of England, Manchester United, against the champions of Spain, Barcelona. I’d say Manchester United are the favorites, if only because there’s no way Henry and Iniesta will be match fit (and who knows how long they’ll play) and because dumb Dani Alves had to collect his zillionth yellow card of the season, resulting in a one-match man. Good one, Mr. Alves!

Here’s a fine article summing up the situation, without the usual “Ronaldo v. Messi” cliché.

I’m excited (even if the tournament itself needs some sort of shakeup).

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.

Guus Hiddink, Chelsea’s caretaker manager, came out at the weekend in favor of video replay in games. It’d work like it does in the NFL: a coach wants to challenge a play or ref’s decision, ok, but you only have a finite number of challenges; the exact number would be up to UEFA, all-powerful, all-knowing.

What I’d like to know is, why not? What’s the big deal with allowing a short break in the action—it’s not like the game doesn’t stop when substitutions are made, right?—if it leads to the correct calls being made? (I think Chelsea only had one penalty, and that was the Piqué handball; this can be debated in your local pub till the sun runs out of hydrogen, however.)

I think it’s time UEFA get with the program and embrace the video replay, to say nothing of goal line technology (that would determine if the ball went over the line or not). But Newcastle probably has a better chance of staying up than UEFA ever doing anything helpful, I’m afraid.