After a Tuesday that proved pretty positive for most of the prognosticators, it's on to Wednesday and UEFA Champions League action in Groups A-D.

Hopefully, Wednesday's matches produce a little more offense. There were two scoreless draws on Tuesday, and the eight matches featured a scant nine goals - with no team netting more than twice (Barcelona, Stuttgart, and Arsenal).

Group C is where most of the attention will be faced Wednesday, as Real Madrid and AC Milan both stand tied for first on 7 points, with Marseille lurking just a point behind, and even FC Zurich...

And we're off ... Groups E-H are on the schedule for today, with some big-name teams fighting to stay alive and a couple of jumbled groups looking to sort things out.

Of note, the Group F match between Kazan and Kiev starts at 12:30 Eastern ... all other picks are due by 2:45.

The big focus today is likely to be shared between Liverpool, who teeter on the brink of elimination, and the match between Barcelona and Inter, where the winner could vault themselves into just about being safe, while a draw would leave the door wide open if there's a winner in the aforementioned...

... But it's really more to do with Los Angeles' loss.

Question: Is Edson Buddle the Chris Webber of MLS? He brings the same history of "effort issues," same sulk artistry, and a similar complete lack of guts in crunch time situations as 2 playoff goals in over 600 minutes backs up.

In the words of the immortal Linda Richman, "discuss amongst yourselves."

I'll be back tomorrow with much more...

So tonight brings us the MLS Cup final, featuring Real Salt Lake and the Los Angeles Galaxy. I have to think everyone in the league office is gaga over the Galaxy making it, since they possess as close to legitimate star power as Major League Soccer can offer with Landon Donovan and David Beckham (assuming he's healthy enough to actually play - and even if he isn't, the tickets have already been sold).

The match has a good venue, names on the field that even the not-true-soccer-followers have probably heard of, and it even has its own Cinderella story in Real Salt Lake, who for...

Ed has a good piece on Thierry Henry already up so I won't harp on too much further on the result itself. I am biased, he's one of my 3-4 favorite players of all time. At this moment, I feel more pity for him than I do anything else.

Instead, I want to focus on the true cause of Ireland's injustice yesterday, soccer's continued refusal to institute any kind of replay review system. FIFA's constant harping against replay review becomes more and more insipid by the day. I do not understand how a billion dollar business like soccer could allow its major events to be tainted by the...