Chris Smalling is a defender who plays for English side Manchester United. Smalling arrived from Fulham after the 2009-10 season, after having been signed already in the January transfer window. He played two seasons for Fulham and the club reached the UEFA Cup final in his last season there, at the age of 20.
Smalling made his Manchester United debut in July, in a friendly against Celtic. He scored his first United goal in a friendly against CD Guadalajara later the same month. In September Smalling was brought on for competitive matches in the Premier League and Champions League. He also scored his first competive goal for United in a 5-2 win against Scunthorpe in the 3rd round of the League Cup. Despite his limited experience from his time at Fulham, Smalling has quickly settled into the Manchester United team. On November 2nd he was given the chance to start in a Champions League match away at Bursaspor in Turkey. Smalling impressed and earned lavish praise from his fellow players and manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Chris Smalling has represented England at U-21 level.

Mario Gómez García is a striker who plays for German side Bayern München and Germany. Gómez played his way through the ranks of fellow Bundesliga club Stuttgart. He made his senior debut in 2004 when he was 18. After the 2006-07 season he was named Player of the Year in Germany. He had finished the season as one of the Bundesliga’s top scorers, despite having struggled with injuries. Gómez proved himself to be just as consistent the following season, finishing as the second highest scorer in the Bundesliga. In the 2008-09 season he stunned Wolfsburg at the top of the table, by scoring all four goals as Stuttgart beat them 4-1. After that season he was signed by Bayern München for a German football record €35 million. In his first season with the club they won the German double.
Gómez made his international debut for the German national side in 2007. In 2009 he also scored four goals in a match for his country, in their 7-2 win against the United Arab Emirates. Gómez played for Germany in both the Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup but has usually played after coming off the bench.
For Bayern München Gómez has been back in spectacular form in the 2010-11 season, which has included a hat-trick in the UEFA Champions League match against Romanian club CFR Cluj.

Tottenham have well and truly made a statement in their Group A of the UEFA Champions League;
They belong amongst Europe’s elite and at their best can beat anyone! Quite comfortably it seems too. After Matchday 4 of the 2010-11 Champions League Spurs are now top of their group, ahead of defending champions Inter Milan and Werder Bremen and FC Twente.
Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has thrown everything into attacking, fast paced, attractive football. In a team with the brilliance of Luka Modric and Rafael Van der Vaart and the accurate passing from their holding midfielder Tom Huddlestone, nothing is more eye catching than their flying wingers.
On Tottenham’s left side the Welsh 21-year old Gareth Bale has risen to superstar status after dismantling the entire Inter Milan team away and at home. He is backed up by cheeky left back Benoit Assou-Ekotto, who also has plenty of pace. On the right side is 23-year old English international Aaron Lennon. He happens to be backed up by right back Alan Hutton, who also is more than willing to join in on the raids up the right flank.

Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon are both eye catching crowd favourites but still very different from each other. Bale is over 6 ft tall and races up the left side in long, powerful strides. He has also got a brilliantly accurate last ball and superb left foot finish. Lennon is 5 ft 5 inches and runs and twists and turns, with feet like little drumsticks. These two wingers are unleashed in waves of attacks, supported by the already mentioned likes of Assou-Ekotto, Hutton, Modric and Van der Vaart. Occasionally Bale and Lennon will also swap sides in the middle of the match, just to further screw with the minds of the opposing team’s defenders. Never have their qualities been more obvious than when they beat Inter Milan 3-1 at White Hart Lane yesterday. The entire Spurs team were on fire, ignited by their flying wingers – Gareth Bale in particular.

Tottenham have built a team who wants to play exciting football. The question is whether they can keep up the pace both domestically and in Europe. If they can, there is every reason that they can challenge for more silverware to White Hart Lane. There will be a good chance that they can hold on to their best players, and indeed, expect that other international stars like Van der Vaart will be happy to join them.

Those most passionate followers of Spanish football have for the past decade already noticed El Submarino Amarillo. It has been long coming but this season they have made their intentions clear, stepping up to another level. This time around football fans around the world take notice of this small club, a yellow-clad team who have stepped out of the shadow of local rivals Valencia. They have done more than that! They have taken charge ahead of Valencia, Sevilla and Atlético Madrid to challenge the dominance of Spain’s giants, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Villarreal first qualified for the Spanish top flight in 1998 but after only one season went back down to the Segunda División. In 2000 they made it back up again to the Primera División and have stayed there since. Villarreal have rarely had any stability with their managers and coaching staff but the Chilean, Manuel Pellegrini, had the longest spiel (2004-09) until he left to manage Real Madrid for a season. Pellegrini did in fact achieve a 3rd and a 2nd placing in La Liga with Villarreal. The club also had some very successful runs in the UEFA Champions League but the optimism has never been greater than it is today.
The current manager, Juan Carlos Garrido, only took over ahead of the 2010-11 season but he had been their B-team’s manager for the past 8 years. All the players coming up through their youth ranks or who had been battling for a place in the first XI were well known to Garrido, and him to them.

The Villarreal of 2010-11 is a great mix of youth and brought in talent. There are more players around than Barcelona and Real Madrid can chew off. In a small town in the Castellón province Villarreal have gathered a superb amount of talent and given them a refreshingly, optimistic identity. The team’s captain, Marcos Senna, is a Brazilian born Spaniard with all the experience necessary to lead from his central midfield position. Up front play the likes of Brazilian talent Nilmar and the Italian 23 year old Giuseppe Rossi. They are complimented with the American youngster Jozy Altidore. The defence is made up by the likes of Argentinians Gonzalo Rodriguez and Mateo Musacchio, with Spaniards Joan Capdevila and Ángel López. In midfield Bruno and Rubén Gracia Calmache aka Cani are standing out as impact players fully capable of taking on Europe’s best. The way these yellow submarines have emerged onto the front stage of Spanish football have quickly endeared them as football’s new darlings. At the moment they’re battling it out between the giants from Barcelona and Madrid, fighting at least for a new Champions League spot – maybe more.
This season Villarreal also play in the Europa League, where they have emerged as one of the favourites.

Gareth Bale is a left wing-back who plays for English side Tottenham and the Welsh national team.
It’s to the frustration of many English football fans that Bale was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales. He played for his school team when he was discovered by English club Southampton. Three months before his 17th birthday Bale made his debut in the Championship for newly relegated Southampton. He quickly secured his place in the starting XI and he was named the 2006 BBC Wales Young Sports Personality of the Year. This was followed by the Football League Young Player of the Year for the 2006-07 season.
In May 2007 Gareth Bale signed for Tottenham. He made his Premiership debut at the start of the following season and scored three goals in his first four matches for the club. In December he suffered an injury to his right ankle, which ruled him out for the rest of the season.
For a long time Bale seemed to be jinxed for not playing a match where Tottenham ran out as winners. After 24 such matches that was solved when he came on as a substitute in a match on 26 September 2009, when Tottenham were 5-0 ahead. That 2009-10 was gradually going to become the season when Gareth Bale stepped up on the world stage with Tottenham. Early in the season he was kept on the bench, while Spurs’ Cameroonian left back was playing well. When Assou-Ekotto got injured Bale grabbed his chance and stepped up to the challenge. Eventually Assou-Ekotto was put back on left back, while Bale was moved further up at left midfield, from where he could challenge forward with his pace and gifted left foot. Bale has kept providing assists and scoring important goals for Tottenham, so much that he is today widely regarded as one of the game’s best left flanked players. On October 20th 2010 Bale scored a stunning hat-trick in the Champions League, away at Inter Milan. British newspaper The Daily Telegraph wrote: “With a hat-trick that will resonate as one of the Champions League’s most remarkable tours de force, Gareth Bale’s heroics transformed him here in just 45 minutes from one of Britain’s most promising to Europe’s most wanted.”