What's that old refrain about buying referees glasses ... or knee pads? (In this particular case, a linesman.)

Watch the above video carefully from this weekends match between Reading and Watford in the English League Championship. Note how the ball never crosses the line, yet is awarded a goal. Notice how sometime U.S. international Jay DeMerit -- the Watford captain -- protests the call to no avail.

This is one of the crazier things you'll ever see in a soccer game, and that's saying a lot. There were even calls to replay the game.

Naturally, in England this ought to stoke the flames about instant replay for officials. In a free-flowing game like soccer that would be a disaster, yet if the powers that be in the English FA studied what MLB is doing with home run calls and limit replay technology to only goals going over the line, it could work.

Last night I caught a rerun of "Seinfeld" with a production date of 1991. Could it really have been that long ago? Has the show slowly morphed into "Cheers" for the mid-20s set?

Now aside from that credit card commercial where Jerry was in England learning cockney rhyming slang, there aren't many connections to "Seinfeld" and the beautiful game. The reason I bring it up because 1991 might have been the last time that neon yellow clothing was an acceptable fashion choice.

As Seinfeld might say, "What is the deal with that?"

Wednesday's Champions League action saw both France's Olympique Lyon and Turkey's Fenerbahçe rocking neon-yellow away or alternate kits. This comes on the heels of the 2007-08 Chelsea away kit that set soccer fashion back 20 years. In fact in the 2008-09 Premier League season Arsenal, Bolton, Everton, Stoke City and Wigan Athletic are all wearing some variant of yellow for their away shirts.

The actual culprit for this fashion faux pas is Barcelona's away shirt from two seasons ago. It seems like a virus trickling from pitch-to-pitch across Europe and like any pandemic will quickly spread across oceans. It's only a matter of time before MLS teams feature day-glo orange or pink away shirts.

Naturally, this isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things and away shirts are supposed to contrast the home team's. Still, my burning retinas say otherwise.

The world's fastest man and the world's most glamorous club -- no, not Manchester City -- would seem like a match made in heaven. Thursday news broke that Spanish power Real Madrid has invited Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt to watch an upcoming match at the Bernabéu and perhaps even train with the team and hang out with Ruud van Nistelrooy -- naturally every gold medal winner's dream.

This folks, is a publicity stunt. There is no way that Bolt will even turn out on the pitch for Los Merengues other than in still photo with smiling club dignitaries. It's one thing to be fast running around a track, it's an entirely different set of encyclopedias to try to apply that discipline of running to a world-class soccer match.

Can Bolt even dribble a ball? If so at what speed? Does he have touch?

It would be a whole lot easier for Bolt to suit up on an NFL field and simply run fly patterns, as opposed to the soccer option. Just think, in baseball just because someone is fast doesn't necessarily make them a good base-stealer. That same logic would apply to playing soccer.

In any event, whether this leads to Michael Phelps being brought in by Chelsea to show Frank Lampard to properly consume a 12,000 calorie a day diet remains to be seen.

How would you like to be Theo Walcott? You're a teenage sold for big money from Southampton to glamor club Arsenal. Later that year you're chosen out of the blue by Sven Goran-Ericksson to play for England at the 2006 World Cup, despite limited experience on the international stage -- a move lampooned across the globe.

From there you drift in and out of the headlines and show occasional flashes of brilliance for Arsenal, all the whole fighting off whispers in the background.

After all that frustration, It's got to feel pretty good for Walcott today, after he scored three goals in England's surprising 4-1 smashing of Croatia in 2010 World Cup UEFA qualifying. Wayne Rooney broke his mini-drought with a goal himself and played a hand in all of Walcott's efforts.

It was Croatia's first loss in 35 qualifying matches at home. Make no mistake, this result came straight out of the blue, as Croatia coach Slaven Bilic boasted how he'd claim England's scalp twice in the qualifying process.

The interesting thing will be how the English press takes this one. The Three Lions came into the game at a pretty low ebb, with few journos giving them any chance whatsoever. Meanwhile, the England public growing distaste for the players themselves might have been at an all-time high.

Now, after a thorough beatdown of a team that edged them out in 2008 Euro qualification, will the press go crazy? (This is the same country that popularized a song after Michael Owen for his ownage of Germany a couple years ago.)

My guess is the press reverts to its usual pattern -- Build them up, tear them down, rise, lather, repeat.

Elsewhere around Europe Wednesday, Germany got three from Miroslav Klose to deny Finland maybe it's best all-time result, finishing 3-3 in Helsinki. France got back on track with a 2-1 home win over Serbia, same thing for Scotland with a gritty 2-1 win over Iceland at Hampden Park.

The biggest surprise comes in the form of Denmark going to Lisbon and stealing a 3-2 victory over Portugal. Stealing, because all three Danish goals came in the final eight minutes of the match.

UEFA World Cup qualifying yielded a major upset Saturday when Austria rocked France 3-1 in Vienna. After a winless Euro 2008 how much more rope does Les Bleus coach Raymond Domenech have left? France hosts Serbia Wednesday in need of a result. Andreas Ivanschitz is your hero for Austria, scoring from the penalty spot and playing a part in the other two goals.

Elsewhere, England needed two second half tallies from Joe Cole to spare the blushes against Andorra in a game that the Guardian described during its live blog thusly:

"Dear God. England are awful. The team are booed off by their own fans. In Andorra. Again. That it's come to this."

England fans might not out-and-out hate their team, but it's getting close. three Lions captain John Terry saying, "There's a fear of failure," before the match doesn't help things.

Other noteworthy results include Scotland losing 1-0 at Macedonia. Israel coming back from a two-goal hole to tie Switzerland 2-2. Italy needed an injury time tally by Antonio Di Natale to win at pesky Cyprus 2-1 and Spain got a goal from Euro 2008 Golden Boot winner David Villa winner to beat Bosnia 1-0 at home after missing a penalty kick earlier in the match. The biggest pure upset might have been Lithuania romping 3-0 over Romania.

In terms of politically charged games, it was hard to top Turkey winning 2-0 at Armenia. Doubtful a sporting event is going to patch up the ramifications from this event in the 20th Century.

Outside of Europe, Paraguay remained atop the South American table with a 1-1 draw against Argentina in Buenos Aires thanks to a first half own-goal by Gabriel Heinze.

The U.S. plays at Cuba in a couple hours. If you're stuck in front of a computer like me, ESPN 360 is airing the match.

It didn't take long for the Abu Dhabi takeover of Manchester City to jump off the deep end. Today the front man in the takeover -- Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim (above, left)-- claimed to be the new Roman Abramovich, i.e. a cash-flush foreign investor in the Premier League with aspirations of championships and glory.

A little later Tuesday Al-Fahim took it even further claiming he wants to sign among others -- Cristiano Ronaldo, Cesc Fabregas and Fernando Torres. Apparently Al-Fahim didn't notice the significant lack of trophies yielded from the Galatico era at Real Madrid a few years back.

The group might have more money than they know what to do with, but I'm not going to hold my breath on a flood of superstars pouring into Eastlands -- especially since it'll take a year or two to even sniff at a Champions League place. Then again, I don't exactly have £700 billion dollars burning a hole through my pocket. To them, buying the world's best soccer players is like the average man purchasing a $5 footlong from Subway.

If anything, the Abu Dhabi era at City ought to be fun. It's not everyday you get astounding quotes like this:

"We are going to be the biggest club in the world, bigger than both Real Madrid and Manchester United."

In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, "Good luck with all that.

About two hours before the European transfer window closed today, Manchester City morphed from a hum-drum midtable Premier League team into a champagne supernova. Earlier in the day the club was bought out by a mega-rich group from Abu Dhabi. Within hours the new group flexed their considerable financial muscles and swooped in for an audacious £32.5 million transfer for Robinho from Real Madrid, a move which smashes the British transfer record.

It's an out-and-out stunner, since all signs pointed toward the tiny Brasilian landing with Chelsea. You'd think Real Madrid didn't want to sell the player to a club it could face down the road in the Champions League this season. It's odd that the powers that be would spurn Chelsea, considering they spent the entire summer trying to lure Cristiano Ronaldo away from Manchester United. Then again, I've given up a long time ago trying to figure out the thought processes of the rich men that run soccer clubs.

By the same token, how to explain the logic of Robinho himself? Very few would trade the glitz and glory of the Bernabeau for the second-tier status of the Eastlands.

As for Robinho the player? Well, you have to love the speed he and Shaun Wright-Phillips inject into City. How Robinho holds up to the rigors of the English game could be a question. At Real Madrid he was always surrounded by studs at almost every position and wasn't relied upon as the No. 1 goal threat. At City he'll have to pair quickly with countrymen Jô and Elano. One asset Robinho owns is versitility to play in almost every attacking position, which gives manager Mark Hughes options.

My semi-educated guess is most likely to happen is moments of brilliance offset by stretches of invisibility. At best he helps City to an extended run in the UEFA Cup.

Bottom line, it's not too often Chelsea and its Russian billions are spurned, so that's cause for minor celebration. Let's hope all this money and publicity doesn't cause another kidnapping scenario for Robinho's mother, which did indeed happen a few years ago.

The first pertinent transfer involving American players fell earlier Monday when USMNT midfielder Michael Bradley made a move from SC Heerenveen to German Bundesliga side Borussia Mönchengladbach. Let's take a pause to digest that mouthful.

Though 'Gladbach isn't exactly a household name, nor does it roll off the typical American tongue, it's a definite positive move for the 21-year-old son of U.S. coach Bob Bradley. From a simple league standpoint, the German league is a better week-in, week-out competition than the Dutch Eredivisie. (If you put stock in UEFA coefficients, Germany is the fifth-best European league, while the Dutch in No. 9.)

As usual, the question for any American player on the move is playing time. Since 'Gladbach is in its first season of promotion to the 1.Bundesliga, there should be oppurtunities to carve out a space in the midfield. Goal scoring -- he netted 15 in 55 games in the Netherlands -- might be a tougher nut to crack, although the Bundesliga offers ample goal chances. It'll be interesting to see what kind of a role he plays in terms of defensive duties and attack.

Bradley's name had been bandied about to a couple other European clubs over the last few weeks, including Middlesbrough and AS Monaco. Maybe 'Gladbach's success with former U.S. No. 1 Kasey Keller tipped the scales in Bradley's favor to Western industrial Germany. (Oddly enough, the physical move for Bradley is only about 160 miles south from Northern Holland.) Also noted in the later AP story was the friendship between Bradley and former Heerenveen teammate Rob Friend, who's also now at the club.

The only downside for this move is if Bradley starts smoking under the influence of new teammate -- 35-year-old German international Oliver Nueville.

By most standards Spain posted a pretty solid sporting summer. The nation's soccer (fútbol if you will) won its first major trophy since 1960 when it captured glory at Euro 2008 in June. The next month perhaps Spain's biggest sporting icon -- Rafa Nadal -- won Wimbledon. There were probably some accomplishments in the world of bull fighting, too, but I'm just not Ernest Hemmingway when it comes to the world of matadors.

This weekend Spain's top flight league took off and it posted a pair of shock results. Early Sunday the new-look Barcelona was held up 1-0 by promoted Numancia, meanwhile later in the day title holders Real Madrid went down 2-1 at Deportivo La Coruña. The Spanish giants have combined for all but four La Liga crowns since 1990. Perhaps Athletico Madird, which won 4-0, could put together a run for its first league title since 1996-97.

Overall this probably isn't that big of a deal. If it happened in the middle the season it would be considered a blip. Since it happened on matchday one, it raises eyebrows -- especially Ray Hudson's.

It also doesn't help that there's the international break next week and the next games aren't until Sept. 14.

Maybe Real was too distracted by the mind-numbing Robinho saga. Barcelona's excuse might be its jarring yellow away shirts.

Two of the semi-surprise teams in European soccer turned back into pumpkins within a couple of hours of each other today. First, the shock early leaders of the Bundesliga -- Hoffenheim (full name TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, as we know the German love to trump the dates of their clubs foundation) -- took a 5-2 whipping on the chin thanks to Bayer Leverkausen.

Thanks to the financial mettle of software tycoon Dietmar Hopp, Hoffenheim has risen eight levels in the German soccer structure since 1990 and five this decade alone. Unlike the robber baron actions of, say, Tom Hicks at Liverpool, Hopp actually played as a youth at the club, so you'd think the motivation behind the money is pure. At the very least, it creates some "Dont' Hassel the Hoff" headlines for lazy writers, though that might not translate in German, even if according to Norm McDonald they love David Hasselhoff.

Later, in the Premier League in England Hull City -- the team most pundits picked to finish 20th -- was mushed 5-0 at home to previously winless Wigan Athletic. This comes after the Tigers, playing in their first season in the top flight, took four points from their first two games. Egyptian international Amr Zaki (pictured) scored twice for Wigan, which moved off the bottom of the table.

Sadly, this is probably the start of things to come for Hull City.

In other news, Bolton -- which drew West Brom 0-0 at home -- added Polish international Ebi Smolarek. Smolarek had a forgettable Euro 2008, but owns an unforgettable nickname -- the Hash Bomber -- the result of testing positive for cannibas while playing for Ajax Amsterdam. To his credit he claimed it was from a 'Space Cake.'

Thankfully he didn't try to use the Whizzenator.