31 January 2011 - All Those Pounds Bring A Lot Of Pressure

On 31 January 2011, the last day of the British transfer window saw a flurry of activity that resulted in two records being broken for the sales of strikers Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll.

The transfer domino was started by Chelsea, who bought Spanish striker Fernando Torres (center) from Liverpool. Torres, who joined Liverpool in 2007, had scored 65 goals in 102 league appearances for the Merseysiders. His performance drew the attention of defending league champions Chelsea, who made a bid of £35M which Liverpool rejected, even though Torres had submitted a transfer request. But faced with an impending release clause due to be triggered in the summer, they eventally accepted Chelsea's second bid, reported to be approximately £40M--a record amount paid by a British club.

In order to fill the void left by the departure of Torres, Liverpool acted quickly to sign strikers Andy Carroll (right) from Newcastle for £35M and Luis Suárez (left) from Ajax for £22.7M, to reach a grand total of £94.7 spent on the three players. Carroll's fee was the highest ever paid for a British player.

But although Torres and Carroll set the records, Suárez turned out to be the best purchase of the trio, providing four goals and five assists for the remainder of that season. To date, he has twelve goals and eleven assists for Liverpool in 35 appearances across all competitions. Both Torres and Carroll have struggled at their new clubs, scoring a total of eleven goals between them (six from Carroll and five from Torres).

2 July 2010 - God's Other Hand

On 2 July 2010, Uruguay's Luis Suárez saved his team from World Cup elimination with a deliberate handball. Uruguay went on the win the match before getting knocked out in the semi-finals and finishing fourth, their best showing in the tournament since their previous fourth-place finish in 1970.

The handball came in the last minute of extra time in Uruguay's quarterfinal match against Ghana. The teams were level at 1-1, having traded goals from Sulley Muntari (45'+2) and Diego Forlán (55'). Right before time expired, there was scramble in front of Uruguay's goal. The ball fell to Ghana striker Dominic Adiyiah, who headed it toward the net. It would have gone in had Suárez not--very visibly--swatted it away with his hands.

The referee saw the deliberate handball and awarded Ghana a penalty kick while ejecting Suárez from the match. As Suárez marched down the tunnel, Ghana striker Asamoah Gyan fired the ball off the bar and out of bounds. The whistle blew seconds later to send the match into a penalty shootout which Uruguay won, 4-2.

Uruguay advanced to the semifinals, where they lost to the Netherlands, then lost to Germany in the third-place match. Suárez, meanwhile, made a high-profile move that summer from Ajax to Liverpool and established himself as one of the Premier League's newest stars. Although he drew heavy criticism for his handball, he showed no remorse, saying after the match that "The Hand of God belongs to me now."