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Sporting Clube de Portugal will be looking to put domestic problems to one side when they take on Bolton Wanderers FC for a place in the last eight of the UEFA Cup.

The Lisbon giants have dropped to fifth in the Portuguese standings, 20 points adrift of FC Porto, after failing to win in their last two league matches, but remain on track in Europe following the 1-1 draw in Lancashire last week. Gavin McCann handed Bolton the lead in the first leg only for Simon Vukcevic to equalise for a Sporting side bidding to reach a second UEFA Cup final in three years.

Bolton manager Gary Megson has left several regulars at home to keep them fresh for the Premier League relegation battle. Captain Kevin Nolan and goalkeeper Jussi Jääskeläinen miss out again with back injuries, while Kevin Davies, Matt Taylor, Andy O'Brien, Ivan Campo, El Hadji Diouf and Ricardo Gardner have all been omitted along with the suspended McCann. Wanderers are in 18th place in England after losing their last three matches in the Premiership.

Still, Bolton boast a healthy away record in this season's competition, having beaten FK Crvena Zvezda in Belgrade and secured draws at FC Bayern München and Club Atletico Madrid, and Megson has not given up hope on this away fixture.

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Tim Howard dodged what could of been another football-fan tragedy. Goalkeepers are typically sitting ducks for fans behind the goal, but, when a fan threw an eight ball at him while playing in Norway for a Uefa Cup match it threatens our sport. More on the story can be found at the Independant.

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UEFA is letting the players know that the diving, flopping around and pretending to be injured is no longer acceptable.

AC Milan's Brazilian keeper Dida was issued a two-match suspension for his acting as he fell to the ground after a Celtic fan ran onto the field and tapped him on the shoulder. That fan has been banned from Celtic home games for life.

It's a fair suspension. It's time that players stopped faking being hurt and play the game. What do you think?

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Lets see how the handful of Americans who played in Thursday's UEFA Cup matches did:

Michael Bradley played 58 minutes of the game. Unfortunately for Bradley and the rest of the guys at Heerenveen, they lost the series to Helsingborg on a 8-6 aggregate.

Another American who didn't have such a good day yesterday was Oguchi Onyewu who scored a goal, but was shown a red as as Standard Liege lost to Zenit St.Petersburg. Zenit made it to the next round.

Everton's Tim Howard made seven saves in Everton's 3-2 win against Metalist Khrakiv. Everton won the series 4-3 on aggregate.

Danny Califf's AaB won their series against Sampdoria.

Brad Friedel started and played 90 minutes in Blackburn's 2-1 win. Unfortunately, the win wasn't enough as Larissa won the series.

How do you think the Americans have been playing in the UEFA Cup?

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U.S. National Team midfielder Michael Bradley was the only American to make an impact in today's games. He scored the first goal of the match against Helsingborg, as well as Heerenveen's last goal. Heerenveen won 5-3. Bradley scored in his league match last week as well.

As for the other Americans, Brad Friedel played in the Blackburn loss against Larissa. Danny Califf started and played 90 minutes as his team, AaB, tied Sampdoria. Oguchi Onyemu played in Standard Liege's loss. And, finally neither Tim Howard or Charlie Davis dressed for their respective teams. Both Hammarby (Davis) and Everton (Howard) won.

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