If you need to do an ad for a Portuguese bank, what could possibly be better than having Cristiano Ronaldo star in it? Having Lionel Messi two Cristiano Ronaldos. And Banco Espirito Santo agrees.

It's an idea so genius that only Cristiano Ronaldo himself could have come up with it while daydreaming about Cristiano Ronaldo as he looked at himself in the mirror. Of course, it won't do much to change the minds of people who think he's too vain and self-centered, but who needs those people when you've got a clone of yourself to go jogging with?

In the ad, Ronaldo multiplies in order to push himself forward. It's unclear what that has to do with a bank, but Manchester United have already put in a bid for the second Ronaldo in the hopes that he'll be a bit cheaper than the one they let go.

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In the 2010-11 season, Andrei Arshavin made 52 appearances for Arsenal. So far this season, he's made a total of 11 and hasn't started a single Premier League match. For a couple of years he conducted the greatest Q&A of all time with readers of his official website, but even that hasn't been updated since a birthday message for his son in December. So in the absence of playing and answering questions with emoticons, what has the Russian captain been up to all season? DT investigates.

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For the first time since 1996, there are no English clubs in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. You might think that's nothing more than the answer to a trivia question, but some people are trying to extrapolate a foreboding tale from it. And after Arsenal's comeback against Bayern Munich proved to be not quite enough as they won the second leg 2-0 but lost on away goals with a 3-3 aggregate score, Arsene Wenger added his voice to the silly fears for the future of Premier League (aka "the world's most watched league") clubs in Europe.

From the BBC:

"It's a massive disappointment for English football," said Wenger.

"We accept the rest of European football has caught back on us." [...]

"If you think we had Manchester City and United, Chelsea and Arsenal all out by the quarter-final - it's a long time since that happened," added Wenger.

"We have to take that into consideration in the way we think about the future of the Premier League."

Just last season, Chelsea became the first

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Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio has been named the new Pope -- the first ever from the Americas -- and he's taken the name Francis. With that settled, the obvious question to follow up with is: what club does he support? The answer is San Lorenzo.

The Buenos Aires club wasted no time in promoting that fact via their Twitter account, sharing an undated picture of Pope Francis holding up the San Lorenzo crest and a scan of his club membership card (both below), which shows that he's been a member since 2008. San Lorenzo also count actor Viggo Mortensen among their biggest supporters. Yes, the High King of the Reunited Kingdom.

Pope Francis being a San Lorenzo fan is perhaps fitting. The club was named after local priest Father Lorenzo Massa, who let children play football in his church's yard so they wouldn't have to do it amongst the dangerous trams in the street. San Lorenzo are currently in 12th place in the Argentine Primera Division, but now that they have the papacy on their side, they will probably expect to start rising up the table any minute now.

UPDATE: It seems the Pope is intimately acquainted with life as a football fan. From Reuters:

"He says he lives in a permanent state of suffering for San Lorenzo," said Oscar Lucchini, an architect and fellow fan who handed Bergoglio's membership card to him after that mass about four years ago.

In his second appearance for Seattle, former Liverpool and Monaco defender Djimi Traore scored a goal so fantastic that it made the commentator sound like he was going through puberty.

Down 1-0 to Tigres after the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League tie, Seattle suffered a further setback in the 22nd minute of the second leg at their own CenturyLink Field when the less than full-strength Liga MX leaders made it 2-0 on aggregate. But Tigres midfielder Manuel Viniegra was sent off just before halftime and in the second half, Seattle made the most of their man advantage. DeAndre Yedlin scored their first goal in the 52nd minute (and it was also quite nice). Then, just seven minutes later, 33-year-old Traore had a clearance attempt delivered right to him and made the most of it with with a rocket that went off the underside of the crossbar and in. Clearly he's come a long way since the days when he scored spinning own goals while playing for Liverpool.

Seattle eventually got a

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According to Oliver Kay of The Times, World Cup 2022 host Qatar now looks to become a major power in club football as well with the formation of a new big money competition for the world's best clubs (article is behind a paywall, sadly). While brushing off continued accusations of corruption surrounding its successful World Cup bid and concerns about human rights issues and extreme conditions for summer football, Qatar has apparently been concocting a plan to form a "Dream Football League" that would involve 24 teams, take place every other summer and begin in 2015. It would also attempt to lure the planet's biggest clubs with the promise of ridiculous amounts of money.

From The Mirror:

The DFL would be bankrolled by the Qatari royal family in the hope it would rival or even overtake the Champions League and Club World Cup due to the eye-wateringly high sums involved.

The DFL would involve 16 permanent members with eight other teams invited to take part in each tournament.

The report

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I'm sorry. Even though the two goals I scored to help Barcelona come from behind to beat Milan and stay in the Champions League made me and my friends feel like we were drinking the greatest cup of hot chocolate Santa Claus ever made, I'm aware that it ruined things for a lot of people. Not just the Milan fans that wanted to see their club win (sorry times four, Milan), but everyone who thought Barcelona weren't as good anymore. This puts some sadness sprinkles on my doughnuts of joy.

So I apologize for helping to make you be wrong. I know being wrong isn't fun and I wouldn't want to wish it on anyone. One time, I only hoped to score one goal in a match but I ended up scoring five, so I really do know how it feels to be wrong sometimes.

Please don't blame yourselves, though. You had plenty of reasons to believe that our time had passed. We lost twice to Real Madrid in one week and we lost in Milan in the first leg. I had never scored a goal against an Italian team that wasn't penalty

Down 2-0 to Milan after the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie, Barcelona needed a comeback that would prove their growing list of doubters wrong and show that they have the gumption to mount a comeback. So Lionel Messi wasted no time in getting his side on the scoresheet in the second leg, pinning a shot to the top corner of the net just five minutes into the match while surrounded by half of Milan's starting XI.

[Related: Messi's brilliance lifts Barca to improbable Champions League comeback]

According to Opta this was only Messi's second fastest goal in the Champions League, as he scored in the fourth minute against Basel in 2008.

UPDATE: Messi scored a second goal through Philippe Mexes' legs in the 40th minute to make it 2-2 on aggregate.

UPDATE II: David Villa added a third goal in the 55th minute to put Barcelona up 3-0 in the second leg and 3-2 on aggregate.

UPDATE III: Jordi Alba scored one last goal just before full time to make it 4-0. So how is that "end of an era" for Barcelona going now?