HOUSTON -- We're a few hours away from the Free Kick Masters event and I'm still at the players' hotel with the ESPN camera crew filming a series of interviews. Among the various people we've spoken with this morning have been David James, Jorge Campos and Robert Pires (it must be said that Pires and his wife, Jessica, are an extremely charming couple).

The attendee list has also been finalized and unfortunately some of the big names have had to pull out with last-minute complications. Fernando Torres, Alessandro Del Piero, Harry Kewell, Juninho, David Bentley and Lukas Podolski won't be present for an assortment of issues.

One big name that did turn up, is Ronaldinho, who got here yesterday and showed up at the VIP party last night, complete with entourage. He was gracious enough to invite a bunch of us to a post-party dinner with him, but I passed on the prospect of a mountain of Sushi at midnight (although a couple of our crew were happy to take him up on his offer).

The complete list of confirmed players that will take part tonight is as follows:

Jozy Altidore, Julio Cesar Baptista, Jared Borgetti, Segundo Castillo (Ecuador), Dwayne De Rosario, Brad Davis, Subait Khater (UAE), Eddie Lewis, Rafa Marquez , Lionel Messi, Sulley Muntari, Palermo, Robert Pires, Romario, Ronaldinho, Shen Si (China).

Goalies: Jorge Campos, Vojislav Dragovic, David James, Kasey Keller, Francesco Toldo.

With no internet connection at Reliant Stadium, there will be no live blogging but I will write about the event later. The winner takes home a cool $1 million, with the top goalkeeper also pocketing $500,000. We'll also have post-event video of the highlights which will run on Soccernet over the next few days.

Sunday morning update

Mexico's Marquez was the surprise winner of the Free Kick Masters last night, beating fellow countryman Borgetti in the final. The winning goalkeeper was England's James.

Between the post-event debriefs, pressers, mingling and yet another VIP party, I got held up very late last night, but I'll post something later this afternoon breaking down how it all happened.