THE SUCCESS OF any organisation is rarely down to just a few contributors, much like how a jigsaw is deemed incomplete even if a single piece is lost. As a result of that,…
Month: February 2018
A journey through the history of pass and move, possession-based British football, through the Tottenham Hotspurs teams of the 20th century (and a bit of the England team), cut together with archive…
SET TO THE BACKDROP of a harsh and heavy winter sky, a January evening spectating at the Johan Cruijff Arena can feel an unforgiving endeavour. The air’s damp chill – aided by…
ÉRIC SYLVAIN ABIDAL is one of the most decorated French footballers in recent history. A powerful left-back, he amassed over 400 club appearances, as well as 67 international caps, across a career…
Growing up as a Manchester United fan in the era of the Arsenal Invincibles, I perhaps would have been excused for disliking Thierry Henry. The Frenchman was the archetypal player to strike fear…
TO SEE AN academy graduate make the step up from the youth ranks to the first team is always a source of pride for fans. That feeling is sweeter when the player…
THERE IS AN ADAGE in sport that success is easier to attain than it is to maintain. Keeping the motivation and hunger to get up every day and repeat the process once…
LINIERS DIDN’T CHANGE much on 1 July 1943. Crowded trains still carried exhausted workers from the grimy, industrial barrio into the centre of Buenos Aires. The San Cayetano church still welcomed worshippers…
“IN FOUR OR FIVE YEARS, probably nobody will remember that I was Chelsea manager, and it becomes absolutely normal, just because I left a couple of years ago.” It would be fair…
I’VE HEARD IT SAID that non-football fans are – to paraphrase Bart Simpson – the MTV Generation, knowing neither highs nor lows. Anyone not hooked up with a femme fatale of a…
When Herbert Chapman joined Huddersfield, it was a club in disarray. Within a few years, he would set records that are yet to be broken to this day
AT THE AGE of just 19, where Kylian Mbappé will end up is a scary prospect. Already possessing a skillset many could merely dream of, he is rightly viewed as one of…
Few Irish talents have ever been greater than Liam Whelan, a man who Sir Matt Busby rated as highly as anyone but who perished far soon at the age of 22
THIS SUMMER MARKS the 40th anniversary of when Argentina first won the World Cup, a triumph shrouded in controversy from a time that cast a shadow over South America’s second largest country.…
Every good story needs a villain, and who would be a more appropriate subject of football fans’ wrath than a team that crushed its competition thanks to the state’s backing? Winning the…
To many people watching football today, the game cannot be imagined without yellow and red cards. Fans discuss the seriousness of offences by reference to the colour of card that they warrant,…
It’s around 3pm on Friday. I’m sat at the back of the Insula record shop on Blågårdsgade, just where the till meets the stock room. The shop is small and narrow, and…
Owing to a knack of scoring late goals, Semih Şentürk is known in Turkey as “the lifeguard”. One particularly famous example of his match-saving efforts came in the Euro 2008 quarter-finals against…