There was a time when Amr Zaki was courted by the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal. Sadly, his time at the top ended as quickly as it began
Tag: africa
FOOTBALL IS NO OBJECTIVE SCIENCE. There is no right or wrong way to play it. Often the culture of a country determines its playing style; Germany are fearless and structured, Brazil are…
KNOWN FOR HIS STRING OF ACROBATIC SOMERSAULTS, often resembling Faustino Aspilla’s, Victor Obinna found himself one day doing a different type of somersault – one which scarily involved him, his car, and…
BACK WHEN I WAS NINE YEARS OLD, we had a family vacation in England. As we were walking down the street in Cobham, Surrey, my father spotted a couple of Chelsea players,…
When the best Algerian players in France left Ligue 1 to use football in a quest for Algerian independence, their impact changed history
AS A CHILD GROWING UP IN THE 1990s, my father used to have a tape of the 100 best goals from a century of Italian football. He didn’t know much about the…
TWO YEARS AGO, a 24-year-old named Roland Putsche stood on the field in front Borussia Dortmund’s famous Yellow Wall, feeling the reverberation of the fans’ chants ebb through the studs of his…
It was at the Stadio San Nicola in Bari, on 29 May 1991, that one of the most anti-climactic evenings in the history of football unfolded. It had been the most eagerly…
REWIND TO THE TENDER YEARS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM, cast your gaze across the green grasses of the Premier League’s stadia, and there, dancing across them, you would inevitably find a pair…
Illustration by Federico Manasse The goals, the power, the engine; all done with that unmistakable beaming smile on his face for club and country. Few players are eulogised about fondly across supporter partisanships,…
Illustration by Federico Manasse Saturday 19 May 2012, the Allianz Arena in Munich – home of Bayern Munich. The Champions League final looked as if it was going to be a victory for…
Illustration by Federico Manasse If you didn’t know who he was, you would perhaps take one look at Nwankwo Kanu and think he was anything but a footballer. His appendicular skeleton looks…
Illustration by Federico Manasse It took Benni McCarthy some time to score his first-ever international goal, but when he eventually managed it, everyone at the Bobo Dioulasso stadium knew they were watching…
Illustration by Federico Manasse It’s a curiosity that while Egyptians Mohamed Salah, Mohamed Elneny, Mido, Amr Zaki and Ahmed Elmohamady are all readily familiar to fans across Europe, comparatively few would instantly…
The 2010 World Cup is remembered for all the wrong reasons. Yelping vuvuzelas, squalid football and the infamous Jabulani mean the tournament’s sporting legacy lies on shaky ground. When Andrés Iniesta brought the football…
The invasion came just seconds after the final whistle, floods of dark jackets spilling onto the pitch armed with knives, rocks and broken bottles. Swarming from left to right, thousands of delirious…
How did football become the technology-driven, all-encompassing beast it is today? Through Africa’s support of João Havelange and FIFA, of course
WHEN RAMADAN SOBHY’S tame shot trickled through a sea of players in the box and found the net in Egypt in March last year, Nigeria once again found themselves on the brink…