WHEN FABIO CAPELLO TOOK OVER AS ENGLAND MANAGER in succession to Steve McClaren in 2008, he largely refrained from making the sweeping changes many people felt he should have been drawn towards.…
Tag: england
If ever there was a time for Harry Redknapp to effusively proclaim a player as “triffic”, it was when describing Frank Lampard. The year was 1996, the venue was a West Ham…
When the conversation topic turns to footballing legends, those that spring to mind are generally the quintessential one-club men – Francesco Totti, Ryan Giggs and Steven Gerrard, for example. None of these players had…
This feature is part of The Masterminds: 10 Under 45 When Eddie Howe announced his retirement from football at the age of 29, he wasn’t certain what fate had in store for…
GORE VIDAL ONCE WROTE: “Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.” If this is the case, then Jimmy Hogan could be said to be the most divine, patriotic…
‘Brand Beckham’ is a phrase synonymous with a man who has built an empire on the back of a glittering sporting career. Its’ reputation is further enhanced through his partner in marriage…
Despite receiving more flak than perhaps any other manager in English top-flight history, Graham Taylor was a man of sheer class, talent and honesty
It’s around 4:20pm on 14 May 1995. The sunlight is beaming across the packed terraces at a gloriously electric Anfield on a fine summer’s day as 22 players drift this way and…
The boy has wisdom beyond his years. “You learn more about yourself in the tough times than you do in the good times,” says James McClean. Less a boy now at 27-years-old,…
There’s a wonderful simplicity that characterises Jermain Defoe’s career: a love of playing and a love of scoring goals. It sounds faintly ludicrous – a Premier League striker driven by the desire…
It’s fair to say that Englishmen don’t have the best reputation away from home. Overbearing, lobster pink dads with melanoma-level sunburn berating hospitality workers in slow, loud English as they try to order…
It is often the players who seek the elusive who find the ‘what might have been’ in football. Some players are simply part of the wrong generation. This generation is one where club…
As featured on Guardian Sport As Real Madrid’s Isco squeezed the ball through a helpless Tom Heaton’s legs, Spain did the unthinkable and completed a stupendous comeback to steal a draw after…
TURN THE CLOCK BACK to 15 May 2004: Patrick Vieira latches on to an exquisite Dennis Bergkamp through-ball before rounding the goalkeeper and finishing in one sharp movement. The goal completed a…
The story of Stanley Matthews is full of lessons. And, much like those loyal to football’s past, I have come to find that Stanley Matthews the person was equally as intriguing as…
In an ocean of easy to ignore ‘breaking football news’, there has been a story of late which, while possibly having fallen under the radar for many people, certainly was genuinely newsworthy.…
As Sam Allardyce fell on his sword just 67 days into his tenure as manager of the England national football team, it became hard to countenance that the bottom of the barrel…
ON A WARM spring evening in May 1999, Alex Ferguson is standing on the touchline of the Camp Nou as his dream of a treble-winning trophy haul slowly dies before his eyes.…