Football has never been more beautiful; it has never championed attacking play and theatrics more. And yet, it is missing the other side of the coin
Tag: keane
Roy Keane began the 1990s as a semi-pro footballer in Ireland and ended it as Manchester United’s historic treble-winning captain
This feature is part of Virtuoso “The most emphatic display of selflessness I have seen on a football field,” Sir Alex Ferguson ventured. “Pounding over every blade of grass, competing as if…
The summer of 2000 produced two transfer fees that broke and re-broke the world record within the space of a month. Hernán Crespo’s £35.5m move from Parma to Lazio and Luís Figo’s infamous…
Illustration by Federico Manasse When Robbie Keane first began turning heads with the Republic of Ireland, scoring two goals against Malta in a 5-0 European Championship qualifying match, he also spun the…
SOME VOICES intrinsically command respect, others obedience, but as the powerful, deep growl boomed out there was only one emotion flooding over the shaking 12-year-old boy: pure fear. “What do you want?”…
MUCH OF WHAT makes football the engrossing game that it is are the stories of glorious near-misses, as a sort of side dish to the main course of euphoric glory. All fans will…
Chasing a lofted ball high into the October night sky, the player pushed himself hard to gain possession before his marker could. Clamouring for space 40 yards from goal, he was fixated on…
I recently found myself watching a replay of the 1988 FA Cup final between the ‘Crazy Gang’ of Wimbledon and a heavily favoured Liverpool side on late-night television. As the footage cut out,…
As featured on Guardian Sport Upon arrival in cities, the first port of call for generations of Irish migrants, with the possible exception of the nearest public house, would have been a place…