England exited the European Under-21 Championships in the most familiar of circumstances – known well to those watching from abroad, or from the working men’s clubs across England, where the same situation occurs…
Tag: premier league
FOOTBALLERS TEND TO decline as they move into their 30s, with dimming enthusiasm and an assortment of injuries tending to slowly draw the curtain on their careers. But goalkeepers are the anomaly…
In July 2014, goalkeeper Tim Howard became a worldwide sensation overnight after more than 10 years as one of America’s leading elite athletes. His record-breaking 15 saves for the United States in…
Though disappointingly there is still a paucity of black managers in today’s game, there is at least a much more balanced dynamic on the pitch. Almost 40 years ago, black professionals were still…
Football songs seemed to reach a peak in the 1990s. At the start of the decade came Italia 90, which spoilt us with Luciano Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma and World in Motion by…
ENGLISH TEAMS ARE OFTEN CRITICISED FOR THE LACK OF A SOLID GAME-PLAN. There’s sometimes a dearth of continuity caused by the constant culling of managers, leading to confusion as players have to…
AFTER 16 MINUTES THERE WAS HOPE. Blackburn Rovers led 2-0 at Brentford – they were not yet condemned to the third tier – and there was rare optimism amongst the relentless conglomeration of…
Much has often been made of the reduced number of Republic of Ireland players plying their trade in the top flights, with particular emphasis on the Premier League, which has become something…
‘SÓ PARA INGLÊS VER’ is a phrase commonly used in Brazil, with roots in the slave trade, pertaining to façade laws and such created ‘only for the English to see’. In a…
Despite his troubles since retiring, Dean Windass was a much better footballer than he was given credit for. And it’s that that we should cherish
FIFTY OF SO YEARS AGO, the Galapagos Giant Tortoise was a species on the brink of extinction. Human expansion, destruction of indigenous land to make way for agriculture and an amount of…
MONDAY MOTIVATION carries with it a now-famous hashtag displayed across various social media feeds as individuals try to pick people up from weekend hangovers and encourage them to begin their weeks in…
Illustration by Matt Steven. View more of his great work here It was a rush of blood, a moment of madness that would change the way that everyone looked at Paolo Di…
Xabi Alonso’s retirement from football has loomed large for some time, but it’s only now that the end of his playing career has arrived, that the reality has sunk in for me.…
Illustration by Federico Manasse. Check out more of his work here Passion often brings out the rawest of human emotions. It’s what drives us, and in many senses, what defines us. In…
All logic dictates that Peter Crouch should not have had a particularly successful career. That is not to say he lacks talent – as the old and tired maxim goes, “he’s got…
On the lengthy walk down the Seven Sisters road to White Hart Lane, there’s a banner outside one of the few reasonably priced pubs that wields a picture of Daniel Levy. The caption…
There can be no doubting that social media is an essential and intrinsic part of modern life. Facebook can boast around 1.9 billion monthly users, just over a quarter of the planet’s population.…