A 16TH-PLACE finish in Serie A, a run of one win in the last four months of the season and the departure of captain and league top scorer Rolando Bianchi; the 2012-13…
Tag: spotlight
IF YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF SÁNDOR KOCSIS, it’s likely that you’re not from Hungary or you’re not a die-hard Barcelona supporter. Held up as a cherished cult hero by both sets of fans,…
ON 15 APRIL 2017, a packed Stadio Pierluigi Penzo celebrated an occasion now etched forever in Venice’s sparkling history. So rarely has this 7,500-capacity stadium been so full in recent years, but…
The Round of 16 at the 2009 FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Egypt; the group stage in the 2013 FIFA Under-17 World Cup that took place in the United Arab Emirates; no…
IN TEXAS, football only means one thing: gridiron. So when I was travelling around the land of Friday Night Lights, I couldn’t pass up the chance to watch a game. The noise and…
DESPITE REACHING THE FINAL, it’s fair to say that the West German team at the 1982 World Cup would scarcely make it onto anyone’s list of most popular international sides. Even in…
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…
Teaming up with Hummel, we sent Will Sharp armed with a disposable camera to the Copa del Rey 2017 final between FC Barcelona and Hummel-sponsored Deportivo Alavés to capture the essence of…
ON A COLD AND WET DAY in February 2000, Celtic lost 3-2 at Parkhead to Hearts, meaning the Scottish giants had gone three league games without victory. That is enough to send shivers…
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…
In 2014, SC Paderborn 07 faced the likes of Werder Bremen and Mainz in their sole season in the Bundesliga. Fast-forward to three years later and they were competing with the same…
Ron Greenwood’s England returned home from the 1982 World Cup finals an unbeaten side, having conceded just one goal in the five games they played. In the final reckoning, Sheriff Abubakar might…
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.…
One hundred and sixteen years. With every step taken beneath the stand on the Connaught Street side of Dalymount Park, there is an eerie echoing sound of crunching glass and rubble. There are…
Oftentimes, people with the greatest potential take the longest to find their path and discover themselves. They wander through life unaware of their talent, or even worse, neglecting and ignoring it. The…
In the early morning hours of 11 August 2015 a group of young men from Abkhazia – a breakaway region in north-western Georgia – crossed the de facto border and drove roughly 250…