Tuesday 02 October 2012, 11:05
Paul Simpson – former FourFourTwo editor and now ed of the official UEFA Champions Matchday magazine – on an Italian icon Andrea Pirlo must have the most intriguing beard in the UEFA Champions League....
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Tuesday 11 September 2012, 12:16
For years, coaches, players and supporters have tried to define what it takes to win the UEFA Champions League. The failure to resolve this conundrum has blighted the careers of some of football’s best...
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Saturday 19 May 2012, 08:27
Paul Simpson , editor of FourFourTwo's UEFA-flavoured sister magazine Champions , on the Allianz Arena clash The 2012 UEFA Champions League final isn’t just a contest for the greatest prize in club...
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Wednesday 18 January 2012, 11:15
Baseball, the American novelist Michael Chabon once declared, is the gift fathers give their sons. In Britain, that gift is usually football. My dad died a year ago. One of the smaller consequences of...
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Friday 25 November 2011, 14:59
There were tears in the Basle dressing room when the players heard that coach Thorsten Fink was leaving. Everybody knew that Hamburg would approach Fink but Swiss football assumed that, with Basle doing...
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Thursday 17 November 2011, 12:12
Azzurri’s greatest goalscorer opens up to discuss a striker’s psychology, physical power and the perfect modern striker Outside Italy, Luigi Riva is now almost unknown, but in his late 1960s heyday he...
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Tuesday 13 September 2011, 11:56
As another European football season kicks off, Italian football faces what F. Scott Fitzgerald once described as the ultimate test of human intelligence: knowing that things are hopeless but acting as...
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Friday 22 July 2011, 12:00
Champions editor Paul Simpson might be on a well-deserved summer holiday but you can't keep a good writer down... On the plane to Verona, I took Simon Kuper’s The Football Men , a work of dogmatic...
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Friday 27 May 2011, 13:40
Champions editor Paul Simpson unleashes some random thoughts ahead of the Wembley final A century before certain notable events happened in England, 1866 was a great year for Argentinian football: Angelo...
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Friday 04 March 2011, 14:00
Sometimes the best questions have no definitive answers. We all relish the thrill of office one-upmanship when we know the answer to a seriously trivial football question. For example, on Champions this...
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Tuesday 01 March 2011, 10:30
The Twitterati have spoken. Thomas Muller, the 21-year-old wunderkind who won the Golden Boot at last year’s mediocre World Cup, is officially a disappointment. Against Inter, the great white hope of German...
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Friday 18 February 2011, 13:12
Has anyone seen Arshavin’s gloves? What I want to know is what did Andrei Arshavin do with his gloves? Arsenal’s diminutive No.23 hails from St Petersburg, where winter temperatures of –20ºC are not uncommon...
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Tuesday 15 February 2011, 12:15
This blog is a literary experiment. Before you hit the back button, I'll explain. There is a silvery black hole on my laptop keyboard where the letter 'j' should be. I must therefore contemplate...
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Wednesday 02 February 2011, 14:31
The hair, once jet black like a movie star’s, is silvery grey now. The famous ponytail is long gone - cut off in 1997. The most telling legacy of Roberto Baggio’s illustrious playing career is the pain...
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Thursday 13 January 2011, 16:21
When I first saw Steve Kean patrolling the touchline as Blackburn Rovers manager, I feared for him. New managers, especially those filling a void as large as that created by the legend of Big Sam, must...
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Tags: Jose Mourinho, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, england, Roy Hodgson, Nottingham Forest, Steve Keen, Brian Clough, Carlo Ancelotti, Graham Taylor, Martin O'Neill, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers
Thursday 30 December 2010, 20:30
If Sid Lowe can do it, why can’t I? The esteemed interpreter of Spanish football gives out the Sids at the end of every season, so I’m going to dish out the Simmos as I review a year in which football...
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Monday 20 December 2010, 11:39
They think it’s all over in Nigeria. One Nigerian Gooner – named only as michotech49 – posted on uefa.com : “Arsenal we win am very sure by the grace of God”. Arsene Wenger was a little more circumspect...
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Thursday 16 December 2010, 11:48
Or, to put it another way, what can Roman Abramovich learn from the children’s author and one-time striker Aivar Pohlak who runs Estonian champions Flora Tallinn and the Estonian FA? Pohlak doesn’t look...
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Wednesday 01 December 2010, 14:36
And now the end is near. I refer not to England’s flickering hopes of hosting the 2018 World Cup, or Frank Arnesen’s predicted departure from Chelsea, but to the retirement of former chimney sweep Roar...
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Tuesday 23 November 2010, 11:20
When you’ve literally come back from the dead, it puts football in perspective. So FC Copenhagen coach Stale Solbakken will not have been unduly perturbed by the jostling with Pep Guardiola after the Danish...
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Thursday 11 November 2010, 12:22
What has the Watergate scandal got to do with Andy Carroll’s suitability to lead England’s attack? At the meeting that authorised the burglary of the Watergate hotel – and fatally undermined Nixon’s presidency...
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Tags: Fabio Capello, Newcastle United, Chelsea, David Nugent, Andy Carroll, James Bolam, Patrick Barclay, Andy Johnson, Jamie Redknapp, Irving Janis, Matthew Upson, Francis Jeffers, Kevin McCarra, Chris Armstrong, John Terry, Alan Shearer
Monday 08 November 2010, 13:23
The Italian media usually answer such questions with scientific precision. In Gazzetta Dello Sport, Valerio Clari was clear: the Nerazzurri’s point at Brescia had “prevented the half-crisis from becoming...
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Tags: Inter Milan, Jose Mourinho, Rafa Benitez, Tottenham Hotspur, McDonald Mariga, Brescia, Dejan Stankovic, Esteban Cambiasso, Gareth Bale, Samuel Eto'o, Thiago Motta, Wesley Sneijder
Wednesday 03 November 2010, 11:00
Malcolm Allison’s death moved people in many ways, but it made me think of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels, and Jose Mourinho’s future. Fitzgerald probably didn’t even know soccer existed. But in the final...
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Friday 22 October 2010, 13:28
There was a time – and I don’t think I’m indulging in false, misty-eyed nostalgia here – when football used to happen on the pitch. And we all talked about goals, saves and mazy runs with the ball not...
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Monday 18 October 2010, 10:27
After more than four decades watching football, it’s delightful, if professionally inconvenient, to know that the game can still stupefy me. How do you feel about having Sven as manager? It’s a question...
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Wednesday 13 October 2010, 16:36
For Europe’s football giants, qualifying for the finals of Euro 2012 is almost a formality. For many smaller countries, such as Armenia, ambitions are more modest. Earning more points than last time, doing...
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Friday 08 October 2010, 13:18
The last thing Wayne Rooney needs right now is more advice. But as his 25th birthday nears, he must sense that, as a man and a footballer, his life is approaching a tipping point. One serious misstep and...
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Friday 17 September 2010, 11:33
The eight-point guide to this week's UEFA Champions League action... 1 Take it away Lionel! The goal of the week has to be Lionel Messi’s second against Panathinaikos. In any other week, Thomas Muller...
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Tags: Inter Milan, Arsenal, Rafa Benitez, Chelsea, Auxerre, Theo Janssen, Bobby Charlton, Thomas Muller, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Panathinaikos, Lucio, AC Milan, Alessandro Nesta, Luuk De Jong, Leonardo, Bryan Ruiz, Danny Blanchflower, Ronaldinho, Pep Guardiola, Gary Megson, Lionel Messi, Michael Owen, Jean Fernandez, Sporting Lisbon, Gary Lineker, Walter Samuel, McDonald Mariga, Josh McEachran, Michel Salgado, Vicente del Bosque, Spain, Kevin-Prince Boateng, Twente, Wayne Rooney, Braga
Tuesday 14 September 2010, 11:35
The editor of Champions Magazine shares some random observations on the week ahead in European football... Can anything stop Chelsea? “The only thing that can stop Chelsea [in the UEFA Champions League...
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Monday 30 August 2010, 08:00
The new issue of FourFourTwo is a 'Playmakers Special'. This week on FFT.com our writers will be celebrating their favourite fantasistas – and Professor Champions League starts us off with the...
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Friday 27 August 2010, 10:09
After Michel Platini slumped over a restaurant table in South Africa, I was curious to see how he was on his annual ‘meet the press’ session in Monaco. His scare seemed to have reinvigorated him, not chastened...
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Wednesday 11 August 2010, 15:23
Is Sir Alex Ferguson a master of mind games? Most of us would agree he is although, as David Runciman has pointed out in the London Review Of Books , the primary evidence for that belief is his much-mythologized...
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Wednesday 21 July 2010, 10:02
Who invented football? Though China has a respectable claim, England usually gets the credit. But G. Gordon Liddy, one of the Watergate conspirators who has inevitably become a talk show host in America...
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Wednesday 26 May 2010, 11:40
“Open, flowing finals? Only for teams who don’t know what they’re doing.” That was Gazzetta dello Sport’s verdict on Inter’s efficient despatch of Bayern Munich in the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday. Jose...
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Friday 21 May 2010, 08:30
The coaches are sparring, Bayern’s Croatian striker, Ivica Olic stands accused of being a fancy dan Steve Claridge – a pub footballer who has miraculously scored seven goals in Europe this season – both...
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Tuesday 18 May 2010, 14:49
Whatever happens in Madrid, one thing’s for sure: after the game, Philipp Lahm will ring home to enquire about the health of his pet rabbits Milky Way and Brownie. Lahm isn’t the only Bayern player with...
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Tuesday 11 May 2010, 15:37
On 24 May 1967, the night before the European Cup final, Inter defender Tarcisio Burgnich was woken by the sound of his teammates retching their guts up in fear. At that point, the pugnacious stalwart...
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Friday 23 April 2010, 08:30
In the entire history of the European Cup, I can find only four teams who have done what Barcelona must do next week: overturn a two-goal deficit from the first leg of a semi-final. The first club to do...
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Wednesday 14 April 2010, 10:30
I can’t remember how I came to be on Marcello Lippi’s yacht which was, presumably, moored off the coast near his hometown Viareggio. Nor can I say precisely when Fabio Capello came storming on deck complaining...
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Thursday 08 April 2010, 09:30
There are three obvious conclusions to be drawn from the remarkable denouement to the UEFA Champions League quarter finals. 1. Lionel Messi is now as great as Maradona. 2. The thrilling, globally renowned...
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Thursday 01 April 2010, 15:00
Until Tuesday night, I’d been thoroughly fed up with Marouane Chamakh. In part, this was the irrational resentment many journalists feel for a celebrity whose name doesn’t seem to spell naturally. In part...
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Thursday 25 March 2010, 12:15
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Though ostensibly concerned with Ireland’s struggle for independence, W.B. Yeats’ most famous poem The Second Coming also...
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Tuesday 16 March 2010, 12:00
Can anyone slay Barcelona? The best result for English clubs in the UEFA Champions League this week wouldn’t be a 2-0 win for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, it would be a miraculous victory for Stuttgart...
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Tuesday 09 March 2010, 13:00
“There are players who’ve made their whole career on one match. There are players who do everything to make a splash on television and then it’s over. Afterwards they play but they live on their attainment...
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Friday 05 March 2010, 15:30
You’d think we’d be sated by all the revelations about Ashley Cole by now, but I still have one unanswered question: at what point in this whole affair did the Chelsea and England defender change his name...
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Wednesday 24 February 2010, 12:00
In case you hadn’t noticed, Chelsea meet an old friend tonight. England’s football media is so delighted to have an excuse to glory in Jose Mourinho that even the normally acerbic Martin Samuel has felt...
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Tuesday 23 February 2010, 11:30
The UEFA Champions League returned in style last week with some cracking goals, another swirl of controversy surrounding bald Scandinavian referees and a performance by Wayne Rooney that suggested he’s...
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Wednesday 17 February 2010, 12:00
The longer I study mathematics, number crunching, statistics and their application to the game of football, the more deeply convinced I become that their use simply introduces a higher level of nonsense...
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Tuesday 16 February 2010, 12:30
There are many imperfect ways to predict a football match. As professional soothsayers, journalists will often search for the strangest omens. Chelsea are, according to the hacks gathered around the table...
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Tuesday 09 February 2010, 13:00
Every World Cup is preceded by coincidences and mathematical formulas which ‘prove’ one country is destined to win. My favourite of 2010, brought to my attention by Ulrich Hesse when researching a piece...
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Wednesday 27 January 2010, 17:30
Every genius seems unique. Yet as Duncan Hamilton’s brilliant book Provided You Don’t Kiss Me makes clear, Brian Clough owed something to Peter Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali, Harold Wilson and Eric...
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Wednesday 20 January 2010, 14:30
“He who plays for himself plays for the opposition. He who plays for the team plays for himself.” The notebooks of Helenio Herrera, published by his widow Fiora Gandolfi , are full of aphorisms like that...
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Thursday 07 January 2010, 11:30
Philippe Albert’s first touch wasn’t great. The ball rolled too far to his left but there was plenty of space and he had time to notice the keeper was out of his goal before he accelerated towards the...
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Wednesday 23 December 2009, 08:00
Roll up, roll up, it’s that time of the year when columnists everywhere stare at a blank Word document until their forehead bleeds as they try vainly to remember the bon mots, players and trends that,...
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Monday 21 December 2009, 13:30
Champions magazine editor Paul Simpson looks forward to the Champions League knockout games: Inter Milan v Chelsea, Lyon v Real Madrid, Milan v Manchester United, Olympiakos v Bordeaux, FC Porto v Arsenal...
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Tuesday 15 December 2009, 07:00
History isn’t just written by winners, it’s usually written to flatter winners. That thought struck me when I read the Daily Telegraph headline: “ Premier League heavyweights cruise into Champions League...
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Tuesday 08 December 2009, 11:30
MATCHDAY 6 FIXTURES Tue Dec 8: Atlético Madrid v Porto ; Besiktas v CSKA Moskva ; Chelsea v APOEL ; Juventus v Bayern Munich ; Maccabi Haifa v Bordeaux ; Olympique Marseille v Real Madrid ; VfL Wolfsburg...
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Monday 30 November 2009, 16:15
Chicago Cubs fans like to say that every club can have a bad century now and then. But can underachievement, especially if it follows a golden era when the carpenters were continuously being called in...
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Saturday 28 November 2009, 23:30
As TS Eliot very nearly said, I will show you fear in Graeme Souness’s moustache. In the great man’s heyday, that distinctive hair on his upper lip was fiendishly useful for intimidating opponents but...
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Tuesday 24 November 2009, 16:00
Juventus’s satisfaction at playing their 200th European Cup game against Bordeaux this week will be tempered by the suspicion that Italy’s best supported club* really ought to have won this competition...
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Friday 20 November 2009, 16:00
Watch out Brazil, Slovenia are coming! That, in a nutshell, was the headline in Slovenia’s sports daily Ekipa after their triumph over Russia. Nobody will fancy meeting this small Balkan nation in South...
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Monday 16 November 2009, 12:00
One of the minor tragedies in the life of Italian midfielder and water polo legend Luigi Burlando is that YouTube hadn’t been invented when he was in his heyday. If this online archive of the great, good...
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Wednesday 11 November 2009, 15:00
The half-time whistle blows, your team is 2-0 down. As the coach, it’s your job to inspire them. What do you do? Easy, says Andy Roxburgh, former Scotland manager turned UEFA’s technical director. “Look...
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Tuesday 03 November 2009, 03:02
MATCHDAY FOUR FIXTURES Tuesday Nov 3: APOEL v Porto , Atlético Madrid v Chelsea , Bayern München v Bordeaux , Besiktas v VfL Wolfsburg , Maccabi Haifa v Juventus , Manchester United v CSKA Moskva , AC...
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Thursday 29 October 2009, 11:00
...and it isn't whether to pick Michael Owen. Football is a simple game, Terry Venables likes to joke, it’s the players who make it complicated. And one way they seriously complicate football is by...
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Friday 23 October 2009, 14:30
Fifteen years ago, when I was editing FourFourTwo magazine, one of my colleagues’ husbands would ‘quite literally’ (as David Pleat would say) beat his head against the wall every time Rangers embarrassed...
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Tuesday 20 October 2009, 11:00
Pure, old-fashioned loneliness. That was the reason Maccabi Haifa ’s Georgian striker Vladimir Dvalishvili gave for his recent goal drought. As he eloquently explained to coach Elisha Levy: “It’s not easy...
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Monday 12 October 2009, 09:00
Austin ‘Jack’ Warner is the Muhammad Ali of football administrators. In other words, he’s not like Ali at all but he occasionally delivers a pungent phrase or gag almost worthy of The Lip. He speaks with...
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Friday 02 October 2009, 17:00
There’ll be no more "Gnomes of Zurich" gags after matchday two of the UEFA Champions League, a round of games which also saw Rubin’s Argentine striker Alejandro Dominguez score his 11th goal...
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Tuesday 29 September 2009, 13:30
The least significant thing about the Sofia derby was the score. CSKA beat Levski 2-0, their task eased by the fact that Levski’s four core players – Darko Tasevski, Jose Ze Soares, Youssef Rabeh and Zhivko...
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Tuesday 22 September 2009, 17:25
What did the first UEFA Champions League matchday teach us? 1. That ‘Big’ Sam Allardyce is a “great man” (according to Blackburn’s new galactico Michel Salgado). 2. That Pep Guardiola’s remodelling of...
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Saturday 19 September 2009, 09:34
Apparently, great players don’t make great managers. Diego Maradona’s anguish as Argentina disintegrate seems compelling proof of the pub cliché. The Guardian ’s Paul Hayward has called the Argentine the...
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Friday 11 September 2009, 14:30
England’s refreshingly decisive qualification for 2010 has prompted an inordinate, one might almost say prurient, interest in the national team’s luggage. “There is no chance Capello will allow England...
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Saturday 05 September 2009, 09:00
How does Pep improve on perfection? Claudio Ranieri was crucified for his tinkering tendencies by the British press. But the truth is that every good coach, deep down, is a tinkerman. Pep Guardiola is...
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Friday 28 August 2009, 14:00
John Terry looked bloody uncomfortable. “Are you alright?” asked his other half. The Chelsea skipper, pulling the sleeves of his jacket straight as if he wasn’t happy with the fit, insisted, rather unconvincingly...
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Friday 21 August 2009, 12:00
The cliché coaches like to use when their teams win the first leg of a cup tie is that their team has a foot in the next round. After their 5-1 demolition of Anderlecht, Lyon have both feet inside the...
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Tuesday 18 August 2009, 09:00
Watching Norway thrash Scotland was, one waggish Guardian reader noted, like watching a one trick pony beat a zero trick pony. Norway’s trick – the precise, early long ball struck to a target man like...
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Friday 14 August 2009, 08:00
James Bond villains die in many ways. But in essence they are all killed by the same thing, as 007 says: “Ah, that old dream – world domination.” The fantasies of global hegemony spun by Blofeld, Dr No...
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Tuesday 11 August 2009, 14:00
Donna Summer might not agree but Fredy Bickel, FC Zurich’s general manager, believes the Swiss champions’ game for a place in the 2009/10 UEFA Champions League group stage against Latvian titleholders...
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Friday 31 July 2009, 15:00
Sir Bobby Robson’s death hurts. In a game that often seems to have the morality of a snake pit, he was a thoroughly decent man who was revered for his passion, success and commitment throughout European...
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Friday 24 July 2009, 10:00
If you want to explain the mysterious decline of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, you might have to gen up on Greek mythology. The Icarus paradox sounds like a bad thriller, written by a ghost of the late Robert...
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Wednesday 22 July 2009, 08:00
Do you remember when football shut down for the summer? It’s hard to believe there was a time when managers didn’t daily accuse each other of hypocrisy in the back pages. When we only knew of transfers...
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Monday 20 July 2009, 09:00
Willie McStay’s new employer, Ujpest, were very nearly immortalised in the Half Man Half Biscuit song All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit. But football’s funniest troubadours once told...
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Wednesday 15 July 2009, 08:00
Ivan Hasek, the midfielder who skippered Czechoslovakia at Italia 90, has done something very brave. Or very stupid. The newly elected Czech FA president has decided, after failing to persuade Slavia Prague...
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Monday 13 July 2009, 10:00
You can tell there’s no football being played because Matthew Syed, The Times columnist by-lined as ‘sports journalist of the year’, has chosen to fill the pages of The Thunderer with that old standby...
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Friday 03 July 2009, 14:00
With a feint as elegant as any he showed in the 2007 UEFA Champions League final, Kaka has given Real Madrid’s attempts to make him the new Zidane the swerve. In an interview with Champions – out on July...
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Monday 29 June 2009, 10:00
I have seen the future of football on TV and it is terrifying. Yes, even scarier than Newcastle's new away kit inspired by Custard Creams, deckchairs and the laudable desire to ensure that Geordies...
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Friday 26 June 2009, 10:00
Lithe as a cat, a snappy dresser, a lethal marksman who rose from abject poverty to achieve fame and notoriety and be exploited by image-makers. This could easily describe Cristiano Ronaldo but it actually...
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Sunday 21 June 2009, 12:00
His dream of playing for his hometown club in ruins, Matt Derbyshire has done a very brave thing, effectively engineering a move to Olympiakos. Ignored in Blackburn, adored in Athens, the promising 22...
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Friday 19 June 2009, 12:00
There are eight Cornish footballers famous enough to be listed on Wikipedia. Three of them have the word “c**k” in their surname. Make of that what you will. (Ed - note our efficient swear filter has unfortunately...
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Tuesday 16 June 2009, 08:30
When Alf Common broke the world transfer record with a £1,000 move to Middlesbrough in 1905, one sportswriter snootily complained: “We are tempted to wonder whether association football players will eventually...
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Friday 12 June 2009, 11:00
It was the best of seasons, it was the worst of seasons. Yes, 2008/09 was a season where one club could spend £136 million on two players in a week while a rival in the same league, Valencia, were so impoverished...
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Monday 08 June 2009, 10:30
On dull days like these I find myself missing the gorgeous, selfish genius of Hristo Stoitchkov. The only Bulgarian to win the Ballon d’Or, he completed Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team. True, he never quite...
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Thursday 04 June 2009, 14:00
Is Carlo Ancelotti the perfect man to coach Chelsea? Obviously not. The perfect man would need the cunning of Machiavelli, the intelligence of Socrates, the vision of Napoleon and the humility of the Dalai...
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Friday 29 May 2009, 14:00
Elvis, Great Gatsby, Mourinho’s coat. Those are, alas, my only notes from Rome. They refer to a United fan who must have been as hot as the surface of Mercury walking around the sticky Eternal City in...
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Wednesday 27 May 2009, 08:00
This is the time of known unknowns. As Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League final nears, the players retreat, coaches mull their selections and the media leaves no cranny unexplored in its search for a new...
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Sunday 24 May 2009, 12:00
My Perfect XI, as seen on the back page of FourFourTwo ( or online here ), is the 21st century equivalent of the 1970s Shoot questionnaire (“Most dangerous opponent: The wife”). Most of these XIs are compiled...
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Thursday 21 May 2009, 10:00
1. Turn the match into a holy war Johan Cruyff had a messianic streak as a manager. And in 1994, as his Barcelona dream team reached their second European Cup final in three years, he was rash enough to...
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Tuesday 19 May 2009, 11:00
In 1960, a 19-year-old trainee striker on Queens Park’s books watched in wonder from the schoolboys’ enclosure at Hampden Park as Real Madrid walloped Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 to win the fifth European...
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Tuesday 12 May 2009, 08:00
You will be relieved to hear that Didier Drogba is not castigated or lauded in this blog which contains no jokes about the synthetic Brezhnevian quality of Gordon Brown’s smile and has nothing to say about...
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Wednesday 06 May 2009, 12:00
The short answer is: well, no. The long answer is that though they don’t have the range of talents of the brightest stars ever to shine in Real Madrid’s firmament, they showed the kind of joy, technique...
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Friday 01 May 2009, 12:00
I am not the first person in football to be duped by the genius of Guus Hiddink. Nor will I be the last. But I am undoubtedly the poorest. Hiddink told Pedro Pinto, CNN’s roving football correspondent...
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Tuesday 28 April 2009, 12:00
If you want to know who’ll win the UEFA Champions League semi-finals, don’t ask me. Head to Alkmaar’s cheese market and find the fortune teller who told Louis Van Gaal AZ would win the Dutch title on 19...
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Friday 17 April 2009, 12:00
For a tournament often pilloried as a giant money-making machine, the UEFA Champions League delivered enough old-time romance this week to satisfy purists raised on the early glorious days of the European...
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Monday 13 April 2009, 10:00
Sorry folks, but my considered analysis of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals will have to wait as I am in Venice, wondering if the suggestion that I sneak out to watch SSC Venezia take on the mighty...
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Friday 10 April 2009, 09:00
If goalkeepers are crazy, wingers must be a bit daft. The thought occurred to me last weekend, watching No.11 Anthony Gale, son of West Ham old boy Tony Gale, create two goals as Walton Casuals beat Merstham...
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Tuesday 07 April 2009, 10:00
And so 32 have become eight. Four of the 16 possible permutations for the final in Rome would reprise old finals (1987: Porto vs Bayern; 1999: United vs Bayern; 2006: Barcelona vs Arsenal; 2008: United...
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Sunday 05 April 2009, 12:00
So the messiah is back. He has swapped the pundit’s comfy sofa for the heart-melting melodrama that is life in the dug-out. I’m referring, of course, to Hans Krankl, Austria’s greatest living footballer...
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Tuesday 31 March 2009, 09:00
Coaches and fans see players differently. Watching Jari Litmanen, now 38, give the definitive performance as a midfield general against Wales at the weekend, it was hard not to wonder what - eight years...
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Tuesday 24 March 2009, 09:00
Some obsessions are truly magnificent. Sir Alex Ferguson’s love affair with the European Cup is worthy of Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. But I don’t need to spend gazillions on players or risk a ship and...
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Friday 20 March 2009, 09:30
Showboating. That’s how some would regard the 7-1, 4-0 and 5-2 we saw in the UEFA Champions League last week. While it was joyous to watch Barcelona, Bayern and Liverpool playing with boyish enthusiasm...
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Saturday 14 March 2009, 12:00
Which is your World Cup? One of my pet theories is that we all have a mundial that, as it unfolds, feels less like a football tournament than a rite of passage, introducing us to idols, emotions and intrigue...
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Tuesday 10 March 2009, 13:00
Anybody who wants to predict the future of European football should remember the cautionary tale of the Sydney Opera House. The makers of this gorgeous building thought it would cost $7m. They ended up...
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Thursday 05 March 2009, 11:00
“Football hooligans? Well there’s 92 club chairman for a start” - Brian Clough Brian Clough was the Muhammad Ali of British football. The tragedy for him – and Peter Taylor – was that he couldn’t fly like...
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Friday 27 February 2009, 11:00
Anarchy in the Champions League... First, only seven quarter-final places are still up for grabs. It is simply inconceivable that Bayern’s 5-0 win in Lisbon, a record away victory in the UEFA Champions...
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Tuesday 24 February 2009, 10:00
Oh frabjous day! Callou, callay, the UEFA Champions League is back. As you’ll read match previews aplenty, here is my Q&A guide to the action. And don’t worry – there are no more spurious Lewis Carroll...
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Friday 20 February 2009, 14:30
The Russian linesman is back... Sixteen years after his death, the Azerbaijani linesman Tofik Bakhramov is the inspirational centrepiece for an exhibition by artist Mark Wallinger at London’s Hayward Gallery...
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Tuesday 17 February 2009, 11:00
From Queen’s Park to Seville... “The Englishman had all the advantage in respect of weight and pace. The strong point with the home side was that they played excellently well together.” This is from the...
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Friday 13 February 2009, 14:00
If you consider many of the great European clubs, they have one thing in common... one, possibly two, transformational managers who, in partnership with a board or a strong chairman/owner, laid the foundations...
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Wednesday 11 February 2009, 10:00
Hiddink, schmiddink. Most of the Chelsea fans I spoke to wanted one man to replace Scolari. The one man Roman Abramovich will never appoint. The outlaw Jose Mourinho. When Mourinho and Abramovich parted...
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Wednesday 04 February 2009, 10:00
The snowman scarf count in Shepperton this week is Chelsea 3 Arsenal 1. Meanwhile, away from Blizzard Britain, football continues to suggest that it is full of, to paraphrase the classic Elvis’ gospel...
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Tuesday 03 February 2009, 11:00
If football in the North East was a Marlon Brando character it would be Terry (“I could have been a contender”) Malloy in On The Waterfront. In the last 30 years, only Kevin Keegan - the Geordie Bonnie...
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Friday 30 January 2009, 13:00
The strangely selective amnesia of Joe Kinnear... Let’s be honest, we’ve all forgot stuff. Bobby Robson, still revered on Tyneside, once famously referred to Lauren Robert as Lauren Bacall, often puzzled...
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Wednesday 28 January 2009, 10:00
When Radomir Antic accepted, at the umpteenth time of asking, the job of Serbian national coach, many pundits assumed it was an act of sheer desperation. His predecessor Miroslav Dukic had been ousted...
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Friday 23 January 2009, 15:00
The worst thing that could happen to the German-Swiss investors allegedly researching a bid for Chelsea is that they fall prey to one of the popular delusions that have destroyed countless wannabe football...
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Tuesday 20 January 2009, 13:00
The law of unintended consequences may complicate Real Madrid’s interest in Cristiano Ronaldo. If Kaka, the fourth best player in the world (according to FIFA) is worth £103m, how much is CR7 worth? The...
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Friday 16 January 2009, 10:00
Bricks and brothels The football transfer market is like a brothel: no man can enter it and emerge with his reputation for probity intact. So Arsenal, who have often threatened to report Real Madrid for...
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Monday 12 January 2009, 10:00
Roll up! Roll up! it’s the pub quiz, triviatastic guide to the last 16 of the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League. Which is the only team Lionel Messi has scored against in the knockout stages? Celtic, in the...
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Monday 05 January 2009, 11:00
“Jeff Stelling will be going mad,” my father-in-law Den said, after Michael Nelson majestically headed Hartlepool United into a 1-0 lead in the FA Cup Third Round against Stoke City. Stelling’s response...
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Wednesday 31 December 2008, 12:00
The festive season is a time for cheap nostalgia. And the nostalgia in this blog is free, give or take the cost of your broadband connection and electricity. For reasons that largely elude me, I'm...
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Tuesday 23 December 2008, 09:00
His Zlatanic majesty The 2008-09 UEFA Champions League draw was a bit of a peach. Not only does it offer Rafa Benitez and Claudio Ranieri the chance to stroll down Memory Lane, it pits Ferguson against...
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Monday 15 December 2008, 11:00
Strikers on the dole Being a striker has always been an insecure profession. They have long been afflicted by mysterious fluctuations in form, a variable quality of service from team-mates and ridiculous...
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Saturday 13 December 2008, 10:00
There’s one UEFA Champions League stat I haven’t been able to track down... how many passes Arsenal didn’t complete against Porto. For Manchester United fans, hoping to retain the UEFA Champions League...
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Thursday 04 December 2008, 15:00
Hitler, The Times and Schalke Having fallen for the Hitler diaries, you would have thought The Times would check its facts before declaring here that Adolf Hitler was the worst famous football fan ever...
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Thursday 27 November 2008, 12:00
Damn Zenit. Especially Dani, a ridiculously talented player whose inability to distinguish between the back of the net, posts and crossbars has sunk my outside tip for the 2009 UEFA Champions League. He...
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Thursday 20 November 2008, 10:00
The human teleprinter here, with utterly off the cuff reactions to last night’s other results – i.e. not England’s or Scotland’s. Serbia 6-1 Bulgaria . Hristo Stoichkov, Yordan Letchkov, Trifan Ivanov...
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Saturday 15 November 2008, 12:00
Inter, schmInter. If Jose Mourinho really is The Special One, we should ask Silvio Berlusconi to pass a law that the Portuguese genius must spend the next two years coaching the national team in the Most...
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Monday 10 November 2008, 10:00
Firstly, an apology. This blog would have been posted much earlier but my computer blew up twice. But I managed my anger, forcing myself to adopt that “I’m more disappointed than angry” look that Trevor...
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Monday 03 November 2008, 09:30
The fat lady has sung in Belarus, Finland, Latvia, Norway and Russia. These league titles have now been clinched by BATE Borisov (for the fifth time), Inter Turku (for the first time), Ventspils (for the...
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Thursday 23 October 2008, 10:00
Fewer goals, no great surprises, and one sound thrashing: Wednesday was not a vintage night of Champions League football. It was if the clubs were hungover from Tuesday’s champagne football. Barcelona...
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Wednesday 22 October 2008, 11:00
Has Spain’s triumph at Euro 2008 inspired coaches to play attacking football? Or are defenders and goalkeepers seriously rubbish? In truth, it’s a bit of both (and yes, two of the goals looked offside...
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Monday 20 October 2008, 11:00
“What are you effing up to?” That was how England and Fulham maestro Johnny Haynes often rebuked team-mates who had just screwed up. Sometimes, he wouldn’t say anything, just stand, hands on hips, in an...
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Friday 17 October 2008, 13:00
Hello, good evening and welcome to our version of That Was The Week That Was . It’s been a great seven days for football dictators, Scolari and the new, statesmanlike Rio Ferdinand. Football dictatorship...
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Tuesday 07 October 2008, 16:10
You may be relieved, or disappointed, to discover that Monty Python and the controversial parrot have no place in this blog. The Norwegian Blue in question are Stabaek, surprise leaders of the Norwegian...
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Monday 06 October 2008, 08:00
Obama’s Hammer blow for McCain... “The beautiful game is democracy in action and reflects American ideals and values like teamwork and diversity.” So says the campaign website Soccer Fans For Obama . There...
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Friday 03 October 2008, 12:00
Mumsy Scottish troubadour Lena Martell’s philosophy was “one day at a time, sweet Jesus.” Football managers officially take one game at a time. Yet after this week’s results, some coaches are privately...
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Thursday 02 October 2008, 17:00
This is where I suck up to Michel Platini, the UEFA president who, indirectly, keeps me in a job. When he suggested opening up the UEFA Champions League to teams that the British press, with characteristic...
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Friday 26 September 2008, 11:00
I didn’t realise how bad Newcastle United’s crisis was until I read that the club had asked Keith Harris to smooth its sale. Were billionaires in the Middle East/India/Nigeria going to be impressed by...
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Wednesday 17 September 2008, 14:30
The rehabilitation of Jose Mourinho, the world’s most charismatic coach, took a giant step forward in Athens on Tuesday night. Inter’s efficient 2-0 win over Panathinaikos was exactly the kind of result...
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Friday 12 September 2008, 10:00
When Wayne Rooney slotted home England’s third, even the cynics in the pub started to believe that England would earn at least a draw. At half-time, with England 1-0 up courtesy of the Stanmore Pelé, someone...
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Wednesday 10 September 2008, 08:00
European football in 12 paragraphs... Ironic slogan of the week Newcastle United’s invitation on its homepage: “YOU could be Newcastle’s best signing of the season.” Although, wait zenaba minute, that...
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Thursday 04 September 2008, 15:00
Or, if Roger Federer can stay in good shape for Wimbledon every year, why are so many top footballers missing crucial games because of torn adductor muscles, torn cruciate ligaments or mumps? Or, to put...
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Tuesday 02 September 2008, 08:00
I was at a party with Zinedine Zidane last week. Granted, Zizou never knew I was in the same room as him – a brush past on the way out was the closest we came to actual contact – but I am still so sad...
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Wednesday 27 August 2008, 15:00
The legendary speculator, philanthropist and pontificator came close to buying the Serie A club this summer just before its president Franco Sensi died after a long illness. Though he was briefly linked...
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Thursday 21 August 2008, 14:00
How bad is the Dutch league? It’s a question various punters and thinkers have been mooching over in cyberspace’s most cavernous recesses. The evidence that the Eredivisie is as dire as Police Academy...
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Friday 15 August 2008, 11:49
The blazers have done something right. Oh frabjous day, quelle surprise and benissimo – the internet being an interactive medium feel free to add any foreign or indeed made up phrases that signify surprise...
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Saturday 09 August 2008, 10:00
On August 4, Gerard Houllier did something he is very good at: he lectured people. As technical director of the French Football Federation, he told French coaches, referees and players it was their duty...
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Tuesday 05 August 2008, 15:05
“I always considered Rodney Marsh a sugar-coated turd.” You don’t expect footballers to write like Oscar Wilde but I had hoped for something more eloquent from Len Glover, whose thundering runs down the...
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Thursday 31 July 2008, 13:09
What is Chelsea? A simple question with many answers. It is a posh part of London, the name of Bill Clinton’s daughter and a football club. But Chelsea is far more than that. According to the club’s chief...
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Saturday 26 July 2008, 11:00
It’s a bit early to label Pedro Morales the Chilean Beckham but if the 23-year-old keeps scoring goals like this against the Ivory Coast , the label will start to stick. Morales has just signed for Dinamo...
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Tuesday 22 July 2008, 11:30
A divided island, Cyprus is united in one thing: its passion for football. Especially English football. Last week, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, at a café beside St Heraklion Castle, allegedly...
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Friday 18 July 2008, 10:00
The Poles like to think of themselves as the Brazilians of European football. At times, they have been known to chant impatiently during games: “We are Polish and we want a goal.” But Sweden, for a Scandinavian...
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Tuesday 08 July 2008, 10:00
Faas Wilkes (1923-2006) was Johan Cruyff’s favourite footballer. And yet outside the Netherlands – and Valencia – few people have ever heard of him. The football encyclopaedia on my desk describes him...
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Friday 04 July 2008, 13:53
Everybody loves a good conspiracy. Dan Brown is so sure of this is he tells us twice in The Da Vinci Code, the biggest selling ‘book’ since the Bible. But it’s hard to know what to make of recent suggestions...
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Tuesday 01 July 2008, 12:39
“The Brazilians do it, the Argentinians do it, the Danes do it…” “Even educated fleas do it.” That famous exchange between Mike ‘should have been a racehorse’ Channon and Brian Clough, recalled by Harry...
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Sunday 29 June 2008, 11:50
You can count on the thumb of one hand the number of central defenders who have seriously impressed at Euro 2008. Against Spain, Giorgio Chiellini gave a master class in the art, snuffing out trouble time...
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Tuesday 24 June 2008, 12:23
There’ll be a national inquest, but no tomatoes will be thrown. The Azzurri’s Euro 2008 campaign ended in disappointment but not disgrace. That distinction may not, though, be enough to save Roberto Donadoni...
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Monday 16 June 2008, 16:00
Oh Karel. A place in the last eight was just 15 minutes away for the Czech Republic and their respected coach Karel Bruckner before Turkey staged the mother of all comebacks. There was nothing remarkable...
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Wednesday 11 June 2008, 10:06
The Netherlands’ astonishing dismantling of Italy highlighted one fundamental, underappreciated truth about football: the full-back may just be the most important person on the pitch. Replay that game...
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Sunday 08 June 2008, 14:58
Sometimes, it would be nice if footballers could emulate the brevity of rock stars. It took the Clash just three minutes and six seconds to satisfactorily explore the conundrum of whether they should stay...
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Wednesday 04 June 2008, 19:00
Some things in life don’t change. Eric Morecambe will always be funny. Arsene Wenger is never going to wear a kipper tie. And Dutch coaches will always be in fashion. Not the height of fashion. Not the...
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Friday 30 May 2008, 07:00
Every year, usually about this time, football goes barking mad. This summer it has gone so berserk that Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, would feel deeply...
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Friday 23 May 2008, 12:26
Two weeks before the final, the word was that the fix was in. Chelsea were going to win 1-0. Ferguson would not be too upset to lose. The process by which this king of games was to be fixed wasn’t clear...
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Wednesday 21 May 2008, 10:00
Michael Ballack has been talking a lot about pain recently. Not about the agony of injury but the pain of defeat, in a UEFA Champions League final, with Bayer Leverkusen in 2001. There’s a lot of pain...
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Monday 19 May 2008, 15:07
Nobody knows anything. That was screenwriter William Goldman’s maxim. That is why Irving Thalberg, the great Hollywood producer, turned down the chance to make Gone With The Wind because “no Civil War...
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Thursday 15 May 2008, 14:38
Could football have prevented the Russian revolution? The Scottish spy, journalist, diplomat, assassin and footballer R.H. Bruce Lockhart certainly thought so. In chapter two of his memoirs, Lockhart recalls...
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Tuesday 06 May 2008, 09:31
In England, the first all-Premiership Champions League final has been a cause of national rejoicing, self-satisfied chortling and the frequent airing – in inns and taverns across Britain – of the opinion...
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Thursday 24 April 2008, 11:09
Blogs aren’t supposed to be confessions of ignorance. But this time, instead of trying to answer a question, I’m asking one in the hope that someone can enlighten me. The question is this: is there a Jewish...
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Friday 18 April 2008, 19:50
Where are they now? is one of the most pointlessly fascinating questions in football. Yet after a trip to a second hand bookshop I embarked on a where are they now binge fully cognisant of the risk that...
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Thursday 10 April 2008, 14:37
It’s not often you see fans celebrating a place in the last four of the UEFA Champions League by calling for their coach to be sacked. But that’s what happened at Camp Nou where a frustrated minority of...
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Tuesday 08 April 2008, 12:53
I scored twice for England last night. In my dream. We were winning 3-2 at half-time. I was talking to a blank faced coach whose impressive dearth of the usual facial features – hair, nose, eyes, etc ...
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Wednesday 02 April 2008, 14:09
As that vastly underrated football pundit Lenny Kravitz used to say, it ain’t over till it’s over. But, after the first legs of last night’s UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, it is very nearly over...
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Thursday 27 March 2008, 10:02
“In sport,” said Belgium’s greatest footballer Paul van Himst, “you have to be able to handle losing.” The Red Devils, beaten 4-1 by Morocco in their latest friendly, now handle defeat so well that they...
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Thursday 20 March 2008, 10:55
I was going to write about the magic of the FA Cup – specifically about how the magic of the FA Cup will, if it keeps producing semi-finals containing the likes of Barnsley, Cardiff, Portsmouth and West...
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Tuesday 18 March 2008, 10:13
If the Argentine fabulist Jorge Luis Borges had ever dropped into the pub next to Nuneaton Borough’s old Manor Park ground on matchday and I had attempted to regale him over a pint of Pedigree with a potted...
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Tuesday 26 February 2008, 10:23
Last week, Ajax effectively checked into rehab. Newcastle United, by contrast, are still in the early Amy Winehouse "no-no-no" denial stage. The surprise of the Geordie Messiah’s return to Tyneside...
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Friday 22 February 2008, 14:23
“Ten Euros!” said Uli-Hesse Lichtenberger, after he had stopped coughing long enough to light another cigarette and resume our conversation. We were standing in the corner of a smoky bar in Gelsenkirchen...
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Tuesday 19 February 2008, 10:10
Hallelujah, the Champions League is back! The greatest football show on earth has reached the knockout stage, pitting contenders against pretenders, the best against the slightly above average and promising...
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Thursday 14 February 2008, 12:44
1. If Kevin Keegan is the Geordie Messiah, who’s the Geordie John the Baptist? Jim Smith? 2. If Ireland’s ambition is to reach the finals of major tournaments again, why have they hired Giovanni Trapattoni...
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Monday 11 February 2008, 10:22
Richard Scudamore doesn’t look like Baldrick. But his vision of a new globalised Premiership has all the cunning, merit and intellectual rigour of the most uncunning plan ever devised by Black Adder’s...
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Monday 04 February 2008, 10:44
How many footballers, like Van Gogh in Don McLean’s sloppy, stirring ballad Vincent, struggle for their sanity? And does football make their struggle harder? Football is, as Portsmouth keeper David James...
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Tuesday 29 January 2008, 14:34
Mourinho was the new Cloughie. Old Big Ead even said as much in Champions magazine. But with his meticulously prepared dossiers on opponents, the professionalism with which his teams exploit every law...
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