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 Zagreb, one of the most productive finishing schools...
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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 the inspiration for the Snow White And The Seven...
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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 nation famed for social democracy, the charismatic...
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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, in its best Wolstenholmian prose, as “tall, lean...
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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 by Joao Havelange, the former FIFA president...
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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 Pearson in The Guardian is a reminder of just how...
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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 after time. The number of holding midfielders...
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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. Italy’s quarter-final exit can be boiled down...
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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 about the way the Czechs wilted and retreated under...
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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 without Giovanni van Bronckhorst and the Dutch have...
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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 or go. Cristiano Ronaldo’s will-he won’t-he saga...
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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 new black. But always in demand, while the market...
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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 proud. So proud I felt inspired – hopefully that...
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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 – “nothing as crude as a bribe,” one journalist...
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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 about at Chelsea at the moment: emotional for Frank...
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