“The 2010 Emirates Cup wrapped up on Sunday, August 1, 2010 with hosts Arsenal taking on SPL side Celtic. The match highlights can be found here at Free Soccer Highlights. Arsenal would take a comfortable 3-0 margin but another late surge from Celtic made for a close match.” (The 90th Minute)
“By the time Rafael Benitez’s six-year tenure as manager at Liverpool drew to a close this summer, it was clear to longtime observers that he was a changed man from the once quietly confident Spaniard who had first walked through the doors at Anfield. Appearing visibly stressed at times, the constant political infighting with the club’s board and the continuous criticism from sections of the English media seemed to have finally taken its toll. When he succeeded Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan in June, one wondered if he would have been best served taking a year off and recharging instead.” (SI)
“Less than a month after the disappointment that accompanies any World Cup not won, Brazil has already put South Africa behind it with the hiring of coach Mano Menezes and the naming of a renewed squad for next month’s meeting with the U.S. Half of Menezes’ group of 24 play their club soccer in Brazil, but this will be a difficult line to maintain; within weeks Robinho is due to return to Manchester City, midfielder Sandro will join Tottenham and striker Andre will move to Dynamo Kiev.” (SI)
” Sports must sometimes send out the most confusing messages to its young. Over the past weeks, Spanish teams and athletes have been the best in the world in soccer, basketball, tennis and cycling. Yet the country’s two major sporting institutions, F.C. Barcelona and Real Madrid, pursue disparate philosophies in reaching for the major club trophies in soccer.” (NYT)
“Editor’s note: Our regular book reviewer Alex Usher delves into football in Israel with Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler’s Goals for Galilee: The Triumphs and Traumas of the Sons of Sakhnin, Israel’s Arab Football Club and Tamir Sorek’s Arab Soccer in a Jewish State.” (Pitch Invasion)
“The title of the film about the world’s most famous defunct soccer team was ‘Once in a Lifetime.’ Anyone for ‘Twice in a Lifetime’? The team in question is the New York Cosmos, a club that was the flagship team in the North American Soccer League, which ceased operations in the mid-1980s.” (NYT)
“Rättskiparen (The Referee) is short documentary about Martin Hansson, the referee who missed Thierry Henry’s handball. A Swedish television program had already committed to this project before the infamous incident which kept Ireland from going to South Africa. The station’s plan had been to track the country’s top ranked referee in the months leading up to the 2010 World Cup – as fate would have it, the story of course got more complex with that one game. It’s an incredible portrait – part of a wave of films looking at referees. This one has an unusually personal quality to it.” (From A Left Wing)
Scissors Kick 