
“Until recently, I’d never been through the doors of the Winslow Hotel to see, close-up, all the rich history and football nostalgia that makes it clear this isn’t just your ordinary pub. Over the years, however, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve looked up at its imposing, photogenic features and felt a certain kind of respect for its close proximity (we’re talking just a short throw-in) to the walls of Goodison Park, Everton’s home stadium. You didn’t need to be an Evertonian to admire that red-bricked facade or get a momentary thrill from the smell of beer fumes and all the excited chatter coming from inside. What a place. And what a story given that it was built in 1886, older than the football ground that was built directly next door. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Daily Archives: December 24, 2025
Egypt 2 – 1 Zimbabwe

“Mohamed Salah showed his killer instinct to score a stoppage-time winner as Egypt came from behind to beat Zimbabwe in their opening match at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations. The Liverpool forward’s trophy cabinet is stuffed with silverware from his time at Anfield but he is yet to lift the Afcon trophy with the Pharaohs, and for large parts of the game in Morocco it looked as if this campaign was likely to get off to an inauspicious start. While Salah is nicknamed the Egyptian King, it was Prince Dube’s first-half strike which handed the Warriors the lead against the run of play in Agadir. …”
BBC
YouTube: HIGHLIGHTS | Egypt 🆚 Zimbabwe
YouTube: Ivory Coast vs Mozambique | EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS AFCON 2025
YouTube: Burkina Faso 🆚 Equatorial Guinea
YouTube: Cameroon vs Gabon | HIGHLIGHTS AFCON 2025
AFCON and the politics of Africanhood

“Morocco is witnessing an unprecedented footballing renaissance. Its officials’ decades-longstrategic endeavor to promote football has paid off by enabling both its men and women teams to outperform their competitors in recent years. After playing the semi-final game of the World Cup in 2022, winning the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile, and winning the Arab Cup in Qatar in December 2025, the country is currently hosting the African Cup of Nations until January 18, 2026. The AFCON’s opening ceremony—which, in the words of journalist Amina Ibnou Cheikh, ‘confirmed to the world that Morocco shares with Africa the roots of its earliest human and cultural heritage’—presented a plenary corrective to prevalent notions of Moroccan history and identity by anchoring the country in Africa. The many criticisms of the state’s over-investment in sports that have accompanied the championship should not overshadow the equally important analysis of the way Morocco’s participation in these planetary events has continuously re-Africanized and re-Amazighized its identity. …”
Africa Is a Country

