“Part I: Crumbling Foundations. ‘LT! Did you see last night? Barcelona FOUR to ZERO against AC Milan! Messi with 2, Villa and Alba all scored. Iniesta said they would win and they did!’ This is what my interpreter, Johnny, said after Barcelona’s 4-0 win at the Nou Camp against AC Milan to overturn a 2-0 first leg deficit in the 2012-13 edition of the Champions League. Johnny isn’t his real name of course. He’s an Afghan national working for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers in Afghanistan as a linguist. He was assigned to my platoon during my deployment to Operation Enduring Freedom 13. Champions League football can seem very distant from a Forward Operating Base in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, but for Johnny that night, he was in the Nou Camp. For him however, football, and in particular Barcelona, is his escape from the harsh realities of his home. And for many Afghans, the same is true. Football is their oasis.” Outside of the Boot – Part I, Part II, Part III

“After losing more games than winning in the league last season, Valencia failed to qualify for either of Europe’s elite competitions. This season however, is a different story for the club as they’ve brought in a new manager and plenty of new players in their quest to become on of Spain’s finest once again.” Outside of the Boot

“It is awful, jarring, a scraping fish bone stuck in a football fan’s gullet. It is a cringe-worthy television advert produced by Qatar Airways, starring the players of F.C. Barcelona. If the advert did not exist, it would have to be invented. There is no other existing piece of media that better encapsulates the worldview of football in the market age. It is forty seconds of distilled ideology, crystallised at its purest. The advert begins by zooming in on a mystical never-never land ‘F.C. Barcelona Island’- an island taking the form and colours of the Blaugrana crest. On this island, Lionel Messi and co. arrive at the airport. It is one of those ultra-modern airports, a sparkling structure of flowing glass so universal in its blandness that it could belong to any country. An IKEA airport. The sort of airport that countries build to try to prove to the world that they’ve made it.” backpagefootball, backpagefootball – Against sanitised football – part 2

“If you’re wagering on March Men-ness, respect one universal truth: The Round of 16 is no place for upsets. If the favorites fold, that’s going to come later, when any newfound hotness will thrive on the momentum of knocking out old studs. To open the tournament, though? The big boys always bring it. Yesterday, no favorite favorited more than Arsenal, who destroyed Tunisia’s Esperance in your Round of 16 votes. Borussia Dortmund? Juventus? They also enjoyed huge victories, so the flood of votes didn’t necessarily come from one fan base. These Englishmen, Germans and Italians all saw their refined features rewarded with easy wins.” Fusion

“Camus’ aphorism, often misquoted as ‘what I know most surely about morality…I learned from football’, is a favourite of high-brow fans of sport and t-shirt printers everywhere. It is, of course, a reference to his experiences playing in goal for the RUA, the Algiers Racing University football team, and the Montpensier Sports Club. He started playing for them at the age of fifteen and quickly made a good impression. Jonathan Wilson’s beautiful book on ‘keeping, The Outsider, the title of which is surely a conscious echo of Camus’ novel, describes in detail some of his recollections of playing. He was praised for his bravery and his abilities in goal, and was even once knocked out taking a powerful shot straight to the chest, a forewarning of the tuberculosis that would force him to hang up his gloves and, from that point on, only participate in football as a spectator.”Football Pink

“If you look back at some of the great sides of the late 90’s and early 2000’s, they all utilised out and out wingers. The 1997/98 Arsenal side had Marc Overmars, whilst Manchester United’s treble winning side had Ryan Giggs and David Beckham running the flanks. Further abroad, Luis Figo played as a winger for both Real Madrid and Barcelona. All of these players were the type of wingers who would hug the touchline on the side of their favoured foot, and either beat their man and cross from the byline or swing in early crosses for the striker. However, in the last 5 years or so, this type of winger has diminished, and although their are some exceptions, such as Juan Cuadrado, players like this are more of a rarity these days.” Outside of the Boot