Category Archives: Football Manager

Why football clubs no longer flock to the January sales


“Ajax Amsterdam’s general director recently tallied his club’s transfers, and came up with this estimate: only 8.3 per cent of the footballers Ajax had bought in the past decade had succeeded. Ajax’s Dutch rivals, he said, had done even worse. This January European clubs spent barely anything during the “transfer window”. English clubs forked out about £30m ($48m, €34m) on new players, their lowest for any January since 2003. German, Spanish and French clubs spent even less. The credit crunch has bitten soccer in the leg.” (Simon Kuper)

Top 5 Harry Redknapp Signings

“Harry Redknapp is known as a bit of a wheeler dealer, scouring the football bargain bins for days. He is so good at finding bargains he takes half of January off to play the Wii with son Jamie. It is also reported Redknapp once sold ice to Eskimos, but this hasn’t been confirmed but Mr. Redknapp’s representatives. But after a plethora of successful transfer coups, who are the top 5 Harry Redknapp transfer dealings?” (EPL Talk)

Big Drop in Transfer Market


“If soccer agents had powerful lobbyists working for them in the halls of government, you can be fairly confident they would be asking for a generous stimulus package right around now. Just as fears of an enduring economic slump can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy in the real world, as consumers “feel poor” and hunker down to save, slowing or even negating growth, so too can the perception of imminent doom affect soccer clubs’ spending. And, when teams stop spending, the first to be affected are the agents and middlemen who grease the wheels of the transfer market.”
(WSJ)

Maley And McGrory – Two Managers Alike

“A postscript to this mini-series on great players you never saw by going on a tangent and looking at two great managers probably unknown to the rest of you. Today’s subject is about two men who managed Celtic and between them won everything. These two gentlemen are a large part of the club’s history and are now legends…” (Football and Music)

The Sweeper: The Fan, the Customer and Money in Football

“Yesterday, we noted that the avalanche of negative media stories about the Glazers’ regime at Old Trafford seemed finally to be pushing the moderate fans into the rebellious camp. Pointing to the same piece we noted in the Daily Mirror by Oliver Holt yesterday, Ian at Two Hundred Percent suggests there is a “sea change” in the analysis of football and money by the English media…” (Pitch Invasion)

Volatile mix of soccer and politics

“When Angola tied Algeria 0-0 on Monday in Luanda to finish first in Group A of the African Cup of Nations, it was cause for celebrations throughout most of Angola. Wherever you go in Luanda, the capital, you’ll see locals wearing the national-team colors of red, black and yellow. Angola shirts, scarves and flags are everywhere there; TV and radio broadcasts talk soccer around the clock. Billboards proclaim that Angola, which ended a 27-year civil war in 2002, can unite through soccer.” (SI)

Has All the Magic Gone? Juju, Africa, and Superstitions in the Game


“Amidst all the tragedy, politics, business, and even bits of sport that have made news from the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, I’ve been intrigued by something conspicuous primarily in its absence: there have been virtually no stories of the juju / muti / witchcraft commonly used to exoticize the African game. Confederation of African Football (CAF) administrators must be pleased. In the midst of several embarrassing incidents during the last decade, most notably the arrest of Cameroonian coaches (one of whom was German) during the 2002 Cup of Nations in Mali for ‘trying to place a magic charm on the pitch,’ CAF has worked hard to ‘modernize’ the image of African soccer. As a CAF spokesperson noted after the Mali episode: ‘we are no more willing to see witch doctors on the pitch than cannibals at the concession stands. Image is everything.’ ” (Pitch Invasion)