“Zé Carlos knew he didn’t belong here. He stood out like a sore thumb. He looked across the training field at his squad mates: the laughing and joking duo of Roberto Carlos and Denílson, the lantern jawed Claudio Taffarel and Dunga both brimming with experience, the mercurial Ronaldo with the world at his feet. And Cafu, the legendary full-back who he was assigned to replace; whatever planet this was it wasn’t his.” World Soccer (Video)

“Omar Larossa played over 400 times for Boca and Argentinos Juniors, Huracan and Independiente, winning four domestic titles and the 1978 FIFA World Cup.  Now, flanked by Boca and national team luminaries Alfredo Rojas, Silvio Marzolini and Antonio Rattin on a low stage inside La Bombonera, he begins to explain how it felt to lift the trophy to his lips. “I wish I could tell you, to put into words, but whenever I think of that moment…”  His voice wobbles, tears begin to well.  Unprompted, a Special Olympics athlete – one of 35 young players Boca provide free weekly training sessions for – moves out of the crowd to give the world champion a hug.  “It’s ok,” he says as the two remain interlocked, the rest of the room silent. “Thank you,” Larossa replies. “Thank you.”” In Bed With Maradona

“Documentary telling the story of legendary Brazilian footballers Pele and Garrincha, whose emergence following Brazil’s defeat at home in the 1950 World Cup Final heralded the dawn of a golden age of football for the country. But while one man became known as the world’s greatest footballer, the other died a broken alcoholic at the age of 49.” YouTube: Gods of Brazil 1:09:59

“World Cups are never just about what transpires on the field. When the 2014 soccer World Cup kicks off in Brazil on June 12, tens of thousands of Brazilians will likely protest, angered by the wasteful government spending that has led up to the tournament. What better platform to make a statement than one watched by billions around the planet? Soccer’s unchallenged place in the global imagination also means that what happens on the field carries special resonance. The goals scored aren’t just markers of sporting success: they are moments of national glory and humiliation, acts of cultural expression and political defiance. World Cup goals can change history. Here are 20 that did.” Washington Post (Video)

Uruguay versus Northern Ireland
“The next Unofficial Football World Championships match is just over two months away on the 30 May, and it looks set to be a classic. Two teams with a proud and successful footballing history and plenty of passion will play each other. First ever World Cup winners Uruguay face reigning British Champions Northern Ireland in the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo – the venue where the World Cup began back in 1930. It will be the light blue of Uruguay against the shining emerald green of Northern Ireland.” UFWC

Joe Gaetjens (centre) with friends in New York
“One of the biggest shocks in World Cup history happened in 1950, when the US beat England, thanks to a goal scored by Haitian Joe Gaetjens. After Gaetjens returned to Haiti a hero, he later disappeared and was killed, possibly by the president himself.” BBC

“You have to pity the youth of today. They were born to banter, they think it’s normal behaviour to tell complete strangers on the internet what they have had for their tea. And worst of all, they have never experienced proper World Cup villainy. There was Luis Suárez’s handball in 2010, yes, but that was a fleeting moment from an individual rather than an extended body of work shared between a whole squad. The World Cup – which is about great stories as much as great football – is so much richer when a team leaves the rest of the football world raging with impotent frustration.” Guardian

“In the second of two posts, Jonny Sharples reminisces about his three favourite squads of all time, who brought unity, glamour, and entertainment to football. If you’ve not read Part 1, do so first…” Put Niels In Goal

“There are two moments from my time in the stadia of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa that I remember particularly vividly. One of them I couldn’t take my eyes off. The other I couldn’t watch. I was in FNB Stadium for the Final between Spain and the Netherlands. It was a grueling game, the frustration and ugliness seeping across the turf as the minutes ticked by. Oddly enough, though they are always riveting spectacles, many World Cup finals are actually pretty disappointing as soccer. Often the best games are in the quarterfinals, or even earlier in the tournament. Watching that final on TV seems to have been particularly frustrating. In the stadium, though, there was something wonderful about being collectively enraged. We could yell, stomp, hold our heads in our hands, and it felt like the Dutch players, the poor referee Howard Webb, and even the heavens above could hear us.” SI – Laurent Dubois

“As the Portuguese Primeira Liga drew to a close at the weekend, all eyes were understandably on Benfica and Porto as they battled it out for the League Championship and, for the latter, the enviable record of enduring the season without defeat. Slipping underneath the radar, however, there has been another big story in Portuguese football this year: that of the relatively unknown Pacos De Ferreira and their qualification for the Champions League. Pacos secured the third and final Champions League qualification spot in the Primeira Liga with a game to spare, and now find themselves only a two-legged playoff tie away from the elusive and lucrative group stages of Europe’s premier club competition.” In Bed With Maradona

“Today, the goalkeeper seems eternal. It feels natural that a team should be made of ten plus one, that behind the outfielders scurrying in their or striker less there should be an unspoken other, his place so taken for granted that nobody even bothers to refer to it when discussing formations. That, though, is a relatively modern phenomenon. When the game that would evolve into football began with the foundation of the Football Association in 1863, there was no such thing as a goalkeeper in the modern sense.” [PDF] The Outsider

“While South Americans have dominated Spanish soccer for decades, much rarer is the successful player from the Northern half of the hemisphere. For every successful Mexican like Hugo Sanchez and Rafa Marquez, a disappointing Omar Bravo returns home with his tail firmly tucked between his legs. For Central Americans, the numbers are even sparser. And that’s why Jorge Alberto “Magico” Gonzalez’s 1983 season at Cadiz was so unforgettable.” In Bed With Maradona

“In April 1958, Rachid Mekhloufi, the great St. Etienne striker was 21 years old. Mekhloufi along with nine other players, left their careers in France and returned to Tunis to comprise the first FLN squad. They were playing for a country that did not yet exist. Algeria was in the beginnings of an uprising against its’ colonizer France. Their move would be analyzed, critiqued and applauded by many.” A Football Report

“From Meghni to Yebda, the French academy system has produced many players who have represented Algeria. Long before Algeria’s independence, though, it wasn’t quite so easy. Juliet Jacques looks at early French-Algerian relations in football. In April 1958, Rachid Mekhloufi stood on the brink of international superstardom. Having scored 25 goals in thirty games to help AS SaintÉtienne win their first Championnat the year before, Mekhloufi was about to win his fifth France cap in a friendly against Switzerland, with coach Paul Nicolas including him in the forty-man preselection for Les Bleus’ highly fancied World Cup squad.”
Spiel Magazine

Football Rebels: Mekhloufi and the FLN team
“The FLN football team raised the profile of Algeria’s independence movement. And Rachid Mekhloufi was one of the brave men who refused to play for France. French footballing legend Eric Cantona presents the next part of Al Jazeera’s Football Rebels series.” Aljazeera (Video)

“As a previous visitor to the small group of islands known as Antigua & Barbuda I was pleasantly surprised to see the media coverage their national side received in the UK in the summer of 2012 and for the few months afterwards. This coverage came in light of the appointment of Englishman and former Chesterfield midfielder Tom Curtis. His first venture into management Curtis’ appointment certainly helped raised the profile of the national side within England and there was a good degree of optimism going into their World Cup Qualifying clashes with Guatemala.” In Bed With Maradona

“I came across a new TV documentary this evening that I hadn’t seen before about Brian Clough. It’s from 1969-70. Uniquely, the TV documentary starts off by asking then Derby County manager Brian Clough what his expectations are for the season. He goes through his entire squad and offers his critique of each player, what they can contribute and how he thinks his just-promoted side will do. Then in the second half of the interview, the same interviewer goes back to Brian Clough at Derby and reviews how well (or not) his predictions did, as well as discussing how the season went.” EPL Talk (Video)

“‘Bouba Diop is there!’ … There is a short but telling pause. John Motson, one does sense, must have been comfortable in the knowledge that nothing would shock him on the pitch that day, that in the world of football he had simply seen too much. And yet the commentator older than time itself, and whose trademark sheepskin coat is probably even older than that, is lost for words. He is forced to repeat himself, this time louder, certainly, but somehow more hesitant, more noticeably taken aback. … ‘Bouba Diop is there!’ Again, momentary silence.” In Bed With Maradona

“The tendency to categorise and rate the footballing talents Africa has produced is something of a modern phenomenon. This is due in part to the perception that African players have been somewhat late to the party in terms of making an impact on a global stage. As such the majority of the ‘greatest African footballers’ lists are weighted greatly towards players of the mid- 90s onwards, give or take a dancing Cameroonian. One player who is consistently overlooked is Mustapha Rabah Madjer. A player of unheralded finesse and technical ability on the pitch, only matched by his combative nature off it. His footballing attributes led to him becoming not only Algeria’s greatest footballing export but also a symbol for a nation to latch onto as it searched for its identity. Madjer was born in the costal city of Algiers in 1958. The city was at the epicentre of the Algerian independence movement, which sought to throw off the shackles of French colonialism. A bloody and vicious war was fought between the various factions and the French troops sent to maintain order – a war that resulted in Algerian independence and the fall of the 4th French republic.” In Bed With Maradona

“The politics of Western Sahara are complex. Spain renounced control of the territory in 1975 giving Morocco and Mauritania joint administrative control but the Polisario Front rebelled and announced a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) with an exiled government based in Algeria. Mauritania pulled out and a 1991 ceasefire left Western Sahara largely in Moroccan hands but partly in those of the SADR. The territory has been in political limbo ever since, a story largely ignored by the mass media and the big nations who tend to overlook the divide and push for an agreement.” In Bed With Maradona