“It almost goes without saying that the near-death – and very much beyond – experiences suffered by English football during the 1980s shaped the game that we watch today. There was a time – a period from the middle to the end of that decade – when the definite feeling that this was a game on its last legs became tangible. Crowds dwindled to somewhere beyond what might have been considered the bare bones, whilst an unhappy trinity of disasters carried both a literal and symbolic loss, with deaths that represented scores of personal tragedies alongside a wider sense of corrosion in what had been the nations number one pastime.” twohundredpercent

“There can be few things more tiresome in international football than war analogies. Sometimes, however, they are inescapable and this can be no more true than in the case of European nations which once pitched up against each other on battlefields, only to find themselves facing off against their former allies or rivals for decades afterwards. In the case of the Dutch national team, the complex nature of its relationship with its neighbour – and former occupier – Germany has come to manifest itself through an occasional series of gladiatorial matches between the two national sides.” twohundredpercent

“‘Carloooooooooos Herrrrrrrrrrrnandez’. The PR system rung around Melbourne Victory’s AAMI Park as the introduction of Carlos Hernandez was announced to the home faithful in the biggest game of the season, a derby with cross-town rivals Melbourne Heart. The team sheet shocked every supporter who knew Hernandez, as he was left on the bench. Perplexing. Jim Magilton, the former QPR and Ipswich boss, opted instead for Leigh Broxham and Grant Brebner, a Manchester United youth player, in the centre of midfield.” In Bed With Maradina

“As Cardiff prepare for the Carling Cup final against Liverpool this weekend, the Welsh side know that they have the chance to make history. The club have brought home few major trophies in their 113-year history, but winning the FA Cup final in 1927 against Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal was the culmination of a decade in which the Bluebirds were seen as one of the top clubs in the English league.” ESPN

“If the early history of the European Championships can be seen as explicitly wrapped up in the politics of the time, then Spain’s victory on home ground in 1964 European Nations Cup could be regarded as one of international football’s ultimate flashes in the pan.” twohundredpercent

“The fact that AS Roma have only ever won three scudetti has always been something of an anomaly. Virtuoso players have come and gone, numerous coaches have tried their luck at bringing success to Roma (with varying levels of aptitude), but only Nils Liedholm in 1982/83 and Fabio Capello in 2000/01 have brought the Serie A title to the red and yellow half of Rome since World War Two.” In Bed With Maradoma

“With the football authorities having made an unforgivable and irrevocable mess of European competition these days, there is currently little chance of any side from a smaller nation taking the continent by storm. Since Porto and Monaco reached the Champions League final in 2004 – an unusually weak year, in all honesty – the likes of Napoli, Porto and Dortmund find themselves pilfered by the big clubs as soon as they threaten to ransack a closed shop.” FCF (Video)

“In 1998 he became the world’s most expensive footballer. A mere ten years later, not even Turkish Süper Lig club Vestel Manisaspor wanted to sign him on a free transfer. Aleks Klosok recounts the rapid rise to and dramatic fall from grace of one of Brazilian football’s great underachievers: Denílson.” In Bed With Maradoma

“During the 1990s, a golden generation propelled Colombia unexpectedly up the FIFA World Rankings as far as fourth. Fuelled by an influx of money into the domestic game, Colombia found themselves with several top-class players and went into the 1994 World Cup as one of the tournament favourites. However, less than three weeks after the opening of the tournament, twelve gunshots marked the virtual death knoll of Colombian football.” In Bed With Maradona

“On Boxing Day 1963, in the midst of the ‘Big Freeze’, the English First Division saw a glut of goals unlike anything before. In total, 66 were scored in the ten matches in the top flight, while across all four divisions there were 160 netted, with seven players bagging hat-tricks and four men sent off.” ESPN

“The Saturday before Christmas in 1957 saw one of the greatest comebacks in football history as ten-man Charlton beat Bill Shankly’s Huddersfield 7-6 at the Valley, having been 5-1 down with only 30 minutes to go. The hero of the (half) hour was Charlton winger Johnny Summers, who scored five and set up the other two in the game. This is the story of that amazing match.” ESPN

“On Sunday morning – if you happen to be in Western Europe – the champions of world club football will be crowned, as the final of the 2011 Club World Cup is played at the International Stadium in Yokohama between Barcelona, the current champions of Europe, and Santos of Brazil, the current champions of South America. The Club World Cup has been running since 2004, but it has yet to engage a great deal of interest in Europe.” twohundredpercent

“Even before arriving in Spain, Luis Figo was at the heart of transfer controversy. Having unwittingly entered an agreement with Juventus in 1995 due to the influence of his club, Sporting Lisbon, an angered Figo then attempted to sign a contract with Parma. As a result, Figo was banned from transferring to an Italian club for two years, something he attributes to the influence of corrupt Juventus director Luciano Moggi. However, Barcelona came to the rescue with a bid of £2.25 million for the Portugal international.” TheFalse9

“In April 1958, Rachid Mekhloufi stood on the brink of international superstardom. Having scored 25 goals in thirty games to help AS Saint-Étienne 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 pre-selection for Les Bleus’ highly fancied World Cup squad.” In Bed With Maradona

“Paul Savill takes an in-depth look at a relationship which has endured the test of time. During his speech at our wedding, my wife’s father worked in my passion for Arsenal and noted that whilst writing his address he had been looking for a link between the Gunners and his home town club Leicester City. As soon as the words left his mouth I blurted out “First game at Highbury”. My father-in-law said he had asked one of his brothers about a link earlier in the day and had been pointed in the direction of the 3-3 draw of 1954, whilst his own research on the official Arsenal website had led him to the twelve goal thriller that was the 6-6 draw in 1930.” In Bed With Maradona

“Fabio Capello’s team may feel on top of the world after beating world champions Spain, but there was a time when the best the planet had to offer couldn’t even beat them. Rewind to Wembley in 1963, when the likes of Yashin, Puskas and Di Stefano lined up against Alf Ramsey’s team” Guardian

“He came out of nowhere to hit national headlines, yet his meteoric rise ended as quickly as it began. This is the story of Salvatore ‘Totò’ Schillaci, the hero of Italia ‘90, as told by Luca Cetta.” In Bed With Maradona

“Champagne, bags of bank notes and Adidas balls: these were amongst the gifts Macedonian Blagoje Vidinić received during his African odyssey in the early 1970s. This was a man who presided over the joint-worst World Cup performance of all time, but also a man who as a goalkeeper had once rivaled Lev Yashin in many eyes, who had played in Los Angeles, San Diego, St Louis in a pioneering era of American soccer; a man who as coach took two African countries to unprecedented heights – and managed to change the course of world sporting history, by tipping off Horst Dassler just in time for the Adidas head to back the right man in the 1974 FIFA presidential election.” Pitch Invasion

“The relationship between drugs and football hooliganism was on the slow-burner for many years but, according to the academic researcher Mark Gilman, this changed in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Drugs and raves suddenly became popular in football culture, as the Madchester and acid house movements managed to unite football fans in peace. To understand how this happened, a look into the history of football hooliganism is required. Until the late 1980’s, as Gilman explained in his fascinating study ‘Football and Drugs: Two Worlds Collide’, football hooliganism was rife amongst the working classes.” In Bed With Maradona

“As part of our ever expanding features this season, we introduce a new section to the website – the classics. As important as the current scheme of Spanish football is, and the future, it would be wrong to neglect its fine history. To overlook this area for us will be Mohamed Moallim, who becomes our chief writer on all things of a historical nature. Here he starts with a ‘phenomenal’ story…” Spanish Football

“Football pays homage to the great and the good through various touching appreciation. At the bottom, above conversation in the pub of course, are songs, ‘I still see that tackle by Moore and when Lineker scored Bobby belting the ball and Nobby dancin,’ that sort of thing. In England most clubs will honour a real legend with a staute, Billy Wright outside Molineux, Billy Bremner at Elland Road, Sir Stanley Matthews at The Britannia. Great managers get roads; Sir Matt Busby Way, Brian Clough Way, Sir Alf Ramsey Way. That prospect certainly gives the adage; Where there’s a will there’s a way, a more physical feel. Finally there’s stands; the Matthew Harding Stand at Stamford Bridge, the Gill Merrick Stand at Birmingham City and so on.” In Bed With Maradona

“Dragan Stojković was born on 3 March 1965, and is one of the finest players ever to emerge from the former Yugoslavia. Nicknamed ‘Piksi’ after a cartoon character from his childhood, Stojković made his name with hometown team Radnički Niš before establishing himself as one of Europe’s best creative midfielders with Crvena Zvezda of Belgrade in the late 1980s. He is one of five individuals to have been named Zvezdina Zvezda (a Star of the Star).” In Bed With Maradona

“From Scotsport’s Bing Crosby-lite review of the year to Mullery v Allison, via Clough and Dunphy, here are some classic moments” Guardian

“Brazil have made a habit of producing a fine profusion of strikers in the past. Tostão, Pele and Rivelinho all graced that 1970 World Cup in a team which some have dubbed the greatest squad in the history of the game.” World Soccer

“The mayfly, that most romantically fated of insects, spends the majority of its life under the surface of the water. After going through several months feeding on decaying flora and fauna; moulting numerous times – going through change after change; they emerge in to the sun. After one final metamorphosis, they dry their wings and take glorious flight. Their mouthparts, however, are not functional, and their digestive system is full of air. They cannot feed. They have but one day to make their mark, to fulfil their purpose, and then they are gone. Their bodies fall down into the water again.” The Equaliser

“While the 1982 World Cup victory created some temporary commonality among Italians the cracks were still there, evident in violence among increasingly extreme football fans. As Winston Churchill apparently quipped: ‘Italians lose wars as if they were football matches and play football matches as if they were wars.’ Inter-fan rivalries pre-dated Fascism’s take-over of the game and continued after the war, with a notorious match between Napoli and Bologna, in 1955, involving a pitch invasion and an exchange of shots between fans and police. Rarely premeditated however, crowd disorder was usually an impetuous, unplanned reaction to on-the-field events. This changed in the 1960s, with pitch invasions, violence and confrontations with the police reflecting and releasing society’s accumulated tensions.” In Bed With Maradona

“This is the first article in a superbly in-depth two-part look at the Real Madrid side of the 1980s by Michele Tossani. Featuring interviews with the members of the famed ‘Quinta del Buitre’ , the first instalment charts the rise of the five young prodigies from Castilla hopefuls to first-team regulars.” The Equaliser – Part I, Part II

Dennis Bergkamp, Holland 2-1 Argentina, World Cup quarter-final
“A selection of eight games that really shouldn’t have been wasted on the earlier rounds of the tournaments they took place in.” SI

“Football and war have had a strange relationship over the years and have often come together in the most unlikely of circumstances. One famous example is the now legendary (and somewhat mythical) First World War truce in no man’s land when despondent troops from opposing trenches supposedly stopped on Christmas day for a good-natured kick-about. There have been many other instances where football has been affected by war such as the time in 1938 when Liverpool Manager George Kay, along with dozens of top flight footballers, joined the Territorial Army in readiness for the inevitable conflict with Nazi Germany. When the war came many players hung up their boots and took up arms to fight for their country and inevitably some never returned.” In Bed With Maradona

“For almost a century, money and soccer lived an uneasy relationship. Teams scraped by on modest sponsorships and reliable but not cosmic TV deals. They competed for players, but dollars and cents arms races were rare. Then came the Galácticos. If the Bosman ruling allowed the snake of commerce into Football’s Garden of Eden, then Florentino Perez swallowed an entire barrel of apples without thought. Looking back, a Madrid fan doesn’t feel vindicated by the trophies. Rather, he or she wonders how they won anything at all.” The Equaliser

“In 2001, before the distraction of the transfer window arrived, there was some important football to played on September 1 and on the international stage England completed one of their finest ever results on this day – a 5-1 hammering of the old enemy Germany at the Olympiastadion in Munich.” ESPN

“The Commonwealth of Independent States came into existence as a direct result of the break up of the Soviet Union and the consequent state of confusion that such a grand occasion caused. When the newly appointed leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus convened to discuss where the newly sovereign nations of eastern Europe should turn next, the idea of an alliance between them began to take shape.” The Equaliser

“Humans naturally grasp for simplicity and certainty. In the case of soccer in the United States, for the last decade, fans have held their breath, waiting for a watershed moment to shout exuberantly “Soccer has arrived!” Yet nobody feels tectonic plates shift. You just wake up one day and you live in South America, not Africa. The 1994 World Cup was wholly unremarkable in the sporting sense, yet indelibly left a footprint stateside. And that footprint led to a trail far removed from the “pick off-American football-fans” of the collapsed NASL.” The Equaliser

“Euro ’96. It’s easy to look back with fondness on the tournament which was billed as “Football comes home”, a slogan paraphrased in David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the Lightning Seeds’ huge anthem “Three Lions”. I was fifteen at the time, and being over six feet tall and the proud owner of both a fake ID and a bum fluff beard, it was the first tournament that I watched in the pub.” The Equaliser

“I am in my mid twenties, my earliest football memories are from the middle of that decade, of ‘cool Britannia’ and of ‘Britpop’. In 1994, Raith Rovers beat the mighty Celtic in the final of the Coca-Cola Cup. I have no recollection of the game itself, only a picture in my head of people clad in dark blue, celebrating wildly. I remember the contrasting emotions, of joy on one side, of despair on the other, only disbelief uniting blue and green.” The Equaliser

“You could always guarantee entertainment at St James’ Park under Kevin Keegan. The goals may not have always been at the away team’s end, but it made for an engaging afternoon nonetheless. The drama, the joy, the heartache; it was all condensed into ninety minutes every week, and it made Newcastle one of the most appealing aspects of English football in the 1990’s.” The Equaliser

1990s Month: Denmark’s European Adventure
“Danish coach Richard Moller Nielsen was on the brink of the sack following Denmark’s failed attempt at qualification for the European Championships in 1992. Nielsen had become sick of seeing his Danish side play beautiful football but lack positive results. He tried implementing his unique managerial approach with the team, but it resulted in one of their most vaunted players – Michael Laudrup – quitting the international game in protest at Nielsen’s playing style. What Nielsen, his squad, and the media didn’t know at the time was that it was an event which would turn out to be for the greater good.” The Equaliser

“Nostalgia. We all love to indulge in a little of the retro now and then eh dear reader? Of course we do. As I write, the updated and rebooted New York Cosmos brand is currently surfing a wave of full on publicity and heavyweight marketing. The club, referred to as the Cosmos, has been wafted under the collective nose of a savvy and soccer hungry US audience with a view to recapturing the club’s golden era during the mid to late 1970’s.” In Bed With Maradona

“It’s a simple task today: we’ve chosen our six favourite football clips on YouTube, now we want to hear yours” Guardian

“Studies of Italian Fascism have spent a lot of time assessing the roles that rituals, myths and symbols of the regime played in ‘regenerating’ a mystical, national collective; however, few have considered the cultural role that football played in the imagining of Italy’s national community under Fascism. In the post-World War One era, Italy was still a rather disparate nation-state. During the 1920s therefore, one way the regime attempted to construct an imagined national community was through the popular sport of calcio (the ‘Italianised’ term for football).” The Equaliser

1980s Month: Le Carré Magique
“When it comes to footballing combinations of flair and panache, it appears that three really is the magic number. Down the years there have been a host of attacking triumvirates that have excited passions and frightened defences. From Sunderland’s infernal triangle of Cuggy, Mordue and Buchan in the 1910s, Brazil’s 1950 inside-forward trio of Ademir, Jair and Zizinho, Manchester United’s ‘holy trinity’ of Charlton, Best and Law in the 60s, to the three R’s (Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho) that dominated the 2002 World Cup, threesomes have always had something special about them.” The Equaliser

1980s Month: A Tale of Two Teams
“Prior to Uruguay’s encounter with Denmark at Mexico ‘86, coach Omar Borrás had already condemned their group – which also comprised West Germany and Scotland – as “El Grupo de la Muerte” or “The Group of Death”. Nowadays the term is thrown around all too regularly, often being attached to any conglomeration of recognisable international names, but when Borrás employed it it was more than fitting. Eventually three of the four teams progressed to the knockout rounds, but in that group each team epitomized a style of play so distinctive in relation to the others that one could not help but feel that the teams wouldn’t be able to survive in the presence of one another: such complete competitors simply could not coexist.” The Equaliser

World Cup 1974
“This years Womens World Cup has caused one or two people to comment on the nature of the sixteen team tournament. The WWC is set to be expanded to twenty-four nations for the next competition in Canada in four years time, but this years competition has been taut and exciting – all killer, as some might say, and no filler. With this in mind, our Monday video timewaster (and who doesn’t need a timewaster on a Monday morning?) brings you the best goals from the day when the World Cup was played out between just sixteen nations, between 1954 and 1978. Our thanks go to the original uploader of this article and don’t forget that if you happen to be reading this on a mobile device, you can switch to our desktop view by clicking the link at the very bottom of this page.” twohundredpercent

“Everyone at Carrow Road, forty days into the 1980s, knew immediately that they had witnessed a moment that would transcend the match they were watching. BBC commentator Barry Davies, covering Norwich City’s clash with Liverpool for Match of the Day, instinctively knew too. That moment was Justin Fashanu’s phenomenal Goal of the Season – if not the decade.” The Equaliser