“So much pressure is put on sports players to perform. Win at all cost seems to be the motto at all levels of the game we should love. And why should we love it? Because it at the end of the day it is supposed to be a past time, something to enjoy, to relieve our stress of an ever increasing hard life. But there is more to life than the pursuit of winning. There is enjoyment.” The Ball is Round

“On another amazing weekend for Welsh sport our resident Swansea City fan, Abi Davies made her way back from London with a smile as wide as Swansea Bay after an excellent win at Fulham.” The Ball Is Round

“Frank Lampard is unhappy at being benched, Ashley Cole is fed up with being treated like a robot, Gary Cahill wants to know why he’s not playing more games. Chelsea has won just three games in 11, it teeters on the brink of Champions League elimination and the dressing room appears to be in perpetual and open revolt. With Andre-Villas Boas staring rebellion in the face, a look back at five managers who’ve been here before..” SI

“Spiralling wage bills aren’t the only thing that are making the lives of non-league football clubs more and more difficult. Paul Caulfield has taken a look at the difficulties that clubs face and arrived at the conclusion that a possible solution may be to reintroduce greater regionalisation back to the lower divisions.” twohundredpercent

Pathways to Russia
“In a country with a history as rich as Russia’s, it is little surprise that there are some stories which go largely untold, sitting below the surface of popular biography and kept alive only by the communities directly descended from, or affected by, the event in question. On the south-eastern railway out of Moscow, somewhere between the capital and the war memorial which is now Volgograd, lies Tambov, a small city of now more than 300,000 inhabitants, the setting for a part of Soviet history which the authorities were keen to keep quiet.” In Bed With Maradona

“Everyone loves football floodlights. They do. Don’t look at me like that, it’s true. Too often dispensed with in modern stadia design floodlights are a metal lattice-work of nostalgia, a reminder of a simpler game; a floodlight would never issue a ‘come and get me plea’, a floodlight will never be lamented for taking a club as far as it can. Floodlights not only illuminate the game we love, but have often served as a beacon as well, guiding us to the fixtures we seek to attend, beckoning us like Gatsby’s green light on the end of the dock. Sure, we’ve ended up at the occasional goods yard, but is the thrill not often in the chase?” floodlight fancy

“After a couple of weeks off, we can finally get back to some matches from this weekend’s football and we have a variety of competitions for you today. First up, we have a match from this weekend’s FA Vase between Whitley Bay, who have won the tournament for the last three years in a row, and West Auckland. Next up, we have the match between Wrexham, who are chasing the title in the Blue Square Bet Premier, and Hayes & Yeading United, who are fighting to keep their heads above water at the other end of the table. After this is a match from the Premier Division of the Evostik Northern Premier League between FC United of Manchester and Frickley Athletic, and finally we have a match from the Premier Division of the Ryman League, between Bury Town, who are chasing a play-off place, and another team struggling to avoid relegation, Harrow Borough. Our thanks go to all of those that record, edit and upload these videos.” twohundredpercent (Video)

“The last week or so has said a lot about England, the state of the country, its sporting culture and the team that is supposed to represent it on the stage of international football. Apathy levels with the national team, however, are growing to the point at which it may become pertinent to ask the question of what the England national football team is actually for. Here’s Mike Bayly, on how he felt out of love with the England team.” twohundredpercent

“Another fine mess for the national team. ‘CAPELLO QUITS OVER RACE ROW AS JURY CLEARS REDKNAPP.’ The Daily Mail‘s headline on Thursday ran to nine words but they were enough to contain almost every drop of slop. England’s captain demoted by the Football Association until a charge of racially aggravated public disorder — which John Terry has always denied — has been heard in July; England’s manager resigning after publicly disagreeing with the FA’s decision; the favorite to succeed Fabio Capello, the Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, being found innocent of tax evasion a few hours earlier.” SI

“When you think about Iceland, football is most certainly not what comes first to mind. Most people connect the country with bizarre female singer Björk or the unpronounceable volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which caused a great deal of frustration when it erupted in 2010 and disrupted air traffic all over Europe. Maybe you can relate to the vikings, or the fact that this small island in the north got its name mixed up with Greenland!” In Bed With Maradona

“In the autumn of 2003 I was in the press box at Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea host Lazio. It was the Blues’ first season with Roman Abramovich cutting the cheques, while the opponents were, by that stage, a spent force. A few minutes into the game, Simone Inzaghi was tackled by John Terry. The referee waved play on, as the Italian striker continued to roll around and writhe in agony, real or imagined. Demetrio Albertini won it back and, seeing his teammate still on the ground, booted it out of play to allow the physios on. After a minute or so, Inzaghi was on his feet and Glen Johnson ambled over to take the throw-in. Angelo Peruzzi, the Lazio keeper, advanced to the corner of his penalty box with one hand in the air. Pretty unmistakeable. Lazio had put the ball out of play because Inzaghi was down; now they expected it back.” Sabotage Times

“Google and Apple may not exactly be the first names that spring to mind when looking for alternatives to challenge Sky’s dominance of sports broadcasting in Britain, but it should be no surprise that two of the giants of the tech and online world are eyeing up sport as a way to lure consumers into their new offerings. It was, after all, a key part of Rupert Murdoch’s strategy as he battled to establish his satellite broadcasting operation in Britain at the start of the 1990s.” Pitch Invasion

“Although the passion and fervour of match day can occasionally spill over into hostility, and the casual spectator may need to keep their wits about them at times, the atmosphere at big games in Turkey’s capital is unlike anything anywhere else in Europe, with a memorable show of colour and noise being whipped up inside the stadia several hours before kick-off.” World Soccer

“Refreshed and reposed after a break for Christmas, we’re back this morning with a double dose of Non-League Videos Of The Week. We have a couple of matches from the Blue Square Premier coming up a little later this morning, but we are starting off with five of Boxing Day’s matches from the Blue Square South. Leaders Woking have pulled clear at the top of the table, and they attracted a crowd of over three thousand people for their match against Farnborough, but the chasing pack were also in action and we have derby matches between Chelmsford City and Thurrock, Bromley and Tonbridge Angels, Dover Athletic and Eastbourne Borough and Welling United and Dartford. As ever, our thanks go to those that record, edit and upload these matches.” twohundredpercent (Video)

Non-League Videos Of The Week: The Blue Square Premier
“For the second part of our Non-League Videos Of The Week, we have two matches from the Blue Square Bet Premier Division. At the top of the table, Wrexham are continuing to hold Fleetwood Town at bay and, while Fleetwood had a Lancashire derby match at home against third placed Southport on Boxing Day, Wrexham, who are now owned by their supporters, made the relatively short trip to Shropshire to play another supporter-owned team, AFC Telford United, and over four thousand people turned out at New Bucks Head for the match. Our second match comes from the other end of the division. Ebbsfleet United recently announced that they need to find £50,000 to plug a gap in their finances. They are just above the relegation places at present and can sure up their position with three points from a home match against Hayes & Yeading United. Our thanks go to those that take the time to record, edit and upload these videos.” twohundredpercent (Video)

“‘Ella, Ella, Under my Umbrella’….just five days prior to our arrival in Poland’s third biggest city, those words has reverberated across the Stadion ŁKS as one of the most famous and sought after artists in the world, Rhianna played in front of a sell out crowd in the adjacent Atlas Area. One hundred and fifteen hours later, Danny Last and I were wrapped up like Michelin men outside the football stadium, huddled under a canopy, waiting to pick up our press passes from ŁKS Łódź . Now don’t get me wrong, I love Danny Last but he’s no Rhianna and so when he uttered the chorus line for the umpteenth time I told him exactly where he could stick his bloody ‘Ella’ and I wandered off in a huff to find some football socks for my collection.” The Ball is Round

“Four players (Orhan Pamuk, Naguib Mahfouz, Kenzaburo Oe, Barry Hines) on the New York Times writers’ XI violate FIFA statutes by wearing spectacles. Hines, Jorge Valdano and Eduardo Galeano press forward, treading lightly on a manicured wheat-grass surface embossed with words from Mahfouz: ‘We play to forget our sorrows.’ Nabokov studies lepidopterology texts when play switches to the other end.” The Global Game – March 2009

“As Barcelona’s Lionel Messi cruised by tens of million pounds’ worth of defensive talent and rolled the ball past Real Madrid’s sprawled goalkeeper last month, I found myself shouting, cavorting and – most important, this – demanding that the world should agree with me that the goal was pretty well as good as the one scored by another small Argentine, Diego Maradona, against England 25 years earlier. My companion that night did his duty and acceded. And that, I thought, was enough for a good evening’s football entertainment. But not a bit of it. Courtesy of Italian television, which is risible in all editorial matters except, predictably, football, I was able to listen to more or less all of Real Madrid manager José Mourinho’s press conference. (British television tends to cut quickly to the sludge of postmatch clichés masquerading as analysis.)” FT

The Football Men
“The great footballers and coaches are rarely glimpsed up close. They shield themselves from the tabloids, hide their personalities behind professionalism, and in the words of the cliche, ‘do their talking on the pitch’. This book gets up close to them. The Football Men is not a series of celebrity profiles, and it doesn’t attempt to unearth secrets in the players’ private lives. Rather, it portrays these men as three-dimensional human beings. It describes their upbringings, the football cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage that they bring to their relationships at work.” amazon

“So, the English Premier League will not be staging that dreaded 39th game overseas any time soon, which perhaps allows some of those grassroots fans to be thankful for something while they see the rest of their game being taken away. Chief executive Richard Scudamore certainly wanted to distance himself not only from his own failed idea but also from Scottish Premier League chief Neil Doncaster’s idea of taking the Old Firm abroad, which could be taken as simply a throw-away comment or a cheeky notice to Mr. Doncaster not to send him a holiday card.” twohundredpercent

“How many times have you heard that? At IBWM, we thought long and hard about compiling a comprehensive directory of the most exciting young players in world football. It is, after all, always good to have a handle on where the next global superstar is coming from, don’t you think? But we decided not to.” In Bed With Maradoma

“Football on TV was restricted to Match of the Day on Saturday and The Big Match on Sunday tea time. Occasionally, we were also treated to extended highlights on Sportsnight, presented by Harry Carpenter, during the week if there was an England game on or some FA Cup replays. Back then the football authorities were sensible. None of this “we need 10 days to sort out replay days” malarkey. It was as simple as “if we draw on Saturday, we replay on Tuesday”…and if that one is a draw then we will toss a coin to determine where the 2nd replay will be two days later (or on some instances the 3rd and 4th replays).” The Ball is Round

“A cold autumn mist seasoned with woodsmoke hangs over the stadium on what was no man’s land during Sarajevo’s four-year siege – the first Serbian machine-gun post was just behind the goal where the ‘maniac crew’ of Željeznicar Sarajevo sing and the electronic scoreboard now stands. Tonight, it shows a result of 2-0 in favour of Željeznicar against Celik Zenica in the Bosnian cup.” Guardian

“Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, Saint-Etienne. The Englishman receives the ball inside the opposition half and embarks on a purposeful run towards the goal in front of the Tribune Charles Paret. He is with new company in unfamiliar surroundings but, with the ball at his feet, he is reassured to find that the sensations are the same. Defenders disappear in his slipstream before a body-swerve takes him past another opponent and into the penalty area. With one sweep of his right foot, a new chapter in his life begins.” Football Further

“Divided by the Nepliget park, city rivals Ferencvaros and MTK are the country’s two most successful clubs, winning every title from 1903 until 1929 between them, and boasting a combined total of 51 championships (28 and 23 respectively). MTK are by tradition a club with Jewish origins, while Ferencvaros – due to much of the anti-Communist uprising of 1956 taking place in the area surrounding their stadium – have a big right-wing following, so racial undertones now blight any game between the two teams. However, their intense rivalry is currently on hold as MTK were relegated at the end of last season and they now play in the second-tier NB II.” World Soccer

“It is a swift six hour drive along the modern, three-lane freeway from Tabriz to Tehran. Descending from the historic city, the driver traces the ridge of the Sahand volcano, where the tower blocks of Tabriz give way first to sparse, sandy villages, then to vast, empty dust plains. The journey skirts the eastern edge of the Angoran protected area, where wild boar and wolves roam freely in the grey, scudded hills. On arrival at Qazvin, an ancient city once razed by Genghis Khan, the traveller joins Freeway One for the final ninety minute run into the capital.” In Bed With Maradona

“Football ‘has always been‘, writes David Conn in The Guardian, ‘riven with contradiction between the amateur sporting principles of the game’s founding fathers and the professional carnival to which they unwittingly gave birth‘. This is undoubtedly true, and such a split is wider now than it has ever been. The chasm between the grassroots and the £100,000 salaries of celebrity players or £100 non-VIP tickets at the Emirates Stadium emanate from the popularity of the 1990 World Cup and the advent of Sky Sports soon after.” In Bed With Maradona

“The release of Football Manager 2012 is just weeks away, but we have a sneak preview of what the enhanced 3D Match Views will look like. As you can see from the above video, the level of detail that has been added to the 3D Match Views is quite substantial. That includes everything from improved stadiums, player injuries, animated player responses, better lighting and much more.” EPL Talk

“The 2011 EFW Oktoberfest will take place between October 20-24. Based in Prague, and branching out as far afield as Bratislava, forty or so fans of clubs from all around Europe will attend a festival of football, beer and giggles. Danny Last and Stuart Fuller put some meat on those bones……” European Football Weekends

“When a football club averaging just 350 regular fans plays its way into the European history books you cannot help but wonder how it has belied the odds against it. After frightening mighty teams such as RSC Anderlecht and CSKA Sofia in recent years its progression could be the catalyst for a generation of change both in its own fortunes and the league in which it plies its trade.” In Bed With Maradona

“Beautiful women, sweet oranges, 3000 tapas bars and Real Betis – that’s my kind of European Football Weekend. Forget your swimming with dolphins nonsense: a visit to the Estadio Benito Villamarín has been on my ‘things to do before I die’ list for years. Betis are a fun club; one with a fan base possessing an all important – to me anyway – self-deprecating sense of humour. Think Manchester City before the money started to roll in. It may have been the thick end of 40 degrees today, but that didn’t stop a mad Englishman and around 40,000 Béticos going out in the midday sun.” European Football Weekends

“When England took on Bulgaria in this month’s European Championship qualifiers the commentators mentioned the name of a little known Bulgarian striker of the 1960’s and remarked, “He was the Dimitar Berbatov of his day.” I can assure you he was far more than that. The name Georgi Asparuhov may not mean a great deal to a large number of people but in his native Bulgaria he was and still is a footballing icon. He was a talent of enviable proportions and a man of grace and humility but his untimely death robbed the world of his skills.” In Bed With Maradona

“Jamie Casey on why his enforced desertion of Armagh City is part of a wider problem affecting football both sides of the Irish border. The last time I went to watch my hometown team, Kevin Pressman was keeping goal for the opposition. It shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise, really, given that the former Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper was 39 years old and carrying even more weight than his usually plump self.” In Bed With Maradona

“Writing in The Guardian a couple of days ago, columnist Charlie Brooker bemoaned his inability to partake in the nation’s passion for sport, going through each major national pastime in turn and finding fault with almost every one. Football was quickly dismissed. He did not feel remotely like roaring with delight at the sight of a multimillionaire kicking a ball at a net.” Guardian