“Sooner or later, reality bites in football – especially for football clubs like Celta Vigo. Unbeaten in La Liga up to last Saturday, the humble Galician outfit had found themselves sharing top spot on merit with visitors Real Madrid. But sooner or later, despite your dash, your verve, your high intensity pressing, reality bites.” backpagefootball
“The English-speaking football world shone its semi-interested light on Russian football last week, yet, as is the norm, the subjects scrutinised were narrow – ‘The Normal One’, ‘LVG and Roly Poly Rooney’ and many other pressing subjects. The question as to why a league like the RFPL should see its teams be competitive in Europe wasn’t brought up. Rather the Sky-BT-Insert Sponsor Name here League was studiously studied. Wiki searches for players with funny names were de rigeur for pundits.” backpagefootball
“For many years, the small nation of Croatia has been a breeding ground for some of the premium talents in European football. From Davor Suker , Zvonomir Boban and Robert Prosinecki, to Luka Modric, Ivan Rakitic and Mario Mandzukic, Croatia and its domestic league has blossomed into a top-15 side nationally and a top-20 league worldwide. However, despite a bevy of elite footballers and several impressive academies, the domestic league and national team are among the two most corrupt and troubled institutions in world football with a seemingly endless laundry list of infractions and crimes on its record.” Outside of the Boot
“Tonight sees the biggest game in Albanian football history take place at the Elbasan Arena. The Balkan nation have the opportunity to qualify for a major international tournament for the first time in their history. All that is required is a win in their penultimate match and for Denmark to simultaneously fail to win in Portugal and they’ll be home and hosed. In a qualification process littered with extraordinary performances by smaller nations – Iceland, Wales and Northern Ireland all spring to mind – Albania’s campaign still holds up as one of the most impressive. At the time of the draw last February, Albania were ranked as the 40th best team in Europe and allocated in seeding pot 5, alongside such footballing greats as Moldova, Azerbaijan and neighbours Macedonia.” backpagefootball
“The Czechs made it through to the 2016 finals despite being drawn in a potentially difficult group with Holland, Turkey and Iceland. A team with few well-known stars, coach Pavel Vrba has moulded them into a side that is greater than the sum of its parts. Expectations were low at the start of the qualifying campaign but an injury-time winner in their opening game in Prague against Holland galvanised the side and they went on to win their opening four games, while their rivals struggled. The Czechs have an impressive record at the European Championship, winning (as Czechoslovakia) in 1976, reaching the Final in 1996, the semi-finals in 2004 and the quarter-finals in 2012. They have qualified for every tournament since 1996.” World Soccer
“Arsenal, Shakhtar Donetsk, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Malmö and Maccabi Tel-Aviv have the unwanted tally of zero points from two UEFA Champions League games – but their hopes have not completely died. This is the 13th season since the current UEFA Champions League format of eight groups leading to a knockout round of 16 was introduced in 2003/04. In the first 12 campaigns, 68 teams lost their opening two matches; yet of those, six still made it through to the next stage, one actually topping their group. Our graphic explains how many sides have gone through or been eliminated after having each of the six possible points’ totals following matchday two – while beneath we chronicle the six clubs that shook off the worst possible start to earn a knockout berth.” UEFA
“I gave my tickets to last Saturday’s Spartak Moscow – Zenit St. Petersburg showdown to a German friend and his colleague. They were mad to taste something local and, like the vast majority of ‘Western’ residents, never had the chance or initiative to score tickets. I’d an idea to take Timur, but since he’s a Lokomotivnik I figured best not to confuse the child. He’d already started supporting Mayo this August when I took him to Croker. He figured it was okay as they have the same colour shirts of Lokomotiv. Even when pointed out to him the difference between Gaelic Football and Soccer, he simply said ‘Football is football.’ Hard to argue with a child’s logic.” backpagefootball
“At halftime on Tuesday night, Wolfsburg led Bayern Munich 1-0. It had defended well, looked dangerous on the counterattack and seemed that it might, for the first time in its history, win at Bayern. Pep Guardiola made two changes at the break, bringing on Javi Martinez for Juan Bernat and Robert Lewandowski for Thiago Alcantara. Six minutes later, Lewandowski equalized, rolling in a half-blocked shot at the back post. A minute later, surging through the middle, he dispatched a fierce low shot into the bottom corner from just outside the box. Three minutes after that, he hit the post, then drew a save from Diego Benaglio and then, at the third attempt, completed his hat trick. Two minutes after that, he rammed in a volley at slightly higher than waist height, contorting superbly to keep his weight over the ball. And two minutes after that, hooking the ball from behind him, he lashed in a side volley from the edge of the box. Five goals, three of them in stunning quality, in the space of nine minutes.” SI – Jonathan Wilson
Four Incredible Things That Happened in Bayern Munich–Wolfsburg BESIDES Robert Lewandowski’s Five Goals
“Yesterday, in the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich found themselves in an unfamiliar position: They were losing. This usually isn’t the end of the world for a team, especially one as good as the defending champions, but Bayern happen to be locked in what will likely be the most entertaining title race in club football this season. Bayern and their rivals Borussia Dortmund — who might be playing the most effervescent version of the sport right now — are steamrolling the competition, winning their matches and winning them big. Every game counts. Every goal counts. The entire league might be decided by the two matches that Dortmund and Bayern play against one another and how many goals they score throughout the season. Bayern losing to Wolfsburg, at home no less, was not on the menu.” Grantland (Video)
“… One of the last half-dozen straws that broke my back in the day-to-day grind of sports was what happened to another player with whom I went through the same process. He signed for a D2 Central team and received 20,000rbs on his contract and another 20,000rbs black. As a favour to his Dad I helped him negotiate the deal. He got a break alright, as well as cuts and bruises which left him in a regional hospital for three days. I was in Voronezh and visited him. His story was nothing uncommon. No pay from November and a showdown with the Sports Director in April.” backpagefootball
“In beating APOEL Nicosia 2-1 on aggregate, FC Astana have become the first team from the former Soviet Union state of Kazakhstan to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League. The Kazakhstanis beat Maribor of Solvenia, HJK Helsinki of Finland and Cypriots APOEL on their way to the group stages for their maiden season with Europe’s elite after being drawn against Atlético Madrid, Galatasaray and Benfica in an almost impossible Group C.” backpagefootball
“Playing in the seventh tier of English football was probably not quite how Evandro Rachoni saw his career going when he left Brazil to seek fame and fortune. But then, being threatened by masked gunmen as a platoon of tanks drove by was probably not part of the plan either. That, though, is just one part of an incredible journey that has seen the Brazilian goalkeeper go from playing against Ballon d’Or winner Rivaldo in Angola, escaping war-torn Ukraine to now living in the small Derbyshire town of Ilkeston preparing to play in the FA Cup first qualifying round.” BBC
“On the face of it, everything looks rosy for the Romania national side. They’re ranked seventh in the world and they sit top of their qualifying group for Euro 2016, having conceded only one goal in six games. If they beat Hungary away on Friday, they’d be a win from securing their place in France next summer.
Roy Hodgson tells England they can pull off Euro 2016 success. The president of the Romanian Football Federation, Razvan Burleanu, has been happy to take credit for Romania’s rise, saying that he had a plan to take Romania into the world’s top 20, then the top 15, then the top 10, and merrily asserting that his country is ahead of schedule.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“Bayern made it three wins from three in the weekend’s top game as they downed Bayer Leverkusen 3-0 at the Allianz Arena. Thomas Müller was the hero with a brace, while Arjen Robben added a third. It was a case of Leverkusen being good, but Bayern being exceedingly good. What do you do when you’ve got your two first-choice centre-backs out? Well if you’re Pep Guardiola you just fill your side with midfielders. With both Mehdi Benatia and Jerome Boateng missing, the Bayern trainer went with a three-man back line of Philipp Lahm, David Alaba and Juan Bernat with Thiago playing just in front.” Bundesliga Fanatic
Tactical Notes on Saturday’s Bayern Munich – Bayer Leverkusen Match
“MatchDay 3’s game of the week fixture featured two (of three) Bundesliga clubs with perfect records after two weeks, as holders FC Bayern Munich hosted Bayer 04 Leverkusen. In terms of squad strength, each club was short-handed, as Bayern were without much in the way of available defenders while Leverkusen’s attacking midfielder, Heung-Min Son, just signed a deal with Tottenham. Nevertheless, Bayern were able to prevail, downing Die Werkself 3-0.” Bundesliga Fanatic
“There was a twist to the Champions League group stage draw in Monaco Thursday. UEFA’s new seeding regulations meant that only reigning champions would be picked from Pot 1, leaving some dangerous contenders in the lower pots. And so it proved, as Manchester City was drawn with Juventus and Sevilla while Real Madrid drew Paris Saint-Germain and Shakhtar Donetsk. The draw resulted in some intriguing individual storylines, powerhouses going up against one another and the first steps on the road to the San Siro.” SI (Video)
“Salomón Rondón’s move from Zenit St Petersburg to West Bromwich Albion began with a phone call from Tony Pulis to André Villas-Boas asking him if there was any talent in Russia he should be looking at. The Zenit manager replied that because of new restrictions on foreign players – a direct diktat, it is said, from Vladimir Putin, concerned by the national side’s poor performances in qualifying for Euro 2016 – he was having to offload Rondón. The 25-year-old Venezuelan, he believed, would thrive in the Premier League.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“The end of the 2014/15 season saw two Russian legends leave their clubs to become free agents. Since returning to Russia from the English Premier League both Andrey Arshavin and Roman Pavlyuchenko have failed to live up to the fans’ expectations, and this summer they both found themselves without clubs as their contracts expired. Now a couple of months later they have the chance to shine for Kuban Krasnodar, with the pair linking up for the first time since August, 2012, when they both played in a friendly for Russia against Côte d’Ivoire, Fabio Capello’s first match in charge after the dissapointing Euro tournament in 2012. Arshavin hasn’t played for the national time since, and Pavlyuchenko retired from international football in 2013.” Russian Football
“Saturday was a historic day for Torcida Sandžak, Serbia’s only Islamic ultras group. They’d witnessed their team, Novi Pazar, go a goal down in the opening fifteen minutes, miss a penalty and concede a second in first half stoppage time. All of that came in one of the biggest games of the season, the home fixture with Partizan Belgrade; last season’s champions who had won their opening two matches 4-0 and 6-0. Novi Pazar, by contrast, had lost their opening game at home to newly promoted Javor Ivanjica. And yet somehow they emerged victorious, recording their first ever win over Partizan.” backpagefootball
“André Villas-Boas is still only 37, but it feels like he’s been a football manager for a very long time. Indeed, the 25th of October, 2015 will only be the 6th anniversary of Villas-Boas’ first game in charge of a senior, professional football team, discounting a brief stint as Technical Director of the British Virgin Islands at the age of 21. Villas-Boas has taken first team management roles in Portugal, with Académica de Coimbra and his beloved FC Porto, then in London, with Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, and he is now currently working for Zenit St. Petersburg, in Russia.” Outside of the Boot
“Anti-racism campaigner Piara Powar has attacked Russian football’s record on racsim after it emerged that a winner of the official Russian Premier League annual beauty pageant had posted neo-Nazi messages on social media. The latest racism story to emerge from the 2018 World Cup hosts comes days Emmanuel Frimpong was sent off for gesturing towards abusive Spartak Moscow fans. The Russian Football Union later ruled there was no evidence to prove that Frimpong had been targeted by racists and the player’s two-match ban for being sent off was upheld.” World Soccer
The soccer world continues to condone Russia’s racism
“With all the outrage surrounding the 2022 Qatar World Cup, it’s easy to forget that, in just three years, Russia will be hosting the 2018 World Cup. Yes, the same Russia where players regularly get racially abused at Russian Premier League games for sport. That should be comforting to players and fans, particularly those who may be of a similar hue to those who get abused on a weekly basis. I mean, welcome to Russia 2018, amirite? Save up for your bananas. Zenit St. Petersburg’s Brazilian striker Hulk said yesterday that he faces racial abuse in ‘almost every game’ in the Russian league. That’s a hell of a statement and, to be fair, a remarkable level of consistency and dedication from Russian fans.” Fusion
Red Star and the land of great knights
“As an English football fan, I’m surprisingly comfortable with the notion of congregating into the symbolic centre of a town far away from where I live and belting out messy, off-key renditions of self-written songs. Those obnoxious little ditties glorifying my own roots at the expense of others are usually characterised by puerile language and an awkward cocktail of self-deprecating humour mixed with the most ridiculously aggrandising boasting.” Football Pink
“Born in Gjakovë, Kosovo on 25th December 1971, Besnik Hasi started his football career at Liria Prizren (then a team playing in the Superliga of Kosovo), before moving to many different clubs in Balkan leagues, and then in 1994, found as he recalls his 2nd home: Belgium. In 1994 he signed for the KRC Genk, where he played 141 games, winning the Belgian Pro League and Belgian Cup once each.” Outside of the Boot
Tactical Philosophy: Andre Breitenreiter
“Andre Breitenreiter, the footballer, was horribly unlucky. His luck started out undeniably positive as at only 17 years old, he lifted the Deutscher Pokal in 1992 with Hannover 96. Then plying his wares in the second tier, Breitenreiter became an overnight sensation. ‘The Lightning Bomber’ as he was known in Germany, made the jump to the Hamburger SV in 1994 and at 19 years of age, scored a 19 minute hat-trick in the now defunct Inter-Toto Cup against Danish side Ikast FS. His Bundesliga debut came against, of all the sides, Bayern München. His brace helped Hamburger SV to the victory. Andre Breitenreiter, the footballer, had arrived and tragically his luck decided to strike two days after that momentous victory over Bayern when he broke his cheekbone and jaw and was sidelined for the rest of the season.” Outside of the Boot
“Way back in the mists of time that was 1986, it was possible for an Eastern European team to become kings of the continent. Everyone remembers the great Red Star Belgrade team of 1991, of course, but five years before that, in 1986, the Ros-Albastrii ( the Red & Blues) of Bucharest became the first club from the East to claim the ultimate prize in European club football.” backpagefootball
“Cold War Europe was a sinister place. Behind the Iron Curtain, popular opinion told us, it was a grey, totalitarian world where spies drank thick black coffee in cafes, children informed on their parents, smoke-chugging cars rolled off production lines and food queues, for inedible black bread, went on for miles The lingua franca was strictly Russian. As for football, teams were supposedly mysterious, functional, militaristic and tough. They were known as ‘Crack’ Hungarians, Bulgarians and East Germans. But while these teams were hard to beat, it was the latin contingent in Europe that emerged as the dominant forces, notably the Spanish and Italians. In 1962, the trend was broken when one Josef Masopust, a 31-year-old Czech, was named European Footballer of the Year.” Football Pink
“Through the annals of footballing history, there have been a multitude of figures whose contribution to the game can be termed as colossal. Names such as Jimmy Hogan, Herbert Chapman, Victor Maslov, Rinus Michels, Arrigo Sacchi, have left their inedible mark on the sport through their philosophies of how the game should be played. But among these, the name of Valeriy Lobanovskyi has long gone unnoticed and underappreciated. His contribution to the game is as important and as ground breaking as any of the contributions of the rest of these eminent personalities. Born in Kiev in 1939, the young Valeriy was a smart kid, evidenced by his gold medal in mathematics which he was gifted when he left high school.” Outside of the Boot
“With the vital Russia v Austria Euro 2016 qualifier lost in disappointing circumstances, the Russian season eased to a finish with pretty much everyone and everything where we expected them. The Russian Football Union (RFS) hasn’t the money to pay off their expensive Italian (a crowdfunding gimmick was launched to do just that) and President of the RFS Nikolai Tolstykh was slaughtered by the Sports Minister’s allies.” backpagefootball
“During the years of the Cold War, the Eastern European secret services were involved in all aspects of everyday life. Football, the greatest social phenomenon of the 20th century, was not an exception. Behind the Iron Curtain, the beautiful game was under the command of a system of departmental clubs. In every Eastern European country, the main derby was between clubs of the army and the interior ministry – with many clubs taking their name from the associated departments, with the club’s associated to the police being named Dinamo (e.g. Kiev, Tbilisi, Bucharest, and Zagreb). The degree of intervention from the secret service depended upon the specificities of the regime.” Slavic Football Union
“Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Sevilla traded goals in a highly entertaining Europa League final on Wednesday, scoring four goals between them in the first half and five total. Sevilla eventually came out on top in the competition for the second successive year, 3-2, at Poland’s National Stadium in Warsaw. For the first time, this Europa League winner goes straight to the subsequent Champions League, giving the Warsaw final added meaning. Both teams’s intensity showed as much, as both fought for a berth in the continent’s premier club competition for which they failed to qualify via league play.” SI
Carlos Bacca double breaks Dnipro hearts for Sevilla to make history
“In the end, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk’s sense of their own destiny was not enough. Sevilla, playing their familiar attractive football, became the first side to win the Europa League for the fourth time – astonishingly only nine years after they won it for the first time. While José Antonio Reyes offered a reminder of his energy and inventiveness for an hour, this was really the victory of two men who confirmed their great promise. Unai Emery, the 43-year-old coach, defended the title he won by beating Benfica in the final last year, but in a far more fluent, aesthetically pleasing way, while the 28-year-old Colombia forward, Carlos Bacca, demonstrated his predatory instincts with two goals.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“When Danny joined Zenit St Petersburg from Dynamo Moscow for €30m in 2008, he was greeted with widespread scepticism. This was, after all, a Zenit team that, inspired by Andrey Arshavin and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, had just won the Uefa Cup. Did they really need to spend that much on a player from one of their bitterest rivals? Seven years on, Danny leaves Zenit as a club legend: a draw at FC Ufa nine days ago enough to secure him his third league title with the club.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“As half-time fare it seemed a little unusual. Boris Yuzefpolsky returned to his seat in the press box of the Central Stadium in Russia’s far-eastern city of Yekaterinburg and eyed the lightly frosted savoury lump handed to him by a stadium official. The words FC URAL were carefully baked into its top. A freezing 45 minutes later Yuzefpolsky tapped out the headline for his match report. ‘Gingerbread cookies don’t help as Ural go down 3-1 in their final match at the Central Stadium.’ After this, attention turns to the 2018 World Cup and a major remodelling programme for the arena. There are more numbers in Yuzefpolsky’s report. In three and a half years at the stadium FC Ural Sverdlovskaya Oblast have taken in 54 Russian Premier League matches, attended by 467,000 fans who have cheered 14 victories and 128 goals.” In Bed With Maradona
“Last Sunday Zenit St. Petersburg won their fourth Russian Premier League title and their fifth league title in total, 31 years after they won the first in the Soviet Supreme League in 1984. The championship was secured after a 1-1 draw with FC Ufa, making them unreachable for their closest rivals – CSKA Moscow and FC Krasnodar. Zenit’s road to success had already started last season, when André Villas-Boas signed a two year contract on the 18th of March, following a disastrous ending to Luciano Spalletti’s five year reign in St. Petersburg.” Russian Football
“It is 11 years since I visited Dnipropetrovsk. It may have changed, but back then it was a bracingly industrial city, the river thick with green sludge. Amid the factories and the endless brick there was one oasis: Dnipro’s impressive training base, a block of immaculate, manicured pitches surrounded by trees. ‘Dnipro always had a good school,’ said their then coach, Yevhen Kucherevskyi. He is dead now, killed in a car crash in August 2006, but the academy remains a cornerstone of the club: 12 of the first-team squad are home-grown. On Thursday Dnipro face Napoli in Kiev in the second-leg of their Europa League semi-final.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“The Russian weather warms, the Premier League clubs are feeling the heat of an end of season battle for Europe or survival. The fine performance by Zenit in the Europa League was a spring highlight and accompanied the club’s steady progress at home. While going out to reigning Champions Sevilla in two very good matches, the St. Petersburg side showed that it is possible to compete on two fronts, contrary to the English commentators.” backpagefootball
“Serhiy Rebrov scored only one goal for West Ham United, the winner in a 3-2 victory over Watford in November 2004. He was wearing an orange sweatband on his wrist when he did so, an indication of his support for the demonstrators who were occupying Independence Square in Kiev, protesting against irregularities in the presidential election run-off that had seen Viktor Yanukovych defeat Viktor Yushchenko. Yushchenko won a re-run election, but Yanukovych returned. A decade on, the demonstrators were back in Independence Square fighting him again, their success precipitating the Russian seizure of Crimea and the war in the Ukrainian east. Rebrov is an ethnic Russian who was born in Horlivka – or Gorlovka, if you prefer the Russian name – about 30 miles north-east of Donetsk.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“Torpedo Moscow, in their latest incarnation, are a club with a whole heap of trouble. Fans warring with the owner, owner trying to placate investors, never-ending stream of bad media. One of the storied clubs of Russian football seems to want to curl up and die. Last weekend’s violence in Tula was another blow against soccer in Russia. Coming hot on the heels of the idiocy in Podgorica, the Arsenal and Torpedo fans seemed eager to grab headlines with a flare and firecracker display which presaged a full on riot.” backpagefootball
“Can you believe it’s April already? While there have been times over the past eight months when the season’s felt like an interminable drag — those weeks of domestic cup games, the handful of international breaks, consecutive weekends in which the best game involves Newcastle — we’re finally here. With just about two months left in most leagues across Europe, it’s the stretch run, where the rubber meets the road, the standings approach finality, and things become truly exciting. Except, maybe not this year.” Grantland
“When cities put forward a bid to stage the Olympics, the date of the Games is an explicit part of the proposal. IOC members know what they are voting for. This, of course, was not the case in the race to stage the 2022 World Cup. An inspection group carried out a detailed study into the bids, and put the information at the disposal of FIFA’s Executive Committee – which proceeded to take little notice. They chose Qatar with barely a thought for the logistical problems and world football has been in a bind ever since. It would seem that some sort of compromise is being worked out. A conventional June/July World Cup presented the obvious problem of extreme heat, and so the tournament is set to be staged in November and December.” The World Game – Tim Vickery
“I honestly thought I was dreaming as I followed the events on Friday night. I was on the overnight train back to Voronezh, still suffering from a wee bit of a fever, and honestly believed that I was watching an amazingly bad action movie from the 1980s. The idiots who turned up to put on a show of ‘Slavic’ force on Friday night in Podgorica, made a mockery of what sport should be. From inappropriate chants to throwing flares, knives, coins and stones, what should have been a straightforward international match between two not-unfriendly nations, turned into an inferno.” backpagefootball
“Jackie Carey is said to have written in his official report to the FAI on the game between Ireland and Poland in Katowice in May 1958 that it was ‘fitting that our association should be the first to resume international games with this predominantly Catholic country.’ This curious observation raises a couple of points. The first is: What on earth was the team ‘manager’ on about? The Poles had been back in international football for a decade by the time the game took place and their first post-war attempt to qualify for a World Cup, which included a 2-1 win over the Soviet Union in front of 93,000 in the same stadium where Ireland played, had only ended the previous year with a play-off defeat by the same opponents in ‘neutral’ East Germany.” Irish Times
“Look at Branislav Ivanovic and you won’t see the modern conception of a full-back. He’s no Dani Alves, getting to the end line, pumping in crosses, and pinning back opposition wingers. No, he’s a physically intimidating slab of Serbian sinew, with a questionable haircut and legs like two Doric columns. A glance at Ivanovic recalls the days when everyone who played defense really wanted to play defense — to make two-footed tackles, to launch clearances into the stands — and not do much else. Except Ivanovic defies that old-school classification, too. In fact, the 31-year-old seems to defy any classification. A right back on the team sheet, Ivanovic has become one of the best in the world by doing it his own way.” Grantland
“Poor Werder Bremen. When struggling, its woes went unheard, so loud were the laughs at Borussia Dortmund’s expense. But when soaring, in comes Wolfsburg, knocking in five goals two weeks ago to crunch Werder’s near-success into a throw-away sentence at the end of a paragraph. All this team wants is someone to notice it, damn it, but in this league of showoffs and scrappy strugglers and this weekend’s hedgemonic opposition, Bayern Munich, people are constantly swiping left when encountering the insipid green diamond that is Werder Bremen.” Soccer Gods
“1: What did the fall season teach you? Saul: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The wealthiest side is top and looks likely to win the league (despite not playing well as a team); Spartak are experimenting with a foreign manager and failing, having expected him to bring instant success; the new sides are struggling, including with their finances; Terek are mid table; further down clubs have begun to disappear from the league structure. Having said all that, I’m really looking forward to things starting up again in a few weeks. Aleks: The first half of the season showed that Spartak are doing better than is generally thought. They’re the only team that’s currently unbeaten at home. Despite not having stability up front, Dynamo are doing better than expected, and have so far made it farther in the Europa League than they ever have, joining a select few teams to have gone unbeaten in the group stage in the process. …” Russian Football News
“It was a typically Russian response, one that anybody who has worked here, or done business, with Russian companies will have experienced. Payday arrives, confidently you head out that evening and decide to remove some cash from the drinklink and you begin to boil. What was in your account the day before, hasn’t changed. It’s eight o’clock, so no good calling your boss or someone who can offer an explanation, worse, it’s a Friday and it dawns on you that your fridge is going to remain empty for another couple of days, at least. This is just the beginning. The end will be far more frustrating and depressing.” backpagefootball – part 1, part 2, part 3
“Turkish football’s productivity – unsurprisingly – is deplorable. Enes Ünal and Ozan Tufan are the hottest prospects right at the moment. When it comes to football, European clubs hesitate to make an investment on Turkish players. Some Turkish journalists call it ‘passport problem’ but for me, it’s all about reputation. Turkish players must tighten their belts and work harder than ever.” Outside of the Boot
“Angry fans and impromptu protests are all the rage this Major League Soccer offseason. Being the relative neophites we supposedly are (but actually aren’t) here in the United States, we can take a few notes on how to send a strong message from fellow supporters around the world. Bear witness to the work of the pissed off fans of Zawisza Bydgoszcz. The Polish first division club is dead last in the league, so bad that it’s eight points behind the next worst team. They haven’t won in 10 matches, and it lost a friendly to a second division team this weekend.” Soccer Gods (Video)
“It was a typically Russian response, one that anybody who has worked here, or done business, with Russian companies will have experienced. Payday arrives, confidently you head out that evening and decide to remove some cash from the drinklink and you begin to boil. What was in your account the day before, hasn’t changed. It’s eight o’clock, so no good calling your boss or someone who can offer an explanation, worse, it’s a Friday and it dawns on you that your fridge is going to remain empty for another couple of days, at least. This is just the beginning. The end will be far more frustrating and depressing.” backpagefootball
“The Stadion Za Luzankami in Brno, Czech Republic, once held around 50,000 people. Opened in 1953, it was home to FC Zbrojovka Brno until 2001, and hosted the record attendance at a Czech First League match, when 44,120 watched the home team take on Slavia Prague in 1996-97. Brno were forced to move in 2001 as the stadium no longer met FIFA and Czech football association criteria. Plans to renovate or rebuild the stadium were put on hold in June 2012, and it currently stands dilapidated, with trees and weeds growing from the terraces.” WSC
“On a spring afternoon in late March 1992, The Eternal Derby is about to take place between city rivals Partizan and Red Star Belgrade at Red Star’s Marakana stadium. Partizan are seen by their rivals as everything they stand against. They are the club of the Yugoslav state and the army whilst Red Star are the club of Serbia and it is they alone who hold Serb values and will protect Serb identity in the face of increasing self determination from Croatia and Bosnia. It is their fans who were at Maksimir on the day that they fought with Dinamo Zagreb ultras the Bad Blue Boys and it was their fans who followed the call to arms to protect fellow Serbs where they were threatened as war broke out in the rapidly disintegrating Yugoslavia.” The Football Pink
“With South American football currently slumbering through its high summer siesta, I hope I might be forgiven for glancing backwards at what has just become last year’s World Cup. The tournament was well worth remembering – for the protests it engendered beforehand, for the spectacle it provided us with during and for the memories that linger afterwards. These are some of mine.” The World Game – Tim Vickery
“Soccer’s hot stove league — the winter transfer window — fired up again Thursday, beginning a monthlong frenzy in which some of Europe’s best-known teams will buy and sell the rights to some of the world’s best players. But as teams around the world prepare for the semiannual flurry — there is a longer summer window — everyone involved does so with a new era looming: Third-party ownership, which for years drove the market by allowing outside investors to buy pieces of a player’s future to profit from his eventual sale, will soon be banned. At its core, third-party ownership, or T.P.O., is simple: An investor gives money to a club in exchange for a share of a player’s future transfer fees. Many clubs, particularly in South America and Eastern Europe, build their rosters around T.P.O., either as a hedge against a young player’s development prospects or to raise capital for more immediate needs.” NY Times
“The future is often hard to predict. Nobody knows what lies around the corner, or what will happen next month let alone tomorrow. The same can be said of football; clubs rise and fall, players performances ebb and flow week-by-week, but that is the beauty of the game. Unpredictability reigns supreme. That is why this list, of eleven talented individuals, should not be taken too seriously. With all that in mind let CZEFootball present you with eleven names. Eleven footballers who are worth keeping an eye on throughout the course of the year. These are the Jedenáct.” CZEFootball
“Hakan Calhanoglu grew up in Mannheim of Germany, before moving on to Karlsruhe, Hamburg and Leverkusen while getting called up to the Turkish National team in 2013. An attacking midfielder by trade, Hakan’s style and elegance on the ball has seen him sought out by some of the world’s best. Mini-Analysis: Operating behind the striker or across the midfield, Calhanoglu’s style of play is easy on the eye. A mainstay in the Hamburg team that narrowly escaped relegation last season saw him bag 11 goals and assist 4 in 32 games.” Outside of the Boot
“When the 2014/15 Europa League kicked off its preliminary stages back in June, 195 teams began a journey which comes to an end in May at Warsaw’s impressive Stadion Narodowy. Whoever emerges victorious will become only the third team to lift a trophy inside Poland’s centrepiece stadium, with this season’s Polish Cup winners being the second. The first – reigning holders of said competition, Zawisza Bydgoszcz – were in amongst those 195 original Europa League teams, beginning their first ever foray into continental competition with a trip to Belgian side Zulte Waregem. The Second Qualifying Round tie may have ultimately ended in defeat for Zawisza, however it had come on the back of the most successful twelve months in the club’s near-70-year history.” In Bed With Maradona
“Champions League holders and arguably Europe’s most in-form team Real Madrid were drawn against German side Schalke 04 in the last 16 of Europe’s most prestigious competition. Real, which defeated city rival Atletico Madrid 4-1 in Lisbon last year to win ‘La Decima’ — it’s 10th title — is attempting to become the first team to successfully defend the Champions League. Two of England’s three clubs face tough ties, with Chelsea drawn against Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City paired with Spanish giants Barcelona.” CNN
Rematches, Wenger reunion headline Champions League knockout draw
“After a group stage in which the main lesson was that Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are still the teams to beat in this competition, the draw for the round of 16 took place Monday. The odds on the two favorites will have shortened considerably after decent draws, and two big guns will fall by the wayside after Paris Saint-Germain was drawn against Chelsea and Manchester City against Barcelona in a pair of repeat matchups from last season. There was also a moment of sentimentality in the draw, as Arsenal was drawn against AS Monaco, where coach Gunners coach Arsene Wenger was manager from 1987-1994. Here’s a breakdown of Monday’s draw…” SI
Simone Scuffet
“Following the huge success of our 2014 list, we have compiled a list of the 100 Best Young Players to Watch in 2015 under our Talent Radar feature after careful evaluation and consultation. For more details on how we went about this and any other questions you may have, read these FAQs.” Outside of the Boot
“With the winter break approaching the top three clubs in the Synot Liga are covered by two points. Leading the way is Viktoria Plzen on thirty-five points, Sparta Prague are second on thirty-four and then, third, on thirty-three is Jablonec; then there a ten point chasm to Mlada Boleslav in fourth. It may be premature to call this a three horse title race; as always time will tell. Viktoria Plzen and Sparta Prague are no strangers to picking up silverware, with the two clubs winning four of the past five league titles. But for Jablonec, this is a relatively well-trodden path for them. The problem is they just never follow through with their autumnal promise. How they approach the next couple of months will tell us a lot about their ambition and whether they have the staying power and financial will to compete until the end of the season. History dictates they won’t.” CZEFootball
“After Sunday’s 3-0 loss in Israel, the success that saw Bosnia appear in this summer’s World Cup was pushed even further from relevance, though five months ago, the country’s first ever major tournament was cast as a potentially major step in unifying a young, divided nation. On the contrary, the idea of the Bosnia national team as a symbol of unity was always a mere myth. It is an easy story to tell for the journalist who never ventures out of Sarajevo’s old town – or, for the writer who relies solely on photos that emerge after the team’s success.” Soccer Gods
“Croatia coach Niko Kovac expects European governing body Uefa to punish his country following trouble during a Euro 2016 qualifier in Italy. The match ended 1-1 but was marred by crowd unrest as fans threw fireworks and smoke bombs on to the pitch. Referee Bjorn Kuipers was forced to twice stop the game and 16 Croatia supporters were arrested. ‘Of course Croatia will face sanctions, but there is no reason for any point deductions,’ said Kovac.” BBC
“Gwangju, 2 June 2002. Slovenia were 1-0 down to Spain in their first ever World Cup match when, after 63 minutes, Srecko Katanec took off Zlatko Zahovic for Milenko Acimovic. What followed has become Slovenian football’s equivalent of the Zapruder footage, a clip replayed endlessly on television in search of a meaning. Zahovic walked from the pitch, slapped hands with Acimovic, and then, out of focus in the background, kicked out at a bottle of water. Somewhere in those three or four seconds, the first golden age of Slovenian football came to an end.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“Whenever the subject of the greatest player in the history of football is debated, the 47th minute of this year’s World Cup final might figure highly in the argument. It was that minute when Lionel Messi dragged a left-footed shot wide of the far post, his best opportunity to win a tense, tight final, and put himself alongside Pele and Diego Maradona as World Cup winners. Messi can, of course, still be considered the all-time greatest without a World Cup to his name, especially because in the modern age, the European Cup is played at a higher standard than the World Cup. To some, however, his lack of international honours remains crucial — it’s not an insurmountable barrier, but a significant caveat.” ESPN – Michael Cox
“Despite poor form and alerting performances, İsmail Kartal’s men finally prevailed at home against Çaykur Rizespor to make it 5 wins out of 5 games at home, despite coming back from an early 0-1 deficit. Kartal’s men were down early into the game via an own goal from Michal Kadlec, but showed signs of aggression right away to take the game to their opponents. Particularly Alper Potuk and Diego, who were deployed as left winger and central play maker respectively, influenced the game, as Potuk’s dribbling and Diego’s creativity were crucial.” Outside of the Boot
“As match day 8 is left behind, defending champions Fenerbahçe managed to make their way to the top, after defeating league leaders Beşiktaş 0-2 away from home in a contest where the hosts played nearly the half of the match a man down. İsmail Kartal’s men started the game brilliantly and took the lead within 3 minutes after Alper Potuk’s excellent run from the left flank, in the end of which he teed up Emenike for the early lead. Fenerbahçe then managed to control the tempo and were impressive on the counter, with the visitors continuing to threaten down the left flank through Caner Erkin and Alper Potuk, while 34 year-old Emre Belözoğlu continuously moved to the left to create overloads.” Outside of the Boot
Scissors Kick 