“There is a painkilling drug in football that is described as ‘Evil’. It is feared within the game, and can be highly addictive. It will be added to the banned substance list, leaving many players in a race against time to wean themselves off it. This is the story of Tramadol’s use in football. Written by Daniel Taylor. Illustrated by Marco Bevilacqua.”
YouTube
“Hamburg’s Daniel Heuer Fernandes might be the most watchable goalkeeper in Europe. Those who have seen him know why. For those who have not, the best way to describe him is as two separate players: the goalkeeper and the footballer. Heuer Fernandes, 31, is an excellent shot-stopper. He is nimble and agile and has made some brilliant saves over the past few years. But he is really Hamburg’s 11th outfield player, too, and not in the cliched, ’keeper-who-is-good-with-his-feet sense. He can actually play. …”
The Athletic
W – Daniel Heuer Fernandes
“… Eighth-tier side Ramsgate (from the Isthmian League South East Division) beat 5th division/National League side Woking, 2-1, at Ramsgate’s ground, Southwood Stadium, in Ramsgate, on the northeast coast of Kent. There was a packed crowd of 3,000 there, which exceeded the ground’s capacity by 500. Woking took an early lead, with a goal in the 13th minute. But Ramsgate equalised in the 40th minute, when Canterbury, Kent-born GK Tom Hadler boomed a long 70-yard goal-kick that London-born MF Tijan Jadama deftly trapped, on the fly, then bundled in {see photos and captions below.} Ramsgate took the lead for good in the 72nd minute, when former Man Utd MF Lee Robert Martin scored, on a nicely played set piece from a corner kick. …”
billsportsmaps
W – FA Cup
“A sign of champions, the theory has it, is winning ugly. No side can be at their very best all the time and so, over the course of a season, there will be occasions when a team that is going to win the league has to gut it out, to keep going with their plans, to keep believing, whether that means withstanding pressure or burgling a late goal. Not all points are won with beauty; some have to be fought for or stolen. In a title race, character matters as much as ability. …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“Lille have regained their stride. Until Sunday night, November had been a frustrating month for Paulo Fonseca’s team. They had been held in Marseille, dropped points carelessly at home to Toulouse and, in between, failed to beat Slovan Bratislava in the Europa Conference League. But Lille ended the month well, proving too sophisticated for Lyon at the Groupama Stadium. They produced a stylish attacking performance to move up to fourth in Ligue 1 and the 2-0 win also offered a reminder of how watchable their head coach’s brand of football can be. …”
The Athletic
“So many players cite Marcelo Bielsa as having had a transformational impact on their career: Gabriel Batistuta, Mauricio Pochettino, Diego Simeone, Alexis Sanchez, Ander Herrera and Kalvin Phillips, to name just a few. Argentine coach Bielsa’s ability to craft and tweak systems and tactical plans to maximise individual strengths, as well as notice the tiniest details to raise a player’s level, are legendary. Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez can be added to the above list. …”
The Athletic
“Every season, Ligue 1 has a surprise package. This season, it is Nice. A plucky underdog story? Not exactly. They are bankrolled by INEOS, British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s company, who took over in 2019, and are playing their 22nd consecutive Ligue 1 campaign. Nice have recorded top-half finishes for eight years in a row but never truly challenged for the title or had any European success. …”
The Athletic
“Football loves new ideas. Novel tactical trends, unusual players, and changes in coaching approach. But what are the ideas going out of fashion? Which tactics are heading for extinction? Duncan Alexander and Nick Miller write. Craig Silcock illustrates.”
YouTube
Supporters of Malmo, the Swedish soccer team, set off so many flares during the season finale against Elfsborg this month that the match had to be stopped for 30 minutes.
“The warning sounded over and over, first in Swedish and then in English. A fire had been detected. Please evacuate the stadium. The players left the field. Outside, fire crews were arriving. But in the stands, as a thick cloud of smoke wreathed and coiled in the floodlights, nobody moved. The fans were going to make the game happen by sheer force of will. It was a game they had been anticipating for some time. The top two teams in the Allsvenskan, Sweden’s elite league, had gone into the final day of the season separated by just three points. …”
NY Times
“Time and time again, radio football commentary has engaged me in the game like no other medium. My infatuation with it was actually born from my environment rather than personal interest. I will never forget the long family car journeys as a kid—my brothers and I crammed into the back of our car, fighting for leg space as we endured the hours of motorway to some random holiday destination. More often than not, my dad would tune the radio into whatever football match was being broadcast on local or national radio to pass the time, and to most likely have some relief from the jam-packed, overfilled, and usually too hot or cold family car. Looking back now, I realise that I would also use the football commentary as an escape through the commentator’s words. …”
Football Paradise
“… Then suddenly something clicked, England started posting scores of 350+ as standard and began beating the best sides in the world. Just as the thought began to crystallise that in a World Cup on home soil they might not actually just be genuine contenders but perhaps even favourites, an astonishing generational talent became available to them in Jofra Archer. …”
Guardian
“This is the third in a series about the 16 triumphant teams in the European Championship, ahead of the 17th edition in Germany next year. So far, we’ve looked at the USSR in 1960 and Spain in 1964. This time, it’s the turn of Italy. The point of this series is to redress the balance — the history of the World Cup is incredibly storied and famous, while the history of the European Championship feels entirely unknown to many. And there’s no better example of that than Italy’s triumph in the European Championship of 1968, which seems entirely forgotten by almost everyone. …”
The Athletic
“This is the second in a series about the 16 triumphant teams in the European Championship ahead of the 17th edition in Germany next year. Last time, the focus was the USSR in 1960. Four years on, Spain are victorious. The previous edition of the European Nations Cup featured the USSR receiving a bye at the quarter-final stage because General Franco was so afraid of them beating Spain on home soil that he ordered the Spanish side to withdraw. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“A late penalty from Cole Palmer earned Chelsea a 4-4 draw with Manchester City in a thrilling match at Stamford Bridge. Erling Haaland put the visitors ahead after winning a penalty before Thiago Silva equalised with a header from a corner less than five minutes later. Raheem Sterling tapped in against his former club, only for Manuel Akanji to level things again on the stroke of half-time with a free header. …”
The Athletic
“Welcome To Wrexham’s eagerly awaited season two finale hits the screens this week. If the rest of its second series is anything to go by, an episode simply titled Up The Town? is likely to be a cracker as we reach the climax of a thrilling title race that will go down as an all-time classic. Those supporters who lived and breathed every second of last season’s titanic National League title tussle between Wrexham and Notts County will tune in knowing the result. But, that’s unlikely to prevent the myriad of emotions experienced six months ago once again bubbling to the surface, meaning there will be tears as well as cheers in households from Llangollen to Los Angeles. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“This was supposed to be the night that Liverpool secured their Europa League knockout qualification — instead, they delivered one of their worst recent displays under Jurgen Klopp to slump to a shock defeat, and one clouded by controversy. The visitors deservedly trailed at the interval through Aron Donnum’s 36th-minute goal and things did not improve after half-time. …”
The Athletic
BBC – Toulouse 3-2 Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp angered by ‘chaotic’ performance – and media conference (Video)
The Athletic: Liverpool’s away form is becoming a problem – so what’s going wrong? (Video)
“There is the adage, made famous by former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, that second place was nowhere. Au contraire, Bill. It is not just second that has become somewhere, but third and fourth, too. And, from the end of this season, we might even start to consider finishing fifth in the 20-team Premier League a cause for celebration. A revamped Champions League has room for more clubs for 2024-25 and beyond, and that means the door could swing open for English football’s fifth-best team to earn their share of a financial windfall. …”
The Athletic
“Barcelona lost the El Clasico last week to Real Madrid but can definitely vouch for the fact that in the biggest game in Spanish football, they certainly deserved more. The most striking thing about Barcelona was how easy they found it to get the ball from defence into attack yielding many promising chances. The Catalan side did hit the woodwork twice. Strangely Madrid approached the game using a high press, whilst the midfield pivot would cut off the passing lanes to Gavi and Ilkay Gundogan. With Madrid’s front two and Bellingham pressing, Barca were able to find a wide centre-back who could find Fermin Lopez down the line to turn and feed either Joao Felix or Ferran Torres. Even with Gavi and Gundogan unable to receive the ball it didn’t matter, Ronald Araujo was able to find Fermin just in behind Madrid’s press and quickly release their forwards. …”
Breaking the Lines
Jürgen Klopp hugs Diogo Jota as he leaves the pitch during Sunday’s game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
“José Mourinho wore many faces as a Premier League manager. Chameleon-like, shifting from rambunctious to cantankerous. If Chelsea’s 2015 Premier League title win had all the hallmarks of a Tom Wambsgans redemption arc, his 2004 to 2007 incarnation was defined by his Logan Roy lead character energy. Every game felt tinged with Mourinho razzmatazz – good or bad. No wonder, then, when Chelsea lost to neighbors Fulham for the first time in 27 years on 20 March 2006, Mourinho preserved his role as chief headline maker. …”
Guardian
“This is the second in a series about the 16 triumphant teams in the European Championship ahead of the 17th edition in Germany next year. Last time, the focus was the USSR in 1960. Four years on, Spain are victorious. The previous edition of the European Nations Cup featured the USSR receiving a bye at the quarter-final stage because General Franco was so afraid of them beating Spain on home soil that he ordered the Spanish side to withdraw. …”
The Athletic – Michael Cox
“Football is changing. You don’t need to be Grampa Simpson shouting at a cloud to realise things are not what they used to be. The top level of the men’s game is widely different from how it was even 10 years ago. Many things are disappearing from football, some of which are slightly intangible — raucous atmospheres, community, the feeling that having so much football available to watch is dulling our senses and making us numb to the excitement of it — but some of them are more measurable. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“There have been few more complete strikers in the modern game than Andriy Shevchenko. A powerful all-rounder who could score from distance or slalom through opposition defences, he was, at his peak, the world’s best striker, winning the Ballon d’Or in 2004 to sit alongside winners’ medals from Serie A and the Champions League. …”
The Athletic (Video)
W – Andriy Shevchenko
“… Henry’s reference to playing style is that he was, and Mbappe is, a right-footer who played off the left, though they share an interpretation of the role as more inside-forward than winger. Across his senior career, Henry registered more than twice as many league goals as assists, while Mbappe’s ratio is three to one. Henry’s trademark became the far-post finish, often curled into the bottom-right corner. Mbappe scores those — in fact, he can score every type of goal — but is increasingly getting goals in a way Henry did not. He is still cutting in from the left but reversing the shot, using the laces or instep to drill a near-post finish, catching the goalkeeper and defender(s) unaware. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham-inspired comeback win at Barcelona on Saturday afternoon was shaped by the strategic decisions of the managers, but was very much won and lost by the players. The goals came from a ricochet falling nicely, a long-range thunderbolt out of nothing, and then a deflected cross dropping for Bellingham to turn home a winner. None of the goals could have been planned on the tactics board. …”
The Athletic – Michael Cox
“Jude Bellingham illuminated El Clasico with a long-range stunner and a last-gasp winner as Real Madrid snatched victory at Barcelona. Saturday’s La Liga meeting saw home side Barca take the lead through Ilkay Gundogan’s first goal since leaving Manchester City on a free transfer this summer. Madrid were slow to get going and at times struggled to summon much of a goal threat, but Bellingham — yes, who else again? — stepped up to level the scores with a thunderous shot from range. …”
The Athletic
“English football is defined by its pyramid; the system of promotion, relegation, and interconnected leagues. It is intended to represent mobility: the hope that, through promotion and relegation, every club, from any part of the country, could reach the top or fall to the bottom. But despite the pyramid being familiar, few know how it really works, or how deep it actually goes. Seb Stafford-Bloor writes, Craig Silcock illustrates.”
YouTube
“Two months into the 2023-24 Premier League season, four of Liverpool’s nine matches have contained at least one red card. Ashley Young’s dismissal in the Merseyside derby yesterday (Saturday) was the first time that Liverpool’s opponents were the team reduced to 10 players. Liverpool had four men sent off in the space of six games: Alexis Mac Allister at home to Bournemouth, Virgil van Dijk away to Newcastle the following weekend, and both Curtis Jones and Diogo Jotaat Tottenham Hotspur. …”
The Athletic
Guardian: Liverpool in state of flux but Salah still Klopp’s priceless gamechanger
The Athletic: Mohamed Salah, Egypt and the scrutiny of his words about the war in Israel and Gaza (Video)
“Arsenal came from two goals down to take a point against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in a thrilling game which saw former Paris Saint-Germain team-mates Mikel Arteta and Mauricio Pochettino draw in their managerial head-to-head. A first-half penalty from Cole Palmer following a William Saliba handball and a Mykhailo Mudryk strike, with what looked to be a cross, put the home side in command just after the break before Robert Sanchez gave the ball away and Declan Rice scored into an open net from distance on 77 minutes. Leandro Trossard then tapped in from close range seven minutes later to give Arsenal a share of the points. …”
The Athletic
“Reims are having a renaissance. After facing then Ligue 1 leaders Monaco two weeks ago, they spent the international break fifth in Ligue 1 with 13 points from eight games, four off the top. The Athletic was there for that one, keen to see a Reims side who are resurgent under their now famous manager. …”
The Athletic (Video/Audio)
“Johan Cruyff believed soccer was too obsessed by obvious mistakes, by what looked embarrassing. What did it matter, he asked, if his goalkeeper was caught out of position a couple of times a season if the risk of playing a long way from goal contributed to a better structure overall? It was a line he used repeatedly to defend Stanley Menzo, his goalkeeper when he was Ajax manager in the late 80s, at a time when sweeper-keepers were still rare. …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“The late Quentin Crisp is not quoted in many football stories, but the gay icon could have been talking about the negotiations between the English Football League and Premier League when he noted that ‘euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne’. Under pressure from the government to sort out the game’s structural cash-flow problems, the two tribes have been talking about how best to share the Premier League’s wealth for at least three years and are edging towards a deal that will probably annoy everyone a bit but disappoint nobody entirely. A result, then. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“There are certain sport fixtures that carry with them the weight of history, of tradition, of rivalry, and of intense, often irrational emotions, including unavoidable hurt. For someone initiated into football during the peak of the Sir Alex and Arsene years, it was Arsenal versus Manchester United. Even now, it’s the win I want most—yes, ahead of Spurs! …”
Football Paradise
“Blink and you would have missed it. Luis Diaz to Darwin Nunez to Mohamed Salah. Goal. Liverpool were back on terms with Brighton & Hove Albion last Sunday and, once again, Liverpool’s formidable attack had carved open an opposing defence. It is not just those three, either. Take out Diaz and replace him with Cody Gakpo (when fit), or remove Nunez and swap him for Diogo Jota (when not suspended) — there is no discernible drop in quality. With five players of such excellence at their disposal, it is difficult to argue against Liverpool having steadily amassed the best attacking options in Europe. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“Antonio Vacca can remember the moment well. In truth, the Italian is unlikely to forget it anytime soon, given he not only gets to see his ‘little theory put into practice’ every time he watches Brighton & Hove Albion play on television, but he also has Roberto De Zerbi’s initials tattooed on him. The story Vacca recalls goes back to De Zerbi’s time in charge of the Serie C club Foggia, between 2014 and 2016, and an incident in a training match that fundamentally changed how the Brighton manager viewed build-up play, and, ultimately, contributed to one of football’s modern tactical trends. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“It may have lacked the fizzing energy of title battles of previous seasons, but nobody from Arsenal seemed to care. A first league victory over Manchester City since 2015 felt like a statement of intent from a side that had been humbled twice last season, particularly as it inflicted a second consecutive defeat on Pep Guardiola’s side in a competition they have made their own in recent years. …”
The Athletic
The Athletic: Arsenal v Manchester City 2.0 – a world of set pieces, tough tackles and dogged defence – Michael Cox
The Athletic: What to look out for in Sunday’s showdown between Arsenal and Manchester City
“In football, everybody has a so-called ‘bogey team’. No matter what your side does, what line-up your manager picks or how well the players perform, the result never goes in your favour. For Liverpool over the past four seasons, their bogey team have been Brighton & Hove Albion. Jurgen Klopp’s men have won only one of their last seven games against them. …”
The Athletic
“When facing Paris Saint-Germain, there are two defensive questions to answer: how to stop their attacking collective and how to stop Kylian Mbappe. It’s not a simple equation, because even if you disrupt PSG’s rhythm and restrict their chances, one moment of brilliance from Mbappe can turn things around. ‘I struggle to think of any better players in the world than him at the moment,’ Newcastle United’s head coach, Eddie Howe, told TNT Sports before his side met the French champions on Wednesday evening. …”
The Athletic
Guardian: Newcastle’s quest to become northern powerhouse gathers momentum
“Ronald Araujo dropped to the ground, visibly relieved, at the referee’s final whistle. In the game’s last few minutes, he had been limping on through cramp in Barcelona’s back line, determined not to leave his side with nine players on the pitch. Barca suffered, but they survived. More than that, they managed to turn a bad game in the Champions League into three vital points. …”
The Athletic
“Almost 72 hours after Liverpool’s contentious defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, the fallout rumbles on. A review is underway into the errors that led to Luis Diaz’s goal being disallowed for offside, with VAR Darren England and assistant VAR Dan Cook, who failed to overturn the on-field decision after replays showed the Colombian was onside, having been left off the list of officials for the next round of Premier League matches. …”
The Athletic
Guardian: VAR audio from Luis Díaz’s wrongly disallowed goal is released by PGMOL (Video)
The Athletic – Liverpool VAR error audio made public after Luis Diaz goal wrongly disallowed – full transcript: ‘That’s wrong, that, Daz’
“It’s just over a year since Gary Neville declared US owners of English soccer clubs ‘a clear and present danger to the pyramid and fabric of the game’. The comment provoked a furore but the former England full-back turned high-profile pundit was unrepentant, insisting that if profit is the priority, there are vital aspects of the roles of soccer clubs that risk being lost. …”
Guardian
“When a stat about goals from corners pops up during a Premier League match, a common question from viewers is why the number of goals their team has scored from them is higher than they expected. Any confusion generally arises because of goals that are scored in the second phase of corners. The second phase starts when the team taking the corner quickly collects the ball after it was cleared — or in some cases overhit — and is in position to attack again with most of the attacking players still in the box. …”
The Athletic
“Over the last century, Germany has had one of the best football teams in the world. They’ve won four World Cups, three European Championships and produced some of the greatest players the world has ever seen. And yet, after nearly a decade of underachievement, they are currently ranked only 15th-best in the world. Written by Seb Stafford-Bloor, illustrated by Craig Silcock.”
YouTube
“From the relegation zone to being level on points with Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga, Xabi Alonso has led Bayer Leverkusen on quite the ride in his 12 months as manager. Some sort of rebound was almost inevitable given the team’s talent, but the complete change in the team’s attitude under the Spaniard has been nothing short of remarkable. …”
The Athletic
“After beginning their season with six straight wins, Real Madrid faced off against Atlético Madrid at the Wanda Metropolitano on Sunday. Whilst Real were coming off a 1-0 win against Union Berlin that saw Jude Bellingham score in the 94th minute, Atleti had seen their share of late drama with Lazio goalkeeper Ivan Provedel scoring in the 95th minute to snatch a draw away from home for Maurizio Sarri’s side. Atleti would take the lead within four minutes via Álvaro Morata, with Antoine Griezmann doubling their advantage shortly after, but Toni Kroos halved the deficit before the break for Los Blancos. Carlo Ancelotti took the opportunity to sub on Spanish center forward Joselu for Croatian midfielder Luka Modrić at halftime, but it wasn’t enough as Morata restored their two-goal advantage immediately after the restart, securing a 3-1 victory for Atlético Madrid. …”
Breaking the Lines (Video)
“Fourteen minutes into the north London derby on Sunday, Destiny Udogie flew into a tackle on Bukayo Saka. It was a genuine attempt to win the ball, but it was late and an obvious yellow card. For the next 75 minutes, Udogie had to face arguably the in-form winger in the Premier League in the knowledge that another foul could be the end of his match. After Tottenham team-mate Emerson Royal’s daft dismissal in this same fixture last season, it seemed history might be about to repeat itself. …”
The Athletic – Michael Cox
“When Xabi Alonso played for Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich, he usually operated as a lone defensive midfielder, presumably because he was so handsome that team-mates were too intimidated to stand next to him. Not many clubs play that way now. A decade of increasingly sophisticated pressing has forced sides that want to build up through the middle (as opposed to going over or around the other team) to put two bodies on their defensive midfield line. … Their secret weapon was third-man combinations in the double pivot. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“There were five minutes of normal time remaining at Molineux when Andy Robertson found himself storming forward into the Wolverhampton Wanderers box. He found Mohamed Salah on the edge of the penalty area, took the Egyptian’s return pass in his stride and stroked the ball into the net for the goal that completed Liverpool’s comeback and set them on their way to three more precious points. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“You can see the floodlights as you come off the motorway, just before reaching central Rotherham. Turn onto Masbrough Street and the stadium reveals itself on the left, halfway up the hill and just before Coronation Bridge that goes over the train line. If you just went past with not much more than a glance, Millmoor would look like any other lower league football ground: old, could do with a little care and attention, but identifiably a football ground. Until, perhaps, you caught sight of the barbed wire. …”
The Athletic (Video)
W – Millmoor
YouTube: Abandoned Millmoor Football Stadium Exploration 15:53
“Tactical changes are often associated with switches in shape — a back three becoming a back four, say, or a midfield three turning into a diamond. However, it’s not exclusive to that. Shapes are a way of explaining the positioning of the players on the pitch in simple terms. The dynamic of how a team operates within a given shape is another dimension — two identical formations could attack and defend in different ways depending on the movement of the players concerned with and without the ball. …”
The Athletic
The Athletic: Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United are no longer improving
Guardian: Manchester United had sights set on title charge – but right now it’s chaos
“So that’s what it is all about. Having fun watching football. The crowd at Montjuic stared incredulously up at the scoreboard and down at the pitch. They had practically forgotten this feeling. Barcelona had won La Liga last season, yes. But at Barcelona, it’s not just about winning, you also have to entertain a public with an exquisite palate, who demand excellence incessantly, even at times when they are aware that the club’s current squad doesn’t have it in them. …”
The Athletic
“PSG have, in recent years, built a team of superstars. But by including Mbappe, Neymar and Messi in the same team, they’ve had to say goodbye to many young and homegrown players. Over €400million worth of young talent in fact. They’ve sold so many players, they could theoretically field a team capable of competing at the top level. These are some of those players. Written by Seb Stafford-Bloor, illustrated by Craig Silcock.”
YouTube
“The Liverpool fans at Molineux saved their final song — ‘I’m so glad that Jurgen is a Red’ — until the 99th minute, which was fitting for more than one reason. Jurgen Klopp has let his feelings be known about the premature nature of chanting in his direction before the job is done, so with 99 minutes on the clock and Liverpool 3-1 up against Wolves, it felt like the perfect timing. …”
The Athletic
“After stringing together eight consecutive league wins, Napoli entered March in sensational form and the heavy favorites to pick up a victory at home against Lazio featuring a former player in Elseid Hysaj and a former manager in Maurizio Sarri, who spent three years in charge at the Partenopei and took them within touching distance of the Scudetto on multiple occasions, only to fall at the last hurdle to Juventus. Lazio took the lead within 67 minutes via Matías Vecino and prevailed 1-0, going on to finish second in their second full season under Sarri, a mere 16 points behind Napoli. …”
Breaking the Lines (Video)
“… One way to look at things is Ten Hag was simply answering a question honestly and straightforwardly. Another is that the United manager saw a passing bus and chose to throw Sancho under it, that he could quite easily have fobbed the question off with benign platitudes and avoided potentially alienating one of his squad. It does raise the question: is it ever justified for a manager to single out an individual player for public criticism? What purpose does it serve? Is it just the boss lashing out in frustration, or is there a more deliberate purpose to it all? Does it actually work? …”
The Athletic
“England’s Harry Kane, fresh from his gentle pre-match warm-up, which essentially involved smoking a pipe, is running slightly uphill on a field wearing white knickerbockers. Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish and James Maddison are all running closely behind him. The four players are shadowing their captain’s run to try to deflect a challenge from Billy Gilmour, who is doing his best to marshal Scotland’s defence in their bold 2-2-6 formation. Gilmour’s hat falls off and he is briefly distracted, allowing Kane to aim a shot that is about to hit the tape fixed between two posts before goalkeeper Angus Gunn catches the ball and runs with it in his hands to the halfway line to start a Scotland attack. …”
The Athletic
“With the cupboards bare, bills to pay and another relegation looming, Scunthorpe United fans were holding out for a hero. Then David Hilton arrived. The Nottingham-born businessman bought the club from the deeply unpopular Peter Swann in late January, clearing a six-figure tax bill and pledging to take Scunthorpe back to the English Football League. …”
The Athletic
“On Monday last week, four days before transfer deadline day, Eric Garcia entered Xavi’s offices at Barcelona’s Joan Gamper training ground and told the manager he wanted to leave the club. Garcia had received an offer to go on loan to Girona, with the promise of more regular game time. Xavi tried to talk him out of it, insisting the defender was part of his rotation plans, that he was a valuable asset to the team. …”
The Athletic
W – João Félix
“Liverpool’s win against Aston Villa resembled an Anfield performance from 2019-20. That season, Liverpool won 18 of their 19 home league games en route to lifting the Premier League trophy. They were wins characterised by four trademarks: three of those being fast starts with them usually ahead by half-time, set-piece goals (because many opponents defended deep to limit open-play opportunities) and Mohamed Salah scoring in front of the Kop. All three happened in Sunday’s win. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“In the vast theatre of human endeavours, where the pursuit of meaning often reveals itself in the most unexpected of places, we find ourselves drawn to the sacred cathedral of football. In this timeless ritual, where passion transcends reason, and the spirit of camaraderie meets the cruelty of fate, a tapestry of narratives unfurls. Picture, if you will, the canvas of a stadium – a canvas that bore witness to a spectacle of Shakespearean proportions. It was a game that encapsulated the very essence of existence–the agony and the ecstasy. …”
Breaking the Lines
YouTube: Tactical Analysis : Arsenal 3-1 Manchester United | Arsenal A Cut Above
“Football has become the establishment. Thirty years since the publication of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, the gentrification of professional football in England is no longer confined to the executive suites. Where once the middle-class enthusiast—like Hornby—was an exotic presence, now the entire culture of the game is awash with the instincts of the bien pensants. Whatever demotic power football had in the 1970s and 80s has completely dissipated. Like Glastonbury Festival or the Labour Party, Premier League football has mostly decoupled from the affiliations, tastes, and preferences of the everyman. …”
Football Paradise
Scissors Kick 