World Cup… An Arab Winter 29 Mar 2021 In the excellent Price of Football podcast last week, Kieran Maguire gave a summary of his delve into the accounts of FIFA. He noted that the organisation loses money every…
England… The Road to Doha Opens For England 8 Dec 2020 With little pomp or circumstance, the draw for the qualifying round of the 2022 FIFA World Cup took place on Monday night. It was a relatively low-key affair when compared…
England… Whatever happened to the likely to be very good lads? 30 Dec 201726 Dec 2017 July 2014 and Germany have just demolished Brazil on home turf in the World Cup Semi-Final. The vast majority of their squad have come through their Under21s yet we still…
England… 1966 and Not All That 30 Jul 2016 In celebration of the 50th anniversay of our greatest ever footballing day as a nation, below is an extract of the chapter I wrote for Mark Perryman's excellent book '1966…
Argentina… Five things from….Argentina 0 Germany 1 13 Jul 2014 So this is it. 30 days since it all started, over 15,000 words written on this blog and countless beers in the name of World Cup research. The two best…
England… The Golden Generation of German football 13 Jul 2014 There has been millions of words written about the most remarkable game in the history of the World Cup Finals. The six or so first half minutes when Germany scored…
Holland… Five things from….Brazil 0 Netherlands 3 13 Jul 201413 Jul 2014 We all know this is the game that neither team really wants to play. I'm sure a lot of the Dutch team would want to be on a beach somewhere,…
Holland… Five things from….Netherlands 0 Costa Rica 0 5 Jul 2014 The quarter-finals haven't yet set the competition alight after such a barn-storming group stage. So far the games have gone to form and there was little chance that the final…
World Cup… Five things from….Brazil 2 Colombia 1 4 Jul 20144 Jul 2014 I thought the wait would never end...finally we have football back on our TVs. With it being hotter than Greece*I decided to keep the al fresco feeling going and took…
France… Five things from….France 0 Germany 1 4 Jul 2014 We had a bet at home that the 1982 Battiston incident would be mentioned within 30 seconds of the TV coverage. We were wrong - it was 45 seconds and…
US Football… Five things from….Belgium 2 USA 1 2 Jul 2014 Back by popular request for potentially his last run out in the World Cup is Andy Mack with his view from downtown Manhattan on the mood in the US Camp…
Germany… Five things from….Germany 2 Algeria 1 30 Jun 201430 Jun 2014 "It was the best of times, it was one of the worst of footballing crimes." Paul Doyle's opening line in the Guardian two weeks ago took us back to darker…
World Cup… The five best keepers of the World Cup…so far 30 Jun 20142 Jul 2014 Normally in these major tournaments we see more keepers who fall into the "oh dear" bracket rather than the "Wow" one. In general, the goalies have had a good tournament…
France… Five things from….France 2 Nigeria 0 30 Jun 201430 Jun 2014 The big question before this game was which Nigeria team would turn up. They had stumbled through the group, flattering to deceive in their single win against Bosnia, yet putting…
Holland… Five things from….Netherlands 2 Mexico 1 29 Jun 2014 I could get very used to weekends like this. The beauty of having games on at 5pm and 9pm is that you can do a day of family stuff, get…
The Ball is Round 