As the big countdown ticks away, less than 100 days before the World Cup, perhaps Africa’s strongest team, Ivory Coast, is still without a coach. An article in the Zimbabwean brings up the state of African football and its reliance on foreign coaches. In Cote D’Ivoire, the disgruntled Vahid Halilhodžić was unceremoniously dispensed with following… Read More »
An article by Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian today asks an interesting question for those of us who grew up in an era in which West African football was the realm of skilled artists such as Abedi Pele, George Weah, Roger Milla, and exciting teams like the “original” Nigerian Super Eagles who played swashbuckling, imaginative… Read More »
The whole army of Spanish media outlets has been splashed with this bit of news, regarding the facebook page of suspected ETA members–ETA being, for those unfamiliar with Spain, the Basque separatist-terrorist group responsible for thousands of acts of violence since their establishment during the Franco dictatorship. From sports dailies such as AS to Marca,… Read More »
The British media was reporting on Sunday (here, and here for example) that fans will be paying less to watch their games at home next season. The news comes after Ofcom, the regulatory body of the British government, announced measures forcing the TV giant Sky to lower prices perceived as threatening competition. Sky hold a… Read More »
The major Spanish Copa del Rey upset of Villarreal by Celta de Vigo carries with it some telling anecdotes about the state of the game.
This article from goal.com tells the news of a sensational Spanish player, Jesús Navas, who has been lighting up the Primera División for a few years now with Sevilla. Before this call-up, Navas had been unable to play for the national team largely due to an anxiety problem in which severe homesickness and fear of… Read More »
Today, in the Copa del Rey (Spain’s Cup, a knockout tournament that goes on at the same time as the league), a tiny, tiny team, Agrupación Deportiva Alcorcón, hailing from the outskirts of Madrid and competing every week in the Segunda B (the third tier of Spanish football), crushed Real Madrid, the most expensively assembled… Read More »
That Kusturica’s documentary Maradona, chronicling perhaps world football’s biggest personality, begins with shots of the director playing his guitar at a concert, is telling. Introduced by his band as “the Maradona of the guitar,” it is clear, in retrospect, that what comes after is as much a defense of Kusturica as much as it is about the greatness of Maradona.
Not much being said in the English-speaking press on the South American situation, but the Spanish press is taking light of the intrigue that is brewing. For the most part, attention has been focused on the new [especially in England] football cliché of Maradona on the verge of disaster. Perhaps some ’86 sentiments being carried… Read More »
Has Raymond Domenech become a mere symbol as France’s national team coach? That is what people are wondering, as France reaches do-or-die time in the struggle to obtain a World Cup playoff berth. Much-criticized French coach Raymond Domenech has been more than under fire since as far back as 2006, when a resurgent Zidane, along… Read More »
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