BREAKING: Rafa Benitez to take over at Liverpool, Chelsea
May 21, 2013 § Leave a Comment
In a move that will shake the foundations of English football to the very … er, foundations, Liverpool and Chelsea have announced that next season they will both be coached by Rafael Benitez. « Read the rest of this entry »
Then he clanks around like a euphemism
May 20, 2013 § Leave a Comment
A friend recently pointed me toward the Bonsai Story Tree Generator, a widget for turning coherent text into nonsense, or near-nonsense. It’s quite fun. Anyway, said friend fed in a few of the profiles I’ve been writing for Football 365, and the machine spat out the following:
—–
It was enough to pronounce Toni Kroos’s surname.
The first, Mr Anthony Pulis, is a man of hidden and shiny shoes, makes jokes with that last sounds an English Yaya Toure!
Really!
He’s got round to say that he is given ample opportunity to keep him some good, but joyous, which I’m largely indifferent, just so when the time Such is Bramble’s tragicomedy.
He is not much to get moved out of the consistency to see the country. « Read the rest of this entry »
Spain: Utterly Amazing; Nothing Much To Say
August 10, 2012 § 6 Comments
First published on SB NATION, 2 July 2012
This is not a piece about whether Spain are boring. There’s plenty of those around, all attempting to answer an unanswerable and largely incoherent question that’s more about personal taste and emotional reaction than it is about any fundamental truth. If you think Spain are boring, then they are; if you don’t, they’re not. And if somebody thinks they are, then saying “but they’re really good and they win loads and you’re a moron with no understanding of football and you suffer from a deluded sense of entitlement” isn’t suddenly going to make them interesting. Nor is it going to make you any friends. « Read the rest of this entry »
England Expected … What, Exactly?
August 10, 2012 § 1 Comment
First published on SB NATION, 26 June 2012
As England tournament exits go, this must be among the calmest in recent memory. The 2010 World Cup was a bitter departure, footballing humiliation laced with snipe, recrimination, and mutterings about goalline technology. 2006 was perhaps less embarrassing on the pitch, but Wayne Rooney’s decision to indulge in a moment of incautious studbanter inRicardo Carvalho’s personal space, andCristiano Ronaldo’s subsequent, heinous wink, ensured that a suitably hysterical tone accompanied England on their way. Even Euro 2004, which was at least a hopeful exit after Rooney’s terrifying emergence onto the national stage, had its own serving of ensuing nuttiness, as the British tabloids decided that the best way of dealing with Sol Campbell’s disallowed winner was to publish the personal details of referee Urs Meier. Death threats and police protection duly followed. « Read the rest of this entry »
Ireland’s Thrashing By Spain: A Depressing Vision Of The Future
August 10, 2012 § Leave a Comment
First published on SB NATION, 15 June 2012
Poor boys in green. Watching Ireland quail and crumple at the sight of Spain’s delicate and smothering carousel was the one genuinely depressing moment of football that Euro 2012 has so far served up. According to a stereotype-happy El Mundo ”the Irish potatoes rushed into the bag laid out by the Spanish team.”; according to every single wit on Twitter, it was “Murder on Gdansk floor”; according to Shay Given, who had as good a view as anybody, Ireland were “ripped apart”. « Read the rest of this entry »
A deal he couldn’t wheel
August 10, 2012 § Leave a Comment
First published on ESPN, 14 June 2012
It wasn’t meant to be like this.
Had everything gone to plan, Harry Redknapp would currently be relaxing at the end of another day’s training with the England squad, full of good spirit and looking forward to Friday’s game against Sweden. Instead, he’s clearing his desk, saying his goodbyes, and pulling out of his White Hart Lane parking space for the last time. Perhaps we’ll be given one last interview out of the car window, for old times’ sake, before he’s off to spend more time with Jamie and the Wii. It has been, even by the vertiginous standards of modern football, one hell of a fall. « Read the rest of this entry »
John Terry: Public Enemy #1
August 10, 2012 § Leave a Comment
First published on SB NATION, 7 June 2012
Euro 2012 is coming, and along with it looms another England failure. Optimism is at an all-time low, and the usual hype-fuelling simpletons have had to resort to suggesting, a touch desperately, that lowered expectations might – just might! – catapult England further than anybody dare hope. While this isn’t totally illogical — if we accept that over-burdening a team with expectation can depress their chances, then not doing so should avoid the same — no amount of modesty is going to make England’s squad anything other than what it is: thin, and liberally garnished with mediocrity. But, while the specifics of this inevitable failure are for the future to reveal, one thing is certain. John Terry will be getting a fair chunk of the blame. « Read the rest of this entry »
