The latest series from Julian Fellowes starts badly and barely improves but it is a reminder football has never stood stillYou can see how The English Game must have sounded in conception. It’s the birth of football. It’s toffs against proles, the riva…
Tottenham and Manchester City are among the clubs who would probably make very different decisions if they could reset the Premier League as if it were Football ManagerThe season must be completed. The season must be abandoned now. As the arguments gab…
Marton Bukovi showed his courage in wartime Zagreb but the Hungarian also rethought football tactics. Today’s coaches should use their layoff constructively“What did you do in the war, Mr Bukovi?” “I invented the false 9. What did you do?”That wasn’t a…
In half a season, José Mourinho has dismantled Tottenham’s style and denounced players – and it will only get worseI n a crisis there is need for extreme measures. In a crisis there is need for a people to have faith in their leader, the only man who c…
Jürgen Klopp’s men put in their best showing since Boxing Day but defeat to Atlético leaves nothing but formalities to play forA miscued clearance, a low shot, Adrián slipping so he sunk to one knee as the ball skidded past him. With that, what was pro…
Pep Guardiola’s side could still win a trophy treble this season but malfunctions in their pressing game are proving costlyTo an extent it doesn’t matter. Manchester City will almost certainly finish second in the Premier League and all defeat to Manch…
As part of our This is Europe week we look at how the game has been influenced by teams, managers and players from the continentAlf Ramsey didn’t have much time for foreigners – and for him that meant anybody who wasn’t English. “Welcome to Scotland,” …
Jürgen Klopp’s side show signs of slackening in their defeat at Watford and it could cost them their European crownThere’s a phrase Joe Fagan was fond of, one he used repeatedly in his diary detailing the 1983-84 season as Liverpool completed a hat-tri…
When a club ceases to be that hapless entity that drew you in, it seems success is not as much fun as everybody assumesS ilenus the satyr, stumbling with age and wine, was taken captive by the Phrygians and taken before King Midas. But the king recogni…
Manchester City manager reverted to principles he wrote on his whiteboard in 2015 to beat a deeply ordinary Real Madrid Revel in the irony: of course it would be just as the great rupture comes that Manchester City at last produce a great European perf…
Teenager’s goal for Borussia Dortmund against PSG was a perfect reminder that football is meant to be enjoyableIt can be difficult sometimes to remember why we ever started liking football. What was it that first stirred us back in our childhood to mak…
At 32, RB Leipzig’s coach is 25 years younger than his Spurs counterpart – their Champions League meeting feels like a battle of two erasOn Wednesday night, as Tottenham take on RB Leipzig, José Mourinho might look across at the opposing bench and reco…
There was a murmur of dissent at the defeat by Manchester United and the excuses for a mediocre team will soon run outJust briefly, for no more than a couple of seconds, there was a murmur of dissent directed at Frank Lampard by the home crowd. It came…
Friday’s statement could destroy the European game’s ruling body and change utterly how football is runPerhaps all declarations of war seem slightly underwhelming in tone. Perhaps when the consequences are potentially so huge, there is no need for bomb…
Recent transfer activity suggests that the La Liga side may be moving towards a more expansive approach to the gameE lite football is more attacking now than at any time since the coming of systematisation in the mid-60s. Between 1994?95 – when the Cha…
The dominant style of football’s hyper-capitalistic age has its origins in the unlikeliest of placesA training field near Ostfildern, in the forest south-east of Stuttgart. It’s February 1983, and local sixth-tier side Viktoria Backnang are playing a f…
The dominant style of football’s hyper-capitalistic age has its origins in the unlikeliest of placesA training field near Ostfildern, in the forest south-east of Stuttgart. It’s February 1983, and local sixth-tier side Viktoria Backnang are playing a f…
The dominant style of football’s hyper-capitalistic age has its origins in the unlikeliest of placesA training field near Ostfildern, in the forest south-east of Stuttgart. It’s February 1983, and local sixth-tier side Viktoria Backnang are playing a f…
