Two great players, two great coaches, two different visions of the game “How many times have you heard this? We pass our way through the middle of the park! But you decided to take someone on.” With his team 1-0 up Konstantin Beskov was berating one of his players at half-time in the changing rooms […]
Search Results for: tag/euro-2012
The Width of a Crossbar, Ben Kosky
What if Poland had scored in the last minute of the final qualifier and England hadn’t made it to Italia 90? Gazza’s tearful night in Turin, Bobby Robson’s redemption and the origin of a national hang-up about penalty shoot-outs – for England football fans, these are the abiding memories of Italia ’90. England’s unexpected run […]
Building The Dream, James Corbett
The following article first appeared in Issue 16, released in March 2016. As the political wrangling continues over Qatar’s World Cup, what’s the reality on the ground? At the edge of an empty man-made lagoon near to the shore of the Arabian Gulf, I count skyscrapers looming from the dust. The road, lined on one […]
In Appreciation Of Franco Baresi
"There are pictures of the weeping comeback captain and Divine Ponytail consoling each other while Brazilian players dance in the background. No one did more on the pitch to drag Italy to the final than Baggio. No one did more off the pitch than Baresi." In Episode Thirty Two we look at ‘In Appreciation of […]
Island Games
This is an extract from World In Motion: The Inside Story of Italia ’90 by Simon Hart and published by deCoubertin. You can win a copy of the book by entering our competition here. Island games Part 2 – Republic of Ireland The rain came down in Cagliari. Occasionally, so too did the ball. It […]
Breaking The Mould
"Saelua’s role in giving some dignity back to one of the worst teams in the world made waves across the globe. "Korean TV came to my house to do an interview. It was kind of weird," Saelua said. "I would have people from New York call in and say they wanted to come to my […]
My Name Is Ally MacLeod And I Am A Winner
"Had Scotland contrived to bring home the World Cup, then perhaps the nationalist cause would have gathered even greater momentum. As it was, enthusiasm melted away like snow in the summer sunshine. When the government held a referendum on Scottish devolution the following March, only one in three people voted for it." In Episode Fifty […]
Where’s Darth Vader Gone?
International football is ceasing to be treated as a reenactment of Europe’s horrible past. Is the age of football as a substitute for war coming to an end? "A World Cup without Germany would be like Star Wars without Darth Vader," remarked David Winner, and Germany were the perfect villain: the bad guy who killed […]
Ronaldo in Moscow – The Blizzard Podcast Episode Ninety Nine
"That 1997-98 Uefa Cup campaign was the last we saw of the ‘pure’ Ronaldo. Nike’s ‘R9’ brand soon sprang into action, forgetting it had a human at its core. The striker changed his Inter shirt number from 10 to 9 and became the greatest commodity in world sport, selling everything from tyres to sunglasses. Rushed […]
The Other Cup
Now glance at the name “Europa League”. What information does it convey? It’s a league for… the abstract concept of Europe? For women who ride off on divine white bulls? Uefa can’t call the competition what it is, since “The Second-Tier Distribution of Teams as Apportioned by Mathematical Coefficients Cup” lacks a certain Heineken Factor." […]