Football Club News, Analysis, History, Schedule, Rumours
Italy are too good a team and Gareth Southgate too shrewd a manager for there to be much complacency among the England team and coaching staff ahead of the Euro 2020 final. But just in case there is any complacency at all, this brief history of the worst defeats in a major final by a […] READ MORE
To adapt Oscar Wilde’s most famous quotation, to win one major international tournament – a World Cup or a continental title, like the European Championship – is a great achievement, but to win two in succession is extraordinary. Only a handful of international teams in the history of football (both men’s and women’s football) have […] READ MORE
And so, having considered the finest tournaments and the finest finals in the history of the European Championships, we come to the most important category – the finest European Championship-winning teams. Three of them also won the World Cup to go alongside their European crown, and the finest of them all actually won two European […] READ MORE
The very biggest finals in football – that is, World Cup finals or Champions League finals – are rarely feasts of football, for the simple reason that there is so much at stake that even the bravest players are often inhibited by an awareness of how much they have to lose. That was evident again […] READ MORE
UEFA made the decision to stage Euro 2020 all over Europe, rather than in one or two host countries, in order to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first staging of the European Championship. It always appeared an unwise decision, one that risked diluting the energy generated by staging the tournament in just one or […] READ MORE
Just when it seemed that Arsenal’s wretched season was completely fizzling out after the non-performance against Villareal in the Europa League semi-final, Mikel Arteta and his side have a new prize to aim for. Going into the final game of the Premier League season, Arteta knows that if Arsenal can beat Brighton & Hove Albion […] READ MORE
Sometimes it seems as if Mikel Arteta thinks he is still at Manchester City. After conceding so many goals all season because of his insistence on Arsenal playing out from the back, à la City, he went one step further last night against Villarreal in the first leg of the Europa League semi-final by fielding […] READ MORE
The Sword of Damocles that has been hanging over the head of the Mikel Arteta Arsenal tenure and certainly for the majority of this season has now surely frayed to a single thread. After letting in a 93rd-minute equaliser to Slavia Prague in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-final tie last night, which […] READ MORE
Given football’s unchallenged position as the world’s favourite game, perhaps it is surprising that there have not been more major on-field protests by footballers and football teams in the history of the sport. Certainly, there are few, if any, footballing protests that are as iconic as the Black Power salute by Tommie Smith and John […] READ MORE
After an hour in Athens against Olympiakos in their Europa League last 16 first leg, Arsenal looked as if they might achieve exactly the wrong result to take into the North London derby against Tottenham Hotspur this weekend. Drawing 1-1 against the Greek side, after yet another defensive mistake allowed an opposing side to equalise, […] READ MORE