In a stellar career Aberdeen, Scotland, Hibs and Manchester United goalkeeper Jim Leighton served under true greats of the game such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Jim McLean and Jock Stein. But, he says that the most important figure throughout his career was his father Sam, who he describes as “my football crutch”.
The football hackers expose football’s intellectual insecurity. But no-one is reinventing the game.
As an assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson, Walter Smith and Craig Brown, Archie Knox hid behind the persona of training ground sergeant major. But behind the gruff exterior, there lies a deep-thinking football man whose ideas on coaching and analysis are as relevant today as they were in his peak years with Aberdeen, Manchester United and Rangers.
The years when every top English side had a nucleus of world-class Scottish players is due in no small part to two ‘super scouts’. At Leeds and Man United, John Barr and Jimmy Dickie were rivals competing for talent north of the border but their friendship and integrity prevailed. By Greg Gordon
Time and again club’s appoint a popular caretaker manager. But history suggests that a team that appoints a boss in haste is a team that repents at leisure.
Armies of unpaid interns and ‘volunteers’ are subsidising the Scottish game. It is an abuse of fans’ loyalty and an attack on the livelihoods of experienced professionals.
Co Adriaanse is remembered as an eccentric but always engaging football man with a stated preference for aggressive, attacking football. But his creation of the concept of Scoreboard Journalism is a greater legacy than his list of titles, promotions and awards with six different European clubs.
FC Arizona owner Scott Taylor finds himself heading a club at the forefront of the burgeoning National Professional Soccer League scene that is challenging some of the sacred cows of US soccer such as promotion and relegation, salary caps and player transfers.
Liverpool fans were left to wonder what might have been had their talisman Mo Salah not been forced to depart the action with a shoulder injury in the 2018 Champions League Final. But those in the game will only seen the long shadow cast by Jean Marc Bosman a Belgian midfielder whose legacy impacts every single club.
After the debacle in Kiev, Loris Karius may never really recover as a keeper and almost certainly not as a Liverpool player. But that still may not make him the most notorious goalkeeper in British football history.
Your words have the power to shape narratives, halt and promote careers, effect people you don’t know and in ways you can’t imagine. Use them wisely.
If nothing else, the recently concluded USSF Presidential elections and the start to the MLS season are demonstrating the widespread appetite for change that exists within America’s domestic game.
Lewis Cook’s Grandad should enjoy his winnings, after the Bournemouth player made his England debut in midweek, but as a reader you should ask yourself why are William Hill marketing the hell out of this £17,000 pay-out?
Richard Allen, Spurs’ former head of academy recruitment, has used his platform as a speaker at the Sports Analytics Innovation Summit in London to claim that the success of Harry Kane is a victory for hard-won scouting common sense.
There was a time in football when the club physio was something of an afterthought but how things have changed. These days, the afterthought has become an industry and the physio is just as likely to be a woman as a man and a key cog in a club’s sports science machine.
In terms of talent Chelsea’s Charly Musonda can play, but as a harbinger of a future foretold there is much about the Belgian’s loan switch to Celtic that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
David Villa arrived in America as a low key addition to an newly established franchise in New York. One hundred games later he is not only one of the most recognisable faces in US soccer, he is also an emblem for all that is good in MLS.
Zinedine Zidane’s career may not ultimately enjoy the same longevity as that of Sir Alex Ferguson but he is the one young coach working today that appears to have most in common with the former Manchester United boss.
After a preseason dominated by the USSF Presidential elections it is finally time to return to onfield action.
Way back in 1989, Manchester United diehard Pete Molyneux unfurled a controversial banner calling for the club’s manager Alex Ferguson to resign. Even harder to believe is that its sentiments very much captured the mood of the times.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has embarked upon a sporting project of unmatched global ambition. But can China really become a global football power within a generation?
After an FA Cup weekend, where the controversial VAR initiative was trialled in anger for the first time in England’s premier cup competition, the effect has been broadly counterproductive. No-one is talking about the football. Everyone is talking about technology and its implementation.
Jimmy Armfield was a force for good who lived his life at the heart of a golden era for the British game.
The lack of a living wage within clubs that could well afford to pay one is The Premier League’s secret shame and rather than indulge a game of ‘whataboutery’, it is time to call the people that are truly responsible to account.
The Bundesliga’s fiscally prudent model based on cheap tickets and genuine youth development sounds like a panacea – and it is for the fans in the rocking stadiums. But as a TV spectacle, The Bundesliga is increasingly poor fare.
A sense of seething injustice either real or manufactured can be a fabulous asset for a side seeking the unity of a common sense of purpose. Or to shift the blame for a poor performance.
In the world of England’s Premier League, fans and pundits are consistent in their claims that their competition is the most competitive, toughest and most physical challenge there is in football. And finally Pep seems to have cracked the code in his own inimitable style based on an important observation.
There’s been much said about football’s role as a release for fans’ everyday frustrations, but anyone who thinks that footballers should show good grace towards their tormentors in the stands, in the streets, or online is operating to an unrealistic standard.
The Scottish Football Association’s Head of Coaching and Scotland U19 boss, Donald Park, says that as football grows ever-more dynamic, new player profiles are emerging.