Allas creates surprisingly novel highlight clips of FC Barcelona, perhaps the most talented football/soccer team of the moment.
This fifteen minute video illustrates Barcelona’s tactics, and serves as an introduction to aspects of the beautiful game that were previously invisible to novices like me.
[more inside]
posted by ferdydurke
on Nov 8, 2011 -
35 comments
Here's the deal: If you don't play for, or you are not an employee of, the team in question, "we" is not the pronoun you're looking for.
"They" is the word you want.
Why
"We" is the most overused term in sports.
posted by The Gooch
on Oct 20, 2011 -
154 comments
There is
one argument that has taken the soccer world by storm:
Can Barcelona win on a cold, windy, night at The Britannia Stadium, home of Stoke City?
Conceived by Andy Gray (
talked about on the Blue before) when he said: “I don’t know if Barcelona have ever gone to a place like the Britannia Stadium and suffered the kind of onslaught from Tony Pulis’ team of long throws and free-kicks or been up to a place like Blackburn and been beaten up by their long ball into the box.”
There has certainly been
analysis of this
thorny question.
Of course, Stoke is in the Europa league this year. If they were to win the competition and advance to a Champions league spot, we might actually see this fixture.
posted by josher71
on Oct 17, 2011 -
42 comments
Due to being sanctioned for unruly fan behaviour, the football match between Turkish teams Fenerbahce and Manisaspor was due to be played in an empty stadium. Until someone in the Turkish Football Federation had
the idea to only allow
women and children under 12 to attend.
[more inside]
posted by PenDevil
on Sep 21, 2011 -
106 comments
Copa América is streamed live on YouTube. Copa América is the oldest international football competition, having been held first in 1916. This is a contest between the 10 South American nations and two invitational teams, this time Costa Rica and Mexico, who both sent young squads (Japan was slated to take part but
withdrew due to the earthquake). The tournament started yesterday with Bolivia unexpectedly managing to
hold Argentina to a draw. Colombia are currently beating a 10-man Costa Rica 1-0. Brazil start their campaign tomorrow, against Venezuela. One of the world's premier football writers, Jonathan Wilson, wrote previews of the three groups,
A,
B and
C. The Independent has more light-hearted
team previews.
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 2, 2011 -
13 comments
The Football Pantheon is a new website by football journalist Miguel Delaney. The aim of the website is to "present objective lists of the greatest clubs, players, countries, managers and so much more." The first entry is a very impressive list of
The 50 Greatest European Club Sides, which breaks down the various legendary teams, from the late 19th Century until today, and ranks them according to their achievements.
posted by Kattullus
on Jun 13, 2011 -
17 comments
Last night, my brother, the real football fan, regailed me with stories of a bizarre double life that an English player seemed to be leading. Looks like someone beat me to collecting them
all.
posted by LD Feral
on May 26, 2011 -
19 comments
Barcelona may or may not be the greatest soccer team of all time, as some now claim, but watching them is one of the prime viewing pleasures of our sports era. Can it get any
better?. SLYT.
posted by ecourbanist
on May 4, 2011 -
36 comments
Just before intermission, Cowie took the stage and began juggling a ball with her feet until suddenly she popped it in the air, swished her right foot around the ball twice, kicked it up again, then rotated her left foot around once without letting the ball touch the floor. She bent her right foot back behind her body and caught the ball on the sole of her shoe. “I could feel the excitement building in the auditorium,” she recalled. “I could hear the oohs and the aahs. I could sense the shock.” ¶ For her finale, Cowie lay on her back and juggled the ball over her head with her feet. As they applauded, Green Hope students turned to their friends with the same question: Who is she?
The
New York Times Magazine profiles soccer
freestyling star Indi Cowie.
Photos of a few tricks.
Video includes demonstrations.
posted by grouse
on Mar 27, 2011 -
20 comments
Bye bye Big Mal. Malcolm Allison, one of the most flamboyant characters in English football, has gone to the players' lounge in the sky. He certainly knew what sold, with his signature cigar, fedora and sheepskin coat, and also
laid on a pretty good bath. But all that stuff aside, he was a
well-respected manager, and will be fondly remembered by Manchester City fans (
you can read the fans' tributes here, and leave your own if you are so inclined) for leading them to glory in the late 60s and early 70s. The world is a lesser place without him.
posted by Myeral
on Oct 15, 2010 -
3 comments
Since the attack on the Togolese national team in Angola (
previously), soccer in Togo has descended into a freefall. In a strange turn of events, a fake national team recently represented the country in a tournament in Bahrain. The soccer loving people of Togo were outraged when
the truth about the situation came out.
posted by reenum
on Oct 8, 2010 -
4 comments
Pelé and Maradona: the glorious, ludicrous feud between soccer's two biggest stars. In the summer of 2000, FIFA, which does not understand computers, decided to celebrate the arrival of the millennium by hosting an online poll. Its object: to determine the best soccer player of the past 100 years, with the victor to be fêted at a gaudy banquet in Rome. The organizers of the vote assumed it would be won by Pelé, soccer's silky ambassador, who'd been cheerfully ensconced in his Greatest of All Time sinecure for 40 years.
posted by Fizz
on Aug 10, 2010 -
31 comments
Thierry Henry is one of the biggest stars in Association Football. With
AS Monaco,
Arsenal,
FC Barcelona and the French national squad, he's won about every trophy that there's to win:
1996-97 French Ligue 1,
1998 World Cup,
Euro 2000,
2003-2004 English Premier League, and the unprecedented
2008-2009 "perfect season" for Barcelona: Spanish Copa del Rey, Liga, and Supercopa, European Champions' League, European Supercup, and Club World Cup. He's also won a large number of French, English and worldwide "Player of the Year" accolades. However...
[more inside]
posted by Skeptic
on Jul 24, 2010 -
54 comments
Saint Taffarel who is in goal
Like a guardian angel
Sweet like honey
Defending our goal, our hope, our happiness. - Carlos Drummond
A literary roundup of the mysterious keeper, from Nabokov to Camus to Dante. A little more football for those of us getting the twitches.
posted by Hiker
on Jul 14, 2010 -
6 comments
Yesterday, the Spanish national football squad won its first World Cup semifinal. A
distinguished supporter insisted on personally congratulating them
in the locker room. (SLYT, but priceless. Watch in particular the hero of the match enter the frame around 1:16).
posted by Skeptic
on Jul 8, 2010 -
83 comments
Argentina has been eliminated from
The World Cup, but that doesn't mean we aren't free to enjoy
some quotes from the always quotable
Diego Maradona. For example, after Argentina qualified for the finals in South Africa, after looking like they would not make it, he said "To those who did not believe: now suck my d**k - I'm sorry ladies for my words - and keep on sucking it. I am either white or black. I will never be grey in my life. You treated me as you did. Now keep on sucking d**ks. I am grateful to my players and to the Argentinian people. I thank no one but them. The rest, keep on sucking d**ks."
posted by Keith Talent
on Jul 5, 2010 -
85 comments
