See Nemo fetch. Want to train your comet to join the Comets? Your Shubunkin to do some dunkin'?

Goldfish training.

A school of fish or a school for fish? You be the judge.
posted on Jul 22, 2008 - View this thread

The Journal of Footballing History is a scholarly journal about the history of football (soccer) all over the world. You need to register (or "subscribe" as JOFH calls it) but it's free. Gloriously, gloriously free. After you've subscribed you can enjoy articles on matters such as France's footballing culture, a back and forth about the state of African football, a pair of articles about Euro 2000 and what England's dismal failure at that European Championships tells us about the national side and on shooting from free kicks. There are also short histories of kits, boots, passing and squads and a book review section.
posted on Jun 30, 2008 - View this thread

Felicidades España!
posted on Jun 29, 2008 - View this thread

Rémi Gaillard leaves a trail of befuddled witnesses and victims in his wake.
posted on Jun 24, 2008 - View this thread

70 year old Pak Doo-Ik will lead North Korea's prestigious Olympic torch bearers to Beijing this summer. In the 1966 World Cup at Middlesborough, Pak scored the goal that lead his team to a stunning 1-0 upset win over Italy (video). Pak Doo-Ik and the team returned home as heroes, but ultimately fell under the suspicion of North Korean leadership. The team underwent "mental re-education" and were exiled, Pak Doo-Ik spending ten years as a forest laborer. Dear Leader Kim Jong-il later allowed Pak to coach North Korea's national soccer team, and a fascinating 2002 BBC documentary brought Pak Doo Ik back to the international stage.
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

Fans of Futbol (Links to futbol vids) should enjoy this short vid of some amazing skillz.
posted on Feb 19, 2008 - View this thread

"I'm on Setanta Sports" with José Mourinho. Fantastic. The Special One returns to the world of football with his very own talk show. Very good. More clips inside. Be champions!
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

"Geordie messiah to return - Kevin Keegan is returning to Newcastle United as manager". Thus read the official statement issued by Newcastle United heralding the improbable return of Kevin Keegan to be manager of the club, the perennial under achievers in English football.
posted on Jan 17, 2008 - View this thread

On the same day that Sevilla's Antonio Puerta passed away in Spain, Clive Clarke, a defender on loan to Leicester City from Premiership side Sunderland, suffered a heart attack after collapsing in the dressing room during half-time of a League Cup match with Nottingham Forest, a series of events was set in motion that resulted in a truly great display of sportsmanship
posted on Sep 19, 2007 - View this thread

Post your grandson's mad football skills on YouTube, get him recruited by Manchester United.
posted on Aug 2, 2007 - View this thread

In Britain, just as the football season ended 5 months ago, a football fan and journalist launched an endeavour to buy a club. MyFootballClub asks for £35 from their members and in return, trustees are given the right to vote on transfer deals, squad choices and managerial appointments. But first they are to decide which football team to buy. From across the world people are invited to play the tycoons at their own game. With the target 50,000 members signed up already, and with the new season set to start in a few weeks it looks like this radical trust has a fighting chance.
posted on Aug 2, 2007 - View this thread

Iraq wins! When everything that could go wrong goes wrong, it is awesome to see that something like this happened.
posted on Jul 29, 2007 - View this thread

Ready or Not. "South Africa is a great place to have a party, and people are incredibly generous of spirit. What we should be doing is trying to make the World Cup experience uniquely African: where the bus comes 10 minutes late but nobody gives a toss because they are having such a good time. Instead, the organisers seem to want to try to run the World Cup as efficiently as the Germans did. What a load of bull. The Germans could invade Poland in three days. We could not invade Swaziland in three months." Article in today's Observer about preparations in South Africa for the soccer World Cup in 2010.
posted on Jun 3, 2007 - View this thread

When Sports Fans Go Mad. Just in time for your NCAA Final Four weekend: a celebration of sports fans' best and worst pranks, taunts, and hijinks. This ain't no Brady Bunch episode. Some require the skills of a tattoo artist. Some are confusing. Some are about public humiliation. This one, however, really takes the cake.
posted on Mar 31, 2007 - View this thread

"It is very rare I am lost for words but I saw the statue last week and it is awesome - a tremendous tribute to a great man. [Southampton] Fans have waited a long time for this and it is going to be fantastic. I really believe it will be the best football statue anywhere both in size and the amount of detail" -- Ted Bates Trust chairman Dave Ford

Then again, maybe not.
posted on Mar 27, 2007 - View this thread

Prior to a soccer game between Argentina and Brazil, a condom company from Argentina ran an ad to inform Brazilians what awaited them at the upcoming match. But Brazil won, and the Brazilian Football Organization ran their own ad in response.
posted on Feb 27, 2007 - View this thread

After the death of the policeman Filippo Raciti during the fights happened during and after the soccer match between Catania and Palermo, Italy is trying to decide what to do against violent ultras.
The Heysel and Hillsborough tragedies had a big impact on the english soccer. Is Italy going to start an effective crackdown against football violence?
posted on Feb 4, 2007 - View this thread

Georgia mayor bans soccer from local park. Georgia mayor bans soccer from local park. “There will be nothing but baseball and football down there as long as I am mayor,”
posted on Jan 23, 2007 - View this thread

Guy Kawasaki interviews Aziza Mohmmand. What’s the most inspiring story of entrepreneurship that you’ve heard in 2006? My answer does not involve two guys in a garage who sell their company to Google for $1.6 billion. No way...my answer is a woman who runs a soccer-ball factory in Kabul, Afghanistan.
posted on Jan 8, 2007 - View this thread

European Fields: Landscape of Lower League Football Gorgeous shots of some football pitches throughout Europe. Taken by Dutch Photographer Hans van der Meer. From SpoFi
posted on Dec 2, 2006 - View this thread

Chris Creamer's sportslogos.net is a vast archive of current and historical sports logos from leagues large and small, brand new or defunct. Some of my favorite retro logos involve mascots (often anthropomorphized) performing sports-related activities. Of course, some were retired for good reasons.
posted on Aug 30, 2006 - View this thread

Bending a soccer ball - mathematically. Found via Ivars Peterson's short exposition on Braungardt and Kotschick's The Classification of Football Patterns [pdf, technical].
posted on Aug 17, 2006 - View this thread

The Homeless World Cup: "Yes, there is a World Cup for homeless people, made possible with help from corporate sponsors such as Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola and Bank of America."
posted on Aug 9, 2006 - View this thread

The World Cup! This is your spoiler-free post... Don't be a dick. Don't post a FPP revealing who won!!!
posted on Jul 9, 2006 - View this thread

Goals are become scarce in the final 16 knockout phase of the World Cup. A discussion has been going on over at the Guardian's World Cup blogs. In the knockout phase the number of goals has declined from 42 in 1986 to about 25 in 2006. There hasn't been a World Cup Final since 1986 where both teams scored. There have been a mere 3 games in the knockout phase from 14 where both teams have scored. For the first time ever a team, Switzerland, has been eliminated without conceding a single goal. Does something need to be done? Do bigger goals, no goalkeeper, fewer players or changed rules need to be considered?
posted on Jul 6, 2006 - View this thread

Two goals worth a million words. In Arabic, English, Chinese, Portuguese and yes, German. Italy's 2 goals against Germany, from 8 different commentators, one of them being Diego Maradona. Heavy YouTube usage unfortunately, although the post links to the leading Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera.
posted on Jul 6, 2006 - View this thread

Keep your balls in check: The Saved Sect Website calls for Muslims to stop supporting The World Cup, as "[...]soccer plants the seeds of nationalism, and is therefore part of a 'colonial crusader scheme' to divide Muslims and cause them to stray from the vision of a unified Islamic identity."
posted on Jul 3, 2006 - View this thread

A collection of YouTube videos documenting the top 5 goals of the World Cup to this point. I mostly agree with the list; to me, it just doesn't get any better than Maxi Rodriguez's overtime goal vs. Mexico. Vintage World Cup excitement.
posted on Jul 2, 2006 - View this thread

Brazilian striker Ronaldo is now "the most prolific scorer in World Cup history." Controversy surrounded him, literally, regarding his weight in the run-up to 2006 (not to mention a bit of competition from an heir apparent named Ronaldinho). But today is Ronaldo's day, and Brasilia's as well as they try to repeat 2002 and add a sixth star to their jerseys. (The list, updated to include Muller in 2nd, Juste Fontaine in 3rd, and fellow countryman Pele in 4th.)
posted on Jun 27, 2006 - View this thread

The Da Vinci Cup Think of it as a gathering of tribes... There's a lot of ritual involved. It's probably the biggest single unifying event that our species can muster. Forget the Olympics. Not even close. Poor poor China. Keeping the romans entertained since BC.
posted on Jun 25, 2006 - View this thread

United States collapses as Ghana is "sick with happiness." World Cup, we hardly knew you.
posted on Jun 22, 2006 - View this thread

The London Review of Books has a World Cup blog. So has The New Republic and Tony Blair's spinmeister Alastair Campbell. WFMU tracks World Cup related fatalities on its World Cup Death Watch while Slate's William Saletan sends us Dispatches from the World Cup. And then there's the expected gaggle of World Cup blogs from the mainstream media (NYT, Sydney Morning Herald, Der Spiegel [in english], The Guardian, etc.)

And finally, the mother of all World Cup blogs, worldcupblog.org, with individual bloggers for each country, a main blog, and, my favorite section, a referee's blog.
posted on Jun 19, 2006 - View this thread

A history of the online World Cup. Do you remember the first ever official FIFA world cup website? How much we've grown...
posted on Jun 14, 2006 - View this thread

Moritz Volz plays for Fulham and Germany- and he has a sense of humor.
posted on Jun 14, 2006 - View this thread

Jugadas Espectaculares WorldCupfilter: clipshow of some staggeringly fancy footwork. Even non-fans should love this. (youtube)
posted on Jun 8, 2006 - View this thread

Sorry, But Only One Of These Countries Can Win The World Cup. But which one will it be? And what are the odds? The Guardian's Fiver can be as funny about it as it likes, but this is no laughing matter, not anymore, as we will soon be surrounded by 31 unmistakable, irredeemable, inconsolable losers. Anyway, whatever happens, I'm sure everyone here at MetaFilter will join me in wishing it's one of the countries that speak Portuguese.
posted on Jun 8, 2006 - View this thread

Please, do mention the war. Really, it's hard not to. After all, in a sense football is war, as the General famously joked. Sometimes it's peace. Same goes for that other football, by the way.
posted on Jun 3, 2006 - View this thread

Since the 1930s, only 16 teams have held the World Cup Trophy. In 10 days, the 2006 World Cup will begin. Pick your team, pick your jersey, then find your time.

Once the teams have all gone home, more than just the balls will have changed. The world will be saying goodbye to one of the greatest players of our generation. And this time its for real.
Here is a little something to put you in the mood (youtube).
posted on May 30, 2006 - View this thread

In the competition for best streaker ever, I'm torn between this choice, which gets points for the impact the streak has on the news reporter, & this one, which has the added bonus of unlikely athleticism. Both links go to embedded video, both found via this page, which details the revised rules of streaking).
posted on May 21, 2006 - View this thread

Northwestern University has suspended its girl's soccer team indefinitely, stemming from hazing photos surfacing online. The photos seem tame when compared with some other disgusting incidents. Does the punishment fit the crime?
posted on May 17, 2006 - View this thread

5 mins of highlights from yesterday's epic FA Cup Final between Liverpool and West Ham. Read the West Ham and Liverpool player ratings for a good idea of how the players performed individually. This game had everything.
posted on May 14, 2006 - View this thread

Jimmy Jump. The guy who stormed the pitch and cheekily presented Thierry Henry with a Barcelona jersey during last week's Champion's League match versus Villareal has a website. Regardless of where you stand on pitch invaders, "there will be no way to remain indiferent in front of his universal cause of feeling implicated with what he does."

He's got a few videos, too.
posted on Apr 30, 2006 - View this thread

Screw Nike adverts. It's what they can do on the pitch that counts. Poetry without the bells and whistles. Some of the young names to look out for in this Summer's football World Cup in Germany: Manuel Fernandes (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Sergio Ramos (Spain), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Wayne Rooney (England).
posted on Apr 16, 2006 - View this thread

And you thought football itself was the universal language. The London chapter of the Goethe Institute jumps on the opportunity and offers a £35 crash course in German for the World Cup. Start out with these handy play scenario charts (pdf). Or, take the easy route and turn to AskMen for guidance.
posted on Apr 12, 2006 - View this thread

Let me make you an offer you can refuse... The Nigerian Football Association has adopted the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" policy regarding bribery of officials. They now say that officials can accept bribes, so long as said bribes don't affect the game's outcome. Brilliant. Why didn't anyone think of this before?
posted on Apr 3, 2006 - View this thread

'American sports are played with the hands. Using your feet is for commies' "It's inevitable, given the way the US teams are improving every year, that eventually we will make it to the semi-final of a World Cup, and it's likely, one would think, that the United States will win it all in the near future."
posted on Apr 2, 2006 - View this thread

Fan predicts 7-0 win on BBC site
posted on Mar 22, 2006 - View this thread

How to Follow Soccer in Europe. A handy comparison of American sports leagues and European soccer. Also: The competitions. Going to the game.
posted on Feb 27, 2006 - View this thread

Hors d'oeuvres vich must be obeyed at all times vithout qvestion!
posted on Feb 13, 2006 - View this thread

George Best dies at 59. Footballer George Best has died today from an infection after a protracted iillness due to ill health following his battles with alcoholism. A great talent he was famous for his good looks, ability and love of the ladies.

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars - the rest I just squandered."

Rest in peace Besty.
posted on Nov 25, 2005 - View this thread