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Does ‘Second Season Syndrome’ in the Premier League Really Exist?
We’ve all heard about it: a team gets promoted, performs well above expectations in their first season in the Premier League, and it all comes crashing down in the next year – ‘second season syndrome’. This season, it seems as if Leeds United are the latest team to suffer from it, having finished ninth…
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Die Gefallenen Riesen: How the Bundesliga 2 Became a Graveyard of Germany’s Biggest Clubs
As recently as 2018, the English Championship housed ten of the 24 teams to have lifted the top division of English football – with those sides accounting for 35 of the 122 titles wins since 1889. Going one step further, if you take away the six ‘Premier League ever-presents’, then the 35 titles from…
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Vasco: The Brazilian Giant Set for Another Season in the Second Tier
Bellini, Brito, Mazinho, Ademir de Menezes, Juninho Pernambucano, the great team in the late 90s with Romario and Edmundo. You hear all these names and if you’ve ever had a remote interest in Brazilian football you associate them with one thing and one thing only – Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama. I could…
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Tactical Analysis: Leonardo Jardim’s Monaco
Leonardo Jardim’s career has been defined by scouting and enhancing the resources at a club in order to push it to greater heights and achieve milestones that the club would never have thought about. The Portuguese coach never played professional football. He entered this arena as an enthusiast who decided to learn the craft…
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Revisiting Ajax’s Shock Victory over Real Madrid in 2019
In September 2010, a Martin Jol-led Ajax took on Real Madrid in a group stage match in the Champions League at the Santiago Bernabéu. This wasn’t the strongest Ajax side – recent times had suggested they weren’t strong enough to compete with the top level of Dutch football, let alone European football, yet here…
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Tactical Analysis: Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund
After spending the start of the decade in the shadow of the Premier League and La Liga, German football enjoyed a resurgence in the mid-2010s. 2013 saw an all-German Champions League Final between Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund and Jupp Heynckes’ Bayern Munich, whilst the following year saw Joachim Löw’s Die Mannschaft write their names into…
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From Show Games to Ballon d’Or: The Progress of Women’s Football in Norway
The footballing world was in awe and dwelled in emotion as FCB Femeni won against Atleti Femenino in the Supercopa Femenina on January 23. Virginia Torecillia’s return to the pitch for the final few minutes after undergoing surgery for a brain tumour was an emotional moment. As for awe, well, who isn’t in awe…
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The Best AFCON Players in the History of the EFL Championship
The African Cup of Nations has had a long and rich history affiliated with Europe’s top leagues, and the inherent quality that comes with playing at the elite level as well as the subsequent exposure leads to at least one representative from the big five leagues within most AFCON squads. In England’s second-tier specifically,…
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A Quick History of the FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup is known for being the biggest soccer competition in the world. It sees national sides from all over the globe compete for glory in a tournament that runs every 4 years. As well as displaying some fantastic talents, the tournament also makes for some very exciting betting opportunities, and there…
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Cardiff City’s 1927 FA Cup Triumph
Since its establishment in 1871, the Football Association Challenge Cup, or FA Cup, has solidified its status as the oldest national football competition in the world and a pillar of European football. The annual tournament has been won by 44 different teams, none more so than Arsenal, who have lifted the trophy a record 14…
