European football has a rich history of teams being successful thanks to their academy and homegrown talent – Celtic’s Lisbon Lions of the late 1960s under Jock Stein where every player was born within 30 miles of Glasgow, Manchester United with the fabled Class Of ’92, and Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona which saw the likes of…

Former Manchester City CEO Garry Cook, when tasked with overseeing and facilitating the transition of the club, once requested his representatives to present him a vignette of the club’s defining moments.   What he got back, he says in an interview with The Athletic, “was Bert Trautmann holding his neck in the 1956 FA Cup…

In a career spanning over two decades, securing 219 goals and 63 assists across 573 appearances is no small feat. Yet, injury woes, a global pandemic, and a slightly premature retirement was not how Aritz Aduriz would have expected his final campaign to conclude.  In another world, Aduriz would have played in the all-Basque final…

Football is known as ‘the beautiful game’ by all of its devotees, but there are elements of the sport that are, in some contexts and to some people, wholeheartedly terrifying. During his prime years, Djibril Cissé was one of those elements, fused by a repertoire of attributes that left opposing fans and defenders equally helpless,…

The journey of Anzhi Makhachkala has been one of ups and downs. But nothing quite paints the picture better than this statistic: they finished 3rd in the Russian Premier League in 2013 and 15th in Zone South of the Russian Professional Football League (Russia’s third tier) in 2020.   It all began in 1991 when the…

Every team has a golden period that defines their club. Real Madrid have their five European Cup trophies won consecutively between 1956-60, Arsenal have the Invincibles and Manchester United have the Busby Babes. For Sampdoria, their glory years came at a time when Italian football was the toast of European club football.    Ever since…

Despite the insistences of the Nazi Party, who claimed Austria would enthusiastically embrace annexation by Germany, many Austrians were less than enamored with having their country absorbed into the greater German Reich, a feeling which was strengthened as World War II wore on.   As a result of these feelings of discontent resistance to the…

March 7, 2009, La Liga Matchday 26. It is twenty-three minutes to eight in El Derbi Madrileño, and Real Madrid have just turned over possession following an errant corner. Diego Forlán, Sergio Agüero and Simão begin to run like possessed men, as the 20-year-old Agüero exchanges a one-two with Simão and sets off on an…

The Netherlands is a country of diverse cultures. A country where you can meet people from almost every ethnic group. A country that has become home for a generation that has been born elsewhere but have found their place amongst the Oranje. A country that is famous for being home to Vincent Van Gogh, for sheltering…

Irrespective of the pandemic, the title race in Turkey’s Super Lig this season has been compelling. However, unlike recent seasons, none of the likely contenders are from the so-called “Istanbul Big Three” clubs of Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray. If one of Trabzonspor, İstanbul Başakşehir or Sivasspor win the league this season, it will be just…