The Dark Side of the Beautiful Game: Football’s African Slave Trade
For many young African footballers who migrate to Europe, their challenge is not to break into the starting XI, but to find something to eat, somewhere to sleep. This is the sad…
What does it take to build a culture?
And what does one gain from tearing it down? Former USWNT teammates Carli Lloyd and Hope Solo chatted on a recent podcast, deriding the team culture as “toxic” despite opposite reports from…
Being Oneself: Marcelino and Athletic Bilbao
A look at the behavioural similarities between Athletic Bilbao’s traditions and Marcelino’s managerial career over the years. The Basque club has a unique identity, and the Asturian has a special place in Spanish football for working with the underdogs and bringing them back up.
Finding Arsenal: The Value of Thinning the Herd
Fans like to believe that their club has some intrinsic identity. There is some quality that must exist within those 90 minutes for a club to be recognisable. In actuality, the DNA…
Mason Greenwood, Harriet Robson, and a World Designed to Protect Assaulters
I am a man, and just reading detailed reports on physical abuse makes me sick. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like for women, who live in physical danger…
How Goran Pandev Put Macedonia on the Football Map
If you were to mention the name Goran Pandev to an informed commentator of European football, they’ll tell you of his dynamic forward play, his wicked left foot, and an impressive record…
Town in Albion: The Strange Recent History of Ossett’s Footballing Landscape
The unassuming market town of Ossett, nestled between Wakefield and Dewsbury in Yorkshire’s West Riding, is not known for its football prowess or reputation. Located around eight miles from Premier League Leeds…
FP Book Review: Caviar and Sausages by Tony Kokkinos
Age can limit us in our understanding of what we love the most. Without delving into the territory of gatekeeping, there is a demarcation of attachment to an event between those who…
Kerr’d his Enthusiasm – Sam Kerr 1 – 0 Pitch Invader
In the dying minutes of a nail biter of a Chelsea/Juventus match-up, Sam Kerr added a new role to her CV – matchday security, taking down a pitch invader who interrupted play…
You Can Check out, and You Can Leave – No Farewell for Formiga
What do you do when you have one of the most accomplished players of all time on your squad, and she’s facing her last international game? If you’re Pia Sundhage, you give…
Gretna F.C. – A Phoenix Not From the Flames?
The clichéd story of a football team financially hyper-extending itself, filing for bankruptcy, before re-modelling as a ‘Phoenix Club’ is not a particularly new or unique one. The battle-hardened fans of Bury,…
Ole Had to Go, but United Have Deeper Issues
And so, after a stretch of performances that can be labelled as a total suspension of talent and intelligence, Manchester United’s Solskjaer Experiment is over. Last night’s deflating loss—the kind where a…
To Find Solutions, Manchester United Need to Start Asking Questions
Most of us have known this feeling. At playgrounds and classrooms, backyards and alleyways, nothing hurts more than a bully taking their sweet time to pull you apart. On his podcast, Gary…
Book Review – Arsenal for Everyone by Dave Seager
“If you ask me what my life will look like a few years from now, where I will be, what I will be doing–the honest answer is, I don’t know. But, I…
Visions of the Dutch Big Three
(This piece was written following the September 18-19 football weekend.) Over the previous international break, we all laughed as Louis van Gaal shot back at a journalist deriding the Netherlands manager for…
Romelu Lukaku – What Was It That You Said About Slow and Clumsy?
I sometimes wonder how tough life must be for a Premier League footballer. The ball flies past before you know it is coming; you must adapt to overcome the ever-growing number of…
Eredivisie Overture: Part One
The Dutch are a society littered with contradictions. Rising waters threaten a country largely below sea level, but it was Amsterdam that served as a breeding ground for the very capitalism which…
Portugal in the 21st Century – The Cost of Gold
The European Championships this summer were a lesson in team play, for both the robust attacking outfits and the overly conservative. Disregarding his country’s catenaccio history, Roberto Mancini looked to dominate play…
Manchester United, Ronaldo, Kathryn Mayorga, and Us: Everyone Has a Choice
450 goals in 438 games for Real Madrid. 101 in 134 for Juventus. 91 in his last three seasons for Manchester United. Five Champions’ League titles. Five Ballon d’Ors. Rape allegations with…
Football, Covid, and Quiet: How Much of It Do We Really Need?
This sport we love is loud. It is heavy handed, a picture of excess and consumerism featuring high-drama competition between lavish-living millionaires in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans. As…
Eric Lamela – The One That Slipped Away
Erik Lamela is 29 years old. There is something almost cruel about this sentence, which seems less like a statement of fact and more a dispatching of judgment. How is Erik Lamela…
Forget the Tournaments, Football Is Already Home
Football is obsessed with nostalgia. At no time is this more evident than during international competition wherein football cultures, nationalisms, and emotion blend into a heady liquor which draws in even the…
The Broken Jigsaw: Joachim Low’s Legacy
Is a legacy what you leave behind in the past or what is built upon what you leave in the present? The history of something or the same thing’s unwritten history? Nobody…
FP Data Check: Manchester United Season Review 2020-21
Data and charts courtesy Lee Chunhang. David de Gea did not want to take that penalty. His face was tense, run-up short, and his kick neither had power or precision. Penalty shoot-outs…
Arsenal 1970-71: There and Back Again
This week marks fifty years since Arsenal won the league-and-cup double. There is a lot to learn from that season – for the club and fans both.
Case for the Planet: Football Needs to Think
By any football club’s standards, 2020 was a catastrophic year. Pandemic-driven shortfalls caused by the absence of fans has left clubs across Europe cash-strapped. The continent’s superclubs are no exception. Last month,…
FP Book Review: My Life and Lessons in Red and White – Arsène Wenger
What is the measure of a life? Is it tangible successes or achievements, personal or professional? Is it quality or quantity of output? Is it the legacy we leave behind? Is it…
The Jersey or the Jacket? – The Road to Becoming a Manager at a Big Club
Dennis Bergkamp is my favourite footballer (or organism) of all time. From watching the calm, measured way he played, to reading about his thought processes while on the field, he gives me…
The 4-3-3: A Revolution, Triangles and Arrogance
On the 16th of July, 1950, a great crowd surged into a seatless, concrete grandstand in Rio to watch a football match. It was supposed to be a trivial impediment that would…
Book Review: What You Think You Know About Football is Wrong – Kevin Moore
The word ‘myth’ comes from the Greek ‘mythos’ which has a range of meanings—word, saying, story, fiction—and is defined as a “symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional,…