Month: July 2006

This is to some extent a psychological quiz – I’m asking you to match a brief statement about the personality of a football coach to the name of that coach. See if you can do it.. To which managers, all present at the 2006 World Cup, have each of the following statements been applied? (No…

Looking up and down the list of Premiership clubs for the forthcoming season, it’s hard not to feel lowered by a sense of pre-emptory anti-climax. Between the twenty of them, there are perhaps three or four interesting narratives. Of course, looking for narrative structure in a list of names isn’t just other-worldly in its own…

In Part One of this article, I looked back at Sven Goran Ericksson’s time in charge of England. I reflected that he’d been a man with a plan, specific ideas of how to build a winning team – I reflected on the immediate impact of these ideas, and how the ultimate aim, winning the World…

What now, for England? After yet another quarter-final defeat, after yet another defeat on penalties, there’s a feeling abroad that all the progress we thought we’d made was just a lovely illusion. We’re no nearer winning the big titles than we were six years ago. To some people, this is an outrage, because it’s so…

I heard both semi-finals on medium wave radio. I was in Herefordshire, driving, and the combination of constantly-changing speed limits and nests of safety cameras kept my concentration well away from the games. In these circumstances it’s often the case that part of my mind will still be listening, unbeknownst to me consciously, and that…