CommentaryEnglandNews The Wormburner: A Whole Lotta Questions (Fantasy Football, Draft)July 9, 2019 — by Rob Kirby
BrazilCommentaryHistoryPhotographyThe AmericasWorld Cup Dictators and Soccer: The Junta, Argentina 1978, Disappearings, Match Fixing and Early Deity Era Maradona (Argentina)July 11, 2014 — by Rob Kirby
CommentaryHistoryItalyLong ReadsNews Dictators and Soccer: Popes, PR and the Vatican Soccer Sin BinMay 17, 2013 — by Rob Kirby

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Champions LeaguePreview

Champions League Spotlight: Juve-Chelsea & Valencia-Bayern

November 20, 2012 — by Suman

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Today's UEFA Champions League (Matchday 5) fixtures screengrabbed, via UEFA.com: UEFA 2012-2013 Champions League Matchday 5.1   Spartak-Barcelona and BATE-Lille are already underway, in Moscow and Minsk respectively. The other six matches kickoff at the usual 2:45pmET. The MOTDs are Valencia-Bayern at the Mestalla (tied atop Group F with 9 points apiece), and Juventus-Chelsea in Turin.  Chelsea pulled even with Shakhtar Donetsk at the top of the group, with 7 points each (click here for all the group standings), thanks only to that last-touch headed goal by Victor Moses at Stamford Bridge two weeks ago.  On the other side, calcio's Chuck Norris will be looking to school Chelsea with another master class today from his position deep in the Juve midfield. Indeed, a good portion of the CultFootball brain trust will be meeting in midtown Manhattan this afternoon for Juve-Chelsea, with an eye on Valencia-Bayern if the viewing venue so allows. Benfica-Celtic in Lisbon is also a

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CommentaryEuropeHistory

Dictators and Soccer: Nicolae Ceaușescu, Genius of the Carpathians

November 8, 2012 — by Rob Kirby — 4

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[Editor's note: This is the 2nd installment in the ongoing Dictators and Soccer series. See also the previous article on Mobutu Sésé Seko of Zaïre and subsequent articles on Kim Jong-il and North Korea (or Football, Famine and Giant Rabbits) and Pope Benedict XVI and Vatican City. Stay tuned for Col. Gaddafi next.] Up until Christmas 1989 when a three-man firing squad executed Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena after a quickie two hour tribunal, the archetypal Iron Curtain strongman ruled Romania with an iron fist. After getting strafed with bullets, however, the iron fist swiftly went limp, then rigor mortis. And as the title up top suggests, soccer most definitely played its part in the image engine of the autocratic regime. Ceaușescu served as the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1967 to 1989. He loomed larger than life, largely due to his carefully cultivated cult of personality, replete with relentless news

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AfricaCommentaryHistoryLong Reads

Dictators and Soccer: Mobutu Sésé Seko of Zaïre

October 29, 2012 — by Rob Kirby — 3

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[Editor's note: This was the inaugural installment in what's become an ongoing Dictators and Soccer series. See also subsequent articles on Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania, Kim Jong-il and North Korea (or Football, Famine and Giant Rabbits), and  Pope Benedict XVI and Vatican City. Stay tuned for Col. Gaddafi] In 1974 the ex-colonial and newly named Zaïre played its first World Cup in West Germany. The country’s diminutive strongman Mobutu Sésé Seko, famous for his trademark leopard-print pillbox hat, had rechristened the Lions the Leopards. (Consistency is key in propaganda.) He had convinced himself that Zaïrean soccer could further elevate his own stature. He liked elevating himself and he liked renaming things. He’d re-minted the country from Congo Crisis First Republic (formerly The Belgian Congo) to Zaïre, which translated to, "The river that swallows other rivers." He fully intended to hoover up every power and exploit every possibility. He'd already outlawed all political parties except

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EuropePreviewScheduleThe Americas

CF Preview: Dutch De Klassieker & Argentine Superclásico

October 27, 2012 — by Suman

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Usually our attention is focused on the "big" European leagues--English, Spanish, German, Italian--but this weekend features two big rivalry matches elsewhere, both on Sunday: the Dutch De Klassieker, with Ajax travelling to Rotterdam to take on Feyenoord at De Kuip; and down in Buenos Aires, the first Argentine Superclásico in 17 months this weekend, with River Plate hosting Boca Juniors at the Estadio Monumental.  Both matches will be available for viewing in the US: Feyenoord-Ajax on ESPN Deportes & ESPN3.com (7:30amET), River Plate-Boca Juniors on GolTV (1:30pmET). We didn't realize the Superclasico was happening this weekend til we happened to catch Jonathan Wilson's tweets on Friday, upon his arrival in Buenos Aires.  Via a match preview he wrote for BetFair: Argentina has been waiting for this fixture for a long time, longer than anybody in any previous era would ever have believed possible. Sunday sees the first superclasico for 17 months as River Plate face Boca Juniors at El Monumental.

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Champions League

Shakhtar’s Brazilian Carnival Shocks Chelsea

October 24, 2012 — by Suman — 1

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It was quite an exciting first half to Champions League Matchday 3 yesterday. We watched at Woodwork again, which was nicely mellow, with 3 different matches on their 3 screens--from left to right: Shakhtar-Chelsea, Juve-Nordaelland, and Barcelona-Celtic, with the house sound system tuned to the Barça match for the first half, and the Juve match for the 2nd.  (One Manchester United fan showed up too late to claim a TV, and so was reduced to streaming the match against Braga on his laptop.) For a while it looked like we were headed towards upsets at the Camp Nou, at Old Trafford, and at Nordsjælland. But while the "big" club escaped in each of those matches (although Juve only with a point, thanks to a fantastic late goal by Vucinic), our attention was primarily on the Shakhtar-Chelsea match, and out in far eastern Ukraine the upset held. As the Mirror cheekily put it,

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CommentaryEnglandLong Reads

Salman Rushdie & Spurs

October 1, 2012 — by Suman

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Via his twitter feed, here is Salman Rushdie on Saturday's remarkable result at Old Trafford: OK, publishing a book and releasing a movie is all very well, but Tottenham beating Man. U. 3-2... priceless. #COYS — Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) September 29, 2012 For more from Rushdie on the game, and on his history as a Spurs supporter, read this New Yorker essay from 1999: "The People’s Game." Part II ("First Love") of the piece begins: I came to London in January 1961, as a boy of thirteen and a half, on my way to boarding school, and accompanied by my father.  It was a cold month, with blue skies by day and green fogs by night. We stayed at the Cumberland, at Marble Arch, and after we settled in, my father asked if I would like to see a professional soccer game. (In Bombay, where I had grown up, there was no

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Champions LeaguePreviewSchedule

Champions League: Tournament Calendar, Fixtures, Preview Links

September 18, 2012 — by Suman

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With the 2012-2013 UEFA Champions League kicking off in a matter of hours, it feels like the European club season really gets started in earnest today.  Scroll down for all eight of today's fixtures (with eight more matches tomorrow). For an overview of the tournament (and to help you plan your next two months of relevant Tuesdays & Wednesday), see UEFA's fancy interactive tournament calendar.  Here is a screengrab of the top half (Groups A-D, the ones in action today), but click thru for the full thing, plus the interactivity (e.g., rolling over a club highlights their fixtures, such as with Real Madrid shown below):   A few links, all from the Guardian, to get you ready for this week's fixtures: A listicle: Ten things to look out for in the Champions League this week Yesterday's Guardian Football Weekly podcast--includes reviews/previews of the English clubs' matches (Arse, Chelsea, City, Manchester Utd); Sid Lowe

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CommentaryEngland

Southampton Preview, Liverpool Postview

September 14, 2012 — by Rob Kirby

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In the 2-0 win away at Anfield almost a fortnight back, Santi Cazorla and Lukas Podolski scored their first goals for Arsenal. Important for them, important for us. The two goals represent our only goals post-Robin van Persie, period. In other words, we broke some ducks and flung some annoying monkeys off our backs. So, we've put the dubious record of longest scoreless start to a season to bed. Now we can focus instead on the far better record--match minutes without conceding a goal. So far, three games and counting. Arsenal is the only team in the top four divisions of English soccer to have yet to concede a goal. After the away trip to Liverpool came two weeks of international break for some World Cup qualifiers. As usual, it kind of killed the mood and players came back injured. This time last year, we welcomed the international break. On

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