For years I thought I hated a goalkeeper for denying Bruno Bellone and it seemed a black-and-white case. Until I met himFootball can give you completely the wrong idea about people. One incident in one match can skew the perception. For years I thought I hated Carlos, the Brazil goalkeeper who pulled back Bruno Bellone after the France forward had gone round him in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final and somehow went unpunished.How, four years after Harald Schumacher’s horrendous assault on Patrick Battiston, could that glorious France – Platini! Tigana! Giresse! – be cheated once again by a goalkeeper? Carlos’s offence had nothing like the raw violence of Schumacher’s, but it was cynical. And so, for compounding the injustice of...
Prague steels itself for England’s fans, Ireland may have a new hero in Aaron Connolly and Scotland are desperate to find goalsIn what looks certain to resemble the world’s most unedifying stag party, an estimated 6,000 England fans will descend on Prague to watch Gareth Southgate’s team take on the Czech Republic. Unsurprisingly designated as a “high risk” fixture, this Friday night game will attract no shortage of thirsty visitors to the Czech capital, hellbent on making a weekend of it in a city renowned for the cheapness of its beer and myriad other nocturnal delights. Scheduled to kick off at 8.45pm local time, when more patriotic fans will have had all day to occupy the city’s Old Town Square,...
Over 45,000 fans loved the opening ceremony as France kicked off the event in style but will it be enough for the French public to overcome a reticence regarding the women’s game?The Parisian weather failed to dampen a colourful opening to the Women’s World Cup on Friday, with the French musician Jain and nearly 300 performers delivering a message of empowerment to a sold-out Parc des Princes.The 11-minute performance was laden with more political meaning than the average opening ceremony, which at most sporting events err towards fireworks and theatrics rather than pointed messages. But beginning with a video indicating football’s historically male focus and closing with artistic elements intended, in Fifa’s words, to echo “light and female empowerment”, it...
Didier Deschamps’ trust in Olivier Giroud was rewarded with goals that made him France’s third all-time leading scorerBy Adam White and Eric Devin for Get French Football NewsAs if the internet-breaking Paul Pogba-Antoine Griezmann combination was not enough proof that France remain – the autumn wobbles aside – the prohibitive best side in the world, the win against Iceland on Monday will have offered naysayers little respite. “The party continues,” read L’Équipe’s headline, and on the evidence of this result, and the defeat of Moldova on Friday, that is not an unfair assessment.But are France really on the same level as the side which won the World Cup? Clearly the calibre of their opposition in these two matches is a...
Press and possess is the method of many leading teams but Didier Deschamps’ side in Russia and Real Madrid before them picked up the biggest prizes playing in their own mannerThe same basics everywhere: it would be easy to believe that football in 2018 was about the victory of press and possess. Manchester City do it, Liverpool do it, Tottenham do it, Chelsea do it, Arsenal do it, Barcelona do it, Juventus do it, Napoli do it, Bayern Munich do it, Borussia Dortmund do it, even Paris Saint-Germain have been showing signs of doing it under Thomas Tuchel. Manchester United didn’t do it and José Mourinho was sacked after a grim opening to the season in which his ideas had...