Leeds’ planned trip to Myanmar highlights the malarial atmosphere of the modern game, yet Dallas Tornado’s 1967 world tour may remain football’s most unfathomable odysseyBy the time you read this column, ideally, it will have been overtaken by fast-moving events involving Leeds United and the Myanmar regime accused of ethnic cleansing and multiple human rights abuses. However, at the time of going to so-called press, Leeds had delightedly announced they had booked a two-match tour of Myanmar, with planned friendlies in Yangon and Mandalay. The games were due to take place shortly after the domestic campaign ends, with the players apparently “very excited for the chance”. As rewards for a season go it tends toward the idiosyncratic, though some Leeds...
Heckingbottom can focus on coaching in a way that became impossible at Barnsley but inherits a mishmash of a squad which looks meek beside most of Leeds’ promotion rivalsThis season was supposed to be different for Leeds United. But an embarrassing FA Cup exit at Newport County last month proved the beginning of the end for Thomas Christiansen, paving the way for the club’s 10th manager since February 2012. In hiring Paul Heckingbottom, Leeds have landed a coach with a burgeoning reputation, renowned for accelerating the development of younger players, plucking and polishing rough diamonds, and crafting a vibrant and expressive Barnsley team on limited resources.In between the release of that cringeworthy club crest last month, an alarming dip in...
A six-game ban for Leeds’s Samuel Sáiz is the mandatory FA punishment for spitting but is it really twice as bad as elbowing or punching?When Samuel Sáiz spat at the Newport County midfielder Robbie Willmott he revived the forgotten scourge of football. After a few years away gobbing is back, effortlessly renewing its position as the No1 most offensive act in football. The only question about the seriousness of this act being; is it really?Newport had taken an injury-time lead in Sunday’s FA Cup tie with Leeds United when Willmott began strutting around, his shirt taut in front of him as if he was about to catch a falling kitten from a house fire. Sáiz, he claimed, had left a...
Before the teams with whom Chapman enjoyed his greatest success meet in the Premier League on Wednesday, we recall arguably English football’s most influential manager – referred to as the ‘maker of champions’On Wednesday Arsenal and Huddersfield meet in the league for the first time in a generation, since the Gunners contributed to their one-time rivals’ relegation with two 1-0 wins in 1971-72. Theirs is a history pockmarked with notable encounters, from the 1930 FA Cup final to the friendly with which Huddersfield celebrated their centenary, but perhaps the most important occurred a little after midnight on the night of 10 June 1925, as Herbert Chapman decided which club he should manage the following season. Every one of these key...
A 2-1 loss and some unpleasant vitriol from the stands made it a day to forget for Boro’s manager on his first visit back to Elland RoadAs football soundbites go, the summer declaration by the Middlesbrough owner, Steve Gibson, that his club would “smash the league” in their attempts to return to the Premier League this season is slowly but surely looking like one of the more misguided utterances.It certainly threatens to become a millstone around the neck of his manager, Garry Monk, whose return to Leeds United – the club he left in controversial circumstances to work for Gibson following Middlesbrough’s relegation last season – ended in a defeat that ended his team’s recent mini-revival. Related: Leeds United 2-1...