The strange thing about the build-up to these Euros for England is how settled everything feels. There is some doubt at left-back, but only because Luke Shaw’s fitness is uncertain, and there is debate over who should play alongside Declan …
How political is Orbán’s football obsession?
The first time I interviewed a president of Ferencváros, Hungary’s most successful football club, the taxi driver who picked me up from the stadium asked if I was a new signing. Nothing, perhaps, could have been more revealing of the …
A Euros election is a gift to Starmer
As the Sixties entered its twilight period, Britain was more than ready for change. Beleaguered by inflation, stagnant industrial output and worsening trade-union relations, the Labour Party was on course for a major defeat. By the start of 1970, The …
Can Thomas Piketty save football?
On Sunday, Bayer Leverkusen beat Werder Bremen 5-0 and, by so doing, wrapped up their first ever Bundesliga title. Five times before they had been runners-up — four times in the six seasons from 1996-97 when they drew the nickname …
War didn’t destroy Russian football – Russia did
After Zenit St Petersburg won the Uefa Cup in 2008, beating Rangers in Manchester, the team’s coach Dick Advocaat strode proudly into the press-conference room, only for his phone to start ringing. He looked at the screen, seemingly about to …
Why I never gave up on Manchester United
I wondered if we would ever do this again. Sachin, Carlo, Kier and I watching a Manchester United game in my living room. The dog barking randomly, knocking things over with its tail. Pizza on its way. Not unexpectedly, Wolves …
Ivory Coast is back from the dead
At the apex of the flyover somewhere to the north of Abidjan, crowds lined the roads, dancing, singing, blowing whistles and vuvuzelas. A shirtless man painted in the orange, white and green of the Ivorian flag tottered into the middle …
Who really rules Manchester United?
Talk to Manchester United fans about why they don’t like the Glazers and it comes down to one word: love. The club’s American owners do not share the passion of its followers. For them, how their team fares is as …
Terry Venables: gambler of Euro 96
Perhaps it’s just the age I was, but in the summer of 1996, life in Britain seemed pretty good. I was just finishing my first year at university, a sclerotic government was evidently coming to an end, British art and …
Bobby Charlton was English football
I cannot remember when I first heard about England winning the World Cup in July 1966, or the Munich air disaster in February 1958. But I knew through my Seventies childhood that the triumph and the earlier tragedy were foundational …
Jamie Carragher: My warning to Starmer
Born and raised in Bootle, one of Liverpool FC’s longest-serving players, few characters embody the Scouse spirit more than Jamie Carragher. So, as the Labour Party circus departs the city after another conference season, who better to discuss the history …
I went to Gabon for football – and found a massacre
The taxi pulled up outside an unremarkable concrete block. It wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting but I paid and got out. An election banner drooped from a second-floor balcony. Maybe this was the right place.
It was January 2017, …
What’s the point of the Women’s World Cup?
A useful guide to the significance of a sporting achievement can be gleaned from how desperate politicians are to be associated with it. And given that within minutes of England’s 3-1 World Cup semi-final win over Australia on Wednesday, Lib …
Football is a game for intellectuals
The studio has the classic beige look of the late Sixties arts programme. To the left, unctuous in a pink shirt and grey double-breasted suit, sits Eric Idle, playing Brian, the presenter, his tone pitched midway between Barry Davies and …
How the Saudi Empire bought football
I was five years old, desperately precocious when it came to football, and furious that my mam hadn’t let us watch England against Czechoslovakia in the 1982 World Cup. We were on holiday, and that meant that we had to …