The last time Luiz Felipe Scolari coached Brazil against England, both teams were in very different circumstances. In their 2002 World Cup quarter-final, they lined up against each other as two of the best teams in the world. Scolari had rescued a trainwreck of a qualifying campaign and was on his way to guiding Brazil…
As Steven Gerrard approached his 100th England cap, a flood of articles appeared eulogising his career. Journalists across the country took it upon themselves to praise his all-round ability yet there was a twinge of disappointment that he hadn’t quite fulfilled his potential, particularly in regard to his time with England. Even Gerrard himself only…
A year or so ago, the idea that Barcelona’s current side was the best to have ever played the game was pretty popular. The ball was passed from world-class player to world-class player as Barca would patiently strangle the life out of opposition teams. One tricky season later and it seemed we had been caught…
With all the drama before the game, it was pretty typical that the match turned out to be a dull, non-eventful evening. Paul Gascoigne turned up to give fans something to cheer about, but there wasn’t exactly many of them, with attacks prior to the game suggesting the locals had a bigger influence outside of…
We have reached the penultimate side on the list, and we are now in the rather odd position where the team we have named second best in history would probably be beaten by every team that came before it in the series. The problem with judging teams from different eras is that it is near-impossible…
Having finished above Liverpool last season and started the season superbly, Everton may have gone into the game feeling confident they could come away with a win, particularly with two of their rival’s defence out injured, but then things are never that simple in the Merseyside derby. The cliché of form going out of the…
Football can be an extremely black and white game at times – goal or no goal; transfer or no transfer; injury or no injury. The butterfly effect can be tracked easier than in many other walks of life. Potential legacies thrown away because of one loss; sport-wide evolution in style disappearing on the back of…
Serie A reverted back to the nineties last night, with champions Juventus and Vincenzo Montella’s Fiorentina lining up in 3-5-2s to play out a pretty dull game despite the quality of some of the players on show. That the game was fairly uneventful wasn’t much of a surprise: the 3-5-2 doesn’t really lend itself to…
Total Football might well have been the worst thing to have happened to Dutch football. The greatness of Rinus Michel’s creation hung a weight around the necks of the generations that followed. Having experienced the teams of the seventies, those that followed not only had to win, but do so in style. With the eyes…
It was against Everton at home last season that Manchester United threw away their title, conceding two late goals to draw 4-4. Five months later, this time at Goodison Park, they weren’t able to put the ghosts of last season to rest. Both teams set out in a 4-2-3-1 shape but had different ideas on…
