Valeriy Lobanovskyi The legendary Soviet-Ukrainian manager did a great deal to bring new ideas to the beautiful game. He famously treated football as a system of 22 elements, having two sub-systems of 11 elements each, moving in a confined space and subject to a series of restrictions. If at the end of the 90 minutes, the two systems were evenly ...

  There are great players and then there are great managers. Many great players went into management and a bunch of them achieved some degree of success. However, very few can be considered legendary for both their playing career as well as management stints. Johan Cruyff makes both the lists. Tactics and man-management (Strengths) Cruyff was an exponent of attractive ...

In the 2005/06 Serie A season, Juventus raced their way to the title and wrapped up the league, having finished 15 points ahead of Inter Milan but instead of being awarded the Scudetto the Old Lady were relegated to Serie B after a match-fixing scandal dubbed Calciopoli came to light. The scandal was uncovered in May 2006 and it implicated ...

Pele If we just let the numbers do the talking, then it is very hard to argue against Pele being the best player in the history of the game. The Brazilian legend went on to win three World Cups! Yes, three. He was part of the Brazil national teams that won the prestigious title in 1958, 1962 and 1970. He ...

  Barcelona have acquired France international Samuel Umtiti for a €25 million transfer fee earlier this summer. The youngster has been a key figure for Lyon in their past few campaigns and if his performances at the Euro 2016 are any indication then Barcelona have secured a potential star in their ranks.  Playing style Umtiti is a well-rounded centre-back. He is ...

At the beginning of the 2016 European Championship no one gave Portugal any chance of making it to the last four let alone winning the championship. And the prospects of making it to the latter stages of the tournament hit a further low after their performances in the group stage. The Portuguese started their campaign against the minnows Iceland. It ...

Hooliganism in English football has been deep-rooted. Although incidents of hooliganism have become very rare in modern football, the horrible scenes during the early days of the ongoing European Championship brought it all to focus once again. The English supporters started creating trouble during their stay in Marseille before their team’s opening fixture in the competition. Things took an ugly ...

Rinus Michels is best remembered as a pioneering football manager, but he was also an accomplished footballer. He began his playing career with Ajax in 1946 and over the course of the next 12 years he went on to play over 300 games for the Dutch club. Operating as a striker, he scored over 150 goals in all competitions and ...

The ever efficient Bayern Munich’s transfer dealings completed another good purchase when they acquired Benfica’s Renato Sanches earlier this summer. The young Portuguese star had been linked with a move to Manchester United but ultimately he chose the five-time European champions. Sanches is only 18-year-old, but his reading of the game is well beyond his years. The youngster played only ...

USA 1 – England 0 (1950 World Cup group stage) The 1950 edition was the first time that England were playing at a World Cup. Needless to say, the English media felt that their men would come back from Brazil with the coveted Jules Rimet trophy, having proven their superiority over rest of the world. The tournament started to their ...