Tag Archives: Barcelona

Valeriy Lobanovskiy The Soviet manager was one of the very first to use scientific principles, language and methodology in football management. A product of the time when advancement in space technology in the Soviet Union was at its peak, Lobanovskiy’s management reflected his admiration for scientific principles. He famously saw football as a battle between two subsets of 11 elements ...

Barcelona 4-0 Real Madrid (2015) Lionel Messi hadn’t yet recovered from a leg injury and he, therefore, couldn’t make the starting line-up. Sergio Roberto was played out of position on the right wing, but the young Catalan proved up to the task with his sublime assist for Luis Suarez’s opening goal. Neymar doubled the lead in the 35th minute before ...

The last 12 months or so have followed a similar narrative to the preceding eight years or so when it comes to football. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have shone brighter than all of their contemporaries and are clearly ahead of them when it comes to being favourites to win the newly-formed The Best FIFA Men’s Player award. The duo ...

Not many great players become great managers. There certainly isn’t a correlation between the two. Some of the greatest managers of all-time have never been top professional players. However, great players do get a head start through their experience of having been in the shoes of their players. Johan Cruyff Cruyff is regarded as one man who has had the ...

Juventus When the Italian outfit began their football journey, they originally wore pink shirts but the colour could hardly bear the burden of repeated washing and would ultimately fade away. Juventus wanted a solution for the problem and asked one of their members, an Englishman named John Savage, to ask his contacts in England to supply shirts in colours that ...

Thiago Motta (Inter Milan vs. Barcelona, semi-final second leg, 2009/10) In one of the most infamous instances of a red card being dished out, Thiago Motta was sent off for a hand in the face of Barcelona midfield lynchpin Sergio Busquets. The Catalan went down on the turf as Motta got his marching orders. But what has stood out from ...

Chelsea 1-1 (4-3 on penalties) Bayern Munich (final, 2011/12) Heading in to the 2012 Champions League final, Bayern Munich were the overwhelming favourites. The Bavarian giants were playing at home and Chelsea had barely survived with enough first team regulars after a bruising semi-final win over Barcelona. But in the final the Blues kept doing what they did to eliminate ...

Udo Lattek is ranked amongst the greatest managers in world football, and for good reason. The German had a knack of winning trophies and he went on to collect 14 of them before retiring from football management. Lattek’s playing career wasn’t much to write about, but he achieved tremendous success as a manager. His first assignment was an assistant to ...

Joe Hart (Manchester City to Torino) Any managerial change leads to upheavals, but Joe Hart probably didn’t see the sudden change of fortune that was to come his way after the appointment of Pep Guardiola at the helm of Manchester City. The long-serving Citizens’ custodian and a crowd favourite became a pariah and it was quickly made clear to him ...

1. Malaga – Villarreal [September 10, 2016 – La Rosaleda Stadium] Malaga are now under the stewardship of Juande Ramos after two steady seasons under Javi Gracia. They have started the new campaign with two successive draws – 1-1 against newly-promoted Osasuna and then 2-2 against Espanyol – and will be eager to grab all three points against a side ...