When it comes to women’s football, there are few who know the game better than Pia Sundhage. As coach of USA’s women’s team between 2007 and 2012, the 146-time former Sweden international helped the Stars and Stripes to two Olympic triumphs, as well as second place at the FIFA Women’s World Cup Germany 2011™. However, despite her success Sundhage ... Read More »

What’s the first thing a king does when he assumes the throne? Well, when the decade was the 1930s, the country was Romania, and the subject was Carol II, the answer was truly outrageous: he declared his first and foremost priority to get his nation entered into the next FIFA World Cup™! The seemingly insurmountable problem was that Carol II only seized ... Read More »

With the lucrative group phase of the CAF Champions League just three games away, there is plenty at stake for the 32 clubs involved in this weekend’s return legs of the first qualifying round. Most of the favourites take a comfortable lead into the game, but for a few there is still some work to be done. And for the outsiders left ... Read More »

The week ahead is sure to be crucial for a Paris Saint-Germain side with lofty objectives for 2012/13, with defender Thiago Silva set to have a key role to play in the club’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final, first leg against Barcelona on 2 April. After all, the accomplished centre-back must help find a way to stop Barça’s inspirational attackers, a ... Read More »

The UEFA Champions League quarter-finals will get underway with five former winners, who have been crowned continental champions 20 times between them, and three ambitious sides yet to get their names on the famous trophy. League leaders in their respective national championships, Bayern Munich and Juventus meet in the only tie between previous kings, while ambitious Paris Saint-Germain will put their credentials ... Read More »

Barack Obama’s love of the beautiful game is hardly a secret. The US President refers to himself as a “soccer dad”, follows West Ham United, and once convinced the leaders of the other seven wealthiest countries of the world to interrupt the G8 summit and watch the UEFA Champions League final on television! What a majority didn’t know is that ... Read More »

Just a few months from now, the football-crazy nation of Turkey will stage the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2013, a tournament guaranteed to reflect the Turks’ boundless enthusiasm and sense of national pride. Rustu Recber knows as well as anyone about his fellow countrymen’s powerful emotions and fiery passion when it comes to the world’s favourite game. The former goalkeeper won ... Read More »

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was left to rue a breath-taking save from Petr Cech after his side fell 1-0 to Chelsea in their FA Cup quarter-final replay today. Trailing 1-0 to Demba Ba’s magnificent volley early in the second half, United looked poised to equalise in the 61st minute, only for Cech to produce a stunning stop to ... Read More »

Way back in 1995/96, a still relatively unknown young talent called Pedro Miguel Carreiro Resendes left his native Azores in favour of the Portuguese mainland and then second-tier outfit Estoril-Praia. And, just as he had been doing in Azores footballing circles, the striker better known as Pauleta wasted little time in demonstrating the eye for goal that would go on ... Read More »

With the FIFA World Cup™ qualifiers in hiatus until June and international football absent until the end of the English Premier League season, attention turns to the job at hand for its clubs – which for half the division is dodging relegation. Everyone in the bottom half still has a very real chance of being dragged out of the league ... Read More »