Football

The board with two numbers goes up – one number in red, the other in green, and a player trudges out of the ground as another darts in. Substitutions have been a part of the game since the 1950s. But for the first thirty years, there could…

The 1962 World Cup in Chile is one of the least fondly remembered tournaments in the history of the World Cup. The lack of infrastructure, widespread poverty, and unemployment issues, in addition to the poorly addressed Valvadia Earthquake,…

The first ever World Cup staged in Montevideo, Uruguay, feels today like a dreamt-up patchwork of events and/or myths ranging from ridiculous to profound. A tournament held 95 years ago was almost nothing like the behemoth World Cup has…

Elena Cascante frequently visited Villarreal Academy to inquire about her son. Like every mother, Elena was concerned and cared deeply about her child. Her queries were always about how he was doing there and whether he was working well.…

Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to stay in the spotlight. Whether it's comedy shows, celebrity weddings, sporting spectacles like golf or UFC events, or even tragic crises, he finds a way to turn it into a platform for attention.…

The Swedish top division, Allsvenskan, has been operational for more than a century now. Never in its history has Sweden been considered a powerhouse of the club game. Among its clubs, only Malmö FF has been sporadically present at European…

It was always on the cards. The notorious Forest owner had never seemed quite patient, and the winless run that the newly appointed Ange Postecoglou was overseeing had finally plunged the club into the relegation places. Minutes after the…

Ernst Kuzorra had been associated with Schalke 04 since his boyhood. In the years before the formalisation of players’ wages and transfer fees, most German footballers were essentially one-club men. Kuzorra also spent his whole playing…

Four months before he led Boca Juniors to the club's latest Copa Libertadores crown, Angel Miguel Russo was seated alone at a bar in Buenos Aires. Jonathan Wilson, one of the most accomplished football writers of our time, had incidentally…

Cabo Verde has just qualified for the fifa.com/tournaments/mens/worldcup" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">FIFA World Cup 2026, becoming the second least populous country to do so since Iceland in 2018. A country with a…