Search: ' APOEL Nicosia'

Nassos Stylianou reports from Cyprus, where teams have been successful in the European competitions this season despite their tiny budgets

“This time, we are not here just to have fun.” So said APOEL Nicosia coach Ivan Jovanovic in August, after his team had booked their place in the Champions League group stages for the second time in three seasons. However, as Jovanovic and his players received a heroes’ welcome as they passed through the airport following the draw with Zenit St Petersburg that saw them qualify to the last 16, they were certainly enjoying themselves.

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In a matter of months he went from being seen as English football’s big managerial hope on the international stage to being a load of rubbish – more or less literally. Graham Dunbar looks back

For followers of the national team unconvinced by Steve McClaren, some comfort can be taken from the example of Mike Walker, a man who proved it is possible to go from England contender to managerial pariah in less than a year. Walker’s career path once seemed to be following that of Alf Ramsey: reaching the top after taking a small East Anglian club to unimagined heights. Eventually, he would more closely resemble Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos: sharp-suited and well groomed, with a sideline in waste management.

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Eyal Berkovic’s return to Israeli football has not gone well, despite the considerable size of his ego, as Shaul Adar reports 

After playing for five English clubs and Celtic, Eyal Berkovic moved back to Israel this summer with Maccabi Tel Aviv. His season’s statistics make sad reading – nine starts, subbed seven times, coming on as a sub twice, no assists and only one goal. His team scored more goals without him on the field. His only contribution seems to be in coining a new Hebrew idiom: “I went to consult with the crocodiles.”

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Cris Freddi trawls further through the dustbins of 20th century football by selecting champion crap sides from the merely awful

This is a category you know you’re not going to be able to cover properly. For a start, there are so many poor teams around, at every level. Selkirk losing 20-0 in the Scottish Cup, Hyde 26-0 to Preston in the FA Cup, the Austrian club who lost every match in a season except the one in which their opponents didn’t turn up because they’d folded. There’s always some schoolboy side cheerfully conceding dou­ble figures in every game. We could all make acceptable lists and none would look the same.

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Hankies out for the European Cup-Winners Cup, which ended its days at Villa Park on May 19, 1999. Cris Freddi looks back on a trophy largely unloved outside Magdeburg.

So farewell then ECWC. No more clogging up sentences with “European Cup-Winners Cup quarter-final second leg”. The last of the three Euro com­petitions to be founded is the first to disappear. Fair enough, perhaps, and I suspect it won’t be unduly mourned.

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