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Search: ' Andriy Shevchenko'

Stories

Golden balls

Paul Kelly looks at how the award for the world’s best player has evolved since 1956

In Paris three years ago, after Cristiano Ronaldo became the fourth Manchester United player to win the Ballon d’Or presented by France Football magazine, Alex Ferguson was asked which Old Trafford legends he considered unlucky not to have lifted the prize. “Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs,” he replied. No Roy Keane? No David Beckham? Ferguson’s wrong side is a lonely place to be.

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Principality defence

The Andorra national team faces a number of challenges, from a lack of players to grumpy British pundits. James Calder explains

Andorra’s latest stab at World Cup qualifying was a familiar exercise in damage limitation, the principality’s low expectations largely being met when they failed to pick up a single point in finishing bottom of Group Six.

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Figure it out

The digits on the back of footballers' shirts seem to be getting higher and higher. Seb Patrick examines a recent trend

Australia’s Asian Cup qualifier against Kuwait in March of this year drew attention for a number of reasons – namely that the side was made up entirely of A-League players and that it slumped to a shock 1-0 defeat. To the eye of someone with an interest in shirt numbers, however, the game was notable in an entirely different way – as starting winger Daniel Mullen and substitutes Fabian Barbiero and Mitch Nichols took to the field sporting three-digit numbers on their backs.

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Javi Moreno

AC Milan once outbid Barcelona for his services, but three years later he was on the Bolton bench. James Calder reports on a player once known as “Killer”

Few players cause as much head-scratching as the one-season wonder. Former AC Milan and Bolton misfit Javi Moreno is one such accidental hero.

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Blame game

Chelsea's money has raised standards, but has it put other clubs' finances under pressure?

Many people in Britain hold ceremonial titles, positions of office that sound grand but involve no real responsibilities. The Queen Mother used to be Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, which once involved collecting taxes and dealing with criminals in five towns on the south coast, while the actress Penelope Keith was similarly honoured with the title of High Sheriff of Surrey. Another such position is the chairman of Chelsea Football Club. This post is wholly meaningless, because all power in the club is invested in their billionaire owner, who can do what he pleases, when he pleases, with no constraints on the amount of money he chooses to spend and no requirement to justify any of his actions. The chairman’s role is simply to pretend to the world that Chelsea function like any other club, with a limit on their purchasing power and a long-term business plan.

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