Sean Marihooks explains how large amounts of money has only thwarted the development of league football in the Gulf
Dubai is famous as a hideaway for Premier League footballers and for running up the odd multibillion dollar debt. The UAE’s football league has barely registered internationally, however, until this summer when the top club Al Ahli signed Fabio Cannavaro and then appointed David O’Leary as coach. But the fanfare off the pitch may not be
followed by anything special on it.
Negative press stories allowed some World Cup visitors to justify staying in a sanitised environment. But those who did so missed out on the complete experience of South Africa in 2010. Jonathan Wilson reports
Maybe what I did was stupid – certainly the South African woman sitting next to me on the plane home thought so – but, frankly, the air of paranoia was driving me insane. In most cities in the world walking ten minutes out of a football stadium to a bar would be a normal thing to do; not in Johannesburg.
by Graham McColl
Bantam Press, £12.99
Reviewed by Jonathan O'Brien
From WSC 280 June 2010
By the law of averages, a sizeable number of you who are reading this will be having a flutter on the World Cup. So, before you put your money down on Spain (who are forever only one Sergio Ramos backpass away from potential disaster), or Brazil (whose star playmaker has endured a poor season), or even England, have a leaf through this entertaining look back through World Cup history that passes itself off as an instruction manual for managers hoping to bring home the big one.
Gunther Simmermacher explains how the pressures of hosting a World Cup may be getting to South Africa
Even by the standards of South African football, the appointment of Brazilian coach Joel Santana to lead the national team, Bafana Bafana, at the 2010 World Cup was an eccentric decision. In April 2008 Carlos Alberto Parreira, the 1994 World Cup-winning coach, quit as South Africa coach to be with his ailing wife. South African Football Association (SAFA) president Molefi Oliphant asked him to recommend a successor. Parreira suggested Santana, then at Flamengo.
Robert Shaw looks back at a Sao Paulo team filled with future Brazilian World Cup winners who won their third league title
The long-term significance A landmark season for Sao Paulo and coach Tele Santana, 1991 would prove a false dawn in the reform of Brazil's domestic football. The squad that Tele built featured 11 players including Cafu, Leonardo and Rai who would play international football. Championship success in 1991 established the platform for Sao Paulo's Libertadores and World Club titles in 1992 and 1993. The 20 clubs played each other once: play- offs between the top four followed, meaning the 1991 Serie A was the simplest format since the establishment of the competition 20 years previously.