Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Alex McLeish takes over when Walter Smith walks out. Neil Forsyth is worried
It takes a special kind of team to suffer an apparent plummet in stature and expectations without the players taking to the field. Scotland may be the unlikely leaders of a Euro 2008 qualifying group that includes Italy and France, but recent events have made this situation appear more like a temporary aberration soon to be rectified rather than a possible springboard to qualification.
The other United are doing well on the pitch despite the Glazers’ takeover and media interest in FC United is waning. The breakaway club are having a rougher ride this season, as Ashley Shaw reports
It began so well. FC United’s first season was accompanied by such sympathetic media coverage that even rival fans supported the brave stand made by those prepared to give up the glamour of the Premiership for life in football’s basement.
Cameron Carter on Mourinho's touchline overreations and Goals Goals Goals
He may be as prone to smiling as the late Pauline Fowler on a fruit and pulses diet, but José Mourinho is clearly having a laugh. No one in football management has ever used the media in such Machiavellian fashion, or employed quite so varied means of annoying and disquieting his opponents. Brian Clough would routinely intimidate and lecture interviewers, but this was purely for his own benefit. Joe Kinnear had Wimbledon employing noise pollution and a no-lightbulb-in-the-away-toilets policy, but the nurturing of a gang mentality was the only purpose. Alex Ferguson introduced to the modern game the potent psychology of the throwaway remark, but seldom strays from this tried and tested area of work. Mourinho, an entirely new strain, pops up on our screens with a bewildering array of techniques and the deadpan delight in his art that marks out the obsessive genius.
What's next for women's football? Steve Menary reports
As more money pours into the Premier League through television, where this cash should end up – apart from players’ pockets – is a topical subject. One area barely receiving a mention is women’s football. Five years ago, then FA chief executive Adam Crozier decided the top flight of the women’s game should go professional. This idea was swiftly exposed as financially unviable and rapidly died, but women’s football certainly hasn’t.
Brazil face local opposition to their bid to host the 2014 World Cup. Robert Shaw reports
Will Brazil host a second World Cup in 2014, 64 years after first doing so and 36 years after the last tournament in South America, Argentina 78? What seemed a formality now looks less certain, not just because Colombia – the intended hosts of the 1986 tournament before they withdrew for financial and security reasons – have made a bid to win the final FIFA vote, due to take place in November.