The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Football journalists were made to eat their words when a Lionel Messi-inspired Barcelona produced a stunning performance to beat Manchester United in the Champions League final
Opinions can change quickly in football. Only a few months ago sections of the press were berating the BBC for having the temerity to expose corruption at the top of FIFA. The broadcasting of a Panorama episode that outlined why FIFA need to reform was deemed “disgraceful”, “ridiculously unpatriotic” and “laughable” in the Sun. This month Sepp Blatter was placed beside Colonel Gaddafi on the paper’s front cover above the headline Despot the difference.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive
Simon Tyers reveals the farcical pre-match build-up of the 2009 FA Cup final
Now that every ultimately meaningless mid-table game shown live on Sky gets at least three quarters of an hour of build-up, it’s odd to feel nostalgic about old FA Cup final broadcasting marathons. Yet if it hadn’t happened already, this was the year when the Cup final became self-referential.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive
Guy Oliver thinks the English-speaking world should take a more mature attitude towards football’s governing body
England has become the Millwall of world football. No one likes us and, judging by the coverage in the press and the posts on the internet, we really don’t care. To read the comments on the BBC website since the Sunday Times first “exposed” corruption in the FIFA executive committee last November is to enter a delusional fantasy land that only the English could have dreamt up.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive
Sepp Blatter’s native country is inextricably linked to FIFA. But Paul Joyce has noticed a hardening of the mood in Switzerland
Sepp Blatter has always marketed himself as a humble Swiss patriot who has transformed Zürich into “the capital of FIFA, the capital of football”. Yet his compatriots are growing increasingly disenchanted with the self-made man from the canton of Valais. In a survey conducted by the Swiss newspaper 20 Minuten in May, 86 per cent of its readers thought that Blatter was guilty of corruption. And, as his organisation lurches from crisis to crisis, pressure is mounting in Switzerland for regulationson football’s governing body to be tightened dramatically.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive
The Europa League has had a bad press recently. Georgina Turner sets out to defend the tournament and dispel some myths
It’s May 9, 2012. About 10.30pm local time in Bucharest. Tottenham captain Ledley King looks embarrassed as he turns away from UEFA president Michel Platini, raises the Europa League trophy not much above chin height and quickly hands it down the line. Around him the Stadionul National is silent except for the noise of television crews packing up, litter being picked and the runners-up heading back down the tunnel – their supporters have already filed out of the ground and Tottenham’s were never here. Some of them have seen the result on the news and some received texts from friends. But who cares?
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive