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The Archive

Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.

 

Borussia Dortmund 3 – Manchester City 1

The former European champions spent heavily throughout the 1990s and ultimately suffered after floating on the stock market. A similar financial fate is unlikely to befall the cash-rich visitors. Uli Hesse reports

Somehow I knew they were English the moment I spotted them. They were selling so-called friendship scarves – half yellow for hosts Borussia Dortmund, half sky-blue for visitors Manchester City – like so many other people have done along this paved passageway that leads from the station to the stadium. And they looked like any of the other guys here who hope to make a few euros when Dortmund have a home game, even if it’s a meaningless pre-season friendly, by selling canned beer or fan gear. One was holding a scarf aloft, the other stood with a huge nondescript sports bag slung over his shoulder. Still, I would have bet a fiver they were English.

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Football’s fashion phases

With a new season comes an array of redesigned kits. Mark Segal has spotted a strong nostalgic influence in this year's crop and wonders if we couldn't just have a little more innovation

When the new Premier League season kicks off in the middle of August, 18 out of the 20 teams will be playing in new strips. Over the past few seasons the official kit unveiling has become as much a part of pre-season routine as money-spinning tours to far-away places and Barcelona’s pursuit of Cesc Fàbregas.

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Sitting pretty

Neil Andrews tracks the development of the bench and can't help but feel shortchanged by its most recent incarnation

Change is meant to be a good thing but it can go hideously wrong. Take the humble substitutes' bench. Once the bastion of the 12th man and his manager, it is now an overcrowded, characterless affair packed full of reserves in club tracksuits who look like they're serving double detention after being caught smoking behind the bike sheds.

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Surprise party

South America’s beaten semi-finalists were neither of the teams you might have expected. Sam Kelly reports

At around 10.30pm on Monday July 12, the Uruguayan World Cup squad touched down at Carrasco International Airport just outside Montevideo to a country which, when it bade them farewell, could scarcely have imagined the circumstances in which they’d return. World Cup semi-finalists? Uruguay? It’s not meant to happen in the 21st century, surely?

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Néstor Lorenzo

Just four months after facing West Germany in the World Cup final, a fiery defender arrived in Wiltshire. Graham Davidson remembers

Before the Premier League era, what few foreigners there were in England often arrived after a World Cup. Nico Claesen came to Spurs in 1986, while Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles more famously arrived on the back of Argentina’s 1978 triumph. Italia 90 was the last tournament before overseas players became commonplace in the English game, and saw the aforementioned Ardiles, by then managing Swindon Town of the old Division Two, pull off a notable transfer coup in the shape of countryman Néstor Lorenzo.

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