Search: ' Villarreal'

Phil Ball has had some dodgy encounters from Grimsby to Spain

My encounters with footballers got off to a bad start. Back in the Jurassic period, when players were still awarded testimonials for ten years’ service (they would now simply be accused of being unambitious), Grimsby’s goalkeeper Harry Wainman was fortunate enough to count on the presence of one Frank Worthington for his particular bash, invited to play because his less famous brother, Dave, was Grimsby’s full-back at the time. I was 15, and had just bagged Worthington’s sister (Julie) as my girlfriend. It still remains my only achievement in life.

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Jon Spurling reports on Michel Platini's ambitious plans

“Football is a game before a product, a sport before a market, a show before a business,” said Michel Platini in January. The new UEFA chairman has since claimed that all his proposals – including his suggestion in August to cut the number of Champions League places allocated to Europe’s leading leagues from four to three and his aim that European finals be played on a Saturday afternoon with 75 per cent of allocated tickets going to the finalists’ supporters – are based on “sporting philosophy and not anything financial”. Others don’t share Platini’s altruistic vision.

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Argentine giants Boca Juniors have won yet another Copa Libertadores – with a little help from a Mr Riquelme of Villarreal, who was just passing through Buenos Aires. Robert Shaw reports

The Copa Libertadores final between Boca Juniors and Gremio failed to live up to expectations, with the Argentines winning 5‑0 on aggregate. Both legs were dominated by on-loan Juan Román Riquelme, whose two goals in the second leg overshadowed the more modest efforts of Liverpool-bound Lucas. As holidays go it was a pretty successful one for Riquelme, propelling the player back into the national squad after his post-World Cup retirement and helping his club to their sixth title. By the time Boca fanatic Diego Maradona stops bouncing up and down to celebrate this victory, Riquelme will be back at Villarreal via the Copa America after a successful $2.5 million loan.

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A pan-European league is never far off the agenda. What would the world look like if it ever happened? Adam Powley considers

“We have flirted with hell,” said Arsène Wenger, speaking of his club’s recent dalliance with life outside of the Champions League qualification positions. It is this kind of thinking – that the Champions League is the be-all and end-all – that has underpinned the latest rumours concerning a European Super League. The plot is a familiar one: murmurs of shady meetings between the various Mr Bigs of G-14, suggestions and then denials from Brussels politicians, and off-the-record briefings reported as plans set in stone.

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Errol Lawrence follows closely the movements of Zizou for 90 minutes, with the aid of 17 cameras

In 1970, a German film-maker named Hellmuth Costard pointed six 16mm cameras at George Best as he played for Manchester United against Coventry City. Footage was edited and framed so that other players and the crowd were ignored and, at most, incidental. Fussball wie noch nie (Football as never before) is not a film for the fan. Watching Best in less than splendid isolation is quite disturbing and, with the benefit of hindsight, the fascination and value of the film lies in its idiosyncratic study of what might be charitably described as an eccentric performance by football’s supreme individualist at the beginning of that long, sad decline.

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