Search: 'Dinamo Zagreb'

Known for his eccentric wardrobe and time in Brazil, Miura is now breaking records in Japan. Simon Coterill explains

Now that Shunsuke Nakamura has returned from Europe and Hidetoshi Nakata has retired, Japanese “sakka” is looking for a new leading man. Competing are Borussia Dortmund’s new talisman Shinji Kagawa and CSKA Moscow’s Keisuke Honda, whose World Cup goals, bleached-blond hair and penchant for expensive fashion make him the favourite. Whoever lands the role will be the latest to replace Japan’s first football superstar, Kazuyoshi Miura. Now aged 43 Miura is still playing professionally, seemingly unwilling to relinquish his limelight.

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Alex Anderson reflects on the unusual task he has set for himself, of going to watch every team that has reached a European cup final

I’ve seen 66 of them. That’s exactly two-thirds. There are probably some who’ve seen the lot though. Probably even more, like me, will have realised that “every European finalist” is as worthy of bagging ambition as “every League ground”, “every League champion” and “every club Neil Warnock’s managed”. No doubt, I’ll be far from alone in recognising it as worthy of that kind of on-the-autism-spectrum attention. But when the list hits 100 – and Fulham last season were number 99 – everyone will want a piece.

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Paul Joyce reports on the growth of match-fixing at every level across Europe, and how the authorities are working to combat it

In November 2009, news broke of the biggest match-fixing scandal in European football history. With the support of UEFA, investigators working for the public prosecutors’ office in the German city of Bochum identified 200 matches in nine European countries where manipulation was believed to have taken place. The Bochum commission, codenamed Flankengott, had intercepted phone calls, SMS messages and emails from 200 suspects throughout Europe.

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The league that produced the European champions in its final season. By Jonathan Wilson

The long-term significance
Given the political situation, 1990-91 is remarkable for having passed off so smoothly. The previous season had been overshadowed by the riot at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb between Dinamo’s Bad Blue Boys and Red Star Belgrade’s Delije, hooligan firms that would end up serving at the front and who later saw that clash as the first battle of the Yugoslavian Civil War. However, although political violence flared across the region, crowd trouble remained relatively low-key.
It was, though, the last season of a truly pan-Yugoslav league. The Croatian clubs – Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk Split, Osijek and Rijeka, as well as NK Zagreb, who would have been promoted – withdrew to join the league of the newly independent Croatia, while Olimpija Ljubljana, Slovenia’s only top-flight representatives, also withdrew. No sides were relegated, with OFK Belgrade (third), Sutjeska Niksic (fourth) and Pelister Bitola (sixth) joining second-placed Vardar Skopje in being promoted from the second division. The season also saw the continuation of the experiment whereby drawn games went to a penalty shootout, with only the winners taking a point, something that was widely seen as having helped Crvena Zvezda – Red Star – in Europe.

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Jonathan Wilson, author of the acclaimed book Behind the Curtain, believe that eastern Europe’s hooliganism problem is real but exaggerated and reflects society’s wider struggles in an era of change

In the late 1970s, fans of Spartak Moscow, clad in red and white, would rampage through city centres and daub their slogans on walls. This season, their ultras have held aloft a giant banner sponsored by a vodka company. Such is the triumph of capital in Russia.

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