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The rules which determine international eligibility must be looked into, argues Steve Menary

Equatorial Guinea’s run to the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations augurs badly for the credibility of future international tournaments. Only five players in the co-hosts’ squad were born in the country. Nine came from Spain, Equatorial Guinea’s former colonial rulers, but players such as Thierry Fidjeu and Narcisse Ekanga – the perpetrator of a shocking dive regularly revisited on YouTube – seemingly have no links to Equatorial Guinea at all.

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Ronnie Esplin relfects on an encouraging Euro 2012 campaign for Craig Levein’s Scotland

Craig Levein sat defiantly in the basement of the Estadio José Rico Pérez in Alicante on October 11, following Scotland’s Euro 2012 qualifier defeat by Spain, and told the media the future of the national team was bright. The manager bullishly claimed his side had “improved enormously in the last year” and looked forward to building on that for the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign.

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With talk surrounding a Great Britain football team played down ahead of the 2012 Olympics, Neil Andrews looks into the history of a Great Britain team

In a little over 18 months time Team Great Britain will end a partly self-imposed exile of 40 years to begin their first quest for an Olympic football medal since the summer of 1972. However, far from being comprised of the best footballing talent available from every corner of the kingdom, the British team will be made up almost entirely from the England Under-21 side, with a couple of over-age players as permitted by the International Olympic Committee. Because despite sketchy reassurances from FIFA president Sepp Blatter, the associations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have decided to swerve an invitation from Lord Coe to take part, in order to protect their status as independent nations.

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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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Jonathan Wilson revisits a former footballing preoccupation and laments the loss of a once unique part of any ground

Reading fans’ accounts of their first visit to a stadium, it seems most are struck by two things: the pure greenness of the pitch (which seems odd given how ungrassy most pitches of two or more decades ago look by comparison with modern football) and the intensity of the noise.

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