Sasha Goryunov looks at how attempts to improve youth development don't always have the desired effect
What attracted Zenit St Petersburg, runaway leaders of the Russian league, to Aleksandr Bukharov? It wasn’t his knee – which has a history of cruciate damage. It may have been his 16 goals in 23 games in 2009 for reigning champions Rubin. But those goals would have been insufficient without something else – Bukharov’s Russian passport.
At the 2010 World Cup, England underperformed at a major tournament. Again. Although the same solutions are called for, nothing seems to change
All the stock phrases came out as England staggered through the group stage at the 2010 World Cup en route to a second-round mercy killing in Bloemfontein. The team just needed to step up, the pundits said, play at their best, find their real form. However limp the performances might be, there is still a belief than an England team should be able to compete on equal terms with the best international sides at any given time.
Harry Pearson delves into a book containing allegations of football bribery on an international level
Declan Hill is an award-winning Canadian investigative journalist. The Fix – Soccer and Organized Crime was published in Toronto in 2008. So far no UK publisher has taken on this detailed account of match-fixing across the globe. There is good reason for this.
Foreign players are becoming common in the Conference – there’s even an ex-Barcelona man at Northwich, writes Michael Whalley
You might expect a Blue Square Premier club to be giddy with excitement after taking a former Barcelona first-teamer on trial. Yet Nigerian defender Gbenga Okunowo’s arrival at Northwich Victoria in early December created so few ripples that the club didn’t even mention it in their next programme.
Trevor Brooking is unhappy about the attitudes pervading youth football and, based on his own experiences, Barney Ronay can see his point
Trevor Brooking, who has turned out to be an unexpectedly evangelical FA director of coaching, has talked a lot over the last month about the “golden age of learning” between the ages of nine and 13. The FA have identified this as the crucial window for football skill-cramming, the period that decides whether or not you’re going to be a Velcro-touched master of the chest-trap.