Search: 'Claudio Ranieri'

Saul Pope looks at the relationship between short-term solution, long-term planning and nationality in Russian football

Considering he was sacked by his club following a series of disappointing results, the warm send-off Dick Advocaat received from Zenit St Petersburg fans was unusual and pleasantly surprising. In a league where managers from outside the former USSR have struggled to make a serious impact and many have been fired within a few months, his achievements with Zenit should also not be underestimated.

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After ITV failed to broadcast a Dan Gosling's goal against Liverpool questions were raised as to the why the error occurred. Simon Tyers examines the history of football on the channel.

Until the start of February my favourite ever football related onscreen cockup was when the scrolling graphic on Soccer Saturday announced that a player had scored their “9YJ GOAL THIS SEASON”. Trust ITV to take football on television’s standards into the hitherto uncharted depths of high farce in their coverage of the Everton v Liverpool FA Cup tie. Pity Dan Gosling, who might have come off the pitch hoping people would ask each other if they’d seen his goal only to find they were instead asking who hadn’t seen it. Such was the timing, such were the circumstances, that if you’d written it as an ITV sitcom punchline it wouldn’t have been any more credible.

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For day four of the WSC advent calendar we have a piece from issue 259, September 2008. Ariel Ortega – nicknamed “little donkey” – was dubbed the next Maradona and so it partially proved, though not in a good way, reports Chris Bradley

There was one conspicuous absence as the open-top bus carried the victorious River Plate squad through the streets of Buenos Aires on June 22. The fans were there, with flags and songs; there was joy and champagne and fireworks; but, not for the first time this season, there was no Ariel Ortega.

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The Biography
by Joel Miller
John Blake, £17.99
Reviewed by Paul Doyle
From WSC 247 September 2007 

Buy this book

Good things about this book include: the high standard of spelling; functionally correct grammar; and the fact that if you dropped it from a great height on to the head of the person who recommended it to you, it would do serious damage. Beyond that, the highest praise you could give it is that it reads like an extended Wikipedia entry, a broadly efficient collation of information already in the public domain. If you think that makes it worth almost 18 of your English pounds, then you presumably pay for WSC with wheelbarrows of gold. Well done.

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Friday 1 Leeds’ administrators are to recount the votes taken at a creditors’ meeting, which appeared to narrowly favour Ken Bates’s proposed takeover. Nigel Worthington is to manage Northern Ireland until the end of their Euro 2008 qualifiers in November. England concede a last-minute equaliser in a 1‑1 draw with Brazil, John Terry having put them ahead in their return to Wembley. “The key thing was the amount of passion that the players showed,” says Steve McClaren, as desperate as ever.

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