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These Yorkshire rivals may yet head in different directions out of the Championship. But in a tense occasion on a sunny day the confident pre-match favourites fall to a chastening defeat. David Stubbs reveals all

Bramall Lane’s highest ever attendance was the 68,287 who witnessed an FA Cup tie against Leeds in 1936. The rivalry between the two clubs is intense but fitful, as both have bobbed up and down between divisions over the years. In the early 1970s, when Sheffield United climbed back into Division One under manager John Harris, I recall as a young lad in Leeds watching highlights of the home and away Sheffield fixtures on Yorkshire TV the following Sunday afternoon.

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The Asian Cup in Qatar highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of football in the region. John Duerden was there

You had to feel a bit sorry for Qatar. Despite having over a decade to prepare for the 2022 World Cup after the events of December 2 in Zürich, the tiny nation in fact had just five weeks before it was put on the spot. On January 7, the 2011 Asian Cup kicked off in Doha giving an international media, one that needed no second invitation to demonstrate the extent of FIFA’s madness, the chance to scrutinise Qatar’s hosting capabilities/football culture/traffic and pretty much everything else.

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Qatar’s World Cup win was a surprise to many, but Steve Wilson argues that maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a shock

When pictures of public gatherings in Doha and London were beamed across rolling news channels on the evening of December 2, it wasn’t just the palm trees in the background, or lack of them, that helped the viewer with their geography.

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John Duerden covers the growth of the Asian Champions League, currently held by Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma thanks to their manager known as “the Korean Mourinho”

If José Mourinho was still manager of Inter he would be in with a chance of meeting his eastern equivalent at December’s FIFA Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi. The Italian club are likely to play the newly crowned champions of Asia, Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma, who are led by Shin Tae-Yong, aka “the Korean Mourinho”.

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Sean Marihooks explains how large amounts of money has only thwarted the development of league football in the Gulf

Dubai is famous as a hideaway for Premier League footballers and for running up the odd multibillion dollar debt. The UAE’s football league has barely registered internationally, however, until this summer when the top club Al Ahli signed Fabio Cannavaro and then appointed David O’Leary as coach. But the fanfare off the pitch may not be
followed by anything special on it. 

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