Filippo Ricci looks at the connections between Italian politics and football
From Benito Mussolini, who even wanted the national team to play in black shirts, to Silvio Berlusconi, politics and football in Italy have walked together. Until the eighties Roma had just won one title, in 1941-42, the season since known as “Mussolini’s championship”. The Duce simply decided that the title must come to the capital and so it came.
German politicians understand the importance of declaring an interest in football, though some are more sincere than others as Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger explains
Sometime in early May, Helmut Kohl walked into a cabinet meeting. As usual, he was the last to enter the room. Maybe this befits his position as party captain, maybe it is a superstition left over from his days as a footballer. ( He is said to have been a not entirely untalented midfielder when he was younger. And, presumably, slimmer). He looked like a man who had just heard the greatest joke of all time and yearns to share it with someone. He stopped dead in his tracks just as he was about to pass Seiters.
Matthew Brown reports on the importance of the football vote to the main parties at Westminster
When Terry Venables was interviewed by Radio Five Live recently the interviewer, only half jokingly, suggested that if Venables had stood for election as Prime Minister during the height of euphoria back in June he may well have been elected. At the beginning of October the man hoping to take the top job in the land ended his rally rousing call to the troops by proclaiming, “Labour’s Coming Home”.
If your team is both playing a new system and losing regularly, you may feel inclined to join Neil Dawson's crusade for a return to traditional values
I’m upset. I've reached that first stage of old age – standing in pubs saying “Football isn't what it used to be.” And why? Because of the current obsession with 5-3-2 formations and bloody wing-backs, that’s why.
Jimmy Burns examines how many of Diego Maradona's problems were of his own making
There is a childhood memory that keeps coming back to Diego Maradona as an image of self-preservation in a world spiralling out of control.