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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League restructuring in Italy has been discussed for several years but it is now coming to fruition. Paul Virgo reports

After a long fight to save their marriage, Serie B finally accepted it had irreconcilably broken down in August and agreed to an amicable divorce from the Italian top flight. Serie A chairmen had been threatening to walk out for years, as they looked on at the Premier League’s success with envy, only to end up half-heartedly agreeing to give it another try. But they showed they meant business this time when they appointed Maurizio Beretta, an executive from outside football, to run the top flight as an independent entity from next year.

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Highly popular at each of his nine former clubs, Chris Powell is now looking forward to his 23rd season in professional football. Yet he also wants to project his ideas about the game, and the changes he has witnessed, to a wider audience. Mick Collins talks to the well-travelled left-back

When Chris Powell was named in Sven-Göran Eriksson’s first England team, the London Evening Standard reacted in strident terms. “Chris Who?” it demanded across its back page, seeking a cheap and patronising laugh. So what of the various parties now?

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Altrincham have a history of cup upsets. But as Richard Pulford argues they never seem to get the credit they deserve

The 2009-10 FA Cup began on August 15, just ten weeks after Chelsea’s win last season. The press will again be looking for this season’s giantkillers and again we’ll all have a bout of collective amnesia about the greatest giantkillers of all. People always mention Yeovil Town when this comes up. The most famous giantkilling moments? A close run thing between Ronnie Radford’s goal for Hereford in 1972, Blyth Spartans’ run to the fifth round in 1978, or Sutton United beating Coventry in 1989 – yawn.

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Matt Nation tells an unfortunate tale of sibling rivalry, one played out at opposite ends of the German league system

As Rhodri Giggs and Joel Cantona would testify, being the younger brother of an established professional footballer can have its advantages. Talentless duffers who’d struggle to get in their own family’s first XI are invited to trials simply on the strength of their sibling’s name (or, in the famous case involving Graeme Souness at Southampton a few years back, on the strength of a non-existent cousin’s name). It’s a different story, however, when it’s the family’s first-born who has to sit back and watch Our Kid hogging the headlines.

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