Leigh RMI are no more. Gary Andrews struggles through the marketing speak and reports on their new identity
Renaming a team after one of Britain’s most derided soft-rock bands may not be the most conventional method of attempting to revive a club after two relegations in three years. But then Leigh Railway Mechanics Institute, now Leigh Genesis, are anything but conventional.
Sven is quietly settling in as Mexico manager while his lookalike makes the headlines, says Martin del Palacio Langer
Mexico has always had stormy relations with its national-team coaches. The process is generally the same. They arrive amid great expectation and, after a few poor results, end up arguing with the press and being hated by the fans. Although the national team got through the group stage of the past four World Cup finals, no coach has lasted more than four years since Ignacio Trelles, who was in charge between 1958 and 1968.
Vasco da Gama's new president had to overcome electoral fraud before tackling years of neglect. Robert Shaw reports
Like many Brazilian footballers, Carlos Roberto de Oliveira was always known by a nickname – in his case Dinamite. In a career spanning three decades he scored 470 goals for one of the big Rio clubs, Vasco da Gama, as well as having a brief spell at Barcelona. Now he has a new role, as a president of his former club, having defeated one of the most controversial figures in Brazilian football, Eurico Miranda, in an election at the end of June.
Joao Pinto, one of Portugal's feted 'Golden Generation' and the scourge of England in 2000, has retired. Phil Town looks back at his career
So farewell, then, João Vieira Pinto. The diminutive forward has retired at the age of 36 after a colourful career that started stratospherically, with two World Cup winner’s medals at Under-20 level nearly two decades ago. Among the highs along the way was a glorious display and hat-trick in Benfica’s 6-3 away crushing of Sporting in 1994 – for which JVP was awarded an unprecedented 10 out of 10 by sports daily A Bola – and that sublime headed goal against England at Euro 2000. The lows included an ignominious exit from Benfica in 2000 – he was considered surplus to requirements by the subsequently disgraced club president João Vale e Azevedo – and a six-month ban from football after punching referee Angel Sanchez in the defeat against South Korea in 2002, an aberration that effectively ended his international career.
There's a new name in the German top flight and it belongs to a village team financed by a software billionaire. FC Hoffenheim's success has not been too popular, as Dominic Hinde explains
Tiny FC Hoffenheim achieved promotion to Germany’s top flight at the end of last season. It should be a story to warm the hearts of football fans everywhere. Yet many believe they shouldn’t be in the Bundesliga.