French speaking Belgium has been eclipsed politically thanks to industrial collapse, and the rise of the country's Flemish half has been reflected in football, too – until now, reports John Chapman
On Sunday April 20, Standard Liège defeated Anderlecht 2-0 to become Belgian champions for the first time in 25 years. Standard’s coach, the former national-team goalkeeper Michel Preud’homme, was given the keys to the city and politicians queued up to talk about the rebirth of Wallonia.
Filippo Ricci tells his story of mistaken identity and the search for an elusive sticker
I have always had a love-hate relationship with picture cards. Despite many attempts, I never managed to finish a single football collection. I’ve always felt a bit ashamed of myself because of that.
In South Africa, tradition has taken on a whole new meaning as clubs are traded off as franchises as a means of preserving a top flight status, reports Gunther Simmermacher
A synthetic club will almost certainly be crowned South Africa’s league champions when the season ends in mid-May: Supersport United or Ajax Cape Town. There ought to be widespread jubilation at the failure of South Africa’s Big Three – Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns – to put up even a token challenge, but, since South African football fans tend to support one of these three, anguish and anger prevail. While the detached observer may enjoy the (doubtless temporary) fall of the giants, for the purist there is little satisfaction in the accomplishments of the two main challengers.
Once upon a time Chivas were just a Mexican club. Now they are part of an international branding exercise involving football, cola and dietry supplements, reports Martin del Palacio Langer
Football fans in Mexico were suspicious of Jorge Vergara when he announced his intention to buy the country’s most popular club, Chivas of Guadalajara, in 2002. Not least because his nutrition company, Omnilife, had sponsored Chivas’ arch-rivals Atlas the season before. When Vergara became interested, Chivas, whose large following stems from their policy of fielding only Mexicans, were in crisis. They were owned, like Barcelona, by their members, but for eight years had been run by a separate entity, the Promotora Deportiva Guadalajara, which initially injected large amounts of money but ran out of funds.
Liam Brady recently caused a stir on Irish TV, jumping to the defence of Arsène Wenger, but ultimately creating a rift in the studio, writes Paul Doyle
An amusing side-effect of Arsenal’s devotion to playing football “the right way” is that they tend to equate defeats with defacing the Mona Lisa. There is something in the righteous grieving of Arsène Wenger that implies we should all mourn with him when the Gunners are downed – as if sport itself, not just his team, has come up short. The last thing anyone associated with Arsenal wants at such sombre moments is for some mischievous boor to break his arse laughing. Last month on RTE, then, Liam Brady was in the wrong place at the wrong time.