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Start talking sense

Everyone has a novel inside them, the cliche says, while failing to point out that most of them would be unreadable. A similar principle appears to apply to football podcasts and, as they are easier to produce than books, there are a lot of awful ones out there, though Ian Plenderleith does find a few worth a listen

 Are podcasts an important part of the brave New Media era, or just blogs with sound? I’m not that good with new stuff. I abandoned vinyl as late as was decently possible, and took a while to catch on to the idea of downloading music and having songs on your hard drive instead of on your shelf. Until a couple of years ago, I didn’t see what broadband could do for me that wasn’t already available through my dial-up connection. And neither had I listened to a single podcast, even though the concept had been nagging me unpleasantly for a while. As in: “I suppose I ought to listen to one some time.”

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Reckless words

Spectacle takes precedence over players

The broken leg suffered by Eduardo three minutes into Arsenal’s match at Birmingham prompted a swift and furious reaction, with Arsène Wenger’s call for a life ban for Eduardo’s assailant Martin Taylor, which he retracted a few hours later. However, Wenger’s request for analysis of the real problems in the game and concern that “if the newspapers all want to talk about [William] Gallas then Taylor will get away with it” was largely ignored in coverage of the incident.

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Game plan

Press reaction to the crazy proposal

The press was almost united in its opposition to the Game 39 plan. The Daily Express started up a sports page “crusade” called “Kick Out The 39th Step”, endorsed by Johan Cruyff and Graham Taylor among others. The Daily Mail took a proprietorial tone, claiming to have “led opposition to Scudamore’s campaign” via its online petition entitled “Just Say No!”, while the Sun settled on the annoyingly Cockernee “He Hasn’t Got A Scuby”, represented by Richard Scudamore’s head grafted on to Scooby Doo’s body. But while the Sun’s sports pages fell in line with the prevailing mood, their news section had taken an entirely different approach on February 8, the day after the scheme was announced.

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New football vision

The Premier League feels once again the need for change. "Game 39" is the radical new idea

A new phrase entered football last month, one that we will be hearing a lot more of. The Premier League’s “Game 39” plan, involving an extra round of matches being played at five venues in other countries, met with almost universal derision when it was announced by chief executive Richard Scudamore in early February. The media and supporters’ groups condemned it straight away, and were soon followed by football officials from around the world. Even the FA, not known for taking an adversarial line with the Premier League, chanced some mild criticism of the plan once FIFA’s Sepp Blatter had dismissed it out of hand.

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Serie A 1987-88

Diego Maradona's Napoli were strong favourites but it was Milan who won the title, writes Daniele Meloni

The long-term significance
Silvio Berlusconi – the media tycoon who took over AC Milan in 1986 – first noticed the inexperienced Arrigo Sacchi when his Parma side won at Milan in the 1986-87 Coppa Italia. Berlusconi duly hired Sacchi. With his belief in zonal marking and total football, Sacchi was a revolutionary who changed the mentality of the Italian game, especially when his Milan side won back-to-back European Cups in 1989 and 1990. 

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