English pundits are widely seen as bland, irritating sycophants, but in Ireland Eamon Dunphy and friends pull no punches on RTE, earning popularity with viewers if not managers. Paul Doyle reports

So you’re assigned the task of creating a panel of people to inform and entertain television viewers before, during and after football matches: what do you do? If you work for the BBC, you round up a giggling gaggle of self-satisfied golfing buddies and tell them to inform and entertain no one but themselves. If you work for Sky, you collar some besuited former footballers and order them to rehearse bland cliches and beatific grins in preparation for a hard day’s cheerleading. If you work for Irish state channel RTE, however, you hire abrasive codgers who can be relied upon to call a spade a spade, a bungling manager “a boil on the arse of humanity” (Eamon Dunphy on Mick McCarthy) and, just for kicks, BBC pundits “spoofers and muppets”.

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According to the Spanish football authorities, no cup competitions took place between 1936 and 1939. This claim is contested fiercely in one half of Valencia. Andy Brassell reports

Age doesn’t always guarantee respect. Levante, founded in 1909 and pointedly named after the entire region rather than just the city, are the older of the two Valencia clubs by nine years. Their history, however, is dominated by lower-division drudgery and the current season is only their fourth ever in La Primera. They are largely noted solely for Johan Cruyff’s short – and incongruous – spell in their colours in 1981, and for being coached by one of Spain’s more controversial imports, the spiky Bernd Schuster, during their last spell in the top flight.

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Over recent years these clubs have faced each other many times but never at such levels of comfort as this meeting, both on and off the pitch. Did the game itself reflect current contentment? Roger Titford went along to find out

Reading’s first season in the Premiership has been a sweet dream so far. Back in October we did a double-take as Sky announced “three big games for you this weekend: Man United v Liverpool, Reading v Arsenal and Real Madrid v Barcelona”. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to the attention and by February the blandishments of the broadsheets had become commonplace. Europe, rather than relegation, was our struggle. Premiership foes, who looked so big, fast and fit in early autumn, had shrunk in the face of our sustained teamwork and intelligence. We could even travel to the Emirates in hope.

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A recent documentary film claims to reveal the dynamics of a German dressing room – that of the national team at the World Cup. But Matt Nation has witnessed a very different side to coaching techniques at a lower level

Rarely has a U-rated film in Germany been as scandal-soaked as Söhnke Wortmann’s Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen (Germany: A Summer’s Fairytale), the fly-on-the-wall documentary about Germany’s World Cup campaign. It revealed more false bonhomie in the German dressing room than at a ­civil‑service office Christmas party. It demonstrated how David Odonkor makes just as much sense when interviewed with a mouthful of toothpaste as without. It exposed young men in sickening states of undress, including flip-flops and towelling socks together. But, most of all, it gave Jürgen Klinsmann the chance to add to his motley collection of alter-egos, in this case as Motivationsmeister.

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England’s trip to Tel Aviv was for the most part peaceful, though some in Israel were unhappy not at the excesses of some fans but what was seen as the do-gooding of others, as Shaul Adar explains

With England coming to Israel for the first competitive meeting of the teams, one might expect media coverage revolving around Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and the rest of the star names. After three days in Israel there was one Englishman who stole the limelight from the players, although nobody can remember his name. He was an England fan, bearded, obese, shirtless and sunburned, with a tattoo of Preston North End. Israelis queued for a photo with him and he appeared on TV and in all the papers, usually doing his party trick – licking his own nipple. His soundbites were rather repetitive, like the questions. “I had X beers so far today.” Or, “I went to a whore house in Tel Aviv, a whore house in Jerusalem and I’m looking for a whore house in Nazareth.” He was the star but by no means alone – the crew of a respectable TV magazine show took some fans to a strip club in search of the same story.

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