In an extract from the new edition of Tor!, his book on the history of German football, Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger explains the ethnic make-up of the national side

On a cloudy Saturday, the first day of September 2001, England came to Munich for a crucial World Cup qualifier. On paper, things looked promising for Germany, who probably only needed a draw to go through to the finals. The country approached the match with op­timism, even anticipation, content with the job Rudi Völler had done so far. During his 13 months at the helm, the new national coach had put into action many of the ideas his two predecessors regarded as suicidal. Ger­many no longer played with a sweeper, although you could still have listed the formation as 3-5-2. However, it was the system Argentina had popularised during the 1998 World Cup, with a flat back three and a crowd­ed midfield that did most of the defending before the opposition even reached the last third of the pitch.

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He may have played in white then blue, but Robbie Fowler will always be a Red to David Bendelow who has moved from shock to acceptance over his transfer

The poll on a Liverpool website sum­med it up nicely. Asked about Robbie Fowler’s move to Leeds, 28 per cent claimed it was “the end of the world” while a more reasoned 25 per cent viewed it as “sound management”. But the 47 per cent voting “Cheers la, good luck” put it best. In other words, we had seen the best of Robbie Fowler and now the decent thing was to wave him on his way and wish him well. Injuries had taken their toll and the instinctive goal-­poacher who ran amok in the mid-1990s would never be as good.

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Has any recent transfer been as fateful as Leeds United selling Eric Cantona to Manchester United? Duncan Young recalls the Frenchman’s spell in Yorkshire

It’s difficult to imagine now, but in November 1992 selling Eric Cantona to Manchester United didn’t seem like such a crazy idea. Six months previously he had been the talisman of Leeds’s first championship success since 1974 and the near-mythical reign of Don Revie. The funny thing is, he didn’t actually play that much.

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From foresight to hindsight, sound judgements to naked prejudices, Joyce Woolridge sifts through, as the man himself put it, “the **** in the papers” written about the Beckham transfer saga

David Beckham’s transfer to Real Madrid has pro­vided the press with a close-season story beyond its wildest imaginings. The amount of print dedicated to increasingly wild speculation about the sale of (variously) “The boy who got too big for his boots” or “An England hero” led Beckham himself, according to the Manchester Evening News, to text his Dad in disbelief: “Can you believe all this **** in the papers?” Most of what was written was best described as **** flowing copiously on to the pages of broadsheet and tabloid.

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In these bleak political times,  Ori Lewis explains how football stands out as a beacon of harmony, as the promotion of Arab side Ahi Nazareth demonstrates

“I reckon this place hasn’t been the same since Jesus Christ,” uttered an irate Aussie kibbutz volunteer standing in front of me in the queue to pay for his bottle of booze at the Ben-Gurion Airport duty-free shop a while back. Whatever Jesus might have thought of that comment, neither he, nor that Aussie bloke, would have envisaged that those would indeed be prophetic words. For the first time in 2,000 years, Jesus, should he re­appear, will have his own football team to support.

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