WE NEVER MAKE PREDICTIONS, AND NEVER WILL – PART 2

Three days! Just three days till real football’s back! You can try as hard as you like to be all insouciant and calculated and bang on about the Olympics and everything but let’s all just get giddy and celebrate the fact that the best,  most beautiful,...

JOE COLE – A NICE PROBLEM TO HAVE?

Problems. Jay-Z dealt with his by emphasising the positive. He’s a glass half-full kind of guy. Notorious B.I.G. was more downbeat, seeing the kind of causal link between the accumulation of capital and the emergence of personal challenges with which Rosie Redknapp,...

EURO 2012 – DISTILLED QUALITY

By Konrad Kay WITH Platini carrying on about possible experimentation with the Euros (while simultaneously ignoring the parts of the game which need urgent experimentation) these Euros may be the last of their kind. When asked the motivation for a 24 team-tournament...

CROATIANISM #4: AND SO IT ENDS

AS Euro 2012 prepares to move from all-you-can-eat buffet to its haute cuisine phase, the top table has a somewhat lopsided look about it. A system which places host nations – two host nations – among the top seeds is always likely to skew proceedings, and...

EURO 2012: Y VIVA ESPAÑA

CASILLAS, Ramos, Alonso, Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, Silva, Mata, Torres. Just reading those names aloud is just beautiful isn’t it? But can they do it? Can Vicente Del Bosque’s men triumph Euro 2012 and achieve what no team in history has before by winning...

EURO 2012 ROUND UP: GROUP C

By Rob McDonald — Group C Italy Going into a tournament amid a match-fixing scandal for the second time in a decade, Italy will be hoping that 2012 will prove to be a repeat of 2006 even if they’ve only gone past the quarter-finals once in the last four...

EURO 2012 ROUND UP: GROUP A

By Chris McDonald — Poland The co-hosts will be looking to improve on their last and only appearance at a European Championship four years ago, when they crashed out in the first round after two defeats and a draw. Player Match Of The Day pundits have heard of:...