On Advertising and Sports Jerseys

Nothing too long on the subject, though I will link to Michael Kruse’s Grantland piece which got me thinking about the subject again. The basic issue: Every other major professional sports league in the world – at least it seems that way – sells advertising space on the jerseys of the teams in their league. [...]

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Football, Bloody Hell, ctd

Mark Stein, a lifelong City fan, writes about his team’s improbable win last weekend. So many people have asked me what it was like to watch it happen this way. The unglamorous truth: I spent the bulk of that frustrating half-hour after the sending-off of City castoff Joey Barton and before the goals of salvation [...]

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Football… Bloody Hell

That was how Sir Alex Ferguson summed up his feelings after Manchester United finished their comeback for the ages in the 1999 Champions League final, defeating Bayern Munich with two stoppage time goals and securing the treble (meaning they won the domestic league, a domestic cup tournament, and the European Cup – no other team [...]

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The Ethics of American Football

Earlier this week Junior Seau, a future Hall of Fame middle linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots committed suicide. He’s the 4th NFL player in recent memory to do so. This adds to the litany of health-related concerns in the NFL: Concussions, post-career healthcare, memory loss,  etc. etc. My [...]

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A 3-4-3 Tactical Revolution?

My piece on 3-4-3 and football tactics is now online at Think Football.

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Taking Tottenham to the Next Level at Just Football

I have a new column up at Just Football talking about the reasons for my beloved Tottenham Hotspur’s late-season swoon. (I’m also going to be starting to write for Think Football in the near future.)

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Are blue-collar fans rowdier?

Nathan Pippenger with a fascinating post over atThe New Republic’sStudy blog. Reviewing attendance records stored in the Cincinnati Historical Society, he found that the attendees of 229 Reds games from 1886 to 1888 (when the team was playing in the American Association) were no strangers to class conflict. Much of the tension came from the [...]

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Crazy athletes and sport as reflection of culture

Brian Phillips with another cracker over at Grantland: The “crazy” athlete is the athlete who does or says whatever comes into his mind, for whatever reason, without regard for either consequences or social norms, whether that means dressing up as Santa Claus and driving around an English city handing out money (Balotelli), wearing a wedding [...]

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Barcelona’s drop in form

My second piece for Just Football went live today. Looking back, the 2010-11 edition of Barcelona struck the perfect balance between idealistic joga bonito and the cutting edge ruthlessness in front of goal necessary to win silverware. Interestingly, they played a formation not dissimilar from this year’s: three in traditional defensive positions, Sergio Busquets on top of [...]

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Redknapp for England at Just-Football

For any sports fans out there, I made my debut at just-football yesterday with a column about Harry Redknapp and the England job.

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