TFN’s Pre-Season Picks

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Hugo Greenhalgh

It’s that time of year again. Players are returning to their clubs to start training and pre-season has begun. The False Nine have scoured the schedules of clubs up and down the country and picked out some of our favourite pre-season friendlies…

1. Whitehawk vs. Brighton and Hove Albion – 6^th July, The Enclosed Ground

Brighton won many plaudits last season for the attractive football played under Gus Poyet and new manager Oscar Garcia has promised to maintain this style. As a former Barcelona player and youth manager, Garcia is no stranger to attacking, free-flowing play. In his first friendly at the helm, Brighton take on Whitehawk, a local non-league side who won promotion to the Conference South last season. Recently, a plan was floated to change their name to ‘Brighton City’ in order to put them on the map but for now they remain as Whitehawk. Does this represent something of a local ‘Brighton Derby’ then? Ties between the clubs are not uncommon and Whitehawk are managed by former Brighton winger Darren Freeman. Continue reading →

Champions League Semi Finals: Grand Slam Final Four

Posted on April 23, 2013 by James Dutton

As the Champions League returns, James Dutton draws parallels between the semi finalists, and the big four in tennis…

It’s the Champions League semi final draw that UEFA wanted. It’s the Champions League semi final draw that every neutral wanted.

Put aside your skepticism towards a draw that has, for the second season running, facilitated the potential for an El Clasico final for a moment.

These are the four best teams in Europe. Not once in the past decade has that been arguable; this year it is incontestable. Continue reading →

Heavyweights bring Vintage back to Champions League

Posted on April 2, 2013 by James Dutton

No contenders please, we’re English. James Dutton looks at a Champions League quarter-final lineup harking back to its halcyon days…

The bell tolls. Last orders gents.

There has been something of an overreaction to the lack of English teams remaining in this season’s Champions League. Of course this is the first time since 1995-6 that there has been no English representation at this stage. Blackburn Rovers were the sole flag bearer then and endured a miserable experience. Until Manchester City’s woeful performance this season, it was the worst English campaign in Champions League history.

Though it is significant that this is the first time since the expansion of 1999-2000 that any number of English entrants have failed to progress beyond the Last 16, that ship sailed long ago for the other top European leagues. La Liga in 2005, Serie A in 2001, 2002 and 2009 and the Bundesliga in 2003, 2004 and 2006.

Many have been ready and willing to proclaim the respective deaths of Italian and German football since the turn of the millennium but neither prediction has come to pass. Boom and bust is part and parcel of the sport. Continue reading →

Is this the Year of Bayern Munich?

Posted on April 2, 2013 by David Dodds

The False Nine‘s David Dodds previews the Champions League clash between Bayern Munich and Juventus, with a focus on the formidable German side…

It’s the 87^th minute, and you’re level with the only team who have beaten you in the league this season. The 1-1 scoreline doesn’t look like it’s going to budge. Then, a stroke of genius. Not a sudden moment of inspiration by a striker, not a visionary defence-splitting pass by a playmaker, and not an unexpected and overdue header from a goal-shy tall and gritty centre back. In fact, if we’re to believe Bastian Schweinsteiger, then the genius was cultivated off the field. Continue reading →

Quarterfinals Tempt Russian Trio

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Andy Shenk

Andy Shenk previews the Russian trio vying for progression to the quarterfinal stage of the Europa League…

Russian football’s winter break is finally over. Tonight, three clubs, Zenit, Anzhi and Rubin, continue their Europa League campaign in the round of 16. Tomorrow, the first two Russian league games in 2013 coincide with International Women’s Day: Volga Nizhny Novgorod – Kuban and Krasnodar – Amkar.

Last season, four clubs made it to the knockout phase of European football, but all four, Zenit, Rubin, CSKA and Lokomotiv, failed to advance past the first round and turned their attention to the home stretch of the 15-month 2011/2012 Russian Premier League season, which ran from March 2011 to May 2012 in order to implement the league’s fall-spring switch.

The scheduling change had one primary motive: improved performances from Russian clubs in European competition. Though Spartak and Zenit struggled last autumn in the Champions League group stage, the nation has bounced back nicely in the Europa League. Continue reading →

European Heavyweights Set to Spar – AC Milan v Barcelona

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Kyle Oliver Hulme

Kyle Hulme previews the Champions League clash between two heavyweights of the European game…

The San Siro has hosted some of the greatest European football nights the world has ever seen, yet perhaps none where the home team is as unfancied as Milan are on Tuesday.

Despite both teams finishing second in their leagues last season, Milan and Barcelona couldn’t have had more contrasting starts to this one. Continue reading →

The Dud Tie? Galatasaray v Schalke

Posted on February 20, 2013 by John Guillem

John Guillem previews the Champions League tie that has had everyone talking. No, not that one…

So, is it? Well, that is, I mean to say, other than Porto/Malaga. An unfortunate consequence (if you look at it one way) of the scale of Michel Platini’s little pumpkin is that, alas, you get random teams (that is, clubs which you aren’t used to being continually namechecked or at least mentioned in passing by the domestic sports press) making it out of the group stages, setting up damp squib ties against real teams that ruin the ‘the chaaaampiiooooons’ vibe of the competition, and in some ghastly cases even providing both sides of the matchup. Alas, it’s happened again this year (not once but twice indeed), which is shit. I mean, who the fuck are Schalke? More importantly, what is a Galatasaray? I certainly won’t be watching it, and neither should you. Continue reading →

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