This One’s for the Neutrals

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Can we work out who is the Premier League’s ‘most neutral’ team? David Wild puts it to the test…

‘This is one for the neutrals’; English football has thrown this phrase our way an awful lot recently.  If we look at some recent cases from the League and FA Cup we can see in the cup runs of Bradford and Oldham a classic example of a national complex; the celebration of the plucky underdog.

When we see a team performing in a way that we admire our hearts go out to them, they achieve a kind of universal admiration. In these cases the admiration came from both teams performing beyond the expectations of teams of their quality in beating premier league opposition. Continue reading

Bundesliga Mid-Season Review: Bayern Back on Top

hi-res-149296310_crop_exactWith the German Bundesliga amidst a Winter Break, The False Nine’s David Dodds casts his gaze towards their dominant force this season…

The 2012/13 season for Die Roten has been about re-establishing themselves as Germany’s dominant club. Borussia Dortmund captured the title for the second consecutive year last season, and showed Bayern up in a 5-2 victory in the DFB Pokal final. All of this, compounded with the loss on home soil in the Champions League final left Bayern trophyless for the second season in a row (minus the pre-season Supercup).

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The Miracle of Athletic Bilbao

“Athletic is a religion” – Óscar de Marcos

False Nine editor Hugo Greenhalgh pays respect to Athletic Bilbao…

Imagine a hypothetical situation in which Leeds United only selected players born and bred in Yorkshire. Then imagine that they had remained in the top division for the past 73 years, a feat matched by only two other clubs. And then imagine that last season they reached the FA Cup and Europa League Finals. This is perhaps the closest comparison one can make to the achievement of Athletic Bilbao. Continue reading