Iniesta the Great: Crowded Out of History by Zidane and Laudrup?

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The False Nine’s Greg Johnson, Rob Brown and John Guillem take a look at the brilliance of Andrés Iniesta, Michael Laudrup and Zinedine Zidane, and ask who is the greatest…

Football today is a package deal of quasi-mythological narratives, disseminated and consumed by the widest possible array of people. Hipsters, tweeters and bloggers all have as much of a vested interest1 as former internationals with limited vocabularys. We see so much attention going to the playing careers of former greats such as Michael Laudrup, often by those who never witnessed his football first hand or even second hand, from the reportage of the day.

This is not to say that players now experienced third-hand through the distance of time and history – Di Stefano, Puskas, Schiaffino, Masopust and their ilk – weren’t as utterly magical as their legends suggest. Due to our age, we lack the personally acquired experiences and evidence required to know for sure, but from reading the accounts of published witnesses, listening to the memories and thoughts of senior fans and pundits, and watching the various selectively edited YouTube montages and videos now available, it seems that those purported to be worthy of a place in football’s cultural canon were indeed sublime. In a sense, we’ll never really know, because one of the main selling-points that contemporary football has is the personal aspect of its narratives.

Introverted yet influential, with an unfussy technical excellence and an ever-growing list of honours and feats accumulating upon his mantelpiece, Andrés Iniesta is now something of a living football saint to both the self-appointed connoisseurs of the game and well-grounded, matter-of-fact spectators alike. The Spaniard seems shrouded by an almost unknowable mystique of significance which pervades his every action, from the elegance of his touch up to his trophy winning goals and assists. Continue reading

Create and Destroy Partnerships – Dead or Alive?

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Simon Smith contemplates the sudden reemergence of create-and-destroy midfield partnerships…

Ah 2003, was it really a decade ago? I suppose it seems long enough ago that we can feel a twinge of nostalgia. Certainly Arsenal fans will do in light of the north London derby that has all but guaranteed Tottenham Hotspur will finish above them this season. More than a few of them will have been casting their minds back to the previous teams and players that would have fared better against their bitter rivals. But Gooners should not be the only ones to get a little misty eyed this weekend because in several games there was more than a few examples of one of those forgotten tactical features of yesteryear fans so often lament the demise of. I am talking about the so called “creator-destroyer” partnership. Continue reading

European Heavyweights Set to Spar – AC Milan v Barcelona

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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 Year of The False Nine

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In the latest of The False Nine’s series looking back the events of 2012, James Dutton reflects on the the most in vogue tactical trend of the year and the marvellous Spanish…

Taking to his platform on the Guardian, Jonathan Wilson, author of ‘Inverting the Pyramid’ discussed some of the tactical trends of the past 12 months. Unsurprisingly possession football and the example of Spain and Barcelona was high up the list.

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Euro 2012: The Last of Its Kind

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In the first of a series of reviews of the 2012 football calendar, editor James Dutton looks back at that thrilling June in Poland and Ukraine and a tournament likely to be fondly remembered as the last of its kind…

Viva España

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