CAN 2015: Coupe d’Afrique des Nations Should Be Embraced Not Dismissed Out Of Hand

Raj Bains explains why it’s time to stop deriding or ignoring the Africa Cup of Nations… 

A lot of people have been falling out of love with football this week. In the absence of top tier league matches, the international break has been sadly overshadowed by the hateful trifecta of Ched Evans, Dave Whelan and Malky Mackay, who have all done their level best to embody all of what is wrong with society in the most unwelcome trio since Take That announced Jason Orange had left. That said, we football fans are understandably in need of a reminder as to why exactly we love this game as much as we do. Look away now Whelan and Mackay, because I’m about to say some very complimentary things about the upcoming Coupe d’Afrique des Nations – for shame!

In truth, it’s incredibly easy to knock CAN if one were that way inclined. While most flirt with grossly patronising an entire continent when they talk of the quality of the football played, the CAN is regularly one of the finest footballing spectacles of the season every time it roles around. Lazily rehashed stereotypes are usually commonplace in discussions regarding Africa’s show-piece tournament, so you’ll invariably be told about how poor the goalkeeping will be, and how the lack of skill will be offset by lots of incredible athletes. While that’s all just a slight sidestep away from accusing black players of being unable to perform in the cold, it’s also entirely false. Continue reading

This Blessed Plot (or: Meanwhile, in England)

TFN’s resident academic John Guillem dissects Roy Hodgson’s England. Set your brows to high! 

The accelerated qualities of the contemporary mediascape make international football something of an oddity. The cliché runs that international football, in spite of the best efforts of FIFA to reduce it to the same robotic fare as club football, remains something of a bastion for the core values of the game: passion, unpredictability, honour; a certain sense of pride connecting to the sport’s working class roots.

FIFA are obviously reprehensible types of the most reptilian of bents, but in spite of the unsavoury commerciality of the World Cup and other tournaments1 some of the above rings true, if only incidentally. The relative lack of cohesion and preparation compared to club football lends the scrappier proceedings a romantic aura, whilst the lower quantity of games (particularly when you factor in the fact that there are many fans who only show an interest in tournament, playoff and crunch qualifying games) means that upsets appear to possess greater magnitude and resonance than a domestic cup upset. Continue reading

How loving England made me hate England

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TFN’s resident Dutchman Elko Born tries to shed some light on England, Stevie G and possibly the English psyche from a continental perspective…

Whenever England play, be it in a major tournament or a friendly match, two things seem certain. First:  if the opposition is any good, England will be likely to lose, and second:  in the run up to the match, people are likely to talk about the fact that England are likely to lose.

If the English garden party I attended last week is anything to go by, this talk about the likeliness of England losing is done in good fun. The jokes are made with a healthy dose of light hearted cynicism. People will snigger at Roy Hodgson and poke fun at his prehistoric, stubbornly English view of the game – subtly ignoring the fact that the FA’s European experiments with Sven and Fabio failed miserably. They’ll laugh at Wayne Rooney and his hair, Steven Gerrard and his boyish, rather naive looking enthusiasm, and, not to forget, whoever John Terry and/or Ashley Cole might be sleeping with at the moment.

‘I used to love England as a boy,’ someone confided in me at the garden party, both hands clutching a Pimms. ‘But now I’ve given up on them. I think WC ’98 was the last tournament I genuinely enjoyed, when it comes to England.’

I chuckled, of course, only stopping to sip my gin and tonic. I was having a good time there in the garden, with the perfectly cut grass and beautiful flowers surrounding me, feeling very, very English. I too had given up on England, and I too don’t really enjoy watching them play anymore. I was having a much better time poking fun at the build-up and dissections in the days before and after matches. Continue reading

Hypothetical XI #6: Multinational football

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When creating a line-up of the best players world football currently has to offer, international squads and club sides just can’t cut it. Greg Johnson takes a look at the possibility of a multi-national football hypothetical XI…

National squads have always represented a “best of” selection of club football, yet the teams at the top of the game’s elite domestic leagues can also be considered as greatest hits line-ups made up of international stars. Clubs and countries cherry pick players from limited groups, narrowed down either by nationality or availability, contract or price. Continue reading

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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What has Scottish football ever done for us?

 

Greg Johnson takes Scotland’s contributions to world football to task…

Last weekend the Scottish Premier League season finally got underway following a tumultuous summer north of the border. Today, the resuscitated remains of Glasgow Rangers FC will travel to Peterhead, beginning a new life in Third Division football.

Their enforced absence from the SPL gives clubs outside the Old Firm a chance to compete for glory, for the next three years at least. However, any such successes will, for many, come with the mental footnote that Glasgow’s duopoly has been shattered through developments off the pitch rather than on it. Some even believe that the triple relegation of the Light Blues could well spell the beginning of the end for professional football in Scotland. Ibrox managerial legend Walter Smith proclaimed, without bias of course, that Scottish football would soon slip to level of the The League of Ireland without the presence of Rangers in the top-flight. Continue reading