In our second installment of the Hypothetical XIs series, Pete Starr concocts a Commonwealth side with a few surprises…
At its height the British Empire was the largest ever accumulated, encompassing almost a quarter of the earth’s total area and about 1/5 of the world’s population. We had fingers in pies in every continent on the ruddy planet and when people started to get a bit eggy about the whole thing we created a nice friendly Commonwealth. Continue reading
Andy Shenk previews Russia’s trip to Northern Ireland, and the rise of a prodigious young talent in their domestic game…
Aleksandr Kokorin celebrated his 22nd birthday on March 19, just four days before suiting up for a World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland in Belfast. The Russian national team is ensconced at a golf resort outside of North London, a few kilometers from Arsenal’s training grounds, where they’ve been training since Monday.
The young Dinamo Moscow forward, who captained his club for the first time on Saturday evening during a 1-1 draw with Kuban, admitted this day was a bit different. “[My birthday’s] never come during camp…. This time I had a very strange birthday – with the national team, and in London, no less,” he told reporters after practice.
There certainly was no time to skip downtown, either, for post-workout drinks. Fabio Capello, who signed on with the Russian Football Union last July, has tightened the screws on a squad that earned its country’s ire at Euro 2012, both for their disappointing group stage exit and media reports of pampered footballers run wild in Warsaw. Continue reading
False Nine editor, Andrew Belt assesses the excitement building over Crystal Palace star, Wilfried Zaha, and looks at a few recent examples of hyped English players to wonder where the future lays for the Ivory Coast-born winger and others likely to attract the attention of youth-hungry Premier League clubs…
£27 million. The cost of two of the players in the England Under-21 team that beat Northern Ireland U-21s on Tuesday night. Continue reading