A Brief Meditation on Wesley Sneijder (& his deriders)

John Guillem takes a brief look at Dutch maestro Wesley Sneijder, once the best player in world football…

Wesley Sneijder used to be the best player in the world. No, really. By which I mean he was the key performer for the most successful team of a specific season (perhaps you know what I’m talking about) as well as joint top-scoring in the World Cup for the beaten finalists. Certainly there was an element of fortune to some of those goals (one against Brazil in particular springs to mind), and his performance was a little overhyped in that tournament, but in the 2009-10 Champions League he was excellent (and in Serie A and the Coppa Italia, only less so), and – if not then, then certainly by now – his performances for his club that year were overlooked. Continue reading

African Cup of Nations 2013 Preview: Groups A and C

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Simon Smith takes a look at some of the major talking points in Groups A and C of the 2013 African Cup of Nations…

With a sense of déjà-vu the African Cup of Nations returns. It seems like it was only last year Zambia ran out as unlikely champions, largely because the Confederation of African Football’s decision to switch the tournament from even to odd years means it was only last year. With so little time to get over arguably the underdog story of 2012, can we really get excited all over again so soon? Continue reading