Paris is perhaps the most productive city for player development in the world. But could you beat one of the richest, most global clubs in football using only players from the City of Lights? Martin Vert has been set that challenge.
Continue reading “This is Paris: October ’25”
Paris is perhaps the most productive city for player development in the world. But could you beat one of the richest, most global clubs in football using only players from the City of Lights? Martin Vert has been set that challenge.
Continue reading “This is Paris: September ’25”
Paris is perhaps the most productive city for player development in the world. But could you beat one of the richest, most global clubs in football using only players from the City of Lights? Martin Vert has been set that challenge.
Continue reading “This is Paris: August ’25”
As football grew in popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, there was an appetite to not only prove the dominance of a team against their domestic rivals, but also to test themselves against the best of the European neighbours. For some, this meant leaving their home country to embark on tours; for the most successful teams, invited to tour in the Western hemisphere, it sometimes even meant withdrawing from a league campaign for a season to accommodate what were usually very lucrative playing schedules. But the friendlies played in these tours conferred only dubious bragging rights. There was a need for something bigger, something more official, where the best of the best would play against each other for more than bragging rights.
Continue reading “Football in Division: Unity through the Mitropa Cup”
Paris is perhaps the most productive city for player development in the world. But could you beat one of the richest, most global clubs in football using only players from the City of Lights? Martin Vert has been set that challenge.
Continue reading “This is Paris: Preseason ’25”
There are some things that every football fan just knows. Sir Alf Ramsey, faced with a lack of effective wing-backs, converted his side into a new formation and invented, for the first time, the 442. Arsene Wenger, as a young manager at Monaco, revolutionised the fitness and recovery of football players in a way that has been adopted by pretty much every professional club in the world. And counter-pressing, “heavy metal football”, was invented in Germany by Ralf Rangnick, and passed through to Jurgen Klopp. Unquestioned truths of the game. But, as Mark Twain said, “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Continue reading “Dedushka: The Forgotten Football Pioneer”
Paris is perhaps the most productive city for player development in the world. But could you beat one of the richest, most global clubs in football using only players from the City of Lights? Martin Vert has been set that challenge.
Continue reading “This is Paris: May ’25”
Following their success at the 1966 World Cup, and the disappointment of a Quarter-Final exit in 1970, there was shock in 1973 when England, still under the command of Sir Alf Ramsey, was unable to qualify for the competition to take place in the following year. Jan Tomaszewski, branded a clown by Brian Clough, put in a man of the match performance for Poland, and Alf Ramsey left his post to be replaced by Don Revie. But that didn’t mean England had no representation at the tournament. Most famously, Jack Taylor refereed the final between West Germany and the Netherlands. But more intriguing is the story of Joseph Wilson, Lazio legend and Italy international.
Continue reading “The Darlington Maldini”
Paris is perhaps the most productive city for player development in the world. But could you beat one of the richest, most global clubs in football using only players from the City of Lights? Martin Vert has been set that challenge.
Continue reading “This is Paris: April ’25”
In 1939, Matthias Sindelar was found dead in his Vienna apartment. Sindelar had embarrassed the Nazi authorities less than a year previous, celebrating his goal for an Austrian team against the German side a little too vigorously. He had refused to be a part of the Germany 1938 World Cup squad, which was eliminated in the first round. And he had been on a Gestapo watchlist. Question marks remain, but a blocked chimney was probably the culprit. It was a tragic, if less conspiratorial end to perhaps the greatest player of the 1930s, and his Wunderteam.
Continue reading “Before Total Football, there was the Wunderteam”