We were warned.

Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanksi’s book Soccernomics gave us some candid insight into football’s quirks and idiosyncrasies (mostly) off the pitch, including its notorious conservatism. One of the more memorable passages noted how several elite clubs still didn’t pay attention to small but vital details, like helping overseas players settle in quickly in their new locations as a means to facilitate their transition to a new team.

Many of us believe that in sports as in business,...

Sitting in the dressing room after a game against Cobreandino in 1986, the Universidad de Chile defender Manuel Pellegrini came to a decision. After over a decade with the club and no one else, he felt it was time to hang up his boots and retire from playing. His mind had been made up by Bam Bam no less. Not the club-wielding child with superhuman strength from the Flintstones (that would just be silly). Rather the young striker nicknamed after...

The Lead

The Confederations Cup was once a bona fide friendly tournament. How do I know this? Because, as with all the world’s leading friendly tournaments, it was first organized by a Middle East nation to provide entertainment in the off-season. Called the King Fahd Cup, it was first played in October 1992, with four representative FIFA confederation tournament winners travelling to Saudi Arabia to participate (Argentina beat Saudi Arabia in the final 3-1 with Caniggia bagging the winner).

FIFA,...

A director who worked with him once said of Owen Coyle that there was “a touch of the Bill Shankly about him.” That was in 2007, but unfortunately for said director, even hindsight does not fix a broken brain. Supposing, as we must, that the guy was referring to The Bill Shankly rather than A Bill Shankly, and that the ‘touch’ related to managerial ability rather than sexual prowess, it would not be unreasonable to say that Coyle has fallen...

As you may have read, I’m a supporter of Financial Fair Play. One of the reasons I don’t think that FFP will kill off any remaining competition in the top flight is because I’m not convinced that clubs currently operate at peak market efficiency, either in revenue or expenses.

I’ve already spoken a bit to the revenue side—in a nutshell, it’s not clear that English clubs for example have explored all commercial opportunities beyond the vast sums they receive in...

The Lead

Hey guys. It’s the middle of June. We’ve got a Confederations Cup bearing down on us. It’s two months until the gears of the domestic season begins to grind. Why are you still reading about football? Do you have a problem? Do you need help?

The absence of football is clearly getting to some heads early this off-season. Like Jeff Powell.

Now this is pretty goddamn low-hanging fruit, I know, particularly after Powell’s somewhat embarrassing Thatcher apologia from...

Ted Knutson has been on a roll over the last few weeks on his blog Mixed Knuts, and as I wrote in my analytics column on Tuesday, some of his latest posts have followed the lead of a few other analytics bloggers in wondering out loud whether certain clubs like Manchester United and Barcelona may be doing something tactically different in order to create better, higher quality chances in fewer numbers.

His latest postthough is equally thought provoking,...

Welcome to the horrible hellscape of a world with Financial Fair Play:

CFC and Bayer Leverkusen reach agreement for transfer of André Schürrle, subject to completion of documentation, http://t.co/dTM48VhX9F #CFC

— Chelsea FC (@chelseafc) June 13, 2013

Well exciting transfer deals haven’t exactly died yet, apparently.

Anyway, what will follow in all of football’s dark corners in this summer transfer window is speculation over whether Chelsea overpaid or overpaid for the Bayer Leverkusen winger, whether Schürrle will end up another...

Let’s start with a basic fact.

Denying soccer to a single child, whether black, white, brown, rich, poor, able bodied, disabled, English, French or otherwise is wrong.

Dead wrong. It is not debatable and it certainly shouldn’t be a talking point for political debate. Yet that’s what I has become in Quebec, where the QSF refuses to back down from a stance that the vast majority of people in Canada, Quebec and around the world find appalling.

The of the...

It’s another edition of the Rapid Fire podcast! Richard Whittall, Devang Desai and Sean Keay talk about their favourite bits of “traditional football wisdom,” their pick for European Goal of the Year, and make their arguments for rule changes to the Beautiful Game. Thanks to all who sent in their questions!

You can download it here and subscribe on iTunes here. You can also find the RSS Feed here.

Parts One and Two available here.

I’ve tried to make the case that while Financial Fair Play is not adequate on its own to address the problem of wage and transfer fee inflation, it is an important first step. I’ve also tried to argue that it isn’t the anti-competitive power grab its critics claim it to be. Today I want to look at some of the misconceptions about just how exactly UEFA will enforce FFP provisions, and on what grounds.

The Lead

Ten days to say yes or no to turbans on the soccer fields of Quebec? Is there some sort of middle ground they’re trying to discover here? Is the QSF drawing up blueprints on acceptable dimensions for turbans? Furiously working behind the scenes on any possible legal angles to take against the CSA?

Or maybe this is just a last gasp at retaining dignity in the face of defeat. Kind of like how Canada waited a week to...

We’re doing the Rapid Fire pod a day early, so get your questions in no later than 9:00 PM this evening! Or after and we’ll “negotiate”! You can deposit them here, or fire them to counterattack@thescore.com, or hashtag the hell out of them at #CApodQs.

Cheers in advance!

Now that we’re approaching three weeks since the end of the domestic season, the analytics blogging community has simply exploded in output. It’s becoming extremely difficult to keep up with all the developments, particularly as the number of analysts seems to grow almost every week. Please bear with me if this gets…dense.

Last week’s State of Analytics column on shot conversion as a function of luck touched off a bit of controversy.

Coincidentally, many of the analytics blogs this...

Jose Mourinho used to make you feel more alive. When he shushed Liverpool fans at the League Cup final, or did the handcuff gesture, or ran across the Camp Nou pitch, he occupied the particular moment he was in so precisely as to make everyone watching believe, like him, that there was only the now, nothing before or after—past and future would have been invited to leave without a fuss, had they been considered at all. In his re-unveiling as...

The Lead

Friends of Soccer has the update:

On Monday afternoon, the Canadian Soccer Association suspended the Quebec Soccer Federation for failing to comply with its rules approving the the use of turbans, patkas and keski for soccer players. This is one of the most severe sanctions that can be levied by a FIFA national association.

This suspension affects every amateur team, player, referee, coach and administrator in Quebec. They cannot play teams from outside their province. QSF Referees...

What are press conferences for?

We know what they are. The anodyne Wikipedia definition is clear enough:

A news conference or press conference is a media event in which newsmakers invite journalists to hear them speak and, most often, ask questions.

One could argue that in the Age of Newspapers, press conferences provided real value to the public. After all, most households once subscribed to a single paper with its own staff of writers, editors and reporters. This made...

Mourinho: "I am the happy one"

— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) June 10, 2013

I’ve written all I can on Jose Mourinho’s record at Real Madrid, but it’s already been a bit of a challenge not to use epithets like “slobbering idiots” as I read unchecked comments on the Guardian live blog of his first official Chelsea presser like this one: “He was a complete failure in Madrid and treated everyone inside and outside the dressing room like dirt. Going back...

When the best you can do to create some hype around yourself is use Wayne Rooney as a hypothetical example of who you could sign if you really wanted to, you might not actually be in a great footballing situation. I’m talking about Arsenal. Sorry in advance. (Not really sorry.)

I always find the he trick with bigging-up your buying power is not to say you could do something, which tells everyone that it’s a potential world which might never...

After a two-day running conversation with my boss, I’ve decided I should probably write about this. Anyway I owe Joe the Bossman Ross credit for this post.

This morning Jamie Redknapp gave us his opinion of Manchester City’s new £34 million acquisition from Shakhtar Donetsk, Fernandinho. Here is a sampling of what Redknapp had to say on the Brazilian midfielder:

“Fernandinho can become a monster. His stand-out Champions League performances for Shakhtar Donetsk suggest he will be a weapon in...

By Nick Dorrington

Twenty years ago Colombia traveled to Buenos Aires needing just a draw to confirm their place at the 1994 World Cup and consign their hosts, Argentina, to a playoff against Australia. What followed was one of the most famous victories in the history of World Cup qualifying, a 5-0 thrashing which, via the endorsement of Pelé, elevated Colombia to a position among the favorites for the upcoming World Cup.

Diego Barragán was on the Colombian bench that...