It's a good thing the emir of Abu Dhabi was born to inherit the wealth attached to one of the earth's richest pool of hydrocarbons. Because he is clearly intent on pissing away hundreds of millions of dollars at Man City.

Just so there's no mistaking my meaning: this is a disaster. There is literally no chance whatsoever that this project is going to work out. Click to continue reading...

You'll remember, of course, the general contempt that TFC has shown for travelling fans. Well, now it's showing it to home fans as well.

My season ticket renewal form arrives in my inbox. Apparently included in this year's price is not just my 15 league games, but also an international friendly (I see they've learned their lesson and are now scheduling only one of these atrocities), two Canadian championship matches, and (drumroll please) a premliminary round CONCACAF game. Click to continue reading...

A perennial topic of conversation among football fans is whether or not football has become "too predictable" and "too slanted towards the top teams", and often the balme for this is laid at the feet of greedy owners, Sky, globalization or what have you. Veteran denizens of the kingdom will likely know that I'm sceptical of such claims - I'm not sure football's playing field has ever been particularly flat. Click to continue reading...

After a little more thought, I've just come up with two more books that I want to write.

1) A History of Cheating. There are so many ways to cheat in football. Players can break the rules, players can simulate.

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I've been reading a heck of a lot of footie lit recently (various reviews to follow). While doing so, it has occurred to me that there are whole forms of football literature which are rapidly approaching obsolescence. Football biographies have long ceased to be of much interest to anyone; in the past ten years, only those of Gazza and Tony Adams have provided much in the way of interest. Click to continue reading...

So, I just finished Jonathan Wilson's rather good new book Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics. I recommend a read to all real devotees of the sport (by some miracle, it has been released in North America at the same time as in the UK), though some of the press praise for the book is a little over the top in my opinion. Click to continue reading...

I'm finally getting into some summer reading, and that always means football books. So here's the first of what I'm assuming will be many book reviews, on a new book called Comrade Jim.

The subtitle of this book is The Spy who Played for Spartak. It's a lovely short book if you can get past two things: he was never really a spy and he barely played for Spartak. Click to continue reading...

An intriguing story in today's Observer about Cristiano Ronaldo and his (alleged) seven-months-in-the-making transfer to Real Madrid.

According to journalist Duncan Castles, CR has been doing all the engineering of this move on his own, and his agent had been repeatedly counselling against a move. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool v Arsenal three times in one week, so to avoid intra-family strife I have again fled the continent. And so to today's question: does anyone here know anything about Saudi football? Like what day they play matches here? Or what day they play in Qatar?

There's a hell of a lot of football on TV considering it's 2:30 in the morning. Click to continue reading...

I am upset with myself for not having worked on this blog enough. I have all sorts of half-written blog posts - on Buddhist football; Game 39; the new Canada Cup, the strange fact that George Gillett, tired of Liverpool, has decided that Montreal, of all godforsaken places, is the place to stake one's claim to football glory. Click to continue reading...

Remember when Gretna were a good news story?

Come on, it wasn't that long ago.

Elected to the Scottish league only in 2002, the team spent three season in Scotland's division three. From there, bankrolled by businessman Brooks Mileson, they went on a Roy of the Rovers run - two more promotions in succession plus a Cup Final against Hearts, a spot in Europe, and playing in Scotland's top division. Click to continue reading...

So, another display of incompetence from a San Siro-based squad, and another Premiership side goes through to the quarter-finals. For the first time in the history of the tournament, four sides from one country will make it to the quarter-finals.

And let's be honest her: unless two of the English sides get drawn against each other (teams from the same country are kept apart at the round of 16, but it's an open draw from this point on), there's a damn good chance that all four sides could make it through to the semis. Click to continue reading...

Could it be that Newcastle are on their way down? All the amusing signs are there. The lethal combination of inability to score and inability to defend seems to be taking its toll, and the team have exactly no wins since the Geordie MessiahTM took over in January.

Never thought you'd be nostalgic for Graeme Souness and Freddie Shepherd, did you?

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So I found myself stranded on the volatile Dutch-German border yesterday. But thanks to the Kicker match calendar, I found a match within a 2-hour train ride. So, I hopped on a Deutschebahn train to the frighteningly boring town of Leverkusen, home of a 100-foot high tab of aspirin.

A bit OTT? Click to continue reading...

OK, I've been trying really, really hard to think positive thoughts about TFC lately.

I've seen us let Pozniak go in a waiver draft while protecting bovine striker Colin Samuel. And I have said nothing.

I've seen two us make two defensive draft picks, bringing the number of defenders on the roster to 8. Click to continue reading...