The football blog for fans of all clubs
Quick, name the top assistant manager of your favourite manager for a club you don’t support. You may be able to do this, but I’d wager many of you cannot (unless that team is the Republic of Ireland). In football, we focus on the manager, what he does and why he does it, and rethink […]
We still have another two matchdays to go but for Walter Mazzarri, the final day has come and gone. Watford fired the Italian manager and there are a laundry list of reasons why he needed to be relieved. Blame the bad man management, poor relations with the media, or unusual training methods, but some in […]
This week in From the Touchline, we will not be focusing on a specific match and how a manger’s choices influenced the outcome. Instead we will be walking through a debate that occurs every year but has been outsized the past few weeks. That issue is of course who plays. The media circus has focused […]
Hamburg has the distinction of being the only club to play in every season of the Bundesliga. If they do not make some drastic changes quickly, that impressive streak may end. Hamburg coming into Sunday’s match sat just above the relegation zone. Darmstadt and Ingolstadt seemingly are all but relegated as the bottom two clubs, […]
It’s not every day that From the Touchline flips on the Jupiler Pro League, but with the Championship playoffs on, now is a good time to catch up on Belgian football. So like Roberto Martinez, we discretely took in the Club Brugge / Oostende match this week to see if the home club could put […]
In unveiling Arsenal’s new 3-4-3 formation on Monday, Arsene Wenger accomplished two things. The first was most importantly that Arsenal earned three points and kept their nascent top four hopes alive. The second was to show that their manager is strategically woke and can adapt to the hot trends in modern soccer. Yet as Arsenal […]
On the heels of UEFA trying to destroy the meaningless friendly, CONCACAF this weekend moved towards consideration of a similarly inane proposal. With European nations in the near future using their international windows to compete in a European tournament, the North American/Central American/Caribbean confederation leaked that a similar proposal was in the works. Dubbed the […]
Today, when you read the match reports on Barcelona’s 3-0 loss to Juventus, you will see repeatedly reporters giving the La Liga side a chance to advance simply because they did so against Paris Saint-Germain in a similar instance. Don’t believe it. Luis Enrique made a gamble prior to this match that backfired and, in […]
Sometimes fate conspires to present you with the opportunity of a lifetime. I recently took a business trip to London and found both time and a ticket to the Watford-West Brom match on April 4. After numerous trips to Europe, I was finally able to attend a Premier League match and I could not wait […]
Troy Deeney is a known commodity and much has been written about him in his Watford career. Seeing him in person, however, reveals exactly why he is so valuable to Watford AND manager Walter Mazzarri, as well as why every Premier League team needs a player like him. My perspective was the manager’s one, however, […]
A soccer federation is the most political entity outside of an actual political entity. Around the world, the one thing that unites all countries, races, and nationalities is the shared experience of the angst of figuring out what exactly a football federation stands for. All nations undergo this soul searching and some (Germany currently for […]
What is old is new again with the U.S. national team as Bruce Arena returned to the bench in the Yanks World Cup qualifier against Honduras. The match was the former manager’s first meaningful match back after replacing Jurgen Klinsmann and the stakes were high. With two embarrassing losses to begin qualifying in the CONCACAF […]
To me, one of the most interesting clubs in Europe is Hearts. You often don’t hear “interesting” and “Hearts” in the same sentence, but this recent iteration is worth following for a few reasons. The biggest is new manager Ian Cathro, one of the few top flight managers actually younger than me. He’s a well-regarded […]
The Arsene Wenger saga is a farce on many levels, but it is sadly not an uncommon one. While the debate is open as to whether or how much Arsenal is underachieving, there is no debate that the status of Arsene Wenger is hampering the club. Players will come and go regardless of who the […]
As someone who writes about coaches and tactics, I was interested in watching the return leg of the Monaco/Manchester City matchup. Setting aside the obscene number of goals in the first match, there were two questions in my mind I could not wait to see how Leonardo Jardim addressed. The first was the line-up. Monaco […]
Napoli were in crisis. They had lost midweek in the Coppa Italia to Juventus in a way that left many Napoli faithful and players feeling aggrieved. Results in the league meant they had fallen off challenging Juventus for the scudetto and were barely alive in the title race. And this match meant traveling to Rome […]
This weekend begins Major League Soccer’s 22nd season. The U.S. league which was created to help land the 1994 World Cup bid has gone through growing pains and a number of awkward phases. This is after all the league that used to settle matches with penalty kick shoot outs. Now, as it tries to assert […]
If you’ve stepped away from the Italian game for a few years, you will notice that the calcio stereotypes do not necessarily fit. While defence is still prized by the top clubs and the Azzurri will feature one of the best backlines in the world game, Serie A has more diversity of styles and play […]
It must feel wonderful as a manager to not have to worry about tactics. At least, that is what many people assume happens when a team goes up a man. When a player is sent off, the team down a player loses any obligation to create a smart tactical plan. Your goal is to make […]
When you’re a manager, what matters more, the match at hand or the long-term? The answer is a bit of both but when you put together your match day line-up, one or the other must dominate. For many managers in the FA Cup, the long-term is most important. Therefore, the competition has suffered from poor […]
