When news broke earlier this season that Jose Mourinho was sacked as manager of Chelsea, few would have thought that by seasons end another Premiership manager would suffer the same fate for even more ludicrous reasons. But after a couple of weeks of rumours and innuendo it appears that Man City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson will be managing Man City for the final time when they travel to the Riverside to play Middlesbrough on the final day of the season. Click to continue reading...

The morning after England's disastrous defeat to Croatia that resigned their country to being mere spectators for this year's European Championships, the English FA Chief Executive Brian Barwick was quoted as saying that England required a "root and branch" review of all things related to the coaching and development of players in the country. Click to continue reading...

Below you will find two articles preparing you for Australia's qualifications to the 2010 World Cup which are just about to commence.
First up some reflections on the development of football in Australia from my recent holidays down under, which needless to say involved football, including a few words before the Qatar qualifyer. Click to continue reading...

After spending a month back in Australia on holiday and recently arriving back in Sweden, I was reflecting on the differences that were noticeable in the football landscape in my home country from when I had left it eighteen months previously.
The first difference I felt was when I found myself watching my A-League team the Melbourne Victory from the palatial new surroundings of Telstra Dome. Click to continue reading...

After spending a month back in Australia on holiday and recently arriving back in Sweden, I was reflecting on the differences that were noticeable in the football landscape in my home country from when I had left it eighteen months previously.
The first difference I felt was when I found myself watching my A-League team the Melbourne Victory from the palatial new surroundings of Telstra Dome. Click to continue reading...

Rewind almost 12 months and Man City fans probably didn't know what was going to hit them after a pretty successful Christmas/New Year period. Stuart Pearce's side had been a bit up-and-down for the pre-Christmas part of their Premiership campaign in 2006 but 3 victories from three games from boxing day to New Years Day would have instilled a belief in City fans that better times were around the corner and that the year 2007 was one that held promise for them and hopefully a decent final league position. Click to continue reading...

Aussie correspondent for Whenballmeetsfoot Martin Cassidy reports on the marketing phenomon/footballer David Beckham's sojourn down under with his team the LA Galaxy and analyses the massive reaction he has received.
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The David Beckham circus is in town this week with Sydney's Olympic Stadium acting as the big top. Click to continue reading...

Dick Advocaat's last minute u-turn on his Socceroos coaching gig unfortunately did not come as a huge surprise last Friday. There were rumblings that the u-turn was on the cards for a few weeks before the news officially came out and the rumblings became louder when Advocaat's current club, Zenit St Petersburg, took out the Russian championship. Click to continue reading...

Here is another article from gust columnist Martin Cassidy that looked back on an eventful round of matches from a couple of weeks ago in the A-League. For the many international readers of this blog, the A-League is a two-and-a-bit year old football competition that is trying to establish itself in Australia. Click to continue reading...

Here is the first of hopefully many contributions to Whenballmeetsfoot from Martin Cassidy, who will be writing on all things related to Australian football. As I live in Europe it is difficult to keep fully up to date with all of the happenings in the Australian league (thank god for the internet and SBS!) whereas Martin still has his finger on the pulse living in Melbourne and sitting in our old seat at Melbourne Victory games on the half-way line. Click to continue reading...

What on the surface seemed one of the more bizarre managerial appointments in the Premiership for as long as I can remember (a poll in a Bolton newspaper quoted a staggeringly low 1.7% of fans approved) seemed like a masterstroke last Thursday night at Allianz Arena when Bolton came away with a 2-2 draw against Bayern Munich. I must admit that along with almost everybody else I was perplexed when the man ironically dubbed by Leicester fans the "Ginger Mourinho", Gary Megson, was appointed manager of Bolton. Click to continue reading...

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic would have woken up with a sore head the morning after the match between Sweden and Northern Ireland. Unfortunately it wasn't due to a hangover after celebrating Sweden's qualification for next year's European Championships. His headache would have been due to the fact the ball delivery provided by many of his team mates was aimed at the poor guy's head (or even more often and less precisely, somewhere in the general vicinity of his head). Click to continue reading...

Around about the time West Ham had just parted ways with their manager Alan Pardew last season (and anyone who under-utilises Tevez and Mascherano as he did deserves the boot, I reckon!) there were rumours surfacing that their new Chairman was interested in hiring Sven-Göran Eriksson as the new Hammers boss. I did what I normally do when I read such rumours and went on to the BBC chat boards to see what hammers fans thought about it all. Click to continue reading...

One of the best things about having moved to Sweden (besides the obvious that to watch any European football means not having to set my alarm to get up at some crazy hour!) is to be further exposed to the sublime skills of one Zlatan Ibrahimovich. I'll never forget a remark made by Martin O'Neill during the World Cup in Germany while he was commentating for English television. Click to continue reading...