There are plenty of people, not least within the governing bodies of football itself, who would have it that football and politics don't mix. This is, of course, bunkum, whether we like it or not. The game holds such influence over so many people that it sometimes seems impossible for politicians not to be able to link the two, from the relatively harmless, "You only win the World Cup under Labour" slogans of Harold Wilson's British government of the late 1960s to the altogether more sinister machinations of the state organisations and their leaders that ran clubs in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

After narrowly losing 1-0 to Chelsea in a friendly the Harimau Muda now continue their football education in Slovakia.
26/07 v FK Bodva Moldova 1-030/07 v MFK Topvar Topolcany 2-102/08 v Tatran Liptovsky Mikulas09/08 v Honved (Hungary)16/08 v MFK Dolny Kubin23/08 v FC Nitra26/08 v FC Levice
Honved are one of the great names in European football and for me conjure up the 1950s when the Hungary were perhaps the best football nation in the world.