Jonny Evans v Didier Drogba, Tekken-style. Fat Ronaldo admits to fatness. (Dirty Tackle) Robinho is number one in Citeh hearts. (Unprofessional Foul) A history of Fergie and the rant. (Avoiding The Drop) Slovenia are eying the Russian upset. (Jonathan Wilson) The plight of the English manager. (Footy Factor) A very worthy transfer quiz. Click to continue reading...

Who needs actual footballing playoffs when you can just watch the bureaucratic battle that is club v country?

Whilst Portugal v Bosnia Herzegovina is titillating the football purist and Russia v Slovenia has forced Jonathan Wilson into euphoric bouts of nervous bowels, the real battle lies behind the scenes, in the board rooms, between those who cut the checks and those who require international glory.

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Patrick Nyarko was elusive and hard to pin down by the Revs

How did Pat Phelan not bury that pinpoint Kenny Mansally cross into the back of the net? It was the clearest look at the goal all night and Phelan heads the ball out. He could have been a hero forcing extra time. As it turned out, the Fire did not have to go through that route.

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The slightly controversial UEFA bridesmaid's draw has taken place and fortunately it's gone off without controversy. Somehow, someway, despite UEFA being involved, Liverpool and Chelsea will not meet. Who knew?

It's rather pedestrian, really, as perhaps the two best teams France and Russia were handed the easiest draw.

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I will sadly have to miss this game, which promises to be a counter to those who consider South American World Cup qualifying to be somewhat of an overly-long, almost ceremonial event. Normally, that's exactly what it is, but now we have Uruguay, the football historian's wet dream side, in a do or die River Plate encounter. Click to continue reading...

Just last week, UEFA announced 40 further investigations into match-fixing claims, but as Jonathan Wilson points out in the Guardian, this has elicited little interest in the British press. Wilson notes that even though most of the concerns are related to Eastern Europe, "fixers" have been moving westward for some time with German referee Robert Hoyzer jailed for his role in match-fixing a full four years ago.

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Let's get this straight. There is the game. The one that involves 22 players dribbling, passing, and shooting, trying to get past their opponents to stick the ball in the back of the net. It is a game of individual skill and vision or small bits of... Click to continue reading...

1) The Columbus Crew's home unbeaten streak in all competitions is over with the CONCACAF Champions League loss to Cruz Azul. You may have heard that they broke the record for the regular season with 19 straight games back in July. However, they also managed to just do enough to break the overall streak as well. Click to continue reading...

No Diomansy tonight. Because Eddie Johnson is leading the line!  Wicked.  Eddie may not get many opportunities but I remain convinced of his awesomeness, at least on a theoretical level.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Wilson has an article up about tactics.

He asks if the sweeper might come back, but the article is really about space.

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Just a couple of completely unrelated bits to pass on... Back to the Future? The always excellent Jonathan Wilson (a review of his latest book is coming soon!) looks at the possibility of the return of the libero given the trend towards... Click to continue reading...

A warning to the pedant; this is about as unscientific as football analysis gets.
Let's say you start up a new MLS franchise. You stock it with the best club you can afford under the draconian salary system in place (a system I will never speak of again on this blog or elsewhere, because there is a whole secret society nerding it out on this topic right now and they don't like to be disturbed). Click to continue reading...

Meta: I'll be away until Monday, which is really quite handy given the transfer window's just closed and it's an international break. I will miss the three-year anniversary of this blog tomorrow, but that's no great shakes. Here's a book review to hold you over. Don't break anything.
Why England Lose and Other Curious Phenomena Explained
Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski
HarperSport
The title's obviously intriguing, it got a rare five-star review in FourFourTwo, and the blurbs have compared it to Moneyball. Click to continue reading...

Toward the end of his book Inverting the Pyramid, Jonathan Wilson writes about the changing nature of modern football. A player he brings up to emphasize this is Michael Owen. To Wilson, Owen is a relic of a previous era.

"He appears a player left behind by the tactical evolution of the game," Wilson writes.

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Jonathan Wilson's latest on Chelsea's diamond formation. (thanks to bq)

So, how can the diamond be countered? The lack of width remains the flaw, and the key is to try to shift the battle from the centre to the flanks. Hull rode their luck to an extent on the opening day, but it is no coincidence that it was their 4-5-1 rather than the 4-4-2 of Sunderland and Fulham that came closest to stopping Chelsea.

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For those who study tactics, it was interesting to see how Brazil morphed it's team in the FIFA Confederations Cup into a system that best utilized their players. As Jonathan Wilson reports, where they describe themselves in a midfield diamond, it more resembles a 4-2-3-1.
At this Confederations Cup, most European observers have happily jotted down their formation as 4-2-3-1, with Luís Fabiano as the centre-forward, Robinho to the left, Kaká as the central creator and Ramires on the right of the attacking three. Click to continue reading...

The 4-4-2 Diamond Midfield has started to become more en vogue all over the world, with both Chelsea and Inter establishing the strengths of this alignment in the early stages of the 2009-10 season.
Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian has an outstanding article where he outlines the strengths and weaknesses of that alignment. Click to continue reading...

Let's take a look at a couple of things that caught my eye while I sifted through my RSS feeds today... Winds of Change? It wasn't too long ago that the thought of a USA victory in Azteca would have been unimaginable for the USA, much less for... Click to continue reading...

Simon Kuper (of Football against the Enemy fame) has published a new book entitled "Why England Lose: and Other Curious Phenomena Explained." Jonathan Wilson reviewed it today on the Guardian's site and this bit actually made me say, "wow."
Quote: The book, it should be said, is quite magnificent, a sort of Freakonomics for football, using economic theory and methods to dispel myths and explain odd trends in the game. Click to continue reading...

Just a few news stories that caught my interest over the last couple of days. Enjoy!

• Karim Benzema admits turning down Manchester United and Barcelona
• Jonathan Wilson's article on the ties that existed between Romanian secret police and Dinamo Bucharest
  
• Ever think your video game managerial skills would make you a good boss of a real team?

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It's the perfect time of the year to catch up on reading, so what better choice is there to read than some of the greatest football books?

In conjunction with our sister site EPL Talk, we've put together a list of the top 18 recommended football books for this summer. Some of the highlights that US soccer fans will enjoy include:

• Soccer In A Football World by David Wangerin.

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But here are four things I'm thinking about.Joe Hart's gone to Birmingham City on loan. This makes me very, very happy. The US made it to the Confederations Cup final where we didn't look like complete idiots, even though we lost. Someone needs to make sure José Francisco Torres gets some playing time on the NT. Click to continue reading...

You'd have though Jonathan "J-Dub" Wilson would be the sort of pundit to tell us the Confederations Cup taught us why an attacking midfielder in the MODERN GAME should always lead off on his right foot so as to to be able to cut more deftly inside in a 4-3-1-2 formation, but no, he's opted to shoot five upended fish a barrel buzzing with vuvuzelas (Spain is beatable Jon? Click to continue reading...

Jonathan Wilson's excellent article talks about the intricate system of midfielders that the Brazilians have recently used with their 4-2-3-1 formation. The Brazilians call it a diamond with Gilberto at the base, Ramires to the right, Melo to the left and Kaka as the play maker at the apex.

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My favorite football tactic writer Jonathan Wilson is at again for the Guardian in the UK. I have linked to Wilson here before and he is author of Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics.

This past Wednesday Wilson posted again for the Guardian, this time asking how the Brazilan 4-2-3-1 is different from a European 4-2-3-1.

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My favorite football tactic writer Jonathan Wilson is at again for the Guardian in the UK. I have linked to Wilson here before and he is author of Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics.

This past Wednesday, Wilson posted again for the Guardian, this time asking how the Brazilian 4-2-3-1 is different from a European 4-2-3-1.

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MLS to receive $10m for extended David Beckham loan (Telegraph)The 33-year-old England midfielder joined the Los Angeles Galaxy in July 2007 and moved to Milan on a loan in January. That loan was to expire on March 8 but the sides agreed to extend it through the end of the Italian season.Beckham will rejoin the Galaxy on July 1. Click to continue reading...

Want to watch the US kids in action at the CONCACAF U-17 Championships? Go right ahead.Shatz does a nice job of recapping the first sixth of the season for DC United.Jonathan Wilson, king of the numbers game. Particularly relevant (along with this... Click to continue reading...

There is little doubt that forwards get the applause on the football field, but a new article has raised questions about who deserves the credit for football victories.
Jonathan Wilson recently composed an article published in the Guardian on why the full-back position is the most crucial on the football pitch. Click to continue reading...

Well, perhaps not exactly littered, but how often do three fullback-related bits of flotsam and jetsam turn up in the wreckage of my RSS feeds (even if one just contains a reference to the other)? Let's begin with item numero uno. Apparently the...div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner. Click to continue reading...

Jonathan Wilson, the inimitable scholar of tactical mechanics with his recent Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics (a book I included in a piece on tactical reductionism for this website) has made a very convincing argument why English Premier League clubs have come to dominate the Champions League in the last four seasons. Click to continue reading...

Random fact of the day: I share the same birthday (today) as Aston Villa left back Nicky Shorey. We are not the same age (he shares that with my sister). Wikipedia also tells me that we share our birthday with these footballers: Mikko Kavén (Finland), Steve Cherundolo (United States), Sócrates (Brazil), Enzo Scifo (Belgium), Clinton Morrison (England), Gianluca Zambrotta (Italy), and Marta ( Click to continue reading...

I turns out I was wrong when I said that Kelly Smith wouldn't go to the US. According to the BBC (it's kind of an oldish article), she's not the only one to go. Several of Arsenal's players are leaving. But they're not the only ones, including Kelly Smith, England's women's league will lose Karen Carney, Alex Scott (Aresnal), Anita Asante and Eni Aluko (Chelsea). Click to continue reading...

First off, I don't think we're going to sign Arshavin, no matter what he wants or says. Which is really too bad, because it's clear he wants to go to England. It's just that the price is apparently far too high and Arsenal cannot afford it. Not all is lost, because Wenger seems to think Eduardo is coming along nicely. Click to continue reading...

I've got three of them today. The first one is not really primarily aboutArsenal related, but it's by Jonathan Wilson (whose book I ordered from Amazon) and I have a serious football crush on him. He knows pretty much everything and ... Anyway. It's a good article about Arshavin. The other two are more directly Arsenal related. Click to continue reading...

Looking for those last minute gifts for that Calcio loving family member?   Why not send a subscription to Soccer Italia magazine or visit the local bookstore and purchase such titles as, Mad For It by Andy Mitten Mad For It covers the world's biggest, oldest and most famous football derbies and Serie A Talk will have a book [. Click to continue reading...