Given Morocco’s performance at the last World Cup, do you see an African country winning the tournament in the next decade? Chinoso
Honestly no. The World Cup is a somewhat strange tournament in that it has almost never had a surprise winner – perhaps West Germany in 1954, but their subsequent performances have diminished the surprise felt at the time. Maybe that just means we’re in for a shock, but there seems to be something about the magnitude of the event in the latter stages of the competition that ultimately benefits the elite.
There is also a sense that Western Europe has effectively industrialized youth production, with players who have been very well coached from a young age in the academies being pushed into extremely high-level competitions, where the best develop rapidly. Even for the likes of Brazil and Argentina it is very difficult to keep up and it is significant that fifteen players from the Moroccan World Cup squad came through European academies.
Add to this the lack of resources, the chaos and corruption that continues to haunt many African teams and the fact that, despite the emergence of players like Walid Regragui, Aliou Cissé and Djamel Belmadi, the majority of African teams continue to appoint managers. from abroad and have little appetite to develop their own coaching schools, and it is very difficult to see African sides challenging on a regular basis, especially in the short term.
The sense of progress and hope that existed from Algeria’s victory over West Germany in 1982 through to the quarter-final defeat of Senegal in 2002, a period that included the quarter-final defeat of Cameroon in 1990 and the victories of Nigeria and Cameroon in the Olympic Games, is over. . Ghana in 2010, kept out of the semi-finals only by Luis Suárez’s handball, always seemed a bit erratic – they would have eliminated six of the six African teams in the group stages of the World Cup in South Africa if Serbia had scored a clear penalty had been awarded for handball against Australia and converted – but perhaps Morocco’s performance in Qatar can herald the start of a new era of progress.
What’s the strangest rule in football that you still can’t figure out? I still don’t understand why the ball has to be stationary when taking a free kick. Richard
It should be quiet to indicate that a phase of the game has stopped and the kick has been taken; I’m not against that. It’s a testament to how good the football laws were when they were first drawn up in 1863 and how little they needed to be changed – at least until VAR meant we should try to come up with a wording that would cover all eventualities. This has led to a handball law that seems absurd to me; I would liberalize it greatly so that a player would have to try to cheat to get punished.
I hate that games (e.g. the 2018 World Cup final) can be determined by penalties awarded for what are essentially random events. Offside seems to be improving, but I would like to make the interpretation of interference a little stricter, so that an attacker whose position forces a defender to try to clear the ball is always considered offside (goals when a player misheads a ball, for example with the ball). passing to a player who would have been offside had the defender missed the ball completely) seems fundamentally unfair.
But these are amendments to laws whose wording has recently been changed. The strangest thing about football, in my opinion, is the throw-in. I’m not suggesting that players be allowed to throw the ball across the field with one hand, which is what led to the current law being passed in 1883, but I would be in favor of allowing a player to simply drop the ball to a teammate , or maybe even to himself.
Are you for or against retaining VAR? Chekwube
I would be in favor of going back to the drawing board and doing what the football authorities should have done in the first place, which is a massive consultation process involving players, coaches, referees, journalists and fans.
Try different variations in smaller competitions and see what works, what doesn’t, and how it can be improved. Create a proposal, distribute it, encourage feedback, try the revised version, and then adapt it to the game as a whole. But consultation seems to be out of fashion these days, not just in football but more generally; everything in Gianni Infantino’s FIFA is introduced as a fait accompli.
Which title contender is most in need of an upgrade in the January transfer window? Drew
Arsenal clearly need a centre-forward who can score goals, who can not only change the game but also give Gabriel Jesus the opportunity to play wide occasionally and thus take the pressure off Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, both of whom look exhausted look, what to alleviate. Liverpool could probably use a left back at least in the short term due to the injuries to Andy Robertson and Konstantinos Tsimikas, and perhaps a central defender as well. Manchester City don’t have such an obvious gap, but Ilkay Gundogan has been missed this season.
On this day
Kevin Keegan’s impact on Newcastle as a manager was extraordinary. He had retired as a player in 1984 after inspiring Newcastle and left the St James pitch in a helicopter. His return in Newcastle’s hour of need, when they faced relegation to the third flight in 1992, felt like something out of legend. They survived, were promoted the following season and finished third in their first season in the Premier League, playing open, attacking and exciting football. The following season they fell to sixth place, but by 1995–96 they had built a twelve-point lead at the top of the table.
But slowly their form began to falter as Manchester United began a relentless chase. An extraordinary 4-3 against Liverpool in early April felt like the turning point and Manchester United clinched the title on the final day.
That summer, after Keegan apparently offered to resign, Newcastle broke the world transfer record by signing Alan Shearer for £15 million. Newcastle defeated Manchester United 5-0 in October, but then followed it up with a run of one win in nine league games. When they lost at Blackburn on Boxing Day, he reportedly offered to quit again but followed that up with a 7-1 win over Tottenham and a 3-0 victory over Leeds.
Yet Keegan resigned on January 8, 1997, much to the surprise, saying he had taken the club as far as he could.