Though its national soccer teamseems to have recovered from the humiliating exit suffered last summer from its own World Cup, Brazil has seen its GDP growth all but slow to a standstill in the past year. And by several accounts, the world’s seventh-largesteconomy looks to be headed back into recession in 2015. Since politics and […]
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Guus Hiddink, For Whom the Bell Tolls
When the European championships contained just 16 teams, it was widely regarded as the hardest international tournament to qualify for, let alone win. Thanks to the expanded format introduced forEuro 2016, eight more nations will be represented at next year’s finals in France. Naturally, some, including Off The Post, expressed concern that the expanded format […]
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An Economist's View of the Ronaldo-Messi Debate
The Economist, the highly-regarded British pub covering politics, finance and anything else it thinks smart people (or in the case of Off The Post, people who use its opinions as proxies fortheir own when they want to sound smart at cocktail parties) should know about, thinks it has definitely solved the case through a very […]
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Newcastle United's Shameful Treatment of Jonas Gutierrez
Newcastle United has some image rebuilding to do after midfielder Jonas Gutierrez on Thursday revealed that he will never forgive the Premier League club for the way it treated himduring his two-year battle with testicular cancer. And yet remarkably, the Argentine says he wants to stay at St James Park beyond the expiration of his […]
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Gareth Should Bail at the End of the Season
A bad month for Real Madrid winger Gareth Bale got much worse on Tuesday, as the Real-leaning Spanishsports daily AS released a survey in which a whopping 68 percent of its readers said they want to see the Welshman dropped from coach Carlo Ancelotti’sstarting eleven. That’s up from the 46 percent of readers who wanted to see him dropped afterReal’s 1-0 […]
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Should Manchester United Let Falcao and Di Maria Go?
Most of the world’s leagues (but MLS, it seems) are on an international break, a time when players return home to represent their countries in international competitions or friendlies. Lotsof juicy gossip emerges at this time, because players are reunited with friends, family, international teammates, agents, local press and anyone else willing to lend an […]
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Goal-Shy Real Madrid Missing its Best Playmaker
As usual, “El Clasico” didn’t disappoint, for neutrals anyway. The first meeting of the year between Spain’s hated rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid was a bit like a boxing match: Realpulled the first punch with Cristiano Ronaldo hitting the post 11 minutes in; Barcelona scored the first goal out of nothing from a set-piece; Real […]
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Taking Responsibility for England's Disappearance from Europe
As it does every year, the UEFA Champions League quarterfinal draw served up some mouth-watering match-ups headlined by what will be the seventh and eighth Madrid derbies of the season between Realand Atletico, followed by La Liga favorite Barcelona against reigning-but-fading French champ Paris Saint-Germain. Oh, and Bayern Munich also faces FC Porto, while Juventus […]
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Blues Fan
Off The Post supports Chelsea. Since this is a column, that — thankfully — is allowed. Separately, Off The Post has always liked Jose Mourinho, even when he coached other teams.And not so much for the beauty of his on-field product (his tactics often absolutely kill games), but more so for his off-field antics, which […]
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Cristiano Ronaldo, MLS and the Importance of Being Over 30
On Feb. 5, Cristiano Ronaldo turned 30 — a dreaded age for any professional soccer player as it signifies the beginning of what can be a rapid decline in one’s ability to keep up with theastonishing pace of the professional game. At 6-foot-1, Real Madrid’s superstar is also rather tall for a soccer player. Anyone […]