By Paul Gardner The grand final of Copa America Centenario was simply a disgrace. An ugly, shameful event. It sullied what had been an enjoyable tournament, it utterly ruined whatshould have been a wonderful evening of the best the sport has to offer. Instead, Chile and Argentina combined to give us the sport at its […]
SoccerTalk with Paul Gardner
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Goalkeeper cheating — yet again
By Paul Gardner Are these guys for real, or what? A penalty kick. A regular occurrence in soccer. Any experienced referee will have had plenty of them to deal with. Heshould then, surely, know what the rules say. The goalkeeper is not allowed to move forward, off his line, until the kicker has made contact […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Imported coaches: A formula for failure in MLS
By Paul Gardner This business of foreign coaches in MLS — why does it drag on? Have we not learned enough during the 20-plus years of MLS activity that these guys do not doparticularly well here? I’m not here concerned with the reasons for their lack of success. Those reasons are varied, but not that […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Soccer's new-look rulebook (Part 2): Making room for the Spirit the Game
By Paul Gardner Alongside the changes in the organization and wording that David Elleray and his team have brought to the revamped rule book go what I think of as“mood” changes — the business of modernizing the rules, of making them “more accessible,” etc. Tucked away in that category is a time-bomb of a phrase […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Soccer's new-look rulebook (Part 1): Much improved but still a way to go
By Paul Gardner No doubt it was asking too much of ex-referee David Elleray and his colleagues to turn soccer’s rulebook, almost overnight, into an easy-to-understand, organized,readable document. They have, however, made an impressive start on the Augean mess left by the IFAB which, for over 100 years, has been discordantly assembling good rules and […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Two badly botched PK calls — but the MLS remedy is misguided
By Paul Gardner Well, not that brilliant a weekend for MLS refs. Specifically, a couple of dead-cert penalty kicks not called. If you assume — which we always do, I think — thata PK means a goal, then these were arguably game-defining calls, given that both games were won on one-goal margins by the team […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Soccer, from the Heart
By Paul Gardner A small book, the classic “slim volume” if you like … but Brian Glanville’s “The Man Behind the Goal” weighs in as a massively important contribution to any telling of the phenomenon that issoccer. Unique, too. I know of no other works of soccer fiction (already, just linking those two words, you […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
How long for Nigel de Jong?
By Paul Gardner So the talk is now focused on what sort of punishment the MLS Disciplinary Committee will settle upon Nigel de Jong. There are some problems here. Forinstance: One that I find very disturbing — and one that I feel MLS could, and should, rectify pronto. We do not know who the members […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Fernando and Joe Hart share the blame for Man City fiasco
By Paul Gardner The recent tragic, disastrous and possibly hilarious screw up by Man City that allowed Zlatan Ibrahimovic to score a totally unexpected goal for PSG is worthscrutiny. The unexpected part can be immediately verified when you understand that the TV director missed the goal — he was busy showing a replay of Kevin […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
One Nation, One Team — a tainted slogan for U.S. Soccer
By Paul Gardner I, like you, have to live with the daily insults to our intelligence provided by the public relations and marketing and advertising brotherhood. Their commercials,their advertisements, their slogans, their buzzwords. Above all, with their relentless stupidity. Of course soccer has been caught up in this brainless wordmongering. It can all be dismissedas […]