The responsibility for what happens on the field during a soccer game is shared by players, coaches and game officials. We hear a lot — maybe too much — from the coaches and players. They dopress and TV interviews, they sit on TV guru panels, they write books, they twitter and tweet, they are rarely […]
SoccerTalk with Paul Gardner
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Memories of Chumpitaz and Cubillas: Welcome back Peru
That Brazil should have reached the final of the 2019 Copa America can hardly surprise anyone. After all, Brazil is the host nation, the disruptive Germans are nowhere to be seen, so the Brazilianshave advanced pretty smoothly. Though with a certain amount of good fortune. How did they manage to get past Argentina in the […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
The VAR/goalkeeper mess — an IFAB production
The International Football Association Board — the IFAB — has presented us with an extraordinary document. A proclamation telling us that one of soccer’s rules — that is to say, one ofIFAB’s sacred “laws” — is flawed. So flawed, in fact, that IFAB has granted a “Temporary Dispensation” to the current Women’s World Cup allowing […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Ukraine vs. South Korea — an unlikely final to an unusual U-20 World Cup
The under-20 World Cup was born in 1977, when it was called the World Youth Championship. Under that title, it was played every two years until 2007, when it got a new name: The U-20 World Cup. The word “youth” — widely held to be the kiss of death in attempting to market the sport […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
What happened to Atlanta's sparkle?
I developed, last MLS season, the habit of watching all of Atlanta United’s games. Not as a fan of the club, but as a fan of the vibrant soccer that they played. I expected an attractive, skillful game, and that’s what Iusually got. Which is asking quite a lot in these days of defensive formations […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
The FA Cup: A Good Idea that became a Fairy Tale and then a Horror Story
Manchester City has won the FA Cup. With a resounding 6-0 wipe-out of Watford. Well, bully for Man City. Celebrations, whoopees and huzzahs resound throughout the world of soccer. Thisproves, I gather, that Man City is a truly great team, maybe even the greatest ever. If not quite that, then the greatest ever to play […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Oh dear, defenders feel threatened … again
Jan Vertonghen, Tottenham’s Belgian defender, is worried. “I think we have to change the way we defend,” he says. What’s upsetting him is the impending arrival (next season) inthe Premier League of the VAR and his squadron of assistants and his roomful of monitors and heaven knows what other techno-gizmos. What Vertonghen dreads is that […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
A good referee decision nixed by a woeful VAR verdict
The various shades and intricacies of VAR continue to intrigue — and, yes, disturb me. Let me start by making one point as clearly as I can: VAR does not rely on a computer to make itsdecisions. Thus it is very different from goal line technology. Human beings are not necessary for GLT. The computer […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
Fan violence and the dangers of encouraging passion
While MLS Commissioner Don Garber has been getting himself into trouble for not being tough enough in his condemnation of neo-Nazis — criticism that he does not deserve — disturbing soccer-relatednastiness has been re-surfacing in England. Nastiness that arrived at a wretched climax (we must hope that this is as bad as things will get) […]
Posted inSoccerTalk with Paul Gardner, Story
The opening week — and yet another appeal to MLS for a Best Assist award
The disappointment — flop, really — of the first 2019 MLS weekend was obviously the trite showing of Atlanta against D.C. United. Too early to make judgments? OK, I’ll hold off – anyway,that’s a good idea because there was a sunny side to that game – the way that D.C. United played. Not entirely to […]