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World Cup 2022 group games, third round: Fading Europe, emerging World
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, December 2, 2022
It's more than refreshing to see Japan alongside Morocco, Australia, the US ...
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World Cup 2022 group games, second round: Real strikers, fake MVPs, and why 8x4 works best
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Soccer is an absurd game, and cup tournaments can effect random a ...
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World Cup 2022 group games, first round: A surfeit of VAR, politics and stoppage time
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, November 25, 2022
FIFA will often use World Cups to try out new applications ...
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Ref Watch: The goalkeeper's tears, and a penalty
Youth Soccer Insider, Ian Plenderleith - Wednesday, November 23, 2022
I run back towards the halfway line, but when I turn arou ...
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Uncovering FIFA's all very well, but what about the future?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, November 18, 2022
The four-part Netflix documentary is a very well re-constructed history of t ...
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World Cup Books, Part 3: How fans can achieve real and lasting change
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Ronny Blaschke: "I believe that every individual should develop their own relationsh ...
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World Cup Book Review, Part 2: Searching for the real Qatar
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Will the World Cup bequeath Qatar a soccer legacy, a benefit cit ...
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World Cup Book Review, Part 1: Dictatorship, USA 94, and the greatest upsets
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, October 31, 2022
Among World Cup-season book publishing: a look at how USA 1994 "chang ...
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Ref Watch: Model behavior and the coaches who disgrace themselves and their clubs
Youth Soccer Insider, Ian Plenderleith - Sunday, October 23, 2022
In the second half, the angry coach's previously polite and well-behaved te ...
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Bodycams for referees: Is there no better solution?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Sunday, October 16, 2022
The plague of bad behavior in soccer has been learned down t ...
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Leicester -- the unlikely birthplace of the mass-produced replica shirt
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Thursday, October 6, 2022
Grown men or women were yet to start showing their support ...
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The courage of players who believe killing people is wrong
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Saturday, October 1, 2022
You can no more separate pro sports from politics than you c ...
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Turn off the lights, turn off the beer taps: Bayern Munich's 'in crisis'
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Bayern won the last 10 Bundesliga titles, and this season has beat ...
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Handball, or not? Even pro refs haven't a clue
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Thursday, September 15, 2022
The German federation (DFB) this week took the surprising step to ca ...
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Yay, we're in the Champions League! That's a good thing, right?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, September 6, 2022
It's a quarter of a century since UEFA began to allow non-champio ...
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I'm dancing to FIFA's tune -- Qatar '22 will be the best World Cup ever!
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, August 29, 2022
FIFA's propaganda machine is in full throttle to tell the world tha ...
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Ref Watch: My least favorite things
Youth Soccer Insider, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, August 19, 2022
What are the 10 things I least want to see or he ...
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Referee Tales: Lips on the whistle
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, August 1, 2022
I'm standing on the end line in my usual position for ...
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Euro 2022: sport for the benefit of all, not just angry men
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, July 15, 2022
The group of women to our left couldn't stop laughing. It's possib ...
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Why almost half of German fans want their team to withdraw from the Qatar World Cup
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Thursday, July 7, 2022
Almost half of all Germans favor their country's withdrawal from the 20 ...
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Ronaldo and Neymar - who in their right mind wants them?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Thursday, June 30, 2022
A small gap in the soccer calendar has action-starved fans gorging ...
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Kick-ins, 30-minute halves and dribbling from free kicks. Why not?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, June 20, 2022
The head of Dutch amateur soccer put forward a series of chang ...
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Moving documentary shows Ronaldinho's Barca rise and decline
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, May 20, 2022
When Ronaldinho laughs, it's like watching him play - it's impossible n ...
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'Your Show' reflects all the rhythms and contradictions of a pro referee's life
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Novelist Ashley Hickson-Lovence writes about the life of the first and ...
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Time-wasting: why do we tolerate it?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, May 2, 2022
It's almost 15 years since Venezuelan referee Manuel Andarcia sent off Colombia ...
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Mass brawls are what the fans want to see
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, April 25, 2022
"Children play at being soldiers. That is sensible," wrote the Austrian auth ...
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The Rochester Lancers: 'the antithesis of the New York Cosmos' -- book review and author Q&A
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, April 5, 2022
It's something of a minor miracle that soccer established itself -- ev ...
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Abandoned game in the Bundesliga -- it's not just the fan who's at fault
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, March 22, 2022
This was a really ugly matchup. Numerous nasty fouls, and a gre ...
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Germany decides to put the Fun(ino) back into youth soccer
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, March 14, 2022
The emphasis is on enjoying soccer, rather than being so discouraged th ...
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Two compelling books: Rockin' English soccer in the 1970s and wonderful losers the world around
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, March 8, 2022
At its best, Spurling writes in his introduction, the English game ...
