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What is handball? Nobody knows any more
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, July 3, 2020
There was a video question in my online refereeing exam concerning a ...
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Salary caps in Europe -- is Schalke making the first move?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, June 29, 2020
Schalke, through high transfer fees and salaries, has sought to buy success ...
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Investigations closing in on FIFA boss Gianni Infantino
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, June 22, 2020
FIFA President Gianni Infantino came to power in 2016 on the heels ...
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All rise for the anthem. Or not. It's a choice
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, June 12, 2020
When I was a lad, the Scottish national anthem was the jaunty ...
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Bundesliga's road-win stats prove the power of the crowd
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, June 8, 2020
The statistics have always shown that, broadly speaking, home advantage is a ...
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Dispatch from Germany: 'The world is watching and waiting to see if we pull through' says the Bundesliga chief
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, May 22, 2020
DFL chairman Christian Seifert outlined a staunch defense of the Bundesliga's attempt ...
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More subs, less drama, less dissent: Assessing the Bundesliga restart
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, May 18, 2020
FIFA introduced some tweaks and recommendations specially tailored to the game in ...
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Soccer in empty stadiums -- a Thatcher dream come true
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Thursday, May 14, 2020
When the Bundesliga restarts this weekend behind closed doors, the wishes of ...
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Dispatch from Germany: Bundesliga restart plagued by doubts and criticism
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Thursday, May 7, 2020
True, there are pro hockey, basketball and team handball leagues, but you ...
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'Ultras' -- better than your average hooligan movie
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, May 1, 2020
In his novel The Magus, John Fowles wrote that being a physical ...
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Soccer in Propaganda, War and Revolution: Author Ronny Blaschke on the wretched relation between sport and politics -- and a hopeful path forward
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Thursday, April 23, 2020
German author Ronny Blaschke recently traveled around the world to explore how ...
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Movie Rewind: 'The Workers Cup' - giving a voice to Qatar's exploited construction laborers
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Last month, the "supreme committee" organizing the 2022 World Cup reported that ...
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'Weird and Wonderful' soccer shirts celebrate a unique branch of fashion
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Wednesday, April 8, 2020
The 1990s are "widely regarded as the decade when football shirt design ...
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What if people are falling out of love with soccer?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Around 15 years ago a British soccer journalist called Will Buckley published ...
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Urgent reforms for European soccer in a post-viral world
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Sunday, March 22, 2020
The wholesale suspension of soccer activity across Europe has opened us up ...
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Please spare us from games behind closed doors
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, March 10, 2020
If the government ordered that a Taylor Swift concert was shut to ...
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The problematic timing of the Bayern-Hoffenheim player protest
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, March 2, 2020
The sudden outbreak of collective political action under the players is not ...
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Going to Barcelona just to ignore Lionel Messi
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Last week I was sitting at home watching Rangers FC of Glasgow ...
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Manchester City ban and quitter Klinsmann highlight Champions League stranglehold
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Last week Manchester City was banned from the Champions League for two ...
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Reiterating the obvious point -- winning's not important in youth soccer
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, February 10, 2020
The Bundesliga's Eintracht Frankfurt has taken the club's U10-U13 age groups out ...
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The goalkeeper's insufficient fear of the penalty
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, February 3, 2020
A culture of lenience toward goalkeepers has been developed over several dec ...
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Arsenal and Man United fans experiencing The Thrill of the Unexpected
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Within living memory, Arsenal and Manchester United were a more or less ...
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Can you market 'authenticity'?
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, January 13, 2020
The major soccer event may have passed you by, but last week ...
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Avoiding Qatar proves not so difficult after all
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, January 6, 2020
No matter how old and cynical I become, I'm still naive enough ...
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Soccer Books of the Year, 2019, Part 5: a dream betrayed
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Sunday, December 22, 2019
The first 10 years of Andy Woodward's life were just as they ...
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Soccer Books of the Year, 2019, Part 4: Pictorial Pleasures
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Friday, December 20, 2019
For soccer fans of a certain age, the past is a place ...
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Soccer Books of the Year, 2019, Part 3: Women Tackling Power
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, December 17, 2019
There's a heart-breaking passage early on in the autobiography of the Nigerian-born ...
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Soccer Books of the Year, 2019, Part 2: How to be a Better Referee
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Within their own social circle, referees are nerds. We love to discuss ...
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Soccer Books of the Year, 2019, Part 1: Goldblatt vs Wilson
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Tuesday, December 3, 2019
On the latest books by Britain's most prolific and widely read soccer ...
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HBO's 'Diego Maradona' movie -- a measured masterpiece
Soccer America Confidential, Ian Plenderleith - Monday, November 18, 2019
The documentary draws on mostly unseen archive footage from Diego Maradona's Napoli ...
