July 2 – Having looked like a team that were struggling to find any cohesion or common purpose after four straight losses, including a miserable performance in March at the Concacaf Nations League final, suddenly the USA look as though, if not the real deal, they are certainly worth a reappraisal.
Thailand 1 Bahrain 0
By Paul Nicholson in Abu Dhabi
January 10 – Thailand, who sacked their Serbian coach Milovan Rajevac after losing their first game, turned their Asian Cup campaign around with 1-0 win over Bahrain at at the Al Maktoum Stadium.
January 10 – Namibia is the latest country to be subject of a normalisation committee imposed by FIFA to run its affairs as a result of a bitter internal squabble.
January 10 – Italian police have launched an inquiry after Roma supporters allegedly distributed anti-Semitic leaflets on Wednesday to coincide with the 119th anniversary of bitter city rivals Lazio.
January 10 – Under pressure UAE coach Alberto Zaccheroni (pictured) has described the game with India as a “make-or-break” Asian Cup encounter for the hosts. In the opposition dugout he faces a buoyant Indian coach in Stephen Constantine who has vowed that his team will play for all three points.
By Abdelaziz Abuhamar
January 9 – Uzbekistan’s goalkeeper Ignatiy Nesterov made history at the AFC Asian Cup, posting a new playing record in the Asian football showpiece.
January 9 – Japan’s coach Hajime Moriyasu part blamed the heat for his team’s underwhelming 3-2 win against Turkmenistan and acknowledged that Japan will need to improve as the tournament progresses.
Things rarely go according to plan in African football, as one French publication emphasised this week. The decision to strip Cameroon of staging this coming summer’s African Nations Cup may have been a deeply hurtful blow to the original hosts but hardly took anyone by surprise given the nature of African football’s leadership which has, quite frankly, become a laughing stock.
By Abdelaziz Abuhamar
January 10 – The Iraq national team broke an unwanted record when they posted their first group game victory over counterpart Vietnam in Group D.
By Paul Nicholson in Abu Dhabi
January 9 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has issued a statement condemning the Saudi-backed pirate broadcaster beoutQ’s theft of live matches from the Asian Cup currently being played in the UAE.
By Samindra Kunti
January 9 – Four-time Asian champions Japan came back from a first-half deficit to defeat a stubborn Turkmenistan 3-2 and claim their first three points at the 2019 Asian Cup.
By David Owen
January 9 – Surging player costs and one-off items pushed Everton, the club from the blue end of Merseyside, back into the red in 2017-18, in spite of a 34% jump in commercial revenue.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 9 – The video assistant refereeing system, whilst gaining in overall popurity, has had its fair share of criticism since being gradually introduced across European and international football.
January 9 – Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah has won the African footballer of the year award for the second consecutive time.
January 9 – Dutchman Pim Verbeek has forged a managerial career in Asia and, with his latest team, Oman, has had immediate success with their surprise win at the Gulf Cup last year. Expectations are high for the Asian Cup. He spoke to Samindra Kunti
January 9 – The timing is presumably co-incidence but having cast off the oppressive shadow of Jose Mourinho’s management regime for the more free-flowing joy of Ole Gunnar Solsjaer (albeit interim), Manchester United has announced it will open three “experience centres” in China by 2020.