March 22 – The joy of Panamanian Ceclio Waterman, as he celebrated his last-minute winner against the USA on the set of CBS with former Arsenal great and TV pundit, Thierry Henry, screaming ‘Eres mi idolo’, Spanish for ‘You’re my idol’, reminded all watching that ‘this is the reason we love the game’.
March 21 – SoFi stadium, Inglewood, California is for all intents and purposes a spaceship, and the United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) probably wishes they were boarding it with a one-way ticket to Mars after being dumped out of the Concacaf Nations League semifinal by Panama.
March 21 – With a goal in the fourth minute of added time Panama derailed the USA’s expectations of a ‘fourpeat’ Nations league win with a goal by supersub Cecilio Waterman in the fourth minute of added time.
June 29 – The budget for preparations in Lviv for the 2012 European Championships have been doubled, it has been announced.
June 29 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter (pictured) has apologised to the Football Association over Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal against Germany, he revealed today.
By Tom Degun
June 29 – Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt (pictured), has been forced to apologise after suggesting that hooliganism was to blame for the Hillsborough disaster.
England’s World Cup chances were doomed by their manager’s failure to understand or inspire his players, a state of affairs which meant that the team which took to the field had a subsconscious wish to punish him by failing to do their best.
And that ambivalence was strongest of all in the former captain, John Terry, whom Fabio Capello had stripped of his position and publicly rebuked during the group stages.
June 28 – Jean-Pierre Escalettes (pictured) has resigned as President of the French Football Federation (FFF) in the aftermath of the French national team’s disastrous performance at the World Cup that was a national embarrassment.
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By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year
June 28 – Wales, one of only four countries in the world that can decide whether goalline technology is introduced to avoid controversies like the one that has overshadowed Germany’s victory in the World Cup over England, said again today they were against it.
The line of questioning thrown at FIFA spokesman Nicolas Maingot the morning after the night before Frank Lampard’s already imfamous “goal-that-wasn’t” included the words laughing stock and embarrassment. You can understand why.
When football’s lawmakers ditched goal-line technology once and for all just over three months ago, FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke said he hoped the decision did not come back to haunt the organisation at the World Cup.
By David Owen in Bloemfontein
June 27 – I need to make one thing clear at the outset: England were beaten today at Free State Stadium by a much better team: the 4-1 scoreline did not flatter Germany.
June 26 – Brazil’s largest city Sao Paulo needs to find an alternative venue for the 2014 World Cup after the Morumbi stadium was dropped due to lack of financial guarantees for renovation, FIFA said tonight.
June 26 – Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani, a member of the Qatar ruling family, has bought the struggling Primera Liga club Malaga for $44 million (£29 million), the first foreigner to own a Spanish club.
June 26 – Nigerian Sports Minister Ibrahim Bio has asked FIFA to hold on to the payment of the $8 million (£5 million) due to the Super Eagles for featuring in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
June 26 – French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been warned that the country will be banned from international competition if his Government interfere in the organisation of the national football federation following the team’s disastrous performance in the World Cup in South Africa.
By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year
June 26 – Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the South Africa 2010 World Cup, has accused Irvin Khoza, the chairman of the Organising Committee, of launching a public smear campaign against him.
Hanover 1968 was where it all went wrong, as far as I was concerned.
To my mind, at that time, England were better than West Germany because they were the world champions. Which meant Charlton was better than Beckenbauer. Hurst was better than Seeler. Banks was better than Tilkowski. Moore was better than Schulz. It was all very simple.
By David Owen in Durban
June 25 – If you can’t get a ticket to the match, there are worse ways to watch it than with the sand trickling between your toes on a palm tree-fringed beach lapped by the Indian Ocean.