tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11769795126989735802012-01-27T21:54:38.416-08:00the bread so short, the circus so longroswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.comBlogger691100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-52126692128387607672010-10-31T23:15:00.000-07:002010-10-31T23:33:02.950-07:00

1. Alive! Sorry to give no prior indication! How are you!2. At my newspaper this week, we published a Diwali-special issue about giving, with a focus on organisations who work with the urban poor. One of our stories highlighted the work of people who use football as a developmental tool to work with underprivileged children in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. You can read that story here and read the

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-53047681421654810412010-07-03T02:27:00.000-07:002010-07-03T02:50:51.804-07:00

Brian at the Run of Play did a very good job crushing the idea floated in The Atlantic that countries with an authoritarian history play more winning football. The idea memed, nonetheless. (Shocked that highbrow soccer dorks -- my favourite phrase this World Cup, used by TNR Goalpost to describe their ideal reader base) appear not to check RoP before coffee.) Laughable, snobbish solipsism -- it's

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-63893442969266768092010-06-30T10:59:00.000-07:002010-07-01T05:01:22.302-07:00

I was going to dissect John Barnes' comment on the failure of the English team coming down to their mental incompatibility with some forms of political practice, but Thomas Mueller took the wind out of my sails by offering a similar diagnosis of the breakdown of alien v/s predator man versus machine in the English team:"It is difficult to have so many 'alpha males' and have them row in the same

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-11235106948506947192010-06-21T03:16:00.000-07:002010-06-21T04:13:29.042-07:00

Dunga's Brazil is a fricking beautiful side. So effortless was their ability to press, build and rebuild play from the back, so relentlessly high their back line, so clever their crossing from the wings, that when Cote d'Ivoire scored their lone goal late in the game, it was honestly unexpected to see both Drogba and the ball run free out of Brazil's looming shadows -- if shadows can be

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-84454332440010532062010-06-18T22:00:00.000-07:002010-06-19T00:47:29.731-07:00

Papa Capz will be the subject of much derision (and quite a few jokes a la my favourite man in blue, Nicolas Anelka), and in light What Just Happened, this is probably warranted. Capello's past record needs no defending, but England's awful start at the World Cup raises the question of whether he is in fact the colossus of the coaching world that he is otherwise supposed to be.Plenty of people

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-89036125173147622292010-06-14T00:51:00.000-07:002010-06-14T03:17:07.589-07:00

"I do not want a single Italian soldier to be hurt," said General Mustafa Tlass to his Lebanese guerillas in 1980s Beirut, "because I do not want a single tear to fall from the eyes of Gina Lollobrigida." Whatever my differences with General Tlass, I must similarly warn Italy's football team with regards to the eyes of Andrea Pirlo. He may not start today. Injury may have prevented him from

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-49685818505251542072010-06-12T11:12:00.000-07:002010-06-12T11:20:30.955-07:00

I took a moment to curse Eduardo Galeano during Uruguay's disappointing non-starter of an attack on France during their game's second half, and said that there can be no beautiful football without shape -- by which I suppose I meant I come down on the side of organisation, cold mechanical brains, well-rehearsed moves, collective acumen over individual spontaneity, science over nature, and other

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-87410128202774253072010-06-11T02:29:00.000-07:002010-06-11T04:13:03.418-07:00

Sing Sing SingItem. The best guide to national anthems at the World Cup anyone can read is Ian King's series, The World Cup of National Anthems at Two Hundred Percent. End item.It's two years since the last Eurocentric international tournament. It continues to be pointless for me to sing Fratelli d'Italia, since I'm not an Italian and nobody's fratello. Given this, it has been repeatedly

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-87966261259905242852010-06-09T22:55:00.000-07:002010-06-09T23:15:34.073-07:00

Still thinking through this sports diplomacy stuff. I'm unsure of what to think about it, but if you want to avoid reading everything I've said below, then here's what I have so far: in a heavily imbalanced - and I dare say, vitiated - atmosphere, the act of protest itself can be toxic rather than beneficial. The answer is not silence or compliance - I am wondering if it can, however, be

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-35423718512742260002010-06-05T01:32:00.000-07:002010-06-05T01:36:42.210-07:00

The total stupidity of confusing football with justice.Over the years, the World Cup has quietly dropped out of the mainstream of history, making it less painful and less fraught to associate nationalism with it - unless of course you are reading a British tabloid - and I'm almost confident that we can now argue against Orwell's aphorism about football being war minus the shooting. It's actually

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-75457932575857284962010-06-04T04:32:00.000-07:002010-06-04T04:49:15.387-07:00

I appear to be writing for a real website this World Cup: I've just written my first post for them, here. I think this is their intellectual property now, so you should read it there. I will transmit it here following the lapse of a day or so. Does that work for everyone? Good, thanks.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-22534014362764111352010-05-27T05:31:00.000-07:002010-05-27T05:36:36.753-07:00

How have I not heard a single word of praise for Venus Williams' French Open outfit so far? Suddenly everywhere on the Internet appears to have become a Daily Fail bulletin board, full of people shocked and disapproving and taking the opportunity, of course, to offload astonishing quantities of sexist drivel. [Let me not go into those extra-special observations about 'gorillas in lace,' because

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-91198442257901389822010-05-21T05:22:00.000-07:002010-05-21T06:25:05.463-07:00

Write The Future from Nalden on Vimeo.Self-parody: it has finally spread from the football blogosphere to enter the mainstream. Writers, your work here is done. I'm not sure I love this ad, although I laughed out loud at several points [Gael Garcia Bernal. Who else?] I do enjoy the fact that it cocks a snook at the cliches that make up so much of our non-lived experience of football - the tabloid

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-45810282266873277412010-05-06T10:03:00.000-07:002010-05-06T10:08:18.075-07:00

Cross-posting this from my other blog; apologies if you run across it twice. Striker, Stopper: Two Novellas, Moti Nandy, translated by Arunava SinhaThere is a section in A Season in Verona where Tim Parks imagines how the average footballer's career seems to be encircled practically from the outset by a tightening noose. In the opening paragraphs of his chapter 'Lecce' [noting this so that those

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-54417103023049586952010-04-20T23:48:00.000-07:002010-04-21T00:00:39.495-07:00

When I own Milan, I will hire sopranos to sing Handel arias beneath the open casement of Diego Milito's house all night long. Multiple sopranos.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-4302990981355218172010-04-12T23:48:00.000-07:002010-04-13T00:04:55.799-07:00

This is the first of an occasional series, When I Own Milan, that would really have been better off as tweets, but that I do not wish to tweet.When I own Milan, I will hire baritones to accompany Ronaldinho everywhere he goes, singing 'Non più andrai' in his ears constantly.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-87914432544498180372010-02-25T04:35:00.000-08:002010-02-25T04:41:54.278-08:00

Context. Context for people who don't follow cricket.I was over-Googling Sachin Tendulkar today, and I came across a piece in the archives of Outlook magazine, a cover story by the historian Ram Guha on the fraught and loaded question of How History Will Judge Tendulkar. ...That he is so marvellously cool about this is perhaps the most remarkable thing about him. His gifts of character, if

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-8161929332335124652010-02-01T02:47:00.000-08:002010-02-01T02:51:20.064-08:00

I'm book logging through 2010 as an informal, self-disciplinary project [neither as louche nor as painful as it sounds, I promise you] over here, my old haunt o' generalities. I've also just returned from the Jaipur Literature Festival, where puzzlingly enough, no sports were played. Someday I hope Pitch Invasion can host a panel there. Here, I cross-post my thoughts on a book I ought to have

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-72873015231601380062009-12-06T08:38:00.000-08:002009-12-06T09:36:33.371-08:00

I wrote an email to Football Italia's Susy Campanale about her blog today, which argues that Racism must be stamped out of football, but so must play-acting, provocation of opponents and the kind of gamesmanship that has become your bread and butter. Got that? Play-acting, provocation of opponents, gamesmanship, racism. Yes, you're right. One of these is in fact not like the others. They haven't

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-88199099452544162452009-11-19T04:49:00.000-08:002009-11-19T04:54:49.541-08:00

Only Nicolas Anelka showed up. Surely the most surreal words in any language.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-10980375934492814262008-11-27T08:34:00.001-08:002008-11-27T08:35:58.806-08:00

Who needs any kind of help in terms of food, place to stay, communication, anything - let me know.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-57855903212141883022008-11-04T22:35:00.000-08:002008-11-04T22:38:57.310-08:00

A historic moment in world politics has arrived, and it has done so in my lifetime. Congratulations to the United States for making it possible. And congratulations to Roma, who have kept their Olimpico '09 dream alive.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-1001991231716377902008-10-28T22:04:00.000-07:002008-10-28T22:06:30.823-07:00

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-79708334830407144002008-10-25T02:19:00.000-07:002008-10-25T06:32:35.792-07:00

This Thursday Eva, my colleague at work, mentioned going to get an interview and photoshoot for the magazine with the owner of Tod's. After we put the glass back in the windowpanes whence they'd fallen upon hearing my unearthly screech, she decided to take me along, which is how I ended up in the Tata Suite of the Taj Mahal Hotel this Friday evening meeting with Diego della Valle. For those

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-37067382096891206122008-10-24T03:12:00.000-07:002008-10-24T03:47:30.410-07:00

Picture* courtesy the latest installment of my usually merch-pushing Milan newsletter, which today, instead of peddling 'Rossoneri Underwear' or 'Sleep with the devils' [bed linen, not the negotiable affection of Alessandro Nesta] announced a 'Goal By Goal' programme, whose substance is that Nutrilite will donate 10K dollars to the Milan Foundation every time Ronaldinho scores a goal. No pressure

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-90095811051817806792008-10-22T23:26:00.000-07:002008-10-22T23:46:06.556-07:00

What are Roma's chances of playing a Champions' League final in their own stadium at the end of this season?[My hopeful take: slim.]

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-63325587458408539732008-09-24T03:14:00.000-07:002008-09-24T03:43:55.868-07:00

Oops. Clearly my blog/life balance has gone out of whack, much like Andrea Pirlo's thigh muscle. I'm really happy about gainful employment, but it has taken the focus off custodiating the custodiators at The Guardian, among other things. I'll be back. In the meanwhile, have one of my favourite photos.The collars, as you might have guessed, are what affect me most deeply. I've been keeping reading

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-25037736165696679622008-08-05T04:36:00.000-07:002008-08-05T04:39:04.533-07:00

I say it for Andrea Pirlo. I say it for the Olympics. I say it for the Euros. I say it for the World Cup and the Copa America. I say it for the fans. I say it for the stadiums. I say it for Tottenham Hotspur. I say it for Daniele de Rossi. I say it for America. I say it for the Asian market. I say it for first teams. I say it for trainers. I say it for superhero pictures. I say it for cricket.Ban

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-71902972145667949592008-07-30T09:09:00.000-07:002008-07-30T09:35:15.796-07:00

+ Life, like football, has the tendency to amaze sometimes. I am no longer sick. I am apparently no longer unemployed. And I seem to have started to care about Ronaldinho. I mean, huh. Thanks here to Ursus, who offered to mail me 'dinho merchandise straight from the mothership, but I find I am in the happy position of being able to refuse for perfectly practical reasons. I do not buy original

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-9794132529617073992008-07-13T02:24:00.001-07:002008-07-13T02:38:40.384-07:00

It is almost a month since my last appearance in this part of the Internet - disease and unemployment have kept my nose at other grindstones, alas, and I have been amusing myself with reading things other than the sports pages ever since Euro 2008 ended; I refuse to concern myself with transfers. I was struck down by a hideous monsoon virus just when Marcello Lippi took over Italy, which meant I

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-13730245995818889732008-06-15T13:20:00.000-07:002008-06-15T13:23:12.187-07:00

There was a throwaway line in the flurry of articles about Milan in March-April 2007 after their qualification for the Champions' League finals, about Rino Gattuso, interviewed about the Istanbul final in 2005, saying that for a long time it was unbearable for him to think of anything associated with that night. Istanbul just some Turkish city, penalties what penalties, that sort of thing.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-84422934947117949342008-06-12T12:10:00.000-07:002008-06-12T12:22:09.912-07:00

M. Satchi is an artist and football fan from Toronto, Canada.A petition in .PNG to Roberto Donadoni:

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-35658448325600217302008-06-09T11:12:00.000-07:002008-06-09T13:49:37.841-07:00

* pulls on ITALIANS DO IT ON THE COUNTER tee-shirt over habit, sits down, waits to be disappointed by Toto di Natale *Half time. Poor Toto. It is not his fault. Nothing is his fault. He runs and runs and runs. As Yves Saint-Laurent once said of Tom Ford, "he does what he can." I am having visions of Marco van Basten hoisting the championship trophy. He will be forced to crack a smile once again.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-9874115692345238542008-06-06T10:01:00.000-07:002008-06-06T10:11:17.487-07:00

I have probably already made it embarrassingly clear that I am a gigantic n00b to football fandom. I like football history, but I have very little first-hand experience of it. In fact, for me football started in 1998, and not entirely with Paolo Maldini and his Oedipus complex, either, which is my habitual reluctant confession about my beginnings. [Don't make me say more about it - know that the

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-79259237705162830452008-06-03T21:21:00.000-07:002008-06-03T22:00:27.020-07:00

Why? Isn't it just another excuse for Europeans to hate each other?Oh, alright, kidding. I love international tournaments. For a long time I had no idea that teams existed outside internationals. Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Lazio -- these were just words that echoed off Star Sports' Football Mundial advertisements. My father and grandfather would dutifully exchange cricket for football once every

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-43783375813831229812008-06-03T11:11:00.000-07:002008-06-03T11:25:17.790-07:00

I keep hearing about something on your so-British television channels called I'm On Setanta Sport that makes use of a Portuguese puppet to poke fun at football and footballers. That's all very well. Who's going to make the seminal Baresi Brothers webcomic to keep up with the amusements of football in Milan week in and week out?

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-35491574980788195442008-06-03T02:10:00.001-07:002008-06-03T02:12:41.109-07:00

Of my near-endless litany of complaints with the IPL, one has been the purely personal displeasure at seeing cricketers indulge in the sort of drama usually reserved for the football field. Seeing my favourite RP Singh take a wicket and then raise his finger to his lips to shush the crowd really did stick in my craw. You could argue that the stiff-upper-lip traditions of cricket have been eroding

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-4700958620538888052008-05-22T10:53:00.001-07:002008-05-22T11:08:34.708-07:00

Rose is a student of art history and a football enthusiast based in London. While persuading her to explain why Da Vinci saw fit to paint his frescoes on dry plaster, we got to talking about one of our favourite players, Filippo Inzaghi, who was left out of the Italy Euro '08 squad earlier this week by Roberto Donadoni. There is a film of Milan’s triumphant bus ride through their city after the

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-68776320556300269222008-05-14T01:34:00.000-07:002008-05-14T03:02:03.841-07:00

I don't like being the person who says, "This is racist, but..." but there is a difference between coming down hard on stadium racism and chivvying, and the Independent today has crossed the line. Their headline of the roundup of all the hectoring and shouting about Warnings and Consequences should any discrimination against players of colour occur in tonight's Zenit St Petersburg-Rangers final

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-52173181137223808342008-05-11T21:06:00.000-07:002008-05-11T21:37:39.831-07:00

Sofie is a semiotician from Denmark currently working with Rouleur, the cycling magazine of note. She spent the year following Italy's World Cup victory in Bologna, as part of her graduate study. The culture and intellectual traditions of that great city have nothing to do with the fact that, in her own words: "I see small children in Meeelahn shirts at the enormous Tesco down the street

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-52973106352931325292008-05-07T10:45:00.000-07:002008-05-07T12:12:52.012-07:00

But, to take a more libertarian tack than you generally do, don't you think inequalities contribute positively to a league in the short run? You can step out on the street where you live, wherever it is, and notice how the modern Manchester United have done wonders for the global profile of English football. Of course, an ideal competition would be balanced out by different kinds of teams, each

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-19210366846317822012008-05-05T03:24:00.000-07:002008-05-05T07:09:44.523-07:00

Two days ago I watched Cristiano Ronaldo in an interview with FIFA Futbol Mundial. It was one of those where his face was put in extreme close-up and a translator's voice overlaid his vocals [CRon was speaking in Portuguese]. As I looked at him, my mind was drawn to the back page of a recent edition of the Bombay Times, in which readers are breathlessly told about the serious breach in the

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-71855762186822214672008-05-01T03:33:00.000-07:002008-05-05T03:40:07.233-07:00

Mumbai,May 1, 2008.As someone who has whinged and moaned all season about an impending Champions' League final exclusively made up of bits of the Premier League East India Company, I reserve my right to backtrack and admit to a change of opinion. Perhaps its only the money and power after all, and perhaps it has something to do with the way football itself is filmed and televised, but to all

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-7885969099480630812008-04-18T10:42:00.000-07:002008-04-18T10:49:35.385-07:00

The thing that has made me feel most at home, every time I have returned to my home city after a spell elsewhere, has been the unlimited access to media bilge. In both Hyderabad and Calcutta newspapers were solely read online, and TV was thin on the ground. So while the first evening home is, for me, about the ineffable pleasure of seeing the city lit up at night and sitting down to a meal of the

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-37326161356300379002008-04-15T03:40:00.000-07:002008-05-05T03:48:09.497-07:00

My flight from Calcutta to Mumbai was interminable, and to stave off crushing boredom I spent my time copying amusing passages from John Foot's comprehensive, if Inter-biased Calcio, a handy tome for everyone with a desire to learn more about Italian football, or for those requiring a reference that will tell you useful things about what Denis Law really got up to in his time in Italy, and so on.

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-8151665116165319192008-04-11T12:30:00.000-07:002008-04-11T12:35:01.258-07:00

To celebrate my last forty-eight hours in Calcutta I feel I can do no better than to set down here the story of a football game, as told to us tonight by Abhijit, to whom all credit must be given for the following narrative. In 1977, former gateway of the British Empire and present cauldron of intellectual ferment and revolution, the great city of Calcutta, played host to an extraordinary game:

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-60128968219261168082008-04-05T14:18:00.001-07:002008-04-05T14:57:50.581-07:00

It was easy enough to sustain writing about football with no real access to it for two months, but then it kind of palled, and this whole business about the Champions' League being dominated by the English and William Gaillard airily threatening to take the CL final away from Rome if there was trouble in the city during their game with Manchester United really got me down for a while. As I write

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-59099445296469643072008-03-07T09:34:00.000-08:002008-03-07T09:44:40.968-08:00

This week's Guardian Unlimited Football Weekly [Extra] is a marvellous listen. Fernando Duarte provides a great overview of the situation at the Zico-coached Fenerbahce, and has a gold star moment when he describes their gameplan as playing "with the knife between their teeth - like pirates." Bitter Hoops fan Kevin McCarra has a diatribe against Milan so ripe, it could come have come from a

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-7500914356699998152008-03-05T11:23:00.000-08:002008-03-05T11:43:24.274-08:00

Hello. I'm gutted about Milan, but at least this way I won't have to worry about them collapsing on pitch for exhaustion. It could still happen, but nothing quite sets the pulse racing disturbingly like a night in Europe, and unless Inter smuggle Nesta & Kaladze in to their centre-back positions next week, giving them bad haircuts in the hope that no one will notice they're not from the right

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-70679606181786329842008-02-25T09:58:00.001-08:002008-02-25T11:13:57.229-08:00

Eduardo's breaking ankle will be the nightmarish after-image this weekend leaves in the minds of most people. Here's hoping he recovers well and as rapidly as possible, and much the same to Adrian Mutu, whose injury this weekend in Fiorentina's game against Roma has come at a horrible moment for the Viola, who are in the UEFA Cup's last 16 and playing peek-a-boo at fourth spot in Serie A, whence

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-57863708286206538572008-02-24T10:16:00.000-08:002008-02-24T13:14:35.039-08:00

I.Yesterday I renewed my British Council Library membership and celebrated by checking out, among other things, the December 2007 edition of FourFourTwo. Football experts will know that this is British football's matey, laddish monthly chronicle. Those with good memories will instantly recall, too, that this particular edition bears an alarming picture of a smiling Arsène Wenger who, the inner

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-25821461777463471802008-02-18T09:16:00.000-08:002008-02-18T12:57:00.213-08:00

Tributes in the form of verbal fellatio are already being offered to Paolo Maldini. Yes, again. We can only presume that this is in the wake of his impending ejection from his European hunting grounds -- if Milan live to progress to the quarter-finals of this year's Champions' League no doubt there will be another round of articles, and then another, and then, on the slim chance of his arriving

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-67449439391371221362008-02-07T09:48:00.000-08:002008-02-07T10:59:12.890-08:00

Wow. More English football. How thrilled I am not.Hopefully by 2011 Internet penetration in India will have reached the stage where streaming and webcasting are widely supportable, and an entire underbelly of rebels can switch off ESPN for good. And watch the Copa Libertadores. Or the African Cup of Nations. Or go out in the sunshine and watch something, anything else. (Which I missed the chance

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-59447498414623423532008-01-30T12:37:00.000-08:002008-01-30T14:50:31.138-08:00

+ Steven Wells writes a piece about presidential candidates and football that excites me greatly in its disparaging, contemptuous and altogether callous dismissal of the football writing of Franklin Foer. The continuing attempts at satirising Foer descend into waffliness [after all, at some point of time you would like to get over the Foer joke and go into why Hillary Clinton couldn't be anything

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-66426226259091541712008-01-29T11:19:00.001-08:002008-01-29T12:18:10.331-08:00

After a couple of truly beautiful weeks of cricket which allowed us to forget how disgusted we are with the institutions and (some of) the people who run, play and watch the game, it is only proper that we report the whimper that rounds of the series of bangs rocketing about the test at Sydney and the now infamous race row: A court of law has overturned the ban on Harbhajan Singh for his alleged

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-41495687697305447792008-01-15T09:15:00.000-08:002008-01-15T10:35:18.542-08:00

I.Martha asked, on the Italy Offside blog, about why racism in calcio is not met with more stringent measures. There are some very good responses to her post, and if you have a thought, I hope you'll contribute to the discussion. I have removed to the fastness of the Angry Nunnery thinking,as you sometimes will, about the why of her why-not question. To me the problem of racism in Italian

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-22968135164353400152008-01-10T09:52:00.000-08:002008-01-10T09:57:51.527-08:00

AMAZING. A sport in which left-arm unorthodox deliveries are still blithely called 'Chinamen,' a sport with such unfocused, disparate locuses of power and privilege [the brown people have the money, the white people have the aspirational value], and not only the debate on racism, but also the mechanisms of dealing with that racism, are all the same, same, same. I wish I could imagine how this

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-74867599451426529142008-01-07T09:30:00.000-08:002008-01-07T09:48:52.742-08:00

Apologies for the protracted silence over the holiday season - I have been in the process of packing and moving cities, which, as anyone who has had the pleasure of doing so will tell you, is no mean task. The bally things are most resistant to budging.[The mini-hiatus may also be interpreted in footballing terms as the obligatory period of mourning after a derby loss, but having covered this

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-44407395828554131482007-12-16T22:33:00.000-08:002007-12-17T00:48:48.863-08:00

That Grand Slam Sunday was possibly the most awful sustained massacre of football I have yet seen on a single weekend. No doubt it was as much of a lark for most of England as the now bi-annual Chelsea-Liverpool CL fixtures are, with all the passion and glory at stake, but for me it was as dire as your average Juve-Inter game, just without the broken bones and the nice hairstyles.Admittedly I was

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-19870963172311706892007-12-13T09:45:00.000-08:002007-12-13T09:57:42.944-08:00

The Milan Tragicomedy In Three Acts:One. In their own box they defend sufficiently well and turf the ball out to midfield as expected [with some nice passing - these guys are good as long as they don't have to cross]. Two. The midfield is all older, more languid, more elegant Arsenal; they stroke the ball around, play it in triangles, take it to lalaland and back in an approximation of gentle

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-59162454448886994462007-12-07T01:20:00.000-08:002007-12-07T02:46:22.538-08:00

The five names in the frame are Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello, Martin O'Neill, Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klinsmann. Feelers are understood to have already gone out. [...] It is clear that Barwick, who also talked to Steven Gerrard in the last 24 hours, is moving fast.[source]Come now, Mr Barwick, I understand he doesn't do much for England these days, but surely he has a couple of seasons left in

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-13313256006006244352007-12-04T00:39:00.000-08:002007-12-05T08:29:57.785-08:00

I was going to write about something else, but instead I will link you to Hoops fan Kevin McCarra's assessment of the faded glory of Milan, who play Celtic tonight in the San Siro. As an aggregator of every existing argument attacking the power and prestige of Milan in particular and [inevitably] Italian football as a whole* the piece has few to no equals in recent memory. What sent me off on

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-60593362582522534542007-11-30T02:32:00.000-08:002007-11-30T02:36:58.975-08:00

The ghost of Christmas Tree past. [Obliged to Martha.]

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-28600772100508212952007-11-29T02:20:00.000-08:002007-11-29T04:03:55.771-08:00

Dileep Premachandran blogs in on a story that probably woke a few of us up well and good this morning. He quotes The Daily Telegraph as having broken the story, but today's edition of the Mumbai Mirror also carries the very discoveries he highlights: that Gary Kirsten, to all intents and appearances the new coach of Team India, might be the modern equivalent of the British old boy buying a

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-66527090445502407662007-11-27T22:36:00.001-08:002007-11-28T02:34:47.489-08:00

Fairly decent night for Italy in Europe, you might say. Both Inter and Roma had a whale of a time seeing off Fenerbahce [that's at least one Nobel laureate you've made an enemy of, Inter] and Dinamo Kyiv respectively. It's football silly season as far as Group F is concerned, at least, now that Kyiv and Sporting have but a UEFA Cup spot left to play for [not but that it's an exciting tournament

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-19541007589551047612007-11-25T01:49:00.000-08:002007-11-25T02:05:37.513-08:00

I am going to be my usual charitable self and assume that, rather than being impoverished of intellect, Alex McLeish is merely party to some sinister agenda that requires him to suggest a psychological conspiracy to put Italy through to the finals of Euro 2008 in their place. Appearing on all counts to be a rational adult with the cognitive ability required to put words together to form simple

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-32929185982132541422007-11-24T10:41:00.000-08:002007-11-24T11:19:33.111-08:00

Grand gestures. Whether these children will have to be bodily checked from running out of the stadia screaming in terror [or out of boredom, if it's a Juve game] is something that remains to be seen. Well, I'm for it, concern for the kiddies apart [why, two posts in, have Italian minors taken over my blog?]. Football, and football fans, are so susceptible to the power of something absolutely

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-4009100542838962942007-11-21T20:10:00.000-08:002007-11-21T23:45:00.461-08:00

I'm cut up over England not getting to Euro 2008. I worry that English football journalism will proceed, next summer, to pretend like the tournament doesn't exist. Time for me to get cracking on that Teach Yourself Italian course to be able to scan La Gazzetta with ease, I guess.Here's hoping ESPN don't revise their match schedules, at least.+++England really don't have an excuse. Like everyone

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-6680344380012157662007-11-20T22:02:00.000-08:002007-11-20T22:21:21.267-08:00

Roswitha was a nun in medieval Germany who is now credited with first casting a spark over the fate of secular literary studies in Europe through her journal, in which she described the convent conducting readings of Roman drama and jotted down her own [of which more in an old explanation for my blog handle, here]. I'm 23, I live in Mumbai, India, and I'm here to talk a lot, mostly about sport,

roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1