Football

Can anyone stop France in the Six Nations?

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Winter’s almost done and spring’s on the way. We can tell because the Six Nations is about to muscle into…

The secret of Gary Lineker’s success

25 January 2025 9:00 am

The Leicester-born striker was neither exceptionally skilful nor assiduous; but he worked out how to score goals, and later excel in broadcasting, through intelligence and calm resilience

The unnecessary complexity of the World Test Championship

18 January 2025 9:00 am

Have you booked your tickets for the World Test Championship yet? Did you even know it’s on? What seemed like…

I’m not the only football-obsessed composer

4 January 2025 9:00 am

I was in Sweden a few weeks ago, where my music was presented in Stockholm in the most recent International…

Could Thomas Tuchel be the one?

4 January 2025 9:00 am

You would have to be living a very sheltered life not to have noticed that the Premier League this season…

The best (and worst) of this year’s sport

14 December 2024 9:00 am

It was quite a year for some of the worst of sport – America’s golfers, already among the richest and…

The BBC vs Gregg Wallace

7 December 2024 9:00 am

The last time I took my wife to watch Millwall play a home game, a gentleman a few rows in…

A father’s love: Childish Literature, by Alejandro Zambra, reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

The Chilean writer contributes obliquely to the fledgling genre of fatherhood literature, combining family vignettes with literary criticism and a ‘diary’ addressed to his infant son

Gary Lineker isn’t that bad

17 November 2024 4:30 pm

It’s a crying shame that we will no longer hear the insightful and original opinions of Gary Lineker. No more…

Who would be a goalkeeper?

16 November 2024 9:00 am

There’s a whiff of hauteur in Robert McCrum’s history of the penalty kick – his great-grandfather’s brainchild of 1891, which proved such a momentous change to football

Did I deny my son a shot at the Premier League?

9 November 2024 9:00 am

When my youngest son Charlie was seven he was talent-spotted by a QPR scout who saw him playing football in…

The glaring mismatch in English football

2 November 2024 9:00 am

Your starter for ten: who was the last English manager to win the top flight of English football? Treat yourself…

Will Keir Starmer get me banned from football games?

2 November 2024 9:00 am

Last Saturday, I made the 400-mile round trip to Burnley with my 16-year-old son Charlie to see Queens Park Rangers…

Erik ten Hag cornered himself

29 October 2024 9:50 pm

‘I’ve proven in my career that I will always win,’ Erik ten Hag told the press last month. ‘In the…

Why can’t China play football?

21 September 2024 9:00 am

It would be tough for any country to lose 7-0 in a World Cup qualifier, but when the losing team…

From tragedy to mockery: Munichs, by David Peace, reviewed

14 September 2024 9:00 am

The devastating crash at Munich-Riem airport in 1959 haunts Manchester United fans to this day. Peace defies anyone to read his novel and use ‘Munichs’ as an insult ever again

Mickleover: the real home of cricket

7 September 2024 9:00 am

Readers concerned that the seemingly imperious march of Bazball across the cricket firmament has blotted out the more, er, traditional…

Sven-Goran Eriksson was an England great

27 August 2024 2:58 am

Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has died aged 76, was an unlikely choice for the England job in 2000. He was inexperienced…

The hunt for the next Messi: Godwin, by Joseph O’Neill, reviewed

27 July 2024 9:00 am

A video file of an African teenager with legendary ball skills is circulating far from his homeland – wherever that is. How hard can it be to track him down?

Arise, Sir Gareth!

20 July 2024 9:00 am

I detected a degree of surprise among those people who were uncommonly cheered by Sir Keir Starmer’s election victory that…

I lost to Harry Kane at darts

29 June 2024 9:00 am

Gareth Southgate has always been a man interested in life outside the football circus. When he played for England, I…

Voters still don’t know what Keir Starmer stands for

22 June 2024 9:00 am

Keir Starmer is frustrated. He wants to talk about the future but interviewers like me will insist on asking him…

Poland 1–2 Netherlands

17 June 2024 5:19 am

Poland’s manager, Michael Probierz, wore a shapeless tweed-ish suit with bulging waistcoat and, when the Dutch scored their winner, had…

Gareth Southgate has finally shown some bottle

22 May 2024 2:52 am

The provisional England squad for the Euros unveiled by manager Gareth Southgate contains one notable omission: Jordan Henderson. That’s a…