Nick Smith
Metalist, Lies & Videotape
It’s those men again. Despite catcalls in Kharkiv, derision in Donetsk and vilification in Lviv, the longest-running comedy show in Ukraine shows no indication...
Yin, Yang & Football
When ex-Manchester United striker Dong Fangzhuo left Legia Warsaw on August 1, a brief yet beautiful piece of football symmetry disappeared with him. The...
Northern Exposure: The People’s Team Abroad
Football teams wishing to be taken seriously at a World Cup should probably avoid losing all of their group games, especially if they concede...
Slovenia World Cup 2010 Preview
After seeing off Egypt in the latest installment of the world’s most violent international football rivalry to qualify for the World Cup, Algeria should...
Switzerland World Cup 2010 Preview
It starts with a sudden lowering of the voice. Two quick glances to either side, a furtive slug of the glass, and the mysteries...
Greece World Cup 2010 Preview
Summer 2004 saw 250,000 people turn Athens upside down in celebrating Greece’s shock victory in Euro 2004. Fast forward six years and the streets...
Denmark World Cup 2010 Preview
With star striker Nicklas Bendtner already thrown out of London nightspot Boujis last year with his trousers around his knees, the worry for Denmark...
Rotor’s Return: Goals, Ghosts and Stalingrad
Russia has never been short of a ghost or two. The restless souls of Ivan the Terrible and Lenin’s would-be assassin Fanni Kaplan roam...
Europe – The Final Countdown (2012)
Five referees. Wage caps. The 6+5 rule. Michel Platini may be on a mission to over-complicate just about everything in European football, but on...
The Shakhtar Syndrome
One year ago, an unusually reckless observer suggested that Shakhtar Donetsk, pride of Ukraine’s coal-mining Donbass region, were digging themselves into a hole at...
Miodrag Bozovic: Why Europe Should Be Out for the Count
As everybody knows, the most famous Count of them all had no reflection and could only be seen by others, never by himself. A...
The Europa League: There’s a New Sheriff in Town
- How come nobody ever heard of you? I mean, how come you ain't got a reputation? (Support Your Local Sheriff!, 1969)
With the visibly...