Modern football is on 24/7, 365 days an year. It’s intense. It’s in your face. It’s ridiculously easy to get sucked in and react to news on a daily basis, and in this process we tend to miss the bigger picture and especially miss the opportunity to see how stories develop over time.
Mainstream media is no help either – their bread and butter is the daily grind, not more knowledge for fans, and thus the average fan is jerked around all year long on Ronaldo’s sexcapades, Arsenal’s refusal to experienced players, the most exciting title race since the start of title races, the backstage shenanigans at Tottenham, Newcastle, Real Madrid, West Ham and Manchester City, and of course, the effing referees.
So let’s take a few steps back and look at the whole of 2008 instead of just yesterday, today and tomorrow. In our year-end review, we look at the most important football stories covered here on Soccerlens from January to December. Let’s see if you can spot the long-running trends. And remember, football may be your bread and butter or it may be your #1 escape to a happier place – but there is always, always, more to life than football.
Month-by-Month 2008 Review
I understand that these reviews are biased towards the Premier League – we (try to) cover a lot more than just the Premier League but in terms of ‘football news’, it is one of the focal points of the site’s coverage.
Doing this review (over 2200+ articles to sift through this year) was a labor of love, I hope you enjoy it.
January 2008 Review: When Keegan led Newcastle and Tottenham beat Arsenal
February 2008 Review: When Ramos won the Cup and Arsenal’s bubble burst
March 2008 Review: When England dominated Europe and Mascherano threw a fit
April 2008 Review: When Liverpool wanted Barry and Barcelona couldn’t beat Manchester United
May 2008 Review: When Manchester United Did The Double And Real Madrid Humbled Barcelona
June 2008 Review: When Spain won the Euros and the World hated Ronaldo
July 2008 Review: When Tottenham lost their strikers and Nereida Gallardo became a star
August 2008 Review: When Liverpool Had No Money And Argentina Won The Olympics
September 2008 Review: When Manchester City became Manchester Dhabi and Newcastle United went for sale
October 2008 Review: When the credit crunch hit football and Arsenal dropped out of the title race
November 2008 Review: When Arsenal and Manchester United lost ground and Tottenham beat Liverpool
December 2008 Review: When Liverpool Were Top And Arsenal Lost Fabregas
Year-End Features
- Top 20 Young Footballers to Watch in 2009
- The 2008 Soccerlens All-Star XI – The Best Footballers of 2008
- The Top Five Fantasy Football Games of 2008
- The Biggest Winners of 2008 – Cristiano Ronaldo, Barcelona, Lionel Messi, Fabio Capello and TSG Hoffenheim
- The Biggest Losers of 2008 – Real Madrid, Avram Grant, Juande Ramos, Arsenal and Mike Ashley
- Soccerlens 2008 Awards Winners
- Five Best Mainstream Football Bloggers Of 2008
- 2008 FIFA World Player of the Year
- World Football Quotes of the Year – 2008
- The Best Goalkeepers of 2008
- 10 Football League Youngsters To Watch In 2009
You, Dear Readers
To our regular readers, commenters and RSS subscribers, thank you for reading Soccerlens, thank you for bookmarking it, thank you for checking it every (other) day, thank you for taking the time to comment on the articles. It’s been a long and eventful year and without your support we would be nowhere, so please keep it coming.
I realise that over time we’ve managed to piss just about everyone off at some time or the other, which in my view is proof that Soccerlens attracts a more diverse readership than most other football blogs. Remember, Soccerlens is open for reader contributions and as long as you write well we don’t care who you support, so if you feel strongly about some of the things said here it’s your chance to step up and take the mike.
And finally, it’s always nice to read your comments as long as you have something to say, so keep the comments and feedback coming and we’ll do our best to keep improving Soccerlens.
A special thanks to those bloggers who found Soccerlens interesting enough to link to – we do our best to link back out to interesting news that we haven’t covered, so if you think we should be linking to your site, get in touch.
Great Team To Work With
Reading all (ok, some) of the articles from this year, I couldn’t help but feel inspired by the quality of some of the writers here at Soccerlens (guests and regulars). It’s renewed my faith in quality over quantity, and going on in 2009 I hope we can continue to improve and get more fantastic writers to work with us.
In no particular order but my memory, I’d like to thank the following people for making Soccerlens a success this year:
Eddie (transfers guru), Marco (super editor), Steve (all the great interviews), Victor (resident live-blogger), Graham (for the letters and his insight into football), Gary (for his weekly column), Hugo (when he’s around, some of the best articles this site has seen), Rob (for working with Soccerlens in-between Pies and Off The Post), Brian (for the guest commentary), Scott (resident United fan), Nic (for his Spanish football roundups), Gerry (for all the laughs), David (ditto), Andrei, Andy, Kenny, GT and several others I’ve missed (my apologies).
It’s been a pleasure, it’s hard to find a better team.
Soccerlens in 2008, 2009 and Beyond
Soccerlens has grown a lot in the last year, and will hopefully continue to progress even faster in the coming year as we introduce new features and sections to the site. If you have any feedback on what we’ve done in 2008 or suggestions for what to do in 2009, please let us know.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!l
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