1. “A player who himself is representative of the relationship between players and systems – virtually a system unto himself.”
Sam Fayyaz examines how Xavi fits in to modern football for The Classical.
2. “After the most of the so called ‘golden generation’ of Argentinian rugby passed into retirement in the years after the 2007 RWC, there was a real fear that Argentina would slowly retreat back into the rugby abyss.
“Not only did this prognosis prove to be unfounded – Argentina showed in their first season of the Rugby Championship that they belong in a competition alongside the big three Southern Hemisphere teams – we are perhaps about to witness the emergence of a new golden generation of Argentinian rugby.”
Bad news, Ireland. Argentina are on a sharp upward curve says TheRugbySite.com.
3. “”I’ve wanted Clint Dempsey since the day we started, but there’s only one Clint Dempsey,” said Roth. “I just resigned myself to thinking we probably wouldn’t get a Clint Dempsey until he was 35 years old, and I didn’t want to add to the perception, which is mostly right, that we don’t get European [club] stars when they’re in their prime.”
The top football writer in the US, Grant Wahl, charts Clint Dempsey’s stunning move to the Seattle Sounders for Sports Illustrated.
4. “The bus has to stop and the Croke Park driver has to get in. In the tunnels under the stands the turns are too tight so the regular drivers aren’t allowed drive the bus around themselves.“There is a fierce bad corner that you inch around at the back of the Cusack and the Canal. You are in this dark tunnel and then suddenly, to the right, you get this incredible view up the tunnel where the Artane Boys Band come out. A huge swathe of the pitch with maybe the minor game going on and the green of the grass, so vivid and green that it looks like something different than anything you have ever seen.”
Dónal Óg Cusack brings you deep inside Croke Park like nobody else can in this brilliant piece for GAA.ie
5. “Though conservative – “Don’t say cat until you’ve got it in the sack” — and tactically very rigid — another of Trap’s great sayings, incidentally, is “The players are free to do what I say” — few coaches have been quite as effective at getting results as he has.”
James Horncastle pleads the case for Giovanni Trapattoni in ESPN’s greatest managers series.
6. “A master in his field embarks on a journey fraught with questionable moral decisions, infamy, and untold rewards because he fears his talents are going to waste away before he can secure his legacy. After some success, it blows up in his face, and he learns he has to come back harder, meaner, more ruthless than ever.”
If you like the NBA, and you like US TV drama’s, then Steve McPherson‘s Breaking Bad to NBA parallel on Grantland is for you.
7. “Suárez being Suárez, the story is littered with imperfections. It does not seem to register that Liverpool, after the battering their reputation has taken, might deserve better than this kind of mutiny. There is no apparent shame, or even recognition, of all the times when he has expanded on why he will be staying at Anfield come what may, or any form of appreciation that some people actually believed it.”
Daniel Taylor nails the Luis Suarez situation for The Guardian.
