In the picture...

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In the 2002 UEFA-Cup final Feyenoord's Pierre Van Hooijdonk scores the deciding goal from a free kick.

The most hated man in Glasgow

As most football fans will know, Scotland's biggest city is divided into two camps: one favors Celtic, the other favors Rangers. I'm sure fiercer footballing rivalries exist, but there can't be many. Because whereas most rivalries at least confine themselves to football, in Glasgow there's an added dimension of sectarianism to the mutual envy and hatred. Celtic, founded for and by Irish immigrants, is the team of Catholic Glasgow, and Rangers that of the Protestants. The ferociousness of the rivalry meant a player switching between the two clubs was completely unthinkable.

Yet switching was exactly what Maurice "Mo" Johnston -indirectly- did in the summer of 1989. The forward had played for Celtic for three seasons, between 1984 and 1987, scoring 52 goals in 99 games. Johnston had won the cup with the Catholic club in 1985 and had added the league title a season later. When the Scottish international decided to return to Scotland after a stint playing in France, Celtic was the most obvious destination. The fact that he signed for Rangers instead, came as a bolt from the blue.

In the Picture...

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1974: Kevin Keegan, Alec Lindsay and Emlyn Hughes line up to assist Liverpool goalie Ray Clemence

Taking about Football...

Bobby Charlton on seeing Alfredo di Stefano play

Who is this man? He takes the ball from the goalkeeper; he tells the full-backs what to do; wherever he is on the field he is in position to take the ball; you can see his influence on everything that is happening... I had never seen such a complete footballer. It was as though he had set up his own command centre at the heart of the game. He was as strong as he was subtle. The combination of qualities was mesmerizing.

(Source: BBC, 7 July 2014)

In the Picture...

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June 1974: Johan Cruyff scores Holland's fourth goal against Argentina

AC Milan and the toothless striker

What springs to mind when you think of an AC Milan centre-forward? People of a certain age will immediately be reminded of Marco van Basten, an intelligent and technically gifted striker. The Dutchman was far from the only world class centre-forward to wear the red and black. In the fifties there was the Swede Gunner Nordahl, Milan's all-time goalscorer, and a decade later the Brasilian José Altafini stalked the San Siro. After Van Basten greats like Shevchenko, Weah and Inzaghi played for Milan. These days Ibrahimovic is spending his dotage there.

What few people will probably come up with when conjuring up a mental image of a Milan forward, is a classic British target-man. The kind that would long ago have lost his front teeth in some ill-fated areal duel. Yet that is exactly what AC Milan set out to take the Serie A by storm with back in 1981, after spending a year in the Serie B due to a betting scandal.

In the picture...

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December 1911: The Oldham goalkeeper kicks the ball downfield

Talking about Football...

Marco van Basten on Arrigo Sacchi:

I was used to Cruyff, who had been a great player. We thought the same way. Sacchi was more theoretical. We had to watch so many videos and he was always talking during training. It was too much. I told him: ‘Mister, you have already told me this 12 times. If I don’t understand it now, I never will.’

(Source: Guardian, 31 October 2020)

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May 1963: AC Milan's Cesare Maldini tackles Benfica's Eusebio

Lima, the Forgotten Stadium Disaster

“The mass is a river of screams and panic. Unstoppable and unknowing it crushes anyone who stumbles and falls. The avalanche of people goes from fear to hysteria when at the foot of the stairs, that descent into death, it encounters closed doors. Metal objects that only open to the inside. There is no turning back, away from that fatal escape route. No way back up to the stands, where, despite the asphyxiating gas, freedom awaits, instead of this prison of bodies that crush, suffocate, and kill each other. The pressure of those joining the human waterfall makes escaping impossible. The air gets exhausted. Lungs shrink. Ribs break.”

Thus, loosely translated, wrote the journalist Mauricio Gil in the Peruvian paper El Comercio. What is being described above is not the Hillsborough disaster or the Heysel drama, but by far the greatest football disaster in history. A disaster that has been almost completely forgotten outside of Peru.