There is some real drama about which European country will host the next World Cup. Both England and Russia have submitted solid bids, and FIFA is going to have to think very deeply about which country will get to host this prestigious event. However, FIFA is awarding both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups this […]

Italy boss Cesare Prandelli announced his 23 man squad for the friendly against the Ivory Coast which will take place on Tuesday in England. Many of the names chosen by Marcello Lippi were dropped. Prandelli made some expected changes following the World Cup disappointment with Fabio Quagliarella the only striker remaining from the team selected […]

After the disappointing results in South Africa from the senior Italian team, the Italy Under 19s were looking to give the future a winning start at the European championships in France. The U-19 competition is slightly different from the senior level European championships, here's how the competition works: There are two groups of four teams […]

With a few weeks perspective after another predictable and disappointing quad-annual collapse by the latest version of England’s best-team-in-a-generation, the FA is starting to weigh in. In article published yesterday in the Mirror, the FA revealed its new strategy – groom an English coach to take over for Fabio Capello in two years, bring a […]

Soccer has an almost magical ability to reflect a national character. Brazil is a sensuous, musical nation, and for its national soccer team, it is not enough to simply win – they need to win with grace, style and beauty. At the other end of the spectrum, a disciplined, efficient country like Germany has created […]

World Cup 2010 South Africa has now been and gone, a feast of football for a month in the rainbow nation. Here are a few memories of the good and bad for the first World Cup of the decade. The Good Paul the Octopus – the world stood still in amazement and in humour, (in […]

It's a bizarre story. First, in May, before the World Cup kicked off, Fabio Capello along with a man named Chicco Merighi launched the Capello Index, an objective system that measures and evaluates the performances of players. But after the news broke of the ratings system, many people thought it would be in poor taste […]

Sitting here almost a week after the 2010 World Cup, I like many other US fans have been going over the many pros and cons of retaining Bob Bradley as the US manager. US Soccer President Sunil Gulati and Fulham owner Mohamed Al Fayed probably have many of the same questions that we do, […]

English footballer Emile Heskey did the noble thing this week by announcing his retirement from international football. Despite lots of criticism, Heskey was a stalwart for England, making 62 appearances for his country between 1999 and 2010 and contributing a large number of assists and seven goals. He'll be remembered as a man who always […]

How do I love thee, World Cup 2010? Let me count the ways (in no particular order): Overhearing strangers in public talking about the World Cup, Collecting World Cup Panini stickers, Listening to the national anthems of the 32 countries in the World Cup, Striking up conversations with complete strangers who were soccer fans and, […]

During the 2010 World Cup, EPL Talk registered its best month ever in terms of web traffic. On behalf of EPL Talk, I'd like to thank you, the readers, for your continued patronage, as well as the continued excellence shown by all of the EPL Talk bloggers (and podcasters) who have worked diligently to produce […]

The 2010 World Cup will be remembered for some terrible open goal misses (Nigeria's Yakubu as the most blatant example) as well as some horrific goalkeeper mishaps especially during the group stage of the tournament (Robert Green, cough cough). But it will also be remembered for some glorious goals and stupendous saves. Thankfully, we have […]

This may well be the first time that you hear Bobby Goldsboro talked about in the football column and it will almost certainly the last. Bobby, you may or may not recall is a singer who had a few hits in the 60s and 70s, one of which, "Summer (The First Time)," is a song […]

On the final episode of the World Cup Buzz Podcast this week, analyst Laurence McKenna mentioned how he was looking forward to the World Cup video montages that are often created and distributed on YouTube. While more will be certainly be released in the coming days, I've found three which I think you'll enjoy. Each […]

If you've got 10 minutes to spare, you can watch this one video which features every single goal scored in the 2010 World Cup in chronological order from Siphiwe Tshabalala for South Africa all the way to Andres Iniesta of Spain. The music that accompanies the track is an unknown SID tune composed on a Commodore […]