War and Pearce

The results are in. The Root and Branch is officially over and luckily for Magic Spongers, it has achieved absolutely fuck all. Stuart Pearce gave us a glimpse into the future of English football at the very top level on Sunday. And it is marvellous, we have to say. "When you have reached pass number five, punt it long. You will then not see the ball for two minutes. In this time, show passion and pride; the Bulldog Spirit if you will. Get ball back. Repeat".

The Barcelona way of playing is, of course, impossible to replicate. That's why Juan Mata and Javi Martinez, of Valencia and Athletic Bilbao respectively, looked so much like their English counterpa... oh.

The English Patience

You can’t hear it in the car park. You poke your head around the door to the club shop, but nothing. Through the sliding glass doors and into reception, you can’t hear it. Going up the stairs and into the bowels of the stadium, slowly a dull thudding starts to play on the eardrums. Along the corridor, it’s now clearly in earshot. Past the gym and along to the manager’s office, a repeating bang-bang-bang, of forehead on wood, is clearly audible. Through the door and the manager is sitting there, Premier League scout opposite, looking exasperated.

“I don’t understand”, the manager says. “He’s a kid who’s hardly ever played for the national team, who’s never played in the Champions League, who doesn’t have any medals, who’s never moved clubs so has no sell-on clauses and who hasn’t played 100 club games in his career yet. And he’s worth MORE than £10m?” “But boss”, the scout says, exhaling with the air of a man about to attempt to explain the finer points of physics to an intellectually reticent monkey – this isn’t going to make sense, but it’s fundamental truth – “he’s English.”

Managerial Merry-Go-Round

Silly season is here again, says Drew Kearns. But it's not just the players taking the bloody piss...

June 2nd 2011. Remember this date when you pull on that new replica shirt in August as it was the day silly season started this year. With Mark ‘Sparky’ Hughes resigning/leaving/quitting/gardening/not renewing his contract at Fulham, the bi-annual merry-go round begins. January flirts with the idea of mass movement in the world of football, but even with the introduction of the winter transfer window it doesn’t hold a yellow ticker to the beast that is the summer months - a barren wasteland for all football fans where rumour, gossip and inaccuracies grow like wildflowers.

Euro Revision #5: Manchester United v Real Madrid 2003



It's part five, which means handing over to In Bed With Maradona's Dave Hartrick...

Manchester United 4-3 Real Madrid, April 23 2003

The problem with the Champions League is that until the latter stages there are far too many mismatches. Every year the draw comes through for the groups and all we can look forward to until the next round is Barcelona waltzing through six games in which they’ll never be required to shift in to top gear. Yes, we love the Caligula style orgy of football as up to eight games are screened for us to red button to and from, but in reality, for every shock there’s 30 games that equate to a little kid swinging punches but being held at arms length by a teenager.

Euro Revision #4: Liverpool v Chelsea 2005

My intention is to ruin everything

...and here's the other half of Magic Spongers Adam Bushby

Liverpool 1 v 0 Chelsea: Champions League semi final 2nd leg, May 2005

Mine is a tale of heroes and villains. I’m looking at YOU Ľuboš Micheľ with your stupid squiggly bits on the letters of your name, with the apostrophe at the end of your name. “Why do you mock this poor man so savagely?” I hear you all ask. "I’ll tell you", I sneer, in a really smarmy kind of way. Ľuboš Micheľ is a former professional referee. Ľuboš Micheľ was in fact ranked the world’s second best referee in 2006. Ľuboš Micheľ was the man in charge of the second leg of Liverpool v Chelsea and ruined it for everyone by not sending off Petr Cech in the fourth minute of the match and consequently awarding Liverpool a penalty which, I think I’m correct in saying, Steven Gerrard would have placed to the left of substitute goalkeeper Carlos Cudicini and thus provide the catalyst for the largest win the Champions League semi-final stage had ever seen. Bear with me.

Euro Revision #3: Manchester United v Barcelona 1994

Lee Sharpe receives his first England cap. A proud day.

Over to Magic Spongers' very own Rob MacDonald...

Manchester United 2-2 Barcelona: Champions League Group Stages, October 19 1994

When I was very young, I was in Cub Scouts and we got to a Cup Final. 4th Wilmslow v 1st Lindow I think it was. As a boy it was a confusing time – why was this game different? How would I feel if we lost? How would I feel if we won? What the fuck are those numbers for? (To this day I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of 2nd or 3rd Wilmslow, though I remember 1st, 4th, 5th AND 6th. Did 2nd or 3rd Wilmslow even exist? What? Why not?).

Euro Revision #2: Deportivo la Coruna v AC Milan

Please give a very warm welcome to Surreal Football’s Ethan Dean-Richards, who makes one beautiful clusterfuck of a debut for Magic Spongers in the second part of our Champions League mini-series. He can also be found here @SurrealFootball.

Milan 4-1 Deportivo & Deportivo 4-0 Milan, Quarter Finals, April 2004

It’s traditional, I’m told, to do some research on the game that you’re writing about, before you write about it. I’ve also heard that looking for a second time at the context in which your piece will be placed – the series, if you will – is advisable, because who wants to spend an hour – alright, fifteen minutes – tapping out exactly the wrong sort of thing? On both of these counts, as in all other things, I'm an innovator – a maverick.