After dangling himself in front of England for the last couple of weeks, like a donut just out of Homer Simpson’s reach (and making the English media drool accordingly) Jose Mourinho has finally himself unavailable for work yesterday afternoon. Proof indeed that the essence of being The Special One is the essence of “what if?” [...]

Ever worried about how David Beckham is going to fill that long gap between MLS seasons? Well worry no longer, seems old Golden Balls is finding all kinds of ways. There are money-spinning tours to Australia and New Zealand to go on, rancid table scraps to be auctioned and head to head Christmas ratings wars [...]

Now I love football. And I’m sure you love football. But turns out neither of us loves football quite as much as Ivica Osim. The Bosnian manager of the Japanese national team suffered a stroke while watching football at home on November 16th and had been in a coma. But he woke up last week [...]

I thought there was universal agreement this week that Kaka deserved his Ballon d’Or and that all was right in the world of football. But then along came Diego Maradona, who was and is never afraid to be different, claiming that “Rooney, Ronaldinho and Messi would have been the worthy winners.” His most interesting quote [...]

Netherlands boss Marco van Basten and his assistant John van’t Schip will be stepping down after Euro 2008. It’s been an interesting spell for the former AC Milan striker. He had no first team managerial experience when he took the Dutch job, but had spent a few years studying coaching and also some experience with [...]

For all the talk about tactics, injuries, blundering goakeepers, foreigners and plastic pitches, the one thing England players definitely need to work on is how they spend their free time. Roy Keane said as much when he labeled certain England players “big heads who are side-tracked by stuff away from football. We all know which [...]

He knew it, you knew it, even I knew it. But last night it was made official and Kaka was awarded the Ballon d’Or. The cat was out of the bag a while ago, when France Football magazine (who hand out the award) told Kaka to buy some nice shoes and make some room on [...]

Do you have a passion for football? Are you opinionated? Can you string a sentence together?
Then World Cup Blog wants you. We’re looking for writers to captain the many national team blogs here on WCB. There’s no money in it, but you’ll have a big audience of worldwide football fans and a bullet proof [...]

Saudi Arabia captain Yasser Al-Qahtani was named Asian Player of the Year yesterday, at a fancy dinner in Sydney. Oddly, the award can only be won by players who make the effort and show up on the night, but there were plenty other players in attendance so the Al-Hilal striker won his trophy fair and [...]

Seems the draw for 2010 World Cup qualifying groups wasn’t the only thing decided in Durban last weekend. The Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were busy ironing out the details of the Celtic Cup, similar to the old British Home Nations Championship but with England replaced by Ireland. The FA chiefs of [...]