Monday, November 25, 2024

The Latest Football News and Opinions From 90 Minutes Online

Ligue 1: The end of an era..

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The signs are that with four games left of the season, France's Ligue 1 will be crowning a different champion for the first time since the 2000/01 season. In that year FC Nantes won the French title for the eighth time, their history in the intervening years has seen them fail to replicate that success but instead suffer relegation in 2007 with promotion back to Ligue 1 last season.

Meanwhile the last seven Ligue 1 championships have gone to Olympique Lyonnais in what must be the most impressive winning streak in modern European football. Even more so when you consider that they had never won Ligue 1 before the first in that sequence in the 2001/02 season!

 

Great footballers make great managers?!

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There are different ways that professional footballers choose or end up becoming managers after the end of their playing careers. As with anything some paths are easier or more successful than others. What is certain is that Alan Shearer has started his managerial career in probably the deepest end that anyone ever has.

It has been suggested in recent years that there are too many former players becoming managers with too few Uefa coaching badges and qualifications, let alone experience. The fact is that whilst this may be true, not a great deal has changed in this aspect over the years and it's hardly a new phenomenon.

 

Rombling : Laughing at Newcastle & Middlesbrough

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A lot of people are excited about the prospect of Newcastle getting relegated. I’m one of them. I can’t wait. Seeing the legions of overweight, moronic ‘toon’ fans despairing, with looks of sheep like bewilderment as another icon that they were convinced would lead them into the promised land instead guides them down into Championship purgatory will be an image to savour. Brilliant.  

 

There’ll be far less talk about how they’re such a huge club, a veritable sleeping giant. It’ll be interesting to see how much their attendance figures suffer. We probably won’t be informed constantly about how they’re “the best fans in the world”. Newcastle have been run like a joke for so long and such a parody of a club deserves all the contempt that relegation will bring.

How to… win a free-kick/penalty

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Drogba dive (via Uncyclopedia)1. Run towards target. 

2. Knock ball past said target.

3. Divert trajectory towards target.

4. Kick target.

5. Scream.

6. Fall (don’t over do it - see right).

7. Grimace, writhe, clutch point of contact.

8. Await treatment: magic sponge/spray.

9. Get to your feet - gingerly.

10. Pretend you can’t run until necessary.   

 

Let us salute football’s greatest play actors.

 

McClaren nears redemption (of sorts!)

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This weekend was the penultimate round of fixtures for this season's Eredivisie, AZ Alkmaar have already clinched an historic second ever title, but elsewhere there are still matters to be settled. So where else better to start the round up than with the clash between Champions elect AZ and second placed FC Twente.

Steve McClaren has most impressively guided FC Twente to the upcoming KNVB Beker (Dutch cup) final. They will face Heerenveen in two weeks time and will start as favourites to win the trophy for the third time in their history. On top of that they reached the last sixteen of the Uefa Cup losing to Marseille on penalties, it was the first time FC Twente had survived European football into the New Year for thirty seasons!

 

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