Who will win the 2014 World Cup?

It may be feeling bitterly cold out there, but football fans around the world are already feeling warm inside ahead of next years World Cup in Brazil. The draw for the greatest competition in the world takes place in radiant Rio today about 5pm (GMT) and everyone is waiting to see who and where the...

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Best and worst case scenarios for England in today's World Cup draw

The first thing to think about with next summer’s World Cup is the geography of Brazil, this not a country, it’s like a continent. The distances that have to be travelled are not like London to Dublin to Glasgow; it’s going to be more like London to Warsaw to Rome. The second thing to remember is t...

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World Cup draw: Please can England get a crap group this time?

Im not a bitter Scot or anything, I would really love to see England win the World Cup - but as it is frankly not going to happen can we at least go into a group that we have no expectation of getting out of. Its not that I dont want Roy Hodgson to succeed; I think that he seems an honest and honou...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: No room for confusion as Edgar Davids reminds us all who he is

You know, as we loiter in this age of decadent, endemic wholesale filth; a world preoccupied with the selfish needs of the few; a world in which sex, violence and sleaze are championed more than love, peace and honesty; a world teetering on the edge, tipping ever closer to a mass orgy of self-serv...

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Is this the worst football kit ever?

Players and fans are supposed to wear their shirts with pride, but sometimes the tops are so hideous they make you utterly ashamed. Arsenal fans have complained about their Dennis the Menace away kit, Manchester United supporters have hit out over their new tartan home kit and some Liverpool fans a...

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Fantasy Football 2012/13 is here

Do you think you can do a better job than the professor Arsene Wenger? Could you out-muscle Mancini at defending title winners Manchester City? Then this is your chance to prove it! Squarefootballs Fantasy Football is back for another season and we want as many participants as possible. Last season...

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Euro 2012 - Team Of The Tournament

With just the final to go its time to decide which players made the most impact in Poland and Ukraine. In recent years FIFAand UEFA have picked a squad of the top performers at tournaments but wheres the fun in that? Very few fans come up with the same eleven and thats when it gets interesting, so h...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Lawro plays the Twit as BBC confidence turns to England despair

It’s easy afterwards, in the hazy mist of reflection that hangs mournfully across the country each time the England team are wrenched from a major tournament, to neatly nestle back into the default self-loathing English mind-set and pretend we were always doomed to fail, fated to forever chase the...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: England make it hard to watch, while Sky’s legend makes the game look easy

Another week, another panic-inducing evening spent watching the England team then. This whole edge-of-our-seat, fine line between death and glory shtick that England have peddled out for years is now growing quite tiresome. Just for once, couldn’t we be like Germany and be ruthlessly efficient and...

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Euro 2012: Netherlands And the Trouble With 4-2-3-1

So Holland have now lost two games and the Oranje are lucky to still have even a slim chance of reaching the last eight. If they are going to beat Portugal they need to free themselves from the straitjacket that is the 4-2-3-1 system. One of the great ironies of modern football is that while Spain ...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Euro Vision begins as ITV and the BBC vie for Championship glory

Ok, so it might not feel too much like summer right now. It’s about 10°C outside, caravan parks are under water and the only suntans in sight are painted on the vacuous plebs of Geordie Shore. But I promise you, we are there and that of course means only one thing: the European Championships have ...

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Euro 2012 Fantasy Football invitation

Calling all fantasy football fans. Have we got a treat for you. If you think you are a better manager than Englands Roy Hodgson or that you could leave Germanys Joachim Low feeling really down in the dumps then why dont you prove it? Weve set up our own Euro 2012 mini-league with the Sun and youve...

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Euro 2012: Can England win Euro 2012?

Despite having won nothing since 1966 England always start major tournaments as one of the favourites. Their passionate fans are full of optimism, having been brainwashed by the Press that their players are world beaters, only for their hopes to be ripped apart as their flaws are exposed by tactical...

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Euro 2012: Gomez, RVP or Ronaldo: Who will win the Golden Boot?

Arsenals Robin Van Persie scored 37 goals in all competitions last season. Bayern Munichs Mario Gomez bagged 41 while Cristiano Ronaldo found the bag of the net an astonishing 60 times, but who will lift the coveted Golden Boot at Euro 2012? Germany are one of the favourites to win the competition ...

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The top 10 dives in football history

Manchester United’s Ashley Young and Chelsea’s Didier Drogba have caused controversy over the past fortnight by diving to win penalties and going down quicker than your average High Street hooker. Ashley Young started it all off by winning a cheap penalty against QPR’s Shaun Derry, when the tough m...

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Beckham, Best, Henry or Cantona: Who were the coolest footballers to ever live?

We would all like to be footballers, right? The money, the women, the cars. Oh, and the playing of football. That’s pretty good. But some are cooler than others. Too cool, even. So cool they make everyone else look like silly, awkward, emasculated chumps. So who were the 10 coolest footballers to e...

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Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Birmingham: What game would you like to erase from your club's history?

I think it is safe to come out from behind the sofa now. The trick and treaters have gone into 12 months of hibernation, giving the nation’s doorbells time to recover. The BBC can put the series of Halloween movies back into cold storage. Just how many were there? As football fans we too have exper...

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Stoke City And Greece: Why Should 'Pretty' Success Matter?

The European Championships 2004. Ah, what a tournament. The Greeks told every single one of us that fairy tales can come true. They defeated France and Portugal along the route to triumph and won a major international tournament for the very first time as rank outsiders. Unfortunately, what came...

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Can any player, including Messi, be considered 'the greatest'?

Ah, the Champions League. Bringer of drama, stopper of dreamers, platform for Ray Wilkins to say ‘my word’ 50 hundred thousand times. And there are other things that are nearly always discussed, certainly when seeing the two dominant Spanish sides play. The great debate has moved from trying to ...

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Top 10 bizarre injuries to footballers

Swansea City’s vice-captain Alan Tate is set to miss most of the Swans’ debut season in Premier League after breaking his leg in a freak golfing accident. The versatile defender was a passenger in a golf buggy that lost control and Tate will have to watch the majority of the club’s rollercoaster adv...

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Who's Going To Be At Euro 2012?

The qualifying groups for Euro 2012 are reaching the business end and its becoming a little clearer which players will be in Poland and Ukraine and which ones will be spending extra time on the beach. Places Booked As usual Germany have headed the way in qualification. Aside from a sticky period a...

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Will the new season throw up any shocks across Europe's top leagues?

Here we go again ... Its that time of year again. Your club has had some embarrassing/great results in pre-season friendlies and the anticipation builds up as the new season approaches, but what can we expect from the big leagues around Europe? Some countries, of course, have already kicked off, su...

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Squarefootball's Fantasy football invitation

There is less than two weeks to go until the start of the 2011/12 Premier League season and time is running out for you to enter the Squarefootball fantasy football competition. Last season more than 100 teams competed for the Squarefootball title, which was won by P Oxenby and his team FC Poxo. He...

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What five things would you do before the season starts?

Isn’t it normally New Years Eve when you get a top 100 favourite moments of the year or top 500 best movie credits or some other poor excuse for a programme? Well I thought I would also use it as a poor excuse for an article, but rather than boring you all with a list consisting of 100 or more items...

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Football in 3D - A new risk to average attendances?

The world has evolved and developed a lot since the 1950s with the invention, evolution and development of everything from bladeless fans to electric cars and high definition broadcasts and beyond, but what have the boffins responsible for 3D been doing for 60 years since its inception? 3D today i...

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Would you like to write for Squarefootball?

Do you live, breathe and sleep football? Do you have a passion for writing and want your views to be read by a potential audience of millions? Then we at Squarefootball Towers would love to hear from you. Whether you follow Aberdeen or Accrington Stanley, West Ham United or Wolfsburg, we can offer ...

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Holland v Spain- A Meeting Of Football Cousins

Holland v Germany would have been a World Cup Final between nations with a bundle of negative history but Carles Puyol has engineered an encounter between sides with a shared footballing culture. Ever since Johann Cruyff moved to Barcelona in 1973, Dutch and Spanish soccer have been interwoven. Cru...

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Holland v Uruguay- A Tough Choice For Football Romantics

If there were two teams (apart from England) I didnt want to come up against each other in a World Cup semi-final it would be the Dutch and the Uruguayans- the two smallest nations to contest a World Cup Final going head-to -head. The first time I ever even heard of a country called Uruguay it was ...

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Unofficial World Cup 2010 Songs #10 - Holland - Gerrit & de Kokosnoten - Holland gaat aan Kop

Maybe its because its in Dutch, but a nonsense football song is much more fun if you can't really understand it! This is a chirpy little number, with the words on screen to sing along to (and surprisingly easy to translate!) and bounces along for a couple of minutes and then stops. None of the non...

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Credit Steve McClaren For Fighting Back

Easters traditionally a time for good news and hope so Steve McClarens story at Twente Enschede fits the bill. The ridiculed England coach is on the brink of significant achievement. McClaren never was the man to lead the national side, that much is clear. Whether he deserved the vicious wally with...

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Saturday Yankee - Home internationals

The five British and Irish international teams are all in action today; with England playing Slovakia in a friendly but Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Wales and Scotland all in competitive action trying to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. Lets see Group 4 - Wales vs Finland (3pm) With Germ...

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Whatever Happened To? - Jordi Cruyff

Pele sons decided to be a goalkeeper and Sir Stanley Matthewseldest took up tennis. Maybe they had the right idea. Stefan Beckenbauer did play for Bayern Munich briefly but moved on to other clubs. Jordi Cruyff really had it tough. His father was a legend with two clubs- Ajax and Barcelona- and Jor...

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Euro 2008 Preview; Holland v Romania

Romania could hit the headlines this Tuesday evening (June 17) as victory over Holland in Berne will propel them to the quarter-finals of Euro 2008, ending the hopes of both France and Italy in the process. Beating Holland may seem unlikely on the evidence of the first two games played by each side...

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Van Basten Keeps High Maintenance Dutch Machine On The Road

Turkey have their claims but Holland are clearly the team providing the most excitement at Euro 2008. That it was unexpected - especially by the Dutch- is an indication of the fragile balance that has to be maintained in any Dutch squad. Football in the Netherlands has been providing a conveyor bel...

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Euro 2008 Diary; Flagging French Foiled; Dutch Devour Donadoni's Dummies

Squarefootball Euro 2008 Diary - Monday June 9 2008 The much vaunted Group of Death gets under way, and there are plenty of horrors on show for Italy and France. First up it’s the French, who toil through 90 goalless minutes of tedium with Romania in Zurich. The underdogs lack ambition throughout,...

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Euro 2008 Preview; Italy v Holland

Sparks are set to fly in the biggest clash of Euro 2008 so far as world champions Italy face off with Holland Berne on Monday night (June 9). The general consensus is that it has been a slow start to the tournament in Austria and Switzerland, so the introduction of two of it’s bigger names could pr...

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What We Really Think About Euro 2008

We've written our previews, told you all about the teams and tried to put as much information out there as possible. But what are the real views of the Squarefootball team? Read on to find out. Paul Grech WinnersThe injury to Fabio Cannavaro will hurt them but I still think that Italy will win it....

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Euro 2008 Team Profiles; Holland

Holland travel to Austria and Switzerland for Euro 2008 with significantly lower expectations than those ordinarily foisted upon them. The draw, injury doubts and the presence of what is effectively a lame duck coach are all factors contributing to the dampening of the Dutch mood. Not only have Mar...

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Euro 2008 Group B Preview

A combination involving Germany, Poland, Austria and Croatia would provide a career's worth of material for a Central European historian but happily World Cup 2006 proved that rivalries can be healthy on the football pitch without resort to jingoistic references. On purely football terms this is a ...

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Euro 2008; Group C Overview

Lazy hacks everywhere (including this one) are calling Group C the Group Of Death. And well they might. With World Champions Italy, beaten World Cup finalists France and regular will-they-won’t-they contenders Holland pitched in together there’ll be little room for easing into the tournament gently....

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3895: Road To Euro 2008; Holland v

by : Stephen Orford Though it was a game they will be disappointed not to have won, England can take great comfort from their 1-1 draw with Holland in Amsterdam on Wednesday (November 15). Rafael van der Vaart’s goal four minutes from time was down to a good deal of defensive uncertainty and littl...

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3347: World Cup 2006; Will Ruud Ret

by : Stephen Orford Given the noises coming out of the Holland camp before the start of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, it is perhaps no surprise to note that the Dutch will not be around at the last eight stage. Coach Marco van Basten selected a relatively inexperienced 23-man squad ahead of the f...

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3215: World Cup Preview - Group C;

by : Stephen Orford Once again Holland enter a World Cup tournament with a squad packed full of potential superstars, yet once again nobody knows quite what to expect from them. It was ever thus for Holland, whose history is littered with examples of glorious failure, offset by rabid underachievem...

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3200: Holland; World Cup History

by : Stephen Orford Currently regarded as one of the more powerful football nations, it is perhaps surprising to note that Holland will be participating in only their eighth World Cup finals tournament in Germany this summer. A country which has produced world class superstars such as Johan Cruyff...

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