Search: ' Lex Gold'

While the Czech Pavel Nedved celebrates being named European Footballer of the Year, Ian Farrell  remembers the rapid decline of a previous winner, from slightly further east

Such is the general view of football in eastern Europe today, it takes some effort to imagine teams from there electrifying the sport and win­ning admirers across the world. But in the mid 1980s, Dynamo Kiev, together with the virtually interchangeable USSR side also coached by Valery Lobanovski, took football to another level with a conception of the game as a living machine. Total Football meets applied mathematics. This lent itself easily to Cold War stereotyping – collectivised football played by faceless automata – but the play was a world away from the drabness of the Eastern Bloc, thanks mainly to Oleg Blokhin, Alexander Zavarov and, foremost among them, Igor Belanov.

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Qatar is no longer an explanation for someone gobbing on the pitch: the Premiership has a rival as a home for retiring players, as Daniel Anderson-Ford reports

“Our football league features some of the world’s greatest players, many of them working with some of Europe’s finest coaches, and we hope to com­pete with the best at club and national level.”

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Friday 1 Manchester United are fined £1.6 million by the Office of Fair Trading for price-fixing replica shirts. One of the other ten businesses to be charged are… the FA who will have to pay £158,000 for selling overpriced England shirts on the internet in 2000-01. Tangled web-weaver John Fashanu says he has resigned as chairman of Barry Town, though there is some doubt whether he ever really held such a position. Jody Craddock leaves Sunderland for Wolves, who are also to sign Senegalese striker Henri Camara and Spurs’ Steffen Iversen.

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Tuesday 1 A Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, buys a controlling interest in Chelsea and is expected to  settle the club’s oustanding debts, which will cost him around £130m in total.  Ken Bates, who will stay on as chairman,  professes himself delighted with the deal: “The club will benefit from a new owner with deeper pockets to move Chelsea to the next level.” UEFA president Lennart Johansson repeats an earlier warning that England may be expelled from the European championship if fans misbehave at future away matches. Harry Kewell’s agent claims there are still six clubs in the running to sign him, one of whom he can’t name, just to make it all sound more exciting. Craig Bellamy is to face three charges of racially aggravated  harassment following an incident outside a Cardiff nightclub in March.

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Monday 2 Manchester City get a UEFA Cup place via that silly Fair Play League. Nicky Butt is helping police with their enquiries into an alleged scuffle in a Manchester nightclub. Alan Buckley is the new manager of Rochdale.

Tuesday 3 A Joe Cole free-kick gives England a 2-1 win over Serbia & Montenegro, during which they use 21 players and have four captains. Sven doesn’t see a problem: “Managers think friendlies should be like this and the public like it.” Northern Ireland lose 2-0 in Italy. Luton’s new owners allegedly offer to reinstate Joe Kinnear and Mick Harford, who were sacked last week.

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