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Should international friendlies be cast on to the football scrapheap?

The new England shirts, launched at the end of March, have “anatomically eng­ineered moisture management pan­elling”, which is another way of saying lots of small holes, ideal no doubt for play­ing in hot weather. Whether England will need to use them in a certain international tournament next summer is, of course, far from certain. However, a qual­i­fication failure by England wouldn’t dis­please the clubs employing three of the four players, Michael Owen, David Beck­ham and Rio Ferdinand, who mod­elled the new strip.

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The intense rivalry between Rangers and Celtic is about more than just football. But Ken Gall feels not enough is being done to turn focus back to the pitch

In December, as part of a wider package of mea­sures aimed at ending sectarian behaviour in Scotland, First Minister Jack McConnell an­nounced a campaign to end bigotry at Old Firm games. This might prompt the cynical to speculate as to what his next project might be – the prevention of night following day, perhaps.

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The last remaining dead cat has now been removed from the stadium of Argentina's perennial under-achievers. Ben Backwell explains what it was doing there in the first place

Away games at Racing’s Academia stadium, in the working-class Buenos Aires suburb of Avellaneda, are never easy. For a start, Racing fans have maintained a reputation of being Argentina’s most fanatical and vocal supporters, despite the team’s mainly abysmal performances since the late 1960s. While Boca Juniors can certainly claim the affection of more fans throughout Argentina, Racing’s fans – who refer to them­selves modestly as “the No 1” – pride themselves on their loyalty. Average crowds have rarely slipped to the dismal levels of some other Argentinian clubs, despite spells in the second division, bankruptcy and suspension from the football association, and a stretch of 35 years (1966- 2001) without a major domestic title.

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David Murphy looks at the problems facing Africa's most successful World Cup performer as it tries to build on the achievement of the national team

Beating their former colonial masters, France, on the way to the quarter-finals at their first World Cup produced a wave of public euphoria in Senegal that has still not fully died down. Football has a major ally in the country’s president Abdoulaye Wade, who was el­ected in March 2000, bringing an end to 40 years of Soc­ialist party rule. A wily 76-year-old with a populist touch, Wade associates himself with the success of the team on every possible occasion, having made a big show of funding their trip to the World Cup and guar­anteeing win bonuses.

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Football Focus presenter Ray Stubbs explains to Andy Lyons how the BBC's flagship has coped with the loss of highlights rights, and how it dealt with the ITV Digital story

Some might say Football Focus has be­come more fan-oriented over time, but the prog­ramme is always evolving and you don’t particularly notice which way it’s going unless you sit back and look at the tapes of it season by season. Sometimes the BBC might set the agenda, ITV comes up with a response, then Sky, then that in turn might trigger a response from us. We all take the lead at different times. I’m not someone who will just say “the BBC leads the way”, but at the same time I am proud of what we do. I think our public ser­vice broadcast remit does enable us to go a little bit deeper in our coverage than some other broadcasters might feel they are able to.

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