Search: ' Euro 68'

The Spanish aren't happy, but UEFA could soon have another member if the British territory can see off some last-minute objections. Tim Stannard reports from the sunny Mediterranean

The British territory of Gibraltar is famous for a number of things – purse-snatching monkeys, tax-dodging businessmen and a giant rock, for starters – but certainly not football. All that is about to change, as UEFA are on the brink of making the pint-sized peninsula their 53rd member, enabling a team to join the 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign.

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Alex Ferguson has achieved so much in his two decades at Old Trafford – but what happened to the club he left behind? Keith Davidson charts how Aberdeen were undone by Old Firm cash

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Alex Ferguson’s move to Manchester United, so it’s a safe bet that newspapers and television will be full of glowing features, plus the odd dour analysis of whether he has outstayed his welcome. Few will dwell on the club that Fergie left behind, or what has happened to it over the last couple of decades, but the subsequent fate of Aberdeen does chime in with wider changes in Scottish football.

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The lovable chaps at the G-14 have a new, familiar face in charge. Steve Menary wonders whether David Dein will preside over a winning team or is resigned to fighting a rearguard action.

Anyone confident of winning a court case would not start publicly discussing a settlement a year before they were due in court. Yet that is what David Dein began doing on taking over as president of the G-14 group of clubs in late October. G-14 are backing Charleroi’s case against FIFA for €615,000 (£413,000) compensation for an injury Abdelmajid Oulmers suffered while playing for Morocco in 2004. He took eight months to return to action for the Belgian club. G-14 also threw their weight behind an action by one of their own members, Lyon, for €1 million in compensation from FIFA over an injury to France defender Eric Abidal in a friendly last year.

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When countries had only one European Cup entrant, the UEFA Cup commanded attention. All that seemed to change. But, asks Luke Chapman, is the junior competition now the less predictable one?

Two years ago, after a defensive display in Turin earned Liverpool a place in the semi-finals of the Champions League, a radio reporter light-heartedly asked a Reds fan what was more important: winning the European Cup or ensuring qualification for the competition next year. “Hmm,” pondered the supporter, apparently in all seriousness, “that’s a tough one."

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Zagreb was a debacle for Steve McClaren on and off the pitch, with echoes of the worst of his predecessors and, as Jonathan Wilson reports, a faux pas that wound up the locals

It wasn’t just the on-field tactics that Steve McClaren got badly wrong in Zagreb. For a man supposedly so media savvy, his decision to conduct his post-match press conference solely in English (with a “summary” in Croatian at the end; little use for any non-English-speaking member of the Croatian media who might have wished to ask a question) was a howler that eclipsed Paul Robinson’s airshot.

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