“Three people have silenced the Maracanã,” Uruguay’s right-winger Alcides Ghiggia boasts to a BBC interviewer, “Frank Sinatra, the Pope and me.” It is 16 July 1950 in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil are up against their South American neighbours in the final match of the fourth Fifa Mundial. The Maracanã is …
Read More »12 W/C recalls: 1974 when Total Football almost ruled the roost; sum of the parts
“Penalty! Holland have a penalty! And we are still in the opening minute of this long-awaited World Cup final!” In many ways, the amazing 10th Fifa World Cup in 1974 bore an uncanny resemblance to its 1954 counterpart. In Germany like in Switzerland, Fifa played the second round as a …
Read More »Early Bird: Ranking the best: Champions League or World Cup? Maradona, Messi or Pelé?
“World Cup isn’t relevant anymore,” a 30-year-old sports editor colleague told me a few years ago. “[Uefa] Champions League is the most important event in football; it’s what everybody wants to see—where all the top players are.” That’s Bobby, pronouncing, now that the Qatar 2022 groups have been more or …
Read More »Early Bird: Football’s human face; the lowdown on Garrincha and Pelé from a picoplat
In my life, there are two men—your mind’s in the gutter, wretch!—whose knowledge of football is encyclopaedic. One is Wired868 Editor Lasana Liburd. From him, I got an unsolicited lecturette on Marcelo Bielsa’s family history. In five minutes, I learned more about the just fired Leeds coach than I know …
Read More »Monitoring Me 2: Sport as nirvana; Football’s Lord, Cricket’s Prince and the Calypso King of the World
Happiness, for this West Indian cricket lover, is an 80″television set. Or larger. With Lara, Brian Charles Lara—no longer “live” but in living colour—in full flow. Nirvana? In the terms of Edward Fitzgerald’s “Omar Khayyam:” A stack of Tapia/Review, complete somehow; More, Sparrow, More; Beyond a Boundary and thou before …
Read More »No Spider-Man on the Web? How Carter came to share Cosmos dressing room with Pelé
The year is 1999, one year after former Strike Squad baby Dwight Yorke makes a £12.6 million move from Aston Villa to Manchester United. The “Red Devils” complete a memorable treble. The year is now 1989, ten years before Yorke’s Manchester odyssey. The Trinidad and Tobago Senior team is preparing …
Read More »If Pelé could play, who is Pappy? Best ‘oohs’ about Shiva Boys wonder goal in South final
In last week’s South Zone Intercol final, an SSFL midfield general scored a last-gasp “jaw-dropping” goal so audacious that for me it invited a comparison with the peerless Pelé. And this from a commentator who, in his most recent Wired868 offering, lamented the absence of genuine quality in the SSFL …
Read More »W/Cup Memories: Pelé’s amazing miss, the 1982 Italians and “El Ponytale”
What does the FIFA World Cup mean to you? Wired868 asked some of our more illustrious football readers to share their memories of the greatest single sporting event on the planet. And we would like you to do the same. There are three basic questions and, each week, we will take …
Read More »World Cup memory lane with Fazeer, Kelvin and Nakhid
What does the FIFA World Cup mean to you? Wired868 asked some of our more illustrious football readers to share their memories of the greatest single sporting event on the planet. And we would like you to do the same. There are three basic questions and, each week, we will take …
Read More »World Cup memory lane with Skeene, Nakhid and Sherwood
What does the FIFA World Cup mean to you? Wired868 asked some of our more illustrious football readers to share their memories of the greatest single sporting event on the planet. And we would like you to do the same. There are three basic questions and, each week, we will take …
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