Author: RevSportz Comment

When Luis de la Fuente took over from Luis Enrique after Spain’s round-of-16 exit at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, 2022, expectations were low. It had been a lost decade for Spanish football, with a horrendous World Cup title defence in Brazil (2014) heralding a sharp decline after the glory years between 2008 and 2012. They did reach the semi-final at Euro 2020, succumbing to Italy in a penalty shootout, but it escaped no one’s notice that four of their six matches were draws. Unlike his celebrated predecessor, de la Fuente never played for La Roja. And the two…

RevSportz Comment It’s not without reason that we recall Spain, especially the 2008-2012 vintage, as one of the great teams in football history. A hat-trick of major trophies – no other team has ever retained their Euro crown – ensures their place in the pantheon. But amid the nostalgia, let’s not forget that not one of those three title-winning teams was perfect. Italy held them to a goalless draw at Euro 2008, and Portugal did the same in the semi-final four years later. Their 2010 World Cup campaign began with a shock defeat to Switzerland. The current crop, superbly coached…

RevSportz Comment Perhaps it’s just as well that so much of the focus at Lord’s was on the climax of Jimmy Anderson’s magnificent Test career. That deflected attention from just how pitiful West Indies were, skittled for 121 and 136 and lasting just 88.4 overs across the two innings. Their highest score, 31 not out, came from Gudakesh Motie, a bowler, and the match didn’t even go as far as lunch on the third day. What was even worse was that there were no obvious villains, no scapegoats to point the finger at. This is the modern-day reality of West…

The Uruguay team coached by Marcelo Bielsa earned rave reviews during the group stage of the Copa America, scoring nine goals while seeing off Panama, Bolivia and the USA. The knockout stage, however, was a different story, with Uruguay unable to find the net against either Brazil or Colombia. A disappointing Brazil team were seen off on penalties, despite Uruguay going a man down in the 74th minute, but try as they might, they could find no way past 10-man Colombia in the second half of the semi-final in Charlotte. Afterwards, Bielsa minced no words, blaming himself for the team’s…

The Euro 2024 semi-finals showcased two intense football rivalries. And in the final analysis, the results could be seen as atonement and revenge for past injustices. Spain, who had suffered so much at French hands, reversed the result of the 1984 final that they lost, while England earned a measure of retribution for a hugely controversial defeat to the Netherlands in 1993, which saw them miss out on the 1994 World Cup. For long-time followers of English football, the irony of Ronald Koeman being on the Dutch bench as coach would have been especially delicious. Back in October 1993, Koeman…

Indian-origin journalists like Dicky Rutnagur and Mihir Bose were fixtures on the pages of British broadsheets for decades, right from the mid-1960s. But for the longest time, the narrative around cricket, especially that played in India or by Indians, was on the lines of colonial master-and-native stereotypes. At times, the condescension was blatant. Sometimes, it was well-veiled. But it was almost impossible to read through a copy on Indian cricket without stumbling across a stereotype or three. For whatever reason, journalists based in India did little to bust these myths. Perhaps they felt their words lacked the heft to take…

Four decades on, it remains the mistake that defines a rivalry. Spain may have had the better of their 36 contests dating back more than a century – it’s 16-13 in the head-to-head stakes – but it’s the French celebrations after winning Euro 1984 on home soil that are most remembered. ‘Arconada’s goal’ haunts a generation of Spaniards. The final at the Parc des Princes on June 27, 1984 was goalless after nearly an hour when France were given a free-kick in a dangerous position just outside the box. A few months earlier, Michel Platini had scored from similar range…

In The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway defined courage as ‘grace under pressure’. As far as Indian cricket is concerned, no one epitomised that better than Sourav Ganguly in the years following the turn of the millennium. And there was no better example than the first Test at the Gabba in Brisbane in Steve Waugh’s farewell series in 2003-04. India arrived in Australia eight months after a 125-run shellacking in the World Cup final in Johannesburg. By then, Australia weren’t just the best team in the world. They had redefined cricket dominance by stitching together a 16-match winning…

After the Spain-Germany classic at Euro 2024, there was hope that the Copa America clash between Brazil and Uruguay would be similarly memorable. It was, for all the wrong reasons. The quarter-final, at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas was an ugly spectacle, littered with fouls, acting that would have embarrassed preschoolers and a lack of goalmouth incident that was worrying when you considered the pedigree of the teams involved. Tournament football is a strange beast. England and France have reached the last four of the Euros, playing what Jorge Valdano, World Cup winner in 1986, once called…

In an increasingly data-driven world, you can sometimes be fooled by the numbers. At the end of a frenzied 110-plus minutes in Berlin – which has the largest number of people of Turkish origin outside the country – no one who watched an intense slugfest would have said Turkiye were second-best. Cold numbers told you they had only 40 per cent possession, but so dangerous were they with ball at feet that the predominant reaction from Dutch players and fans at the final whistle was relief. Historically, the Netherlands is always associated with Total Football, a beautiful creation based on…