Topic

sport & selling

A collection of 408 issues

Fire The Disruptives

Whilst having little interest in the travails of The World's Biggest Football Club™, the recent arrival of new part-owners could be quite the ride. The investor's man-on-the-ground being none other than Mr Marginal Gains, cycling supremo and serial minter of Olympic Gold, Sir Dave Brailsford. One

Checkpoint Knockout

"This is a checkpoint and if I don't get past this, there is no future" Whilst not an avid fan of the circus that is heavyweight boxing, the occasional personality, rivalry and bout gains considerable cut-through. For a while, Anthony Joshua earned this media spotlight. His

Three Term Rule

To limit time in any one role to three years has long been the mantra of the greasy pole careerist. There's many a reason for this slant. For one, I'm reminded of the classic advice of revolutionary Hungarian football coach, Bela Guttman; "the third year

Bazsell

Every now and then a cricketing term escapes it boundaries and enters the general psyche. Even those with little knowledge of the great game will likely have heard the euphonious leather-on-willow parlance of 'a sticky wicket', 'googly' or 'out for a duck' in everyday

All Cost No Benefit

Dan Andrews, State Premier for Victoria, Australia. Worth noting upfront that this is the politician that locked down his citizens for longer than anyone else nationwide. Which is saying something for a country that was almost as 'zero covid' as its crazed neighbour. Here's the news

Steal Scores

The absorbing Ladies draw at this year's Wimbledon grass court tennis grand slam tossed up an interesting stat for me, apparently relatively new to the game. Steal Scores are where you win a point after having been on the defensive earlier in it. As opposed to points won

Elite Football Strength & Conditioning

The football season, the most ridiculously scheduled yet thanks to buffoons and the allegedly corrupt at FIFA, on top of previously the most crazily ran couple due to you-know-what, is now done. Pepball ascendant at home. Next Summer's continental nation knockouts loom excitedly over the horizon. Apart from

Verkoopfilosofie

I touched recently on the differing core approaches to elite level football presently battling for supremacy. There's been a number of progressions in how the game ought be played, since first codified in mid-19th Century England. Tactically in more recent times, the 'Total Football' of 70s

Avoiding The Asterisk Deal

There's a lot of t*lk about the football team of the age - perhaps any age - sullied by the alleged underhand financing of oppressive petro-state gazillions. Pep Guardiola's pitchside stewardship of Manchester City remains stellar. His genius unblemished by association. Yet here's

Your Guardiolismo

The above graphic comes from the London broadsheet The Telegraph. It charts the first-half of what the Spanish press later described as an "earthquake" suffered by Real Madrid at the hands of Manchester City in the UCL SF, 2nd Leg "thrashing". Stats from the opening 45-minutes