The names of the three players who have made the final short-list for Fifa’s much-coveted Ballon d’Or world player of the year award will have come as a surprise to very few devotees of the beautiful game...
Timing is paramount to many things, be it as a comedian on stage or a footballer sliding in for a tackle. In the last few weeks Chelsea FC's timing has been decisive, but for now that seems to be as good as it gets for a club that can't escape controversy.
By now, most of us will surely be accustomed to the doom and gloom headlines regarding the recession. Of course, football (north of the border in any case) hasn’t exactly been immune to the ravages of these challenging economic times. Indeed, fans of the beautiful game could perhaps be forgiven for assuming that the back pages of late have more closely resembled the Financial Times reports than sports news.
We all know the feeling, we turn up to watch our team, full of expectation. We look with excitement at the starting line-up, only to find that one key player, who we just knew would be the one to make the difference here, has been named amongst the substitutes. Maybe you just had a feeling about him today, maybe you had a fiver on him to score first.
A lot of attention has come the way of Luis Suárez since his move to the Premier League in January 2011, some good, some bad. Regardless of what your feelings are for the Liverpool Striker one thing is clear, he makes headlines and sells papers.