Outside the Box – Football on TV: A boring birthday for the FA as the stars fail to shine

For most people, an evening out at the local pub will be a largely stress-free excursion filled with raucous banter, sorrowful introspection and a touch of casual xenophobia. Nights out in this great country have followed that tight format for hundreds of years, never wavering in the face of adver...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Harry has a new game as Redknapp makes his Match Of The Day bow

All in all, it’s fair to say that the summer of 2012 will be looked back on with a great deal of fondness by the vast majority. Sure the weather failed to resemble anything remotely “summery”, and we may of had to put up with the usual bunch of sycophantic ne’er-do-wells in the Big Brother h...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: An Olympic hangover means Dixon’s debut fails to inspire

It’s been a gruelling few weeks for fans of sport hasn’t it? Ever since Spain cemented their place as football’s frontrunners at Euro 2012, there has been a disorientating vacuum of sport on television and no amount of frantic bashing of the Sky remote has been able to render any nourishment for s...

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Team GB: Four positives but one big negative

Stuart Pearces scratch squad made it through to the group stages of the Olympic football tournament by beating Uruguay on Wednesday night. Its not quite the same as watching England or Wales, but the crowds have turned out in their droves and there are certainly some positives to be taken from the e...

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Olympics Betting: Tough Ask For GB Women

While the field for the Olympics is considerably weaker than fora Womens World Cup there are still some powerhouse squads for Great Britains womens squad to contend with. The qualifiers left less teams from strong areas such as Scandinavia for instance - and amazingly Germany are absent. But the US...

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Olympics Betting: Brazil and Spain head the market

Two big names are expected to be the dominant forces in the Mens Olympic Football tournament, with the bookmakers favouring Brazil or Spain to come out on top. Despite Spains scintillating run in recent tournaments, on this occasion its the Brazilians who head the betting. Its no surprise though, b...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Team GB and the BBC could do with heroes like Neymar and the incredible Hulk

I don’t know about you, but even though the Olympics are yet to actually begin, I’m pretty sick of them already. I’m fed up of seeing clowns from the Government on Sky News demanding that the underclass should stop complaining that they can’t afford a pint of milk and just swoon in admiration at t...

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Manchester United: Would Lucas Moura be a good signing?

The 19-year-old Brazilian would certainly be a welcome addition to the Manchester United midfield in my eyes. He’s one of several emerging young stars from Brazil, along with Neymar, Ganso and new Chelsea signing Oscar. Already capped 15 times by his country and going to the London Olympics, Lucas...

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Why Giggs and co will make football at the Olympics worth watching

Too quick, wasn’t it? Like the best of things, the European Championships flew by so very fleetingly. They say International football is more tin canned beer than fine wine; while the latter glistens with age, the former has wilted into a kind of thin, tasteless piss water that even your local drun...

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Four reasons why Stuart Pearce left David Beckham out of the Team GB squad

It has been reliably reported by the BBC, following on from sources at The Times, that David Beckham will not figure in the Great Britain Olympic squad. At one point the superstar looked a shoe-in for a swansong tournament but Stuart Pearce has always been his own man. Here are four reasons why he...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Lawro plays the Twit as BBC confidence turns to England despair

It’s easy afterwards, in the hazy mist of reflection that hangs mournfully across the country each time the England team are wrenched from a major tournament, to neatly nestle back into the default self-loathing English mind-set and pretend we were always doomed to fail, fated to forever chase the...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: A bad week for some as United falter and the Olympics fail to inspire

It ended with Liam Gallagher bopping along to his own record at the Etihad last night in the her-uge title showdown between the Manchester giants on Live Ford Monday Night Football. Basking in his own genius is probably a nightly ritual for Gallagher junior but what certainly hasn’t been a regular o...

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David Beckham At London 2012 Moves A Step Closer

The Football Association have cleared up some of the conjecture about the make-up of the Great Britain squad for the 2012 Olympics. Its now now firmly stated that no players will be doubling up on Euro 2012 and London. The really interesting element in the announcement is that anyone selected for t...

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Beckham Strikes Silverware And Puts The Heat On Stuart Pearce

Who writes your scripts? is the famous comment by Graham Gooch about Ian Bothams legendary ability to take centre stage throughout his career. Something similar applies to David Beckham and he gave another example on Sunday by helping LA Galaxy win the MLS play-off final. This is probably the Engla...

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Olympics: Four Big Problems Facing Stuart Pearce's Team GB

So as expected, Stuart Pearce got the job of leading the Great Britain squad at next years jamboree. Hes been the favourite for so long that its a fair bet he knows nearly all the names hed like to have on board at the Olympics. The question is - will he have them all available? Its hard enough cho...

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Which 16 English stadiums could host World Cup 2018 and will Merseyside miss out?

It does seem a bit presumptuous to invite cities (and Milton Keynes) to bid for the right to be part of the attempt by the FA to get England chosen as the 2018 World Cup host nation. But given the success of the London Olympic bid there is some optimism that England could get this twice in a lifeti...

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Why avoid the easy answer to Team GB at the 2012 Olympics?

There are reports that FIFA is to allow a British team to compete at the Olympics without affecting the beaurocratic meetings that the home nations consider so important to belong to. This of course being the real reason that the Scottish FA so vociferously object to an Olympic team. Part of the a...

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914: Football has no place in the O

by : Paul Grech So what went wrong with England? Maybe people might just realise that we are not very good. Actually, that’s a little unfair, we showed the traditional England defensive qualities. Ashley Cole came of age for me marking Ronaldo to great effect against Portugal. And though it pa...

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