Musa Okwonga – Page 2 – Football Scout

Liverpool vs. Man City is a Game of Thrones battle of fire and ice

HBO’s Game of Thrones is set to conclude in 2019 and fittingly, there is a similarly thrilling contest that will reach its climax at around the same time. The Premier League, whose budget dwarfs even that of the epic television series, has its very own Song of Ice and Fire, an intriguing duel between the cool blue of Manchester City and the crimson passion of Liverpool.

While George R.R. Martin pitched the White Walkers against the dragons of Daenerys Targaryen, this season sees Pep Guardiola’s…

Sorry, Pep: Possession isn’t everything. Just ask Atletico and Dortmund, football’s ‘medieval minimalists’

The final matchday of the UEFA Champions League group stage was a very good one for teams who saw little of the ball, as several sides who had 40 percent or less possession claimed some notable victories. The most striking of those wins came at …

Harry Kane’s rise to No. 1 in FC 100 a testament to his peerless versatility

It started with a twist. Swivelling on the edge of the area, Harry Kane drifted away from Nemanja Matic and rolled the ball beyond the reach of Thibaut Courtois. In one seamless sequence, he eluded both an elite defensive midfielder and the man who was then arguably the world’s leading goalkeeper, scoring Tottenham’s fourth goal in an eventual 5-3 victory over Chelsea.

But Kane had done much more than that. On that evening, New Year’s Day 2015, Kane had announced himself to the planet as one…

Neymar, Mohamed Salah lead football’s new power position: the wide forward

Steve Nicol raises concerns about Liverpool’s star-powered front three after substitute Divock Origi came on to score the winner against Everton.

There was a time when the most glamourous positions in world football were the central ones, both in defence and attack. If you were a defender growing up in the early 1990s, you were likeliest to admire Franco Baresi; if you were a young forward late in the same decade, the chances are that you idolised the original Ronaldo. Yet those times have changed. The central players, more often than not, are reliable and steady figures; there, the attackers are hardworking, chasing down opponents whenever…

Olivier Giroud follows fine tradition of forwards whose graft means more than goals

Olivier Giroud’s penalty proved to be the difference for France in a friendly that saw PSG star Kylian Mbappe depart early with a shoulder injury.

French World Cup winner Frank Leboeuf explains why France doesn’t really care about its national team’s group-stage exit in the UEFA Nations League.

Chelsea’s Maurizio Sarri believes Olivier Giroud is important and useful to the team even when he doesn’t score after he ended his goal draught in their 1-0 win over BATE.
In France’s final game of a triumphant 2018, perhaps it’s fitting that the spotlight finally fell upon Olivier Giroud. Handed the ball by Antoine Griezmann, the Chelsea striker scored a penalty to give his country a 1-0 win over Uruguay in a friendly.
At the World Cup this summer, Giroud took much more of a back seat. He had a largely sacrificial role in Russia, drawing the attention of the opposing centre-backs so that his fellow attackers could roam in the space he had created. He didn’t score…

How jaded fans can still appreciate Lionel Messi on the 15th anniversary of his Barca debut

The fact that Lionel Messi makes the extraordinary look ordinary at times shouldn’t diminish just how brilliant he is.

Sporting greatness is a form of anesthetic — it has a numbing effect. The first time you watch Simone Biles skip across the floor, Roger Federer execute a perfect drop shot or Lewis Hamilton take a corner in the driving rain, you’re utterly enchanted. By the hundredth time you see them do it, there’s a danger that you will become immune to their sheer wonder, the same way you might if you’d grown up with your bedroom looking out toward the Northern Lights.

For that reason, there’s a risk that…

Man City’s third goal vs. Man United was a two-minute demonstration of Pep Guardiola’s stunning football

Steve Nicol and Craig Burley examine Manchester City’s dominance of rivals Man United in a 3-1 derby win that showed the gulf between the two sides.

The move lasted exactly two minutes. When Manchester City scored for the final time that afternoon, lifting them to a 3-1 win over their rivals Manchester United, the move to get them there featuring a wondrous and uninterrupted sequence of possession. This was not a mere goal; this was a short film directed by Pep Guardiola.

Fittingly, given his stellar performance all afternoon, its main actor was David Silva.

Silva is now 32 years old, a stage of career by which most footballers have become…

Paul Pogba future far from sure at Manchester United but where could he go?

Stewart Robson takes a look at the tactics that Jose Mourinho could deploy against City in the Manchester derby.

ESPN FC’s Mark Ogden sits down with Man City’s David Silva to discuss how the Manchester derby has evolved and his favourite moments in the rivalry.
Paul Pogba’s performances in his past two games, which ended in late, late wins for Manchester United over Bournemouth and Juventus, are a microcosm of his time at the club. Over the course of those matches, he was pivotal yet peripheral, inspirational yet underwhelming.

When United looked to him against Bournemouth, he was often sublime, floating past the challenges of desperate opponents and conjuring an assist for Marcus Rashford’s winning goal. Yet against Juventus, whose supporters raucously…

Pep Guardiola, top clubs and The Art Of Renewal: “The Ghostface Approach”

ESPN FC’s Paul Mariner feels Raheem Sterling is more than deserving of a new contract at Man City for his continued success under Pep Guardiola.

ESPN FC’s Mark Donaldson and Paul Mariner once again square off in predicting every fixture in week 11 of the Premier League.
In 2000, Ghostface Killah was riding high as one of the best MCs on the planet. He was an integral member of the Wu-Tang Clan, a group who were once to hip-hop what Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan were to football: fearsomely intense, fearlessly innovative and utterly dominant. Four years earlier, he released Ironman, a debut LP that had established him as one of the pre-eminent storytellers of his age. His next record would surely be another album in that same vein, a winning blend of killer slang and…

De Gea is the perfect player for a Man United team in disarray, but he’s also the most unlucky

Second half goals from Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard would propel Man United past Everton back in January.

Mark Ogden reports from Old Trafford after Jose Mourinho’s news conference following his side’s 1-0 defeat against Juventus in the UEFA Champions League.

Another night, another majestic save made to look ordinary. When David De Gea soared to deny Cristiano Ronaldo — currently surrounded by the most serious of allegations — a fairytale return to Old Trafford, turning the former United forward’s rising drive over the crossbar, the most notable thing was how effortless it looked. There was nothing new about a dominant 1-0 win by Juventus over Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League — in that sense, it was all very 1990s — and similarly,…

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