Author Archives: Jimmy Burns

There are many months ahead filled with potential pitfalls-not least injuries and general exhaustion brought on by an increasingly manic schedule-but the opening La Liga games have provided some tantalising clues as to what awaits us. Building on their performances in the Super Cup, both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have got off to an impressive start that suggest not only that La Liga will be a battle royal between them, but that they will also prove difficult to beat in the Champions League. But first let us not forget …

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If the media empire of Rupert Murdoch has its hackgate, Spanish football has its Barcagate– or does it? One of the longest serving football club presidents in the history of the game, Jose Luis Núñez, has just been condemned to a prison sentence of six years by a Spanish court after being found guilty on charges of bribery and falsification of documents. Also found guilty, and condemned to a prison sentence of eleven year years was Josep Maria Huguet, the inspector of taxes in Catalonia between 1985 and 1994 who …

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That there are Argentines beginning to demand that Maradona is brought back as national coach while at the same blaming Messi for the failures of the nation’s team says something about a country, and a lot about a club. Maradona was once probably the best player in the history of football but it’s also true that his personal and professional decline as a player began after the World Cup in Mexico 1986, and that in South Africa 2010 this overweight drug addict was entertaining as a coach but a disaster …

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Que algunos Argentinos empiecen a clamar por el retorno de Maradona mientras que le echen a Messi las culpas de los fallos de su selección nos dice algo sobre un país, y mucho sobre un club. Maradona en su momento fue tal vez el mejor jugador de la historia del futbol pero también es cierto que su declive personal y profesional como jugador fue en aumento a partir del Mundial de México 1986, y que en Sudáfrica 2010 este ex drogadicto gordinflón fue entretenido como entrenador pero un desastre en …

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  Of all the chants resounding round the Barca section of Wembley last night, few proved as popular as ‘ Porque,Porque, Porque’. Why does Barca win was the question’s football’s agent provocateur Jose Mourinho asked, insinuating-as only he would-that the answer may lie in diving and deranged referees. Well  Mourinho eat your hat. The answer, as Alex Ferguson recognised, was blowing in the sweet air of a team’s collective genius which made an opponent of the quality of Manchester United struggle to keep in the game for much of the …

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