Reuters Soccer Blog
World Soccer views and news
Does the captaincy really matter in football?
Here’s a question for you: Who is Manchester United’s official club captain?
The hullabaloo surrounding the England cricket skipper has shown how different the role is in the two sports.
I think Gary Neville is actually the club captain at United, but to be honest I’m not sure. He has been injured for most of the last two years so Ryan Giggs took over.
The Welshman is in and out of the team, though, so Rio Ferdinand has donned the armband the most recently. (The pair lifted the Champions League trophy in May, see right, with poor Gary left on the sidelines).
Where has the art of Italian defending gone?
During the 1980s and 90s, Italian defences were world-renowned as the toughest of the lot.
The word catenaccio became known in other languages and jokes about boring Italian teams winning 1-0 were all the rage.
Who’s the best one-club player?
One-club players are rare and precious.
The likes of Paolo Maldini, Raul, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes might be handsomely paid by their clubs, but the fact they have spurned chances to get even richer elsewhere suggests they share at least some of the fans’ devotion to the colours they wear.
Inter Milan’s Patrick Vieira recognised this recently when talking about his former Juventus team mate Alessandro Del Piero.
