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Battle of Santiago (Chile v Italy 1962). The 1962 FIFA World Cup Chile was marred by violence. The infamous first-round match between host Chile and Italy (2–0) is known as the Battle of Santiago. It is probably the most violent game in the history of the World Cup. The match saw repeated, deliberate attempts from players on both sides to...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Alexander Chapman Ferguson, Kt, CBE, popularly known as Sir Alex or Fergie, was born 31 December 1941 in Govan, Glasgow. From humble origins as an apprentice toolmaker, he went on to become the most successful manager in English football history. Having presided over a phenomenal and seemingly cascading period of success at Manchester United, Sir Alex announced his retirement at the end of...

Brazilian legend Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé, is perhaps the best known footballer in the world, and popularly considered the best player of all time. Yet on a cold Wednesday afternoon in November 2007, he swappped Brazil for Sheffield in the north of England, to pay homage to the place where the modern game was born. His visit...

“When Zlatan was a boy, he had a bike that meant the world to him. The bike got stolen, so Zlatan started stealing bikes himself...“Aside from a few other foreigners, Malmö FF’s youth side were mostly made up of middle- and upper-class Swedish kids – though of course for a kid from Rosengård the difference between the two was negligible....

Sheffield FC’s contribution to the modern game cannot be overstated. It is the first and oldest football club that sought to bring order from chaos. The original rules for the world’s most popular sport were written by 'The Club' at the height of the industrial revolution. The City of Sheffield’s backdrop was that of forges, smoke and molten steel. Established...

In Paris 2004, FIFA acknowledged the contributions to the world's most popular game of Real Madrid C.F. and Sheffield F.C. The two football clubs were bestowed with the prestigious Order of Merit 'Centenary Award'.  The ‘Tree of Merit’ celebrates the direct lineage between these two highly-contrasting, but inextricably linked clubs, within the ancestry of the game. Sheffield FC (Est. 1857), the first and oldest club...

Boban's cause and affect. A skilled playmaker renowned for his passing range and vision, Zvonimir Boban, born 8 October 1968 in Imotski, Croatia (formerly Yugosalvia), captained the Croatian national team to third place at the 1998 World Cup. Croatia never lost a match when he scored. A known patriot, Boban is much loved in Croatia. In May 1990, whilst captain...

Jose René Higuita Zapata is a former Colombian football goalkeeper nicknamed 'El Loco' – 'The Mad One'. Born 27 August 1966 in Barrio Castilla, Medellín, he pioneered the Scorpion kick and was notorious for his over-confident outfield play which included dribbling the ball out of defence and acting as sweeper. This same over-confidence led to some incredibly bad decisions in...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Pioneered by Dutch giants, Ajax, Total Football (totaal voetbal) is the influential tactical theory in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team. In this system, the only player fixed in a nominal position is the goalkeeper. No outfield player has a fixed nominal role. Anyone can successively play an attacker, a...

It began in 1872, on a cold field in Glasgow — the first international football match the world had ever seen. On that day, the England team took to the pitch wearing an emblem that would come to define generations: three lions within a shield, a reflection of England’s ancient coat of arms. The lions were navy blue, their eyes...

In conversation with David Winner in Issue One of The Blizzard, the great Dutchman describes arguably the greatest goal he ever scored: Holland v Argentina, World Cup quarter final, Marseille, 5 July 1998, in the 90th minute."I love good football, nice football but it has to mean something. It has to bring me somewhere. And that’s what happened with this...

Sheffield United Football Club were formed on 22 March 1889, when they became an offshoot of the Sheffield United Cricket Club. They were the first English sports club to use 'United' in its name and are among the very rare select clubs formed to inhabit a sporting venue that was already in existence and which could be utilised for the...

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, North London. The club's home is White Hart Lane and their Latin motto is Audere est Facere (lit: "To Dare Is to Do"). Commonly known as Spurs, they are one of the most successful and long-standing clubs in the top-tier of English football, having collected a host of silverware, including the UEFA Cup, the...

Raymond James 'Ray' Houghton (born 9 January 1962, Castlemilk, Glasgow, Scotland), is revered by Irish football fans for being the scorer of a hugely important goal in the national team's history. The Republic of Ireland's first match in the 1988 European Championship was against England on 12 June 1988 at the Neckarstadion in Stuttgart, West Germany. It was the Republic’s...

Marco van Basten was born in the Dutch city of Utrecht in 1964. Three times European Footballer of the Year (1988/89/92) and FIFA World Footballer of the Year (1992), he is widely regarded as one of the most talented footballers the world has ever seen. His natural grace and elegance as a player earned him the title ‘The Swan of...

There are relatively few players whose sheer brilliance have helped revolutionise the game of football, but former USSR No1 Lev Yashin is unquestionably one of them. He is widely considered to be the greatest and most innovative goalkeeper ever, and is the only one ever to win the European Footballer of the Year (1963). Yashin’s popularity grew rapidly thanks to...

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, Spain, and designated as a world-class city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network. It is an important cultural centre with a rich heritage, and has become a major tourist destination. The city is synonymous with the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí. His most renowned work is the immense, but still...

On August 10 1974, English league champions Leeds United met FA Cup winners Liverpool in the FA Charity Shield, the football season's 'curtain-raiser' at Wembley Stadium. It was the first time the FA Charity Shield had been held at Wembley. Ted Croker, the FA secretary, had the idea that from 1974 the league champions would play the FA Cup holders...