Football Essentials

Pepe LeFrits

I thought we could have a thread to pool together all the best football related links on the web.

James Richardson's European Newspaper Review - For anyone like myself who grew up watching Channel 4's Football Italia, this is a must. Intelligent, light-hearted weekly video commentary on European football. If only there were more football journalists like him out there.
Zonal Marking.net - Personally I find most in depth football analysis to be overwhelmingly tedious, but this site does occasionally provide some food for thought. Though it also has led to a special new brand of internet weenie that endlessly regurgitates their stuff as gospel in an attempt to appear knowledgeable.
Tim Vickery's Blog - Generally an interesting read on South American football. He gives a nice historical background to a lot of what he writes and his prose aren't too purple.

Burnwinter

101 Great Goals - goal videos on tap
Physioroom - injury lists
Swiss Ramble - best football finance writing I've seen
Guardian Football - good site for reports and commentary, also has the nifty chalkboards feature

Pepe LeFrits

Guardian article on Guy Roux - Admittedly it's s a five year old article, but it's well worth a morning read over a coffee if you don't follow French football! Guy Roux's 44 years in charge of Auxerre.

Claudius

Read the Indy regularly: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/

Highlights: www.footytube.com - every major game appears here

I love Vickery/aka Vickapedia. He has to be the most knowledgeable football guy out there. He really appreciates the game and respects its history. As for Jimbo, he's quality. Listen to his podcast. It's still the best in the business

Burnwinter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/aug/04/the-question-is-4-2-1-3-the-future

^^ One of the better articles I've read regarding mutating formations. Would be interested if anyone knew of a better survey of the tactics adopted in recent seasons.

Pepe LeFrits

Has anyone listened to the Guardian's Football Weekly Extra yet? I've just started and it's brilliant. James Richardson has, among others, the guy behind ZonalMarking.net.

JR: Your post the other day, about how if you properly plan out your weekend there is a 20 minute window of no football on TV that you can get all your eating and washing done.
Zonal Marking guy: Yeah, on Sunday, between 11 o'clock in the morning and 10 o'clock at night you could watch football continuously but I -
JR: Did you...
ZM guy: Not quite, and I managed to miss all the interesting events, like the PSV Feyenoord game. I watched until it was 2 nil and Feyenoord got a man sent off, and then I missed 8 further goals.
Barry Glendenning: Myself and James were wondering this morning if [ZM guy] sees everything like, you know the battle final scene in the Matrix, and Neo, just everything becomes sort of streaming, green digital numbers twirling around a black background. We thought [ZM guy] might see that, like except chalkboards instead of numbers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/audio/2010/oct/28/football-weekly-extra-podcast

James

Just happen to be listening to that now Mike. I also couldn't help but picture him as a gandalf type 😆

I don't think there are two better journos than James Richardson and Barry Glendenning.

Claudius

I've tried all the podcasts in the world, and Football Weekly (and FW extra) are the best.

If you want a more thoughtful podcast, I highly recommend Times Online's The Game. It's hosted by Gabrielle Marcotti and features the sharp minds of Alysson Rudd and Paddy Barclay. It does quick weekend reviews, and then the podcasters spend a good 30 minutes debating various issues, culminating in a short 'buy or sell' discussion not dissimilar to the format on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption.

I often listen to ESPN soccernet's podcast, but I will be the first to admit that it is a far inferior product to the above.

GaelForce

Couldn't listen to The Game. Marcotti's alright in moderation, but hearing so much of him quickly gets me annoyed. The football ramble's a fun podcast, more for the banter and old-school football talk then their coverage of each week's matches. Nothing comes close to Football Weekly though, James Richardson's a god.

And if you don't know it already then I'd recommend footytube. Best way to get highlights of any games you miss, basically gives you MOTD coverage a few hours after any prem games.

RonBurgundy

Arsenalist - Great place to watch/download Arsenal goals and highlights.