Cultured Football #165
Hell is Empty. Liverpool's Missing XI. Mourinho. Woman in Charge. Late Bloomers.
Hell is Empty and all the Devils are Here
By Floyd Heubel for Terrace Edition
Things have not been good for FC Kaiserslautern of late. Absent from the Bundesliga for the past eleven years - four of which were spent in the third tier - they spent past season battling against relegation. Reprieve came from the cup where they surprisingly made it to the final and fans decided to make the most of it by invading Berlin. Wonderful scenes.
Bonus Pick: A look at one man’s passion for the game documented through a photo from every game he attended last season. Makes me want to see more games in person (and get better at taking photos). Brilliant. [By Glen Wilson for Popular Stand Fanzine]
Searching for Liverpool's Champions League winning Starting XI
By for
There is a famous photo of that which many think is the peak Liverpool starting eleven during the Klopp era (Alisson - Alexander Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson - Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Henderson - Salah, Firmino, Mane). Yet that side started only one game together, the final of the 2019 Champions League. How come that side play more games together?
Adding José Mourinho to the chaos of Turkish football is box office stuff
By Alex Roberts for FotMob
The arrival of Jose Mourinho at Fenerbache gives the league a new layer of glamour. Yet it has long been an interesting league to follow as the latest season proved.
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Sabrina Wittmann becomes German football's first female head coach
By for
Among the most interesting moves so far this summer is that of freshly relegated (to third tier) FC Ingolstadt 04 appointing Sabrina Wittmann as first team manager. This isn’t some spurious appointment as Wittmann has come through the ranks at the club and had a successful three-game spell as interim coach at the tail end of the season. It will certainly be fascinating to see how she does next season.
Once rejected, now key: six late bloomers who could shine at Euros
By Michael Yokhin for The Guardian
I appreciate that this edition of Cultured Football is rather light on Euro 2024 content and the reason is that I tend to find pre-tournament team-by-team previews that tend to dominate at this point in time as rather boring (sorry!). This is different however, a look at six players who are all close to their thirties and finally looking to shine for their national sides after being overlooked for most of their careers..
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Last Week’s Most Read: OnlyTrolls: how football and OnlyFans collided
By Snake Denton for The Face
Earlier this season I became mildly aware of a new phenomenon (at least, it was new for me), young women who use football to promote, well, their looks I guess. And once I noticed one, it seemed as if there was one for every club. To be honest I didn’t think too much of it other than feeling that it was a brilliant (if irritating, largely because they seemed so intent on trash talking) way for them to distinguish themselves from the rent-a-dozen influencer who plague social media. It was only when I read this piece that I realised how naive I had been.