Why schoolboys have become a huge part of football’s transfer market
By Daniel Austin for the BBC
Brexit, rising transfer fees and the financial value of home-grown talent mean that England’s biggest clubs are increasingly competing for players who are still years away from the first team. Often, teenagers are offered potentially life-changing sums to move clubs, creating difficult questions about whether decisions are still being driven by what is best for their development or by the money they might be worth.
I’m Picking Up Bad Vibrations
By Phil Derbyshire for Modern Football is Rubbish
Some managers seem to earn a reputation and keep getting jobs in spite of how much and often they fail. This is a two-footed tackle of an article on those managers.
Fußball 101: Stickers
By Tom Ritchie for Bundesletter — German football culture
Walk through almost any German city and football stickers are impossible to avoid. Most mark territory but others carry messages about politics, friendships, players and the people clubs have lost. Together, they form a kind of unofficial history of German football culture. And they’re just plain entertaining.
Most people find Cultured Football through someone else. Be that link.
Do National Football Styles Still Exist?
By James Callan for Touchline Studios
Watching international football once meant seeing how a nation viewed itself with countries developing styles that reflected at least part of their identity. Globalisation - and the resulting cross-pollination of ideas - mean that those clear distinctions are fading. For better and worse.
Bonus Read: The International Break
[Danny Peacock x The Head Scout]
“I’ll admit it’s going to be tough, and it’s only tough because we all love and adore the game, so much so that we struggle to live without it being daily in our lives”
Football Archetypes: The Nonchalant Technician
By Calum McCarthy for God is a Mitre
Football once allowed for players who seemed to stroll through matches, contributing little without the ball before doing something wonderful with it. Pirlo, Berbatov and Le Tissier belonged to the that tradition but Juan Román Riquelme perhaps embodied it better than anyone.
Each week on Cultured Football we pick the five great football stories from the previous seven days.
In Case You Missed It Here’s Last Week’s Most Read: Who does Como belong to?
By Luke Taylor for FORZA CALCIO
From the outside, Como’s rise from bankruptcy to the Champions League looks like one of modern football’s great fairytales. Look closer, however, and the vast wealth behind it takes away some of the magic.
