By Joel Lund

For the last post, I want to give credit to all the football supporters in the world. Without the fans, football wouldn’t be the same. For those who haven’t seen that much of the sport, I would like to draw your attention to the incredible tifos that supporters make.

A tifo can take place in many forms, from flags, mosaics, signs, banners, scarves and pyro.  It takes a lot of work to produce the material and a high level of choreographic ability when it is shown. You can definitely say that it’s a form of art. The supporters use it often for big games such as derbies but also to honour their club legends. This list has been the hardest one to produce because there are just too many to choose from.

Here’s our top five best tifos ever made.

#5: Malmö FF

If you love good love stories this is something for you! Marcus Rosenberg is one of the biggest club legends for the Swedish club Malmö FF. He first started to play for them when he was five years old and later made it to the first team. After a few years of playing in the top leagues in Europe, he returned to Malmö with great success.

In 2019 Rosenberg played his last home game for his beloved club. The supporters created this world-class tifo to show how much they loved him. While looking at the details you can see two banderoles with text of Swedish. Translated to English it says “I’ve been with you, I can never lose you”. That quote is taken from a poem by the  Swedish poet Jacques Werup who also came from Malmö. It´s a beautiful example of how strong the fans feel for their heroes but also how the supporter culture and other cultures can meet!

Additional fact: Markus Rosenberg scored a last-minute winner with the final kick of the game. What a fairytale.

#4: PAOK Thessaloniki

This tifo comes from Greece and was organised for the Greek Cup semifinal in 2014 between rivals PAOK and Olympiacos. Instead of using flags or banners PAOK went all-in with the pyro. One thing is for sure, using this much pyro is not usual which makes this extra special.

Can you imagine how much adrenaline the PAOK players must have felt while standing on the field before the game? Also how hostile it must have felt for Olympiacos. The massive use of pyro was just too cool to not be on the list!

#3: Olympique de Marseille

This one is totally different from the Pyro show in Greece. Olympic Marseille created one of the best mosaic tifos that has ever been made in a match against Paris Saint-Germain. It is an elegant tifo that includes Marseille’s colours of blue and white. They have different motifs in different sections of the arena. The mosaic creates the club’s letters (OM) and the club crest.

The Stade Velodrome has a capacity of 67.000, imagine the planning to get everyone holding up their mosaic to create this masterpiece.

#2: Borussia Dortmund

Dortmund is well known for its supporters. At Westfalenstadion, they have the biggest terrace for standing spectators in Europe. This is referred to “ The Yellow Wall” because it fits over 24000 fans that are all wearing Dortmunds yellow shirts. A lot of great tifos have been made during the years, but with this, they outmatched what they previously had done. 

Before the Champions League quarter-final against Malaga, Dortmund had this tifo. It consists of black and yellow mosaic that formed the Champions League trophy (just this would have been cool). To make it even better they added a banner of a figure in a Dortmund hat with binoculars that popped up alongside the words “On the Trail of the Lost Trophy”. Dortmund were close on getting the lost trophy but they later lost in the final…. However, this was an aesthetic masterpiece that goes down in history.

#1: Wydad Casablanca

The winner of this list comes from Morocco. This might be surprising because when you think of Morocco, the first thing that comes to your mind might be deserts, camels or good food? After watching this, you can add football supporters! 

To see the derby between Wydad Casablanca and Raja Casablanca is a dream for many football lovers! It´s not because of the football quality, but to witness the fans live. The winning tifo made by Wydad is complete, its creative, detailed, and well-choreographed. They use the mosaic together with a dragon that MOVES. The dragon is also holding the trophy while spitting out fire. Everything gets more powerful with the use of the pyro! Shows like this prove that supporters plays an important part for all of the clubs!

By Joel Lund

For football lovers, there isn´t much to do in these times of quarantine. All of the best leagues in the world have made the right decision to postpone matches. If there´s anyone with abstinence that wants to see live football, I can notify you that the league of Belarus had its premiere last weekend and have no plans of stopping! I actually saw one of the games…  But in these times it´s important for everyone to try and find entertainment by any means. That’s why I have searched through the archives to find the best goal celebrations!

Here’s our top five goal celebrations ever made

#5: Robbie Fowler´s snorting

This one is from the year 1999 and is one of the most controversial goal celebrations ever. It´s not on the list to glorify the use of cocaine, it’s just too iconic, creative and funny to skip! In the Merseyside Derby between Liverpool and Everton, Robbie Fowler scored a penalty for his Liverpool. To celebrate the goal, Robbie ran to the sideline, went on his knees and pretended that the sideline was a line of cocaine…. His explanation for this act was that the Everton supporters had accused him of being a drug-addict. Robbie responding to these false allegations cost him 32 thousand pounds and a few games suspension!

#4: Luiz Suarez Dive

Luiz Suarez is a player that only his own mother and supporters can love. He is a world-class goal scorer and a unique player in the sense that he does EVERYTHING to win. One example of this is when he bit the Italian player Giorgio Chiellini at the world Cup in 2014, that wasn’t even the first or last time he bit an opponent… Except biting and scoring he is well known for diving. Before the Merseyside Derby in 2012, Everton’s former coach David Moyes talked about how Suarez’s habitwas becoming too much. When the match arrived, Suarez obviously scored. To celebrate he ran to Everton’s bench and dived in front of Moyes. Luiz Suarez might be hard to love, but I have to admit this was funny!

#3: Rooney´s Knockout

Wayne Rooney is one of Englands best football players of all time. He has been a hot topic for newspaper headlines because of his performances on the pitch but also because of his private life. The background to his celebration comes from when he was at his home, boxing with former teammate Phil Bardsley. The fight got a little bit too serious and Bardsley won on a knock out that would have made the great Conor McGregor proud! Even though this took place in Rooney’s home, it got leaked to the English press before Manchester United’s match against Tottenham. In the game, Rooney finished the scoring in a 3-0 victory. Despite the brain cells that Rooney must have lost when he was knocked down, he was quick-thinking, celebrating the goal by shadow boxing before he faked a knock out!

#2: FC Stjarnan – The Fisherman

Most of you have probably never heard of the Icelandic club FC Stjarnan. For those who have,  I can almost promise it’s not because of their success on the football field. Instead it’s because of their innovative goal celebrations! They have many that could be on the list but this one felt extra special. When FC Stjarnan scored, they choose to honour Iceland’s most important export, which is fishing and comprises 60% of the country’s exports. The guy that jumps as a fish deserves extra credit, how do you learn to move like that? The guy who caught him also has a good fishing history to brag about at the bars in Iceland. “Once I caught a fish that weighted 80 kilos”…

#1: Julius Aghahowa Acrobatics

Julius Aghahowa is the winner of this list but he could easily have been a winner of the Olympics in gymnastics. I remember this goal especially because he scored it against Sweden in the World Cup 2002. When I saw it it just blew my mind, I was seven years old and had never seen anything like that before! For everyone that is bored of sitting home in quarantine, I challenge you to practice this celebration!

By Liam Divilly

As football has become a bigger and bigger money-spinner since the turn of the century, everyone from individual players and sponsors to subscription broadcasters have seen a route to a bit of extra cash through TV advertisements. But compared to some of the brain-numbingly boring ads aired on TV trying to get you to buy a vacuum or a new wardrobe, football commercials often look like a Scorsese film.

Everyone’s trying to be iconic. One good ad could be remembered for 20 years, and therefore so is your brand. But as we’ll see, it’s all about getting the right player involved. Who are you more likely to listen to when being sold a product? Mark Noble or Zlatan Ibrahimovic?

Here’s our top five football ads ever made.

#5: Suarez’s Abitab Sponsorship

On the surface of it, Luis Suarez’s three (yes, three) separate bans for biting alone, not to mention his questionable diving record, intense gamesmanship and almost murderous competitiveness would make you think he’s a bad guy.

But anyone who knows the man well enough will tell you that off the pitch he’s as nice as they come. One company who recognised this was Uruguayan credit card makers Abitab, using this 60 second advert in 2013 to not just promote their brand name but make light of Suarez’s mis-portrayal. Surprisingly, Luis went along with it, and so was born the most humourous entry in our list.

#4: BT Sport’s 15/16 Champions League Promo

After years of Sky and ITV dominance, BT Sport surprised everybody in 2015 when they managed to acquire the exclusive rights for all Champions League and Europa League football, robbing their competitors of possibly their biggest asset.

To celebrate, BT Sport threw a get together.

Most football ads feature two, three, maybe four players. But instead, BT spent any remaining money they hadn’t spent on the Champions League rights and invited around basically every player to have played professional football in the last 15 years.

Proof that if you stick enough explosions and top-level footballers in one ad, it’s quite hard to fail.

#3: Nike – Take it to the Next Level

If this was released today, it would be impressive. Never mind twelve years ago.

As we’ll see again with our top two entries, a lot depends on how well everything is edited together with sports ads, in other words, how real does it feel? When it comes to this 2008 Nike promo, the answer is very. So much so, that at times during the video you start to wonder were all these first-person POV shots taken from real games.

They weren’t, further adding to the editing masterclass this ad is, as the viewer gets to experience the journey from Non-League to the Nou Camp through the eyes of an up and coming star. It’s incredible how authentic the whole thing feels as the camera dribbles its way through Barcelona’s defence and experiences the perks of a professional footballer’s lifestyle.

Cesc Fabregas, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cristiano Ronaldo, Andres Iniesta, Ronaldinho and Wesley Sneijder are just some of the names squeezed into the three minute production, while the added soundtrack (Don’t Speak by Eagles of Death Metal) makes this ad the one we’d most want to watch in a surround-sound cinema.

#2: Sky Sports’ Premier League Promo 17/18

If you travelled back in time and showed this ad to someone in the 1940’s, their head would probably explode.

The way Henry is integrated so seamlessly and casually strides through one moment of Premier League history to another is editing of the absolute highest standard.

Almost everything is perfect, Henry’s monologue, his perplexed look as Yeboah smashes the ball past him, his awkward attempt to ignore Roy Keane’s and Patrick Viera’s shouting match, his breach of the fourth wall.

Combined that with Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’ and this was the perfect promo for Sky Sports to remind competitors that they still had dominance over Premier League rights heading into the 2017/18 season, and we’re confident a few more people may have been signing up for a subscription during the month this as aired.

#1: Adidas 2006 World Cup: Jose +10

Many directors have tried the whole ‘professionals playing in an amateur setting’ trick, but no one has ever replicated the brilliance of Adidas’ 2006 effort.

Set on a dusty yard in an anonymous South American city, Jose and Pedro decide to start a game of football out of boredom and begin selecting their dream teams. One by one, their picks emerge from street corners and doorways, lining out for an unlikely fantasy match under the beating Latin American sun.

The kids’ dialogue being done through Spanish automatically makes everything cooler and the inclusion of a young Franz Beckenbauer and Michel Platini boggles the mind as to how they were edited in, despite both being over fifty years of age at the time. The nostalgia levels are through the roof when you look at the other names making an appearance. Khan, Zidane, Lampard, Kaka, Beckham. Basically name anyone who was any good in between the year 2000 and 2006, and they probably featured in Jose +10.

But the big question is: If you could have the choice of any football player from history as your number one pick, why in the world would you go for Djibril Cisse?

By Liam Divilly

The World Cup produces some great music. From giant brands such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, to the tournament organisers and even the teams. Every four years, people try to take advantage of the world’s biggest sporting event and create a chart-topping hit around football.

There’s been some good and some not so good, but here are the five that we think need to slot straight into your Spotify playlist.

And sorry, there’s no place for ‘Samba E Gol’ in this list. We’re trying to be taken seriously.

#5: Shout for England – Dizzee Rascal & James Corden (OFFICIAL ENGLAND SONG 2010)

England get a lot wrong both on and off-the-field when it comes to international tournaments, but one thing they’ve got right more often than not is the music.

The first of two songs in this list from the 1966 World Cup winners was released as the official song of the team’s 2010 campaign in South Africa. It very much captures a moment in time. Dizzee was pulling rap and grime into the mainstream in the UK, and James Corden was still munching on takeaways as Smithy from Gavin & Stacey.

The song samples Tears for Fears’ song of the same name as well as ‘No Diggity’ by Blackstreet. Reaching number #1 in the UK charts in its first week after being released, ‘Shout’ performed significantly better than Fabio Capello’s side in South Africa, crashing out to Germany in the Round of 16.

#4: Waka Waka – Shakira (OFFICIAL TOURNAMENT SONG 2010)

Up until 2010, official tournament World Cups songs weren’t really considered a big deal, mainly because very few of them were any good. C-list artists such as Ricky Martin, Anastacia or someone no one had ever heard of from the host country were usually tasked with performing a tune that would quickly be consigned to the dustbin of both footballing and musical history.

Waka Waka changed all that. Sung by a true worldwide superstar in Shakira, the song is focuses on not just football but also the importance of an African country hosting the tournament. The video and beat were modern and mainstream, but also unique, allowing Waka Waka to be played on the airwaves not only for the summer of the tournament but also for months and years afterwards.

Reaching number 1 in an array of countries across Europe and clocking up over 2.3 billion YouTube views to date, this may only be our fourth best World Cup song, but it’s by far the most influential

#3: We Are One (Ole Ola) – Pitbull ft. Jennifer Lopez & Claudia Leitte (OFFICIAL TOURNAMENT SONG 2014)

Following on from Waka Waka was always going to be tough, and when it was announced that Pitbull was going to be handed on the baton by Shakira, few people would’ve thought this song would be as good as it is.

It’s hard to say anything other than this is just a really good song to listen to. It’s not quite got the powerful lyrics that Waka Waka had, nor will it ever feel as nostalgic as ‘Shout’, but it just sounds like a proper samba football song, which it should be, given that the 2014 competition took place in Brazil.

Claudia Leitte’s verse in Portuguese adds a bit of flair to the track and things get intense for a while when Jennifer Lopez comes in. Overall, just really enjoyable to listen to and a real ‘footballing’ single.

#2: The Lightning Seeds – Three Lions ’98 (UNOFFICIAL ENGLAND SONG 1998)

Originally released for the European Championships in England in 1996, the Lightning Seeds redid the song for the France World Cup two years later. This time though, they changed the lyrics, making the single all about England’s semi-final defeat to the Germans two years earlier.

The song became, and remains, iconic. It was sung non-stop in 2018 as England powered to the semi-finals in Russia and the lyrics are even known by countless non-football fans up and down the country. A comical video helped make it memorable and maybe explains why the FA didn’t commission the song as England’s official World Cup single. Its popularity grows so high every four years that Three Lions is the only song to have four different stints at number 1 in the UK Charts.

It also holds the record for fastest chart descent, going from top spot to 97th in the space of a week following England’s defeat to Croatia in the 2018 semi-final.

#1: Live It Up – Nicky Jam ft. Will Smith & Era Istrefi (OFFICIAL TOURNAMENT SONG 2018)

2010 had a South African feel to it, 2014 had Brazilian vibes, thank God the 2018 song didn’t attempt to be Russian. The writers must have conveniently forgot to record a verse in Russian or include any traditional Soviet instruments, and as a consequence, Live It Up was a success.

Including a Spanish verse (which was all the rage back then) helped the song appeal to a worldwide audience and even though very little of what Will Smith touches isn’t cringe-worthy these days, his two very short appearances in the song are actually quite good.

It’s feverishly fast and one of the few World Cup songs ever released that could unironically be played at 01.30am on a nightclub dancefloor. It never achieved the chart success or radio time that ‘Waka Waka’ or ‘We Are One’ did, but it comes in at the top of our list of the best ever World Cup songs.

By JOEL LUND

I hoped you all liked our first post and got your eyes up for the beautiful retro-kits that were presented. This post will be about something completely different, tattoos. For those of you that haven’t seen that much football, you should understand that football players love tattoos. Even if most of the players are loaded with cash, this list will prove that money can’t buy class…

Here’s our top 5 worst tattoos:

#5:Amato Ciciretti

#4: Joe Hart

#3:Fredrik  Ljungberg

#2:Leroy Sane

#1: Diego Perotti

These are just a few of all the terrible decisions that have been made by football players. If you can’t get enough of bad tattoos, search for some of these that almost made the cut: Lionel Messi, Erton Fejzullahu, Ricardo Quaresma, Artur Buruc, Nile Ranger……

By LIAM DIVILLY

From OJ Simpson documentaries and Friends re-runs to Polaroid cameras and Nokia 3310s. The world of 2020 is obsessed with trends and tributes to the past, predominantly the 80’s and 90’s. With a lot of these trends, the sheer practicality of trying to reverse time or technology has to be questioned. But one genre of popular culture that has benefited from this generation’s taste for a time before their own is football fashion.

Let’s be honest, as slick, professionalised and polished football may be today, there was something irresistibly more romantic and cool about so many aspects of the sport during the 80’s and 90’s. Whether it be having to find out the result of a game on the back page of a newspaper 12 hours or more after the final whistle, or the best players in the world being allowed go boozing twice a week (at a minimum).

But not only was the lifestyle that surrounded the game considerably simpler, so were the kits. This was before the days of skin-tight, slimlined jerseys with a sponsor for each sleeve. Unlike today, the jerseys were neither oversimplified with single block colours nor were they over complicated with quirky collars. It never looked like someone had tried that hard to design them, but at the same time, it looked like whoever had designed them was a genius.

So much so, that in 2018 Adidas paid homage to the genre, by designing several teams’ kits for the World Cup in Russia, in the image of what they had worn at the same tournament in 1990. Here’s our top 5 retro kits.

#5: Real Madrid 2002/03 (Home)

The peak of the Galacticos and the peak of football fashion in the Spanish capital. Both of Madrid’s kits for the 02/03 season could’ve made this list, with a black away version of the above jersey synonymous with a Ronaldo (yes, the original one) hat-trick and iconic performance at Old Trafford.

A classic all-white Madrid kit with Adidas’ trademark three stripes down each sleeve. It’s even sponsored by what was one of the world’s largest manufacturers of flip phones. Can you possibly get more nostalgic?

Bonus points for creative lettering on the back.

#4: Argentina 1984-86 (Away)

Remembered by most for Maradona’s hand of God goal versus England, Le Coq Sportif’s mid-80s effort gets fourth spot on our list.

Iconic? Yes. But simple? Even more so. Never mind all that was achieved in this kit as Argentina went on to win the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, but just look at the aesthetics alone. A white collar and white sleeve cuffs along with a subtle dark and light blue stripe pattern. Apart from that, there’s not nothing else too it.

A reminder that sometimes the best kits take the least effort to design.

#3: Napoli 1984/85 (Home)

What a time Diego Maradona must have been having in the mid-8os. Aside from partying all week with the Neapolitan mafia and then being the greatest footballer of all time at the weekends, he was getting to wear some of the greatest kits ever produced.

Just like the shirt which he donned with Argentina in ’86, Napoli’s kit for the previous two years was uncomplicated, bordering on effortless. Sky blue and not polluted with sponsors on each sleeve an over-intricate designs. But as we’ll see with the top two, there’s a reason why the sponsor is in the geographical core of the kit.

No one doesn’t like Mars bars, no one doesn’t like Diego Maradona. No one doesn’t like Napoli’s most famous kit of all time.

#2: Gremio Home 1990-92 (Home)

Without a doubt the most niche entry in our list, and also the most creative. Brazilian club side Gremio managed to secure the Creme de la Creme of brand deals, getting Coca Cola to pay for possibly the most iconic logo in the world to be placed slap bang in the middle of their jerseys for two seasons in the early 90s.

The white pinstripes separating Gremio’s traditional blue and black colours are what makes this kit. Again, Brazilian kit designers Penalty haven’t messed about with the collar, and the club’s badge slots in perfectly to what is in our opinion the most underrated retro kit of all time.

#1: Bayern Munich 1995/96 (Away)

There’s plenty of Bayern Munich jerseys that could be put into this list, and there’s also plenty of Opel sponsored jerseys which could’ve been included, but we’ve decided to stick to one. And it makes its way straight into the top spot.

Another white strip with the three black Adidas stripes down each side, but also with the added plus of the red and blue of Bavaria thrown in. Unlike most kits of this era, the designers didn’t mess it up with an eccentric collar, and spelling out Adidas as opposed to inserting the logo was a nice touch, perhaps something the German brand should return to.

Also, whether it’s PSG 1998, Republic of Ireland 1990 or early 00s AC Milan kits, anything with the big Opel logo slapped in the middle is a winner.