Lost In Time Futbol

Athletic notoriously only signs Basque players, but the rule is not as straightforward as it seems. 

Between 1949 and 1990 Germany suffered the political consequences of World War II. Its land was divided in occupied zones: some parts were annexed by Poland, while modern-day German territories were divided between the two post war blocs. The Western and Southern parts of the country were given to the Allies, while the Eastern part ended up under Soviet control. Even Berlin was split in half by its famous wall. Nowadays the country is reunited, but the effects of the divide are still extremely visible in terms of economy, politics, demographics, religion and the most important of all: football. Football in Eastern Germany A new top-flight football league was established in East Germany in 1949 ,  as separate sports competitions were created following the division of the country. The DDR-Oberliga, as it was called from 1958 onwards, was contested for most of its history by 14 teams. 12 different clubs won the league over this period, but the most successful were BFC Dynamo Berlin, w...

Greenwashing is a marketing strategy which aims at wrongly persuading the public that a company's products or operations are environmentally friendly. It is a form of gaslighting which makes customers believe that by purchasing said company's services they won't harm the planet in any way, but reality is often very different from what the customer may think. One example of this practice was gifted to us by the world's leading plastic polluter, Coca-Cola, which for years has been claiming that it is lessening its plastic waste, with the goal of "getting every bottle back by 2030". As admirable as such claims may be, they are also way too optimistic to be true: they were sued in 2021 for false claims, and in 2024 they were still first in the pollution race by quite some margin, more than doubling the waste produced by second placed PepsiCo. The phenomenon of greenwashing has spread over many industries, including sports. FIFA, which is not a great example of con...

It's no secret that modern day football is trying to replace local, die hard fans with tourists who are more willing to spend huge sums of money. This is making a lot of people turn their attention to smaller, community-driven local clubs who don't present the same issues. There's quite a few reasons why you could do the same, here's 10 of them: 1. The money you spend on a local club will allow kids from your village, town or district to play football at an affordable price. 2. Your local club will never price you out: Premier League and Champions League tickets could cost you hundreds of euros/pounds, while local football will always be the price of a couple pints. 3. With social places rapidly disappearing, your support for a local club could help preserve a space which is crucial in the social life of your town. People might struggle to find a place to spend time outside of their home-work routine, and football is a great help for a lot of them. 4. Local football has...

Football in Tanzania is a pretty simple environment: you're either a fan of Young Africans, or you're a fan of Simba. The two clubs have shared 47 of the 61 Premier League titles awarded since the independence of Tanzania, and to the same extent they also share the football fans over the country and even in areas across the borders: both clubs have fans all over Eastern Africa.   Simba defenders tackle a Young Africans player [thecitizen.co.tz] Young Africans, who are more commonly just called Yanga by their fans, were formed in 1935 by Dar es Salaam residents who decided to form their own football club and compete in a league full of non-African clubs. Ever since its birth, Yanga has been a symbol of the anti-colonial movement, becoming associated with Tanganyikan nationalists and freedom fighters. The club was so representative that a political party (Tanganyika African National Union, TANU) even adopted their traditional yellow and green as their own colours. At some point i...

Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Bursaspor and Besiktas. What do these four clubs have in common? Well, for starters they're all Turkish, but only three of them are widely recognised as giants abroad.  The "big three" from Istanbul - for those unfamiliar they're Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Besiktas - have dominated Turkish football for decades, leaving crumbs to other clubs. Amongst the rest are Trabzonspor, with 7 titles to their name, Başakşehir, who were crowned champions once in 2020, and... Bursaspor. But what more does this club have in common with the big three, that Trabzonspor and Basaksehir don't? Bursaspor is, along with Gala, Fener and Besiktas, one of only four clubs in Turkey with an average attendance of over 30,000 people. Just one little bit of info is missing: they've done this while playing in the 3. Lig, a.k.a. the fourth tier of Turkish football. Bursaspor's fans are the strength of the club   The city of Bursa is the fourth most populous in T...