Football with Sam

                         FRANCE CAN DOMINATE EUROPE AND THE WORLD FOR YEARS TO COME They were tipped as one of the favourites before the world cup and the French team duly delivered on the world stage. French manager Didier Deschamps became just the third person to win the World Cup as a player and manager with Brazil's Mario Zagallo and German Franz Beckenbauer, after captaining France to the World Cup in 1998. It wasn’t only Deschamps who created history; Kylian Mbappe became the first teenager to score in a World Cup final since Pele in 1958. This was a very young French squad. The average age of the French squad was 26 years, which made it the 2 nd youngest squad at the tournament, behind Nigeria. Out of the 23 man squad there are only 5 players older than 28 years; Hugo Lloris, Steve Mandanda,   Adil Rami, Steven Nzonzi   and Oliver Giroud. It says ...

                UNCERTAINTY OVER AT THE BRIDGE Stamford Bridge isn’t falling down, but a few cracks are starting to appear. Antonio Conte has finally been sacked, it’s been openly known that the relationship between the Italian and the Chelsea Hierarchy hasn’t been warm to say the least. Conte enjoyed a successful debut season with the Blues, he won the Premier league, and Chelsea also set a new Premier League record for the most wins in a single season, with 30 league victories out of 38 league matches. He also changed the formation to a 3-4-3 and that had a major effect on the rest of the league. Summer of 2017 was the beginning of Conte’s downfall. He had inexplicably sent Diego Costa a text message saying he didn’t figure in his plans for the coming season. Costa then forwarded the message to his Chelsea team mates who were all surprised and astonished at it. The Chelsea board were also not happy be...

CROATIA SHOWED GUTS &DETERMINATION, WHILE THE THREE LIONS FLATTER TO  DECEIVE As the referee blew the final whistle at the Luzhniki Stadium, there was a contrast of emotions, elation on the face of the Croats and utter dejection on English faces. Once again England had bottled it when it mattered most. Although England got to the semifinals they had yet to face a decent team, a team who were comfortable on the ball. England’s road to the semifinals includes Tunisia, Panama, who were one of the worst teams at the world cup, Belgium (although I don’t count this game as both teams made wholesale changes). A round of 16 tie against a Colombian team who were lacking the skill and guile of James Rodriquez. A quarterfinal against a not so great Swedish team.   The big game players for England failed to “turn up”.   Harry Kane had a poor game by his standards, and he missed a great chance to double their lead in the first half. The team generally failed to create chan...

     ROBERTO MARTINEZ AND BELGIUM AT THE CUSP OF GLORY Just over two years ago he was sacked as Everton manager and now he's two wins away from winning the World cup with Belgium and creating history. It’s a credit and testament of Martinez’s drive that he took the Belgian job 2 months after being sacked by Everton. With the amount of abuse he received from fans, at least a year’s sabbatical to recharge before taking another job seemed the most logical thing to do. His appointment as Belgian Head Coach didn’t really pull any trees. Fans and critics alike were skeptical about it and Twitter keyboard warriors had a field day. It safe to say the fans weren’t expecting him to be the one to replace Marc Wilmots. His first game for the Red devils didn’t go as planned as it was a 2-0 loss to Spain in Brussels. He subsequently led the Belgium team to qualify successfully for the World Cup in Russia, after a 2-1 victory over Greece ensured they took top spo...