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Team Focus: CSKA Failings Down to Lack of Firepower

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Team Focus: CSKA Failings Down to Lack of Firepower It’s an old adage in football that retaining a league title is even more difficult than winning it the first time round. Whether such a notion holds true is frankly up for debate, however you can look towards CSKA Moscow as a team who appear intent on adding fuel to the proverbial fire. The Ru...

Team Focus: Colorado Rapids' Crucial Appetite for the Big Occasion

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Team Focus: Colorado Rapids' Crucial Appetite for the Big Occasion “I feel sad for soccer,” Oscar Pareja sighed after the Colorado Rapids’ 1-0 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday.The result closed the gap between the Rapids and San Jose to just a single point, with Pareja’s side teetering on the brink of dropping out of the Western...

Team Focus: England's Problematic Left Side

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Team Focus: England's Problematic Left Side The touting of Adnan Januzaj as a potential future England player raised an interesting debate about the national team, and not, incidentally, that which Jack Wilshere felt necessary to pass comment on earlier this week.The Manchester United youngster put in man of the match performance from the lef...

Team Focus: Garcia Brings Defensive Resolve to Reconstructed Roma

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Team Focus: Garcia Brings Defensive Resolve to Reconstructed Roma Rudi Garcia was on a break in Marrakech when he got the call. Could he fly to Milan the next day for a meeting with Roma? There was a job at the Stadio Olimpico going and they wanted to sound him out about it. The timing was right. Reflecting on his future after five years at Lille and sensing that ...

Team Focus: Sevilla Struggling in Attempts to Replace Departed Stars

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Team Focus: Sevilla Struggling in Attempts to Replace Departed Stars Losing two key figures in Jesús Navas and Álvaro Negredo was always going to be a significant moment in Sevilla’s history. The former a player who identified with the club more than any other, and the latter will go down as one of the best strikers in their history. Acclimatisati...

Team Focus: Pochettino's Positive Effect at Southampton

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Team Focus: Pochettino's Positive Effect at Southampton In their book The Numbers Game, Chris Anderson and David Sally, while evangelising for the use of statistical analysis in football, acknowledge that the use of data in football is in its infancy: if the discipline were medicine, they say, we would still be at the stage of leeches. While statistics h...

Team Focus: Bastia, Ligue 1’s Low-Key Entertainers, Rebuild in Style

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Team Focus: Bastia, Ligue 1’s Low-Key Entertainers, Rebuild in Style For a Friday night at the Furiani, there was everything that one would expect and hope for; driving rain, noise and goals. There was the obligatory red card too – Bastia received seven last season and have recorded two already in the new campaign – though it was Larry Azouni of visitors ...

Team Focus: Cocu Hoping to Prove You Can Win With Kids

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Team Focus: Cocu Hoping to Prove You Can Win With Kids It's fitting in the year PSV celebrate their centenary that one of their great icons was appointed manager. This Wednesday Phillip Cocu will have presided over the Eindhoven giants for 100 days and the atmosphere at the club is in contrast to the past five seasons. PSV's workmanlike ethic has always...

Team Focus: Caps Locked in Battle for Play-Off Place

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Team Focus: Caps Locked in Battle for Play-Off Place The post-season is approaching fast and MLS is scrambling over 10 play-off places. The best and most successful coaches tune their team’s performance towards the end of the regular season (see Dominic Kinnear) but only a few have mastered that skill. If you get the timing wrong your team could...

Team Focus: Hull Proving Their Doubters Wrong

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Team Focus: Hull Proving Their Doubters Wrong The surprise package of the Premier League season so far is surely Hull City. They were hardly the most entertaining team last season, winning promotion as the Championship's 14th highest scoring team out of 24. Relegated Bristol City scored only 2 goals fewer than Steve Bruce's team, who became ren...