At 23 years of age, Cristian Romero is a starter for Tottenham Hotspur and the Argentina national team, a Copa América winner, and one of the most promising center backs in Europe. But at 17, he had reached a breaking point where he considered whether a football career was even worth pursuing.   Born in…

When talking about West Ham’s latest “wonderkid”, pundits tend to fall into the same predictable patterns. They’ll point to the Hammers as the ‘academy of football’, draw a cheeky comparison to Frank Lampard, and finish up by suggesting that East London is somehow football’s true spiritual home.   I promise not to do any of…

Living in the shadow of a famous relative is not easy for anyone following in that person’s footsteps. Diego Simeone had a lengthy career as a midfielder for a number of clubs and played over 100 times for his native Argentina.   His son Giovanni has had a mixed playing career so far. There have…

Since joining from Sporting in January 2020 for an initial fee of €55 million, Bruno Fernandes has arguably become Manchester United’s most important signing since the capture of Robin van Persie in 2012, which delivered the Red Devils their last Premier League title to date. Playing in the traditional #10 position, Fernandes has taken the…

Two years ago, Fikayo Tomori had just broken into England’s senior squad off the back of several excellent performances in the Premier League for Chelsea. A year later, with Tomori now frozen out of then-manager Frank Lampard’s lineups, fellow Cobham graduate Marc Guéhi was embarking on a sensational loan spell at Swansea City, staking his…

While being interviewed on Belgian television in August, AC Milan winger Alexis Saelemaekers had a rather surprising response when he was asked who was the most talented player the Italian giant has.   “Rafael Leão,” Saelemaekers replied on Eleven Sports Belgium.  “I have said this to him many times that, if he wants, he can…

Zambia have produced two of Europe’s most exciting young talents – Patson Daka is the one many football fans have become familiar with thanks to his goalscoring exploits, but it’s his Zambian footballing brother Enock Mwepu who is gaining the recognition of Premier League fans lately. Mwepu is still very much unknown by many –…

When Kyogo Furuhashi joined Celtic from Vissel Kobe as Ange Postecoglou’s real statement signing having admired the player from his position in the dugout at Yokohama F Marinos, many in Scotland had no idea what they were in for. Soon enough, you had all of Celtic Twitter tuning into a 10 am game in Japan…

In part one of this series, I explicated my thoughts on Mount as a personality, as the new face of Cobham, and as an icon of the new epoch that awaits Chelsea. Mount, according to reports from The Athletic, sets the tone in training both under his former boss Frank Lampard and now under his…

When Pescara won the 2011/12 Serie B title, it had done so playing with great panache under Czech coach Zdeněk Zeman and a crop of young Italian youngsters emerged under his tutelage.    Creative midfielder Marco Verratti as well as forwards Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne starred for the Delfini in Italy’s second division throughout…