Philosophical question number one “When is a defeat not a defeat?” Answer(provided by FIFA) “When it is a penalty shoot-out loss after a draw”.
When a team draw1-1, play extra time and lose 2-1 then clearly the result of that game is a defeat not a draw. But apparently according to FIFA when a team draws 1-1, play extra time and are still level then move onto penalty kicks and lose, that is not a defeat but a draw. Or to put it another way, can the one game of football have a winner but no loser? According to FIFA the answer is yes.
The relevance of this exotic conundrum has excited Spanish minds this week. First the Spanish national team at the Confederations Cup set an undisputed world record for 15 successive international match victories. They also seemed to beat the old Hungarian record, set by the Wunderteam of the 1950s. This Hungarian team that famously for Scots humbled England twice, went 34 games without defeat before losing in the 1954 World Cup Final, the classic case of bad timing. (continue reading…)

Pep Guardiola and his Barcelona side have finally joined a select club started by Jock Stein and Celtic in 1967. This club is restricted to trainers whose team win the big one, the European Cup or Champions League, as well as their own domestic double of League and Cup. The Ajax of Cruyff, Neeskens and Rep, coached by Stefan Kovacs were the next club to join, in 1971-72. It would be another 16 years before a further member was admitted when Guus Hiddink’s PSV Eindhoven achieved the feat in 1988. In 1999 Alex Ferguson became the second Scot to join when Manchester United achieved their treble. And not until this year has a fifth member been admitted when Guardiola achieved it in his first season as a top class manager.

While Jock Stein’s Celtic also won the League Cup and the Glasgow Cup that incredible season, the normal European pattern of having only the League and Cup to compete for, will ensure that only the domestic double is needed to apply. With only 5 members in over 53 years of the European Cup/Champions League, it is clearly a very exclusive club and ensures the Big Man will always be in exalted company. It can never be taken away from Stein and the Lisbon Lions that they were the first team ever to achieve this remarkable treble. (continue reading…)