PRAGUE — Trent Alexander-Arnold and Thomas Tuchel’s tumultuous relationship is fascinating.
Tuchel would seemingly rather have given Paul Parker a spot as back-up full-back in his World Cup squad. As several options pulled out before and during the tournament, it appeared the German had no choice but to include the Real Madrid defender for the first time. But no.
Then, when all seemed pleasant and amicable between the pair, back in the international fold for a bumper Nations League schedule, Alexander-Arnold did not get on the pitch for a second in defeat by Spain, with centre-back Jarell Quansah preferred at right-back.
Whether he had much choice given England’s full-back injury situation, Tuchel did resist the temptation to deploy Alexander-Arnold from the off against Czech Republic, earning the 27-year-old his first cap in 716 days and his first appearance under Tuchel.
The relationship hit the rocks again after 45 minutes to forget in Prague. Against 10 men following Pavel Sulc’s early dismissal, England’s star-studded right flank offered next to no threat, with Bukayo Saka as impotent as his illustrious team-mate behind him.
Had Tuchel seen enough? Was this vindication for Alexander-Arnold’s World Cup snub? The German did not relent, however, and hooked neither of the right-sided pair at the break.
Sixty-eight seconds after the interval, the Tuchel-Alexander-Arnold dynamic found a much-needed spark – one that could see the bond strengthen long into the future.
With one sweeping cross onto the head of Anthony Gordon, Alexander-Arnold provided a welcome reminder of exactly why he is regarded in some circles as one of the best attacking full-backs in world football.
England needed inspiration. The depleted Czechs were hardly under the cosh. A moment of brilliance was required. And, in a creative sense, Alexander-Arnold jogged everyone’s memory, Tuchel’s included, in a way few others in world football can.
“It’s up there for sure,” Alexander-Arnold said of his cross for Gordon’s opener. Quite the claim when you consider such vision is his modus operandi.
“I spoke to Ant at half-time and said if I get into those half-spaces I’m looking to put it in, so make sure you get to the back post. I didn’t expect it to work so quickly. He’s a willing runner, great to play with him. I saw the run and was able to execute the pass.
“It’s always a pleasure and an honour to represent my country. It’s been a long time. I’ve always believed that I can play for England and I want to. The manager’s given me the opportunity and I tried to do what he wanted me to do to the best of my ability and I hope he’s happy with how I played.”
For the remainder of the second period, those cutting Trent passes were back in vogue, the line-breaking pick-outs that can turn defence into attack in the blink of an eye.
On another day, Alexander-Arnold would have notched another assist or two. The question on everyone’s lips upon the final whistle at the Fortuna Arena was whether another day will come any time soon.
The perennial Reece James injury and Tino Livramento’s setback give Alexander-Arnold, who is similarly yet to cement a first-team place at club level, a golden opportunity over the next few weeks.
It is safe to say Quansah did not exactly shine against Spain. He got forward into the same attacking areas in which Alexander-Arnold can be so devastating, but he does not possess his team-mate’s laser accuracy.
With two more Nations League games to come, Alexander-Arnold is likely to get at least one more start. Further reminders of his otherworldly attacking talents from deep and the transition from outcast to key figure will be complete.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/Vo8cGiM
This season we’re doing football journalism differently. Join The i Paper Sport channel on WhatsApp here to vote for the club Daniel Storey should cover this week on The Journeyman
The contrast is trite but inescapable. Four years ago this month, Morecambe played Ipswich Town – of the 2026-27 Premier League, of course – in a league fixture.
Now they are mid-table in the sixth tier. It is the award nobody would want to win, but no football club in England had slipped so far, so quickly in the last five years.
Then, Morecambe seemed to be a model club: small-ish but with a committed fanbase in a provincial northern coastal town, a community institution making the most of itself. Almost unbelievable now, given all that has happened, is that the Shrimps banked a profit of £1.3m in 2022.
Three relegations in four years. Profit turned to loss. Loss being all that anyone can think about, in more ways than two.
The Panjab Warriors group bought Morecambe in August 2025 (Photo: Getty)
I covered Morecambe a fair bit during that dismal decline, mostly surrounding the ownership of Jason Whittingham and the Bond Group under which most of the worst things happened.
At the start of last season, I met with local MP Lizzi Collinge and campaigners who were trying to force a sale of the club to see if we could help move that needle. A sale did indeed go through.
That was a cause for celebration because the only obvious alternative was extinction. I met with supporters who had put energy and time into preparation for a phoenix club. That is probably the bleakest thing any football supporter could have to do. Morecambe had been saved – that was the headline.
The next time I intersect with Morecambe and their supporters in person, it is on the outskirts of Oxford city centre. My previous Morecambe match was only in February 2025, at home to Doncaster Rovers, but that now feels like it must be five years ago or from another world.
Oxford City’s MGroup Stadium is a lovely place to watch football. It has a modern club shop, well-featured clubhouse and two small seated stands, but also the trappings of non-league that you come for: beers by the pitch, a tuck shop in one wall, outside picnic tables, kids running around while the game is being played. Seeing Morecambe play here in the warm sunshine is giving distinctly pre-season friendly vibes.
There is a bumper crowd for my visit – international breaks are good business for non-league football clubs. Surprise was expressed at the metal barriers on both sides of the pitch. This is a designated segregation match, presumably because of Morecambe’s size.
Several hundred away supporters largely stand and sit quietly before the game, using a designated away fans bar to make the most of summer’s last knockings. A “Pride of Lancashire” flag is hung to one side of the goal. It now reads with an air of weary sarcasm.
Adam Lakeland’s men are currently 11th in National League South (Photo: Getty)
We are tricked into believing that takeovers that save clubs provoke inevitable recovery.As I wander round to the away end at Oxford City, I reflect upon my own guilt in that process. You report on the crisis, you report on the salvation and then you have to move onto the next assignment (which, more often than not, is another crisis). That sends a message: you are out of the woods so the story has moved on.
Too often, that doesn’t reflect reality. The lower down the divisions you go, the more likely that is to be true because, to be brutal, there are far fewer potential financial upsides to owning a football club down here.
We must ask four questions: why are these people buying? Do they know what they are in for? Are we celebrating a new era or merely the end of the last one? Is this the best option to move forward, or simply the only one? And so to Morecambe.
Last August, when the Panjab Warriors group bought the club, head of communications (as he was introduced as then) Gurpreet Singh Rehal promised that “We’ll be so transparent, you’re going to be sick of us” in an interview with BBC Sport. That is worth remembering for two reasons.
In December 2025, Rehal was sanctioned by the UK Government for purchasing weapons and financing two Sikh militant groups in Punjab, India. Morecambe immediately distanced themselves, labelling Rehal as merely a “consultant” on marketing and communications, although that railed against their own previous introduction.
The same month, Rod Taylor and Graham Howse, two long-standing board members, resigned from their positions because the club was haemorrhaging staff and they were excluded from strategic decision-making.
In response, chief executive Ropinder Singh did a sit-down interview with a local radio station during which he accepted that the communication and transparency, the original promise, had failed. He also described relegation from the National League as “absolutely unthinkable” despite Morecambe being in the bottom four. They were subsequently relegated.
Shrimps fans have been betrayed by the current regime (Photo: Getty)
In March 2026, Morecambe were handed a player registration embargo due to non-compliance over payment issues relating to the former owners – it was settled and lifted. Later the same month, a winding-up petition was issued which the club said was related to supplier payments under the old regime – it was settled. Come August, another embargo was imposed for the non-payment of pension contributions, blamed on a “purely administrative matter”.
All the while, Ashvir Singh Johal was the manager having replaced the popular – and eternally patient – Derek Adams. Johal was eventually sacked after five months, but five weeks were enough to prove that it was never going to work. Supporters I’ve spoken to stopped going because they could not take their club seriously.
The most dispiriting news came in July, when Morecambe became the first club to face action from the new Independent Football Regulator, officially warned after directors failed to respond to repeated requests for information and as such breached the Football Governance Act. For a fanbase that lived in fear of negative headlines, it was a sorry line in the sand.
To Panjab Warriors’ credit, they were the ones who stepped in. They inherited a mess and supporters understood that the work required to overhaul that mess would mean that last season’s relegation was a possibility. They also replaced Johal with Adam Lakeland, recruited from Halifax Town in the division above. The squad is too light on numbers, but Lakeland has recovered from a difficult start. His presence indicates some normality.
But that is where my credit stops. The owners knew the pain within the fanbase and knew how the culture of silence under the Bond Group had worsened it. They specifically promised (to the point of making a joke out of it) that communication would lie at the heart of their ownership. Even if you make mistakes and suffer a little for a lack of expertise, supporters will have patience as long as you are open with them about it. That was the only non-negotiable.
It is not their fault that they inherited mistrust, but they had a chance to alleviate it and have done the opposite. The communication to supporters has been found lacking and the Independent Football Regulator has been treated in the same way. They are the only two parties that really matter here and both have been let down.
That casts a shadow over the present but it also darkens the future. In May, Morecambe’s annual accounts confirmed a seven-figure loss and predicted that the club could have lost £2m between the end of that tax year and the end of May 2026. For a club in the sixth tier, that is eye-watering. That profit in League One was half a lifetime ago.
“The scale of the projected cost reductions required, the consecutive relegations, and the club’s dependence on a single shareholder group constitute a material uncertainty that may cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern,” director Kuljit Singh Momi wrote in the club’s strategic report. That is honesty, buried in type online.
This is why the communication (or lack of) becomes bigger than itself. People are worried and people are drifting away because they don’t really know what they’re fighting for. Morecambe’s home attendances have halved in four years, so the ability to generate the revenue required gets harder too. You reduce the ticket prices but not enough people bite because they are watching Bedford Town and Spalding United. Both of those clubs sit above Morecambe now.
I do not know what happens next. Supporters I speak to do not know what happens next. I hope that the owners have plans for whatever comes next and I hope that they might realise how important it is to share those plans for better and worse-case scenarios. But, sorry, I will not hold my breath. That is not defeatism, it is evidence-based realism. If you want to get the benefit of less doubt, be better.
For now, Morecambe are a lesson about life in lower-league English football.
About how easy it is to drop off everybody’s radar. About how much harder climbing back up is than dropping down: the greasy slide and the greasy pole. About how takeovers that save your existence are never guaranteed to make life easy. The hard work started then. Morecambe supporters know that like a punch in the face.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/oeXOsCK
Czech Republic 0-2 England (Sulc red card 25′ | Gordon 47′, Kane 69′)
FORTUNA ARENA — Thomas Tuchel is on his final warning with many supporters. Despite claiming 99 per cent of fans he has spoken to since England’s heartbreaking World Cup exit have been positive, the reality is that many would have preferred to see the German leave rather than receive the FA’s backing.
A defeat in a tricky Nations League tie in Prague would have made it three losses in four games. Tuchel would have been tossed off the Charles Bridge.
Instead, he received an almighty helping hand from the officials in the Czech capital, while an uneventful victory and an elusive clean sheet were exactly what the under-pressure England coach needed.
On a seismic day in English football because of events back home, supporters were blissfully unaware of Manchester City being banged to rights as they enjoyed plentiful Czech lager around Old Town Square in unseasonably warm late-September weather.
It was one of those afternoons when some of the 1,024 travelling supporters may have thought long and hard about whether to bother with the match, given just how idyllic it was.
Prague is home to the second-largest sporting arena ever built, the Great Strahov Stadium, with a colossal capacity of 250,000. It actually houses nine football pitches, so it is not quite suitable for competitive international football.
The more compact Fortuna Arena, the site of West Ham’s most famous night, was instead selected. Its resemblance to a smaller St Mary’s Stadium is uncanny.
Jude Bellingham was rested as Tuchel took a gamble on Morgan Rogers in a midfield three alongside Myles Lewis-Skelly. It looked like a somewhat churlish move early on as the visitors laboured through the opening exchanges.
The Czech Republic had the better early chances, with their star man Pavel Sulc denied by a sharp James Trafford block on the edge of his penalty area.
Sulc remained centre stage as one rather harsh VAR call irrevocably changed the course of the match. His challenge on Elliot Anderson after 25 minutes was upgraded from a yellow card to a red – one of those that looked much worse in slow motion.
The fact it took until 68 seconds after the interval for England to break the deadlock is some cause for concern. Trent Alexander-Arnold, making his first England start in 716 days, provided the sublime cross for Anthony Gordon to head home. The Barcelona forward now has eight goal involvements in his last nine England games.
Harry Kane’s 87th England goal, pouncing clinically on a loose ball, then put the game to bed.
It is not an encounter that will live long in the memory for most, but Tuchel may savour this success in the years to come. Should he see his England project through, steadying moments are just as important as the swashbuckling successes.
After the tumultuous end to the World Cup and defeat at home to Spain last time out, Tuchel could not have wished for a more satisfying evening in Prague.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/6MhHb2L
Manchester City have been found guilty of all of the charges related to breaches of its financial rules, the Premier League has confirmed.
A 40-page redacted summary of the independent commission’s verdict revealed the extent of City’s alleged financial rule-breaking, with the club found to have created “sham” sponsorships as part of a “disguised funding scheme” that boosted revenues by £900m over a nine-year period.
Without those revenues, the statement revealed, they would have significantly breached both Premier League and Uefa financial fair play rules.
A Premier League statement revealed “the club filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators”.
The club said in a very strong response they were “disappointed” with the verdict and indicated that they would be “relentless” and pursue “all appropriate regulatory and legal forums”. That was followed up by a video message from chief executive Ferran Soriano to club staff proclaiming their innocence.
Manchester City have known about the verdict since July, which is sure to raise eyebrows in the Premier League given the extent of their spending during the summer.
What were the key findings?
City’s greatest era of success is now under question (Photo: PA)
In short they couldn’t have been much more damning of City, finding them guilty of fraudulent activity on an industrial scale in a period where they established their dominance in English football.
The commission found almost all charges against City were proven, apart from one element of Charge 4(B). The exact details of that charge are redacted.
The independent commission found that City inflated their revenues by £830m through a series of “sham” commercial arrangements that misrepresented the true agreements between parties.
The commission found the club had filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of their finances from their auditors and football regulators.
Without those arrangements the Premier League statement says that they would have “significantly” breached both the league and Uefa’s financial fair play limits.
The scale of the misrepresentation is huge. A statement reveals “well over 100 alleged individual breaches of Premier League Rules across four broad charge categories”.
The independent commission also found that the club made “concerted efforts to frustrate the Premier League investigation” over a four-year period and accused key City witnesses of giving evidence they knew to be untrue.
How did Man City respond?
City maintain their innonence despite the evidence stacking up against them (Photo: Getty)
In the strongest possible terms. City have claimed the verdict is based on false evidence and have pledged to take their fight through all possible avenues.
In a defiant club statement released shortly after the Premier League’s statement they said: “Manchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League Commission, that has been published today.
“The Club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case. The Club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.
“The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted. Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.
“The Club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.
“The Club is obviously restricted in what it can say further until all future proceedings are complete.”
Case based on ‘false accusation’ Sponsorship money not from owner ‘Irrefutable evidence’ provided Premier League ‘conspiracy theory’ Extensive evidence ‘ignored’ Conclusion ‘clearly wrong’ Appeal will be filed… pic.twitter.com/Xj1RTvbfKX
That was followed up by a video address to shocked City staff in which Soriano said: “The whole Premier League case against us is based on a single false accusation – that the owner’s personal money was somehow and secretly put into the club via some sponsors from Abu Dhabi.
“This is just not true. Irrefutable evidence has been provided to PL commission that shows it could not happen and that it did not happen. This includes bank statements, money transfers, witnesses and everything necessary to categorically demonstrate the money did not come from the owner.
“Every other false charge that has been thrown at us comes from that simple, central and completely false accusation.
“Surprisingly for us and our lawyers after nearly two years the Premier League’s commission has issued an opinion that supports the Premier League’s conspiracy theory. To do so, the opinion had to ignore the extensive evidence provided by the club in order to reach a conclusion that is clearly wrong. Our lawyers will now file an appeal that sets out the opinion contains clear, material errors of law, principle and fact and that it is unsafe.”
What happens next?
City now have two days to appeal (Photo: Getty)
The independent commission found that the verdict was its “final award”, which is why the redacted verdict has been released today.
There will now be a sanctions hearing – at which both City and the Premier League can put forward their case – and the club will find out their punishment. Given the unprecedented nature of the case, all punishments are on the table including huge points deductions, relegation and even stripping the club of their titles.
The club have until Friday to formally appeal the verdict – which, given the strength of their response, is sure to happen.
Clearly there are potentially huge ramifications for the club and for the future of English football. Four clubs – Spurs, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool – are prepared to take legal action against City and the bill could run to hundreds of millions of pounds.
It also leaves the league in its biggest crisis. Premier League chairman Richard Masters said: “The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade.
“It also vindicates the Premier League’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City. While the process to date has been both long and difficult, the League has remained determined that the facts be established independently.
“It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition. It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously.”
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/XCjIcBH
The first time Alejandro Garnacho wore an Aston Villa shirt was not in pre-season but last summer, when he rather pointedly sported a “Rashford 9” jersey.
The shirt was from Marcus Rashford’s loan spell in the second half of the 2024-25 season, when the forward reinvigorated his career by changing environment.
Villa loaned Marco Asensio at the same time, and so began the club’s reputation for offering high-profile stars an attractive route out from their current impasse.
Head coach Unai Emery’s ability to get the most out of players has often been cited as one primary reason for Villa being an ideal location, likewise their recent stretch of European football.
But these loans have also been born out of necessity, leading to a factory producing mixed results with Garnacho the latest curious case.
Why Villa favour loan deals
Rashford and Asensio kick-started Villa’s love for high-profile loans (Photo: Getty)
Villa have implemented loan deals within their recruitment strategy since becoming European football regulars, with fines from Uefa the past two years forcing the club to get creative with transfers.
Restrictions mean they are unable to spend as freely as they would like, and explain the positive net spend of £62.8m this summer when Garnacho and Aaron Wan-Bissaka arrived on loan.
“Loan deal moves are linked to their compliance with Uefa’s squad cost ratio rules,” Loughborough University sports finance expert Dan Plumley tells The i Paper.
“We know they breached and they are on a business plan with Uefa that is being monitored.”
“Loan deals obviously mean no transfer cost right now and you can push that down the road, assuming you want to buy the player or have an obligation to do so. You are effectively just pushing the cost to a later point and probably the next financial year.”
For every Rashford, an Elliott – grading Villa’s loan deals
Marcus Rashford: Four goals and six assists in the second half of Villa’s 2024-25 campaign earned Rashford a loan move to Barcelona the season after. He notably thanked Villa and Emery after being called up to England’s World Cup 2026 squad. Grade: A-
Marco Asensio: A double sprinkle of stardust saw the Spaniard light up Villa Park along with Rashford in 2024-25, and though he faded towards the end of the campaign, eight goals and one assist helped Villa reach the Champions League quarter-finals and FA Cup semis. Grade: B+
Axel Disasi: Loaned from Chelsea at the same time as Rashford and Asensio, but was there as cover and made just six starts. He remains unwanted by Chelsea but the club are unable to sell him. After a loan spell at West Ham, now on loan at Crystal Palace. Grade: E
Jadon Sancho: The next high-profile name to join, on loan for the 2025-26 season, Sancho featured in 39 games for Villa but never held down a starting spot. He was useful cover for John McGinn in Europe but one goal and three assists perhaps explain why he is still a free agent. Grade: C
Harvey Elliott’s time at Aston Villa went awfully (Photo: Getty)
Harvey Elliott: “Embarrassing for everyone involved,” Emery noted in May. “My apologies for Harvey Elliott are, every day, in my mind.” Villa had an obligation to buy Elliott for £35m if he played 10 Premier League games, but he played just 104 minutes across four appearances in the league. It was a wasted season for Elliott, and it raised not only the question of why Villa loaned him, but who at Villa really wanted him. Clearly it was not Emery. Grade: F
Douglas Luiz: The Brazilian returned for a loan spell in the second half of last season and was largely cover for Youri Tielemans. He came on in the Europa League final and picked up a winners’ medal, but Villa did not take up their option to buy the midfielder from Juventus. Grade: B
What of Wan-Bissaka and Garnacho?
Aaron Wan-Bissaka is faring a little better at Aston Villa so far (Photo: Getty)
It is too soon to grade Villa’s current loan signings, but Garnacho and Wan-Bissaka have endured contrasting starts to life in the West Midlands.
Wan-Bissaka has started the last two league games, as well as their Champions League opener, and looks set for an ongoing battle for the right-back role with Matty Cash.
Garnacho meanwhile is down the pecking order for wingers and playing catch-up already.
“Work, work, train, work,” Emery said when asked about Garnacho’s lack of minutes. “He is progressing, but we have players in front of him now.”
The harsher reality of Garnacho’s slow start
Many have been quick to call Garnacho’s current predicament an Elliott 2.0 scenario, with reports of interest from Spain emerging already and Villa seemingly unwilling to activate the obligation to buy from Chelsea.
It is far too early call this fact, given Garnacho also suffered an injury in pre-season, but the reality is that the outlook has already changed at the club since he became their third signing early in the transfer window.
The emergence of George Hemmings has resulted in the 19-year-old becoming Villa’s breakout star of the season so far, with both Emery and captain McGinn glowing in their praise of a young winger eager to learn.
Praise for Hemmings’ work ethic is a reminder for Garnacho. They are direct rivals for the left-wing role, and with support for striker Nicolas Jackson also featuring McGinn, Alysson, Ibrahim Mbaye and Emiliano Buendia, competition is fierce.
The harsher reality though is that Garnacho is simply not as good as his rivals, and having been thrust into the spotlight at United early on in his career, it can be difficult to accept you are not at that level.
And Villa, really, is no step down from Chelsea or United currently given they are a Champions League club, and unless the 22-year-old convinces Emery otherwise, this season is only going one way.
Not every crossroad that leads players to Villa is successful, evidently, and now it is on Garnacho to prove the more probable path is not the one he will take.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/uN3ASGr
The Greek side that won Euro 2004 deserve many superlatives for an achievement that shocked a continent. But entertaining they were not.
Look around Europe a generation on and you will see that another Greek football revolution is in full swing. And this one looks a lot more fun.
It is led by Brighton’s teenage sensation, Charalampos Kostoulas, and Arsenal’s former Norwich City outcast, Christos Tzolis.
Going into the first international window of 2026-27, Kostoulas had scored four goals in eight matches so far this season and two from two in the Premier League for a Seagulls’ side soaring high in third place.
Charalampos Kostoulas has scored four goals for Brighton already this season (Photo: PA)
Arsenal, meanwhile, sit in second, thanks in part to the performances of Tzolis, who has already established himself as a regular starter for the champions.
Now, two matches into the Nations League, they have helped the country to back-to-back away wins against Serbia and Jurgen Klopp’s Germany. Greece now sit on top of their group and can now look forward to successive home matches against the Netherlands and Klopp’s men.
Little wonder that the mood in the country is as bouyant as its been in 22 years.
“They’re two players who reflect the way that the Greek side are now playing,” says Nikos Dabizas, the former defender who spent seven years in English football with Newcastle and then Leicester City.
“In the past, you would say that Greece’s strength was their defending, they were hard to beat, didn’t concede many goals but didn’t score many either.
“Now these guys, along with [Konstantinos] Karetsas at Dortmund, [Vangelis] Pavlidis at Benfica and [Stefanos] Tzimas, another kid at Brighton who came through the system at PAOK – there’s quality everywhere.”
Kostoulas is viewed as an emblematic figure in this new age for Greek football, although his roots can be found in the foundations that were laid for the 2004 triumph.
His father, Athanasios Kostoulas, played alongside Stelios Giannakopoulos during his time at Olympiakos. He also played alongside both Giannakopoulos – a member of that European Championship winning side 22 years ago – and Dabizas for the Greek national team.
Nikolas Dabizas (right) celebrates with Theodoros Zagorakis during the Euro 2004 final (Photo: Getty)
“His dad was the opposite of Babis [the Greek shortening for Charalampos] – he was a very disciplined centre-back,” says Giannakopoulos. “His brother [Konstantinos Kostoulas] plays in the same position for Crete.
“When it comes down to it, everybody can see the way you played your football, and say you were a good player.
“But for me, football is all about character. This is what counts more for me. His father was a great character.
“They’re a great family, and that has rubbed off on the boys. You can see that in the way they play and the way they act.
“He’s not flying in the clouds after one great performance, or a goal against Arsenal. He has got his feet firmly on the floor – exactly where they should be.”
Dabizas believes that both Kostoulas and Tzolis are in exactly the right place for their development.
“Kostoulas came through the Olympiakos team that won the Champions League in under-19s football [in 2023-24],” he says.
“To do that as a team from Greece against the biggest names in European football – that’s an incredible achievement. But to develop, you need to go abroad, you need minutes at the very top level.
“You look across Europe and see that Brighton is a club that does things the right way. They bring in young players, they develop them, they give them time and opportunity. The manager obviously has faith in him.
“As a player he has a bit of attitude and I like that, I think you need that, especially as a young guy in the Premier League.
“Tzolis has done the right thing throughout his career as well. He went to Norwich as a very young guy and found it difficult but I think that was inevitable.
Tzolis in action during Greece’s win over Germany (Photo: Getty)
“He was in a side that was always going to spend more time defending than attacking.
“When you’re a young guy [Tzolis was just 19 when he arrived at Carrow Road] that’s tough.
“But he went away, got experience in Germany and then Belgium and then came back to the Premier League as a much more rounded player.
“To come straight into this Arsenal and get into the first team immediately tells you everything you need to know.
“I won’t say that this is a Golden Generation of Greek players – I know you love that description in England – but it’s a very good generation.
“And they’re playing the kind of football that Greek sides haven’t traditionally played in the past.
“That’s exciting, not just for the fans but for these players as well.”
Bigger tests await, not just at club level on the international stage, with Greece having failed to qualify for a major tournament since 2014.
By the time the group stage is over, Greece – currently ranked 46 in the world – should have a better idea of their global standing.
For Tzolis and Kostoulas, though, the only way is up.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/z5XLsir
Whither Pep Guardiola in the post Manchester City universe? The problem with cheating is it burns everything to the ground, reputations uppermost in the ledger of loss.
Guardiola has said nothing since the devastating verdict leaked last week. His loyalty to the regime was absolute. And since he remains a City ambassador following his departure in May, the silence will likely continue until City’s fate is formally revealed.
Only the first three years of the Guardiola decade overlapped with the 2009-2018 period under investigation. He was, however, in post for the entirety of the four-year investigation, which launched in 2018, and the subsequent hearing to consider the 115 charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations.
Thirty-five of those charges were effectively cases of the same offence, failing to cooperate with the investigation. The silence to which Guardiola has contributed since the verdict broke feels wearily consistent with the spirit of City’s routed defence.
It is self-evident that Guardiola’s achievements are in the bin. His apologists, led by ultra dim loyalists like Liam Gallagher and former player Rodri, seek to break the connection between illegal wealth and results.
“If you’re telling me that, because of some sponsorship deal that was signed nearly 15 years ago, the four in a row and Istanbul and all of those things now mean nothing… then you’re being hysterical,” bleated the Beswick supernova.
Former player Rodri insists the club are innocent of any wrongdoing (Photo: Getty)
Rodri was similarly aligned. “What we did, they cannot take it out of us. It is something that is not paid by money, it is paid with effort, with partnership and with being shoulder to shoulder every day,” he said, ignoring the connection between the quality of the participants involved and the cost of buying them.
Of course Rodri sits outside the investigated period, but his achievements and those of Guardiola are indelibly linked since they rest on the shoulders of the damned. Guardiola is doubly cooked because of his uncritical acceptance of all he was told.
He behaved like a medieval courtier, blindly trumpeting the truth as laid out by the Abu Dhabi state. He was steadfast in the veracity of that message, a willing dupe in the employ and at the service of a regime that cynically manipulated the rules.
“Because you believe in your club and the people there. I believe what they say to me and the reasons why,” Guardiola said after the charges were brought.
The same message echoed after his exit was announced in February this year. “Because you believe in your club and the people there. I believe what they say to me and the reasons why.”
His dubious attachment deepens the stain, eating at the purity of the product. The undeniable beauty of Guardiola’s team must now be reconsidered and ultimately devalued by the rigged nature of its design.
A total of £1.23bn was spent on 76 transfers in the period 2009-2018, including the transformative signings of Sergio Aguero, scorer of the goal that sealed victory against Queens Park Rangers in 2012 to earn the first title of the Abu Dhabi reign, Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, John Stones, Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva, Ederson and Aymeric Laporte. It was upon these foundations that Guardiola’s tainted empire was built.
Plausible denial is not innocence but collusion, the more surprising given Guardiola’s predilection for a soap box when protesting against the appalling treatment of the vulnerable in various conflicts around the world.
City and Guardiola continue to barricade themselves behind process, insisting nothing is decided until a formal verdict is handed down, and even that is subject to appeal. That might work for them but offers little protection outside the City bubble, where sentiment is shaped like a sword, suspended above their heads by the thinnest of threads.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/sNYP3lj
GORDON
#ITVFootball | @England pic.twitter.com/xmqPIULJ24
Case based on ‘false accusation’
