Beyond The Last Man

I sometimes wonder what younger generations know or think of Rummenigge as a player. He was one of my first heroes & was an extraordinary player who would be a revelation today as he was every sort of forward in one explosve package. youtu.be/c9QfCqOA_XE?is=z986…

Football this afternoon- FC Shkupi v Fc Pellister from the Macedonian second tier.

Currently in Skopje which has a city centre that can only be described as a Trumpian architecture fever dream.

That Jennifer Hudson performance.

This Paris v Munich tie as a visual metaphor.

A name I did not know is Piet van Reenen, a player who is Ajax's all-time record scorer ahead of Cruyff. He scored 283 goals from 242 games between the wars.

I have a few photos of northern English grounds I took in the mid 80s and am now trying to identify, so any help appreciated! The first 2 pics are of the same ground, the third is a different one I think.

Twlight Zone moment with my German Duolingo today - it throws up the name of Max Merkel, the trainer of Nürnberg when they last won the Bundesliga in 1968 as I sit in my hotel room in......Nürnberg!

There such a credulousness about Martin Samuel's writing. No-one could foresee that Salah's form would drop off a cliff apparently, this despite bountiful data that suggest wide players do not prosper in their 30s and what he did last season was highly unlikely to be sustainable.

If you think being a referee is tough these days, look at this example of how it used to be back in 1969 when this ref gives a penalty against France. youtu.be/eqd2wKYrf54?si=3H7Z…

We've picked up where we left off after a 7-year gap with one of the Bundesliga's most reliable fixture outcomes - Hamburg getting absolutely pumped by Bayern Munich. Nine of the past 18 games between them has seen Bayern win by at least a 5 goal margin.

'There are simply too many colours. Just cut a few and that shirt will be perfect'

On the subject of heavy PSV defeats at home, one of their craziest came in 1977-78 when the champions-in-waiting lost a Dutch Cup tie 6-1 at home to second-tier Wageningen. youtu.be/VFMvIKvZa1A?si=o9_D…

I have always been especially fond of this Edison Cavani effort against Celtic. youtu.be/0OcD0v-T6KI?si=Zckr…

Sometimes looking up the most innocuous football info on Wikipedia throws up quite a curveball. This is on the page of Eddy de Neve, the very first Dutch national team scorer.