Nezahualcóyotl was the monarch of Tetzcuco before the Spanish conquest in 1492. Poet, architect, warrior and philosopher, he is one of the most notable rulers of Mexican history.

Fans of the Premier League, cast your minds back to April 12th, 2008. It was the day that Mauro Zárate truly caught the attention of English fans, following up goals in March against Reading and Manchester City, with a sumptuous free kick to equalise late on against Everton for relegation threatened Birmingham. Zárate’s brief cameo in England’s second city was just one of several unusual stops in what has been an intriguing, frustrating and often perplexing career. 

Alongside afternoon tea and a vast quantity of incongruous place names (Hurlingham, Banfield, City Bell), perhaps the biggest legacy of Great Britain’s century-long economic intervention in Argentina was the rail network left behind by traders and industrialists.

In recent times there hasn’t been much to shout about on the island of Tenerife when it comes to the football team.

The progression from futsal to football is a well-trodden pathway. Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Andres Iniesta, Neymar and Lionel Messi are just handful of the players who have credited the small-sided game as a key part of their early development.

Lewis Emanuel: Talent, Torment & Armed Robbery

Juventus President Giampiero Boniperti thought he finally had his man. “Every time he played in the north of Italy I would ring him up,” he would later say. Desperate to land Luigi Riva, it was said six Juventus players were to be exchanged for just one. But what a player. 

2010 was shaping up to be a tough year for Iranian football. The national team had embarrassingly failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa under the tutelage of the legendary Ali Daei – sacked after an unthinkable 2-1 home defeat to perennial rivals Saudi Arabia.

As the ink dried on his Anfield contract in August 1977 and another record-breaking cheque was inevitably cashed by the Parkhead powerbrokers, the departure of Kenny Dalglish signalled the end of a golden era at Celtic Park.

The talented Mr Miccoli

As the world of football continues to evolve rapidly, one of its traditional superpowers might be left behind.

It was like a scene out of a Robert Redford movie, five co-conspirators gathered in a smoke-filled Córdoba hotel lobby under a blanket of secrecy.

When Miguel Rosa and Filipe Ferreira scored the two goals that enabled CFF Belenenses to beat Sporting Braga 2-1 in January, an audible sigh could be heard amongst the scattered faithful in Estádio do Restelo. Since a 2-0 win over Olhanense on 5th October last year, the dark blues had not tasted victory in the league. A real sense of drama and foreboding had begun to fall over the club that hauled itself so impressively back into the Portuguese top flight last season, after a brief three year spell in the wilderness of the Portuguese second tier, the sparsely populated and little followed Liga da Honra. That Alan brought Braga back into the game with a sumptuous goal worth taking a long and repeated look at (Youtube clip?) only heightened the tension, but the home side held out for the much needed tonic of three points and a widening gap with the Superliga's bottom two, Olhanense and Paços de Ferreira. Since then, the fires of passionate belief have once again been snuffed by defeat on Madeira 

The 23rd of January 2014 could well be the most significant day in the Hyundai A-League’s short history as news broke that Premier League giants Manchester City were part of a consortium to buy Melbourne Heart.

Rabbi Howell was a much more significant figure in footballing terms, and yet he has been largely ignored and forgotten.

As Mexican defender Rafael Marquez prepares for his fourth World Cup, Tri fans recall fondly his earlier appearances.

In 1973 the North American Soccer League's newest club, Philadelphia Atoms, became the first professional sports expansion team to win a debut season championship.

The summer of 1967 in Detroit will forever be remembered for the city’s race riots, National Guard presence and growing opposition to the Vietnam War, but amidst this turbulent period, the city also temporarily acquired a new ‘soccer’ team.

Mohannad Abdul-Raheem Karrar - the 2012 Asian Youth Footballer of the Year and a previous AFC U-19 Championship's MVP – scores the game winner with a composed finish past the Saudi keeper in the finals of the AFC U-22 Championships in Oman.

"To dictate the pace and course of a game, a player has to be blessed with awesome qualities. Those who have accomplished it on a regular basis can be counted on the fingers of one hand – Pelé, Maradona, Best, Di Stefano, and Tom Finney."

Aulis Rytkönen has often been dubbed the first Finnish professional football player who left the country to ply his trade abroad. 

The general consensus amongst experts in the history of British football is that its pivotal moment came on the 25th of November 1953. England’s abject humiliation at the hands of a technically and tactically superior Hungarian side sent shockwaves through the game, forcing a long overdue re-evaluation that would culminate in World Cup triumph in 1966.