First of all, my sincerest congratulations are in order.

In 2012, U.S. sportswriter Wright Thompson travelled to Rosario, Lionel Messi’s hometown, to learn more about the city’s most famous son since Che Guevara.

If you were asked to name football’s first world champions, what would be your response? Uruguay? You would not be mistaken, of course, if you held that view; they won the first FIFA-organised tournament of nations in 1930 after all.

Born in Itubano on 12th July 1953, the Baiano Perivaldo played for Itubano, Bahia and Botafogo.

A man kneels by a gravestone, hands clasped together he implores the heavens. Tears roll down his face and into the Austrian soil where his great mentor now rests. But this visit is not a chance to pay respects to an old friend; it is a heartfelt plea for mercy. 

Josip Skoblar, often remembered by Olympique Marseille fans simply as Monsieur Goal, played for L'OM in the 1960's and 70's.

Hovering just above, using satellite view, on Google maps there appears to be little remarkable about the modest football ground on the Southern edge of Caen: a small clubhouse, a white rail around the perimeter and two dugouts.

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.