Archive | November 20, 2012

David Beckham – Where next ?

The soon-to-be former MLS player will think about a move back to England, but Australia and China are the most realistic options. When David Beckham says he intends to take on one more challenge before hanging up his boots, we had better take him seriously. Since Sir Alex Ferguson ended his dream of staying at […]

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How Pep Guardiola got the Barcelona players on his side

Frank Rijkaard’s Barcelona were suffering an unstoppable decline into decadence, the dressing room lacking discipline and spirit. Ronaldinho had lost his status as the most exciting player on the planet, the president Joan Laporta had only just survived in office and Catalan self-esteem was at its lowest ebb for decades. At that point Pep Guardiola […]

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Pretty football and the Nash equilibrium

Ignore Barcelona. Ignore Spain. Ignore 1982 Brazil, Total Football Holland, and the Invincibles. What if the real footballing lesson about aspiration and beauty lies not in art, but in economics? This I have learned from John Forbes Nash, the Nobel Laureate depicted by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. In the movie version, Crowe/Nash advises […]

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