Michael Cox

Eight expectations about football from 25 years ago that have proven misguided From pay-per-view coverage to the loss of technical midfielders to indoor stadiums – some expectations from 2000 haven't come true

Football in 2025 doesn’t look how we expected it to in 2000. Here’s a list of eight things I anticipated would happen in that time, that have not happened at all.
www.nytimes.com/athletic/670...

Peter Ridsdale praised for financial prudence in terms of player wages, 1999.

imagine telling someone 25 years ago that 8 of the 10 Premier League games would be televised - but that the exceptions would be the Man Utd game and the Arsenal game

I want to watch the goals, but thanks

Why do people in television not understand how tinpot it looks to put tweets from random people up on the screen during the punditry? Stop it

Yeah bang on. He’s been back too much for it to be fun.

fair play, this is a bad night of CL fixtures isn’t it?

Atletico dominated the derby by exposing Real Madrid in the channels Diego Simeone's side thrashed their city rivals by going back to basics — as they often do in the 'derbi'

Atletico 5-2 Real. Loved this game. That said, none of the goals really came from the interesting things about the tactics, which is a shame if you're writing about the tactics.
www.nytimes.com/athletic/667...

yeah I do think this is quite nice. I have tried. Quite up for supporting Europe versus America, a novel concept, but just can’t get away from the “golf” bit

Well presumably it wouldn’t be on the list due to not being about football

Yeah tennis fans seem quite anti-giantkillings

update: just seen a poem about an F1 driver's dog. I take it back.

yeah basically agree but there's something slightly specific about it compared to other individual sports, a kind of permanent 'we are not worthy' stance

I very much dislike rugby union and I think a lot of people are just pretending to be into it for personal branding reasons, but I'm not sure that rugby union *fandom* is actually that weird. Whereas I have no doubt that golf fans really bloody love golf, but their fandom is very weird.

agree, right up there. Funny one this, as I can't quite detect the reason for it.

interesting to see golf regaining its position as the sport with the weirdest fans, after a strong challenge from Formula 1 in recent years

thank you!

Kayode’s extra long throws partly because of the wind which is basically taking the ball from the near side towards that goal.

Football and trains: The vital role railways have played in the English game Michael Cox looks at how the passenger train has been fundamental to English football for almost two centuries

200 years today since the world's first passenger railway journey in the north east of England. Here's a look at the history of railways and English football: including the formation of Man Utd, football specials & specially-built stations that were barely used.
www.nytimes.com/athletic/665...

Really loved writing this paragraph. Think it looks better once the editors added all the astrisks.

Thanks for reading! Yeah, by this point I think the ship has sailed for Enfield FC, but it's a shame it didn't happen 10-15 years ago.

you can say what you want in footnotes, no-one is gonna read it

this is correct. It's also worth pointing out that the five came from 1.0xG of chances.

Well yes, because they were 1-0 down, and because the manager had been over cautious from the start, neither of which apply to Liverpool in the Arsenal game!

what does that have to do with yesterday's game?

they did. Don't think it was that open in first half. Last 20 or so Arsenal were very good

Not at all. I sat down hoping I could write about something more exciting!. The 5-1 game wasn't a reflection of Arsenal starting aggressively, in my view but they played excellent and ran up the score. As for Liverpool, they made a noticeable attacking shift at half-time and were the better side.

Mikel Arteta versus Pep Guardiola has become a boring battle of overwhelming caution The Arsenal manager and his Manchester City counterpart appear to be finding new ways to create dull games. Where is the ambition?

an article on GuardiolAI and ChatGPTeta's latest attempt to remove any hint of human creativity from their meetings
www.nytimes.com/athletic/665...

hate all this "oooh you can't tackle any more, remember when this fixture used to be about tackling" stuff from the commentators here. Merseyside derbies used to be crap. Give me goals like this any day (would also argue TV-influenced Sat 12:30 games don't help if you want feisty tackles)

pleasure! Thanks for listening.