Brighton centre forward Glenn Murray and his wife were arrested today on charges of tax evasion.
The draw for the Nations' Cup took place today. Germany, France and Holland are in one group. Fascinating, on paper. But will they take the competition seriously? Malta were drawn with Kosovo, Azerbaijan and Faroe Islands. Malta's chances of getting out of Division D look slim already. But, can new manager Tom Saintflet work some magic.
The BBC ran a story today about Saintflet, painting a picture of him as a coach who has performed miracles with smaller footballing countries. It described how he is looking to pull Malta out of it's minnow status. It was an amazingly positive story, a romantic story of the small country winning against all the odds, led by the messiah coach. A little too fairytale for anybody who follows Maltese football. This is a coach with more than 20 jobs in a 20 year career. The BBC calls that well experienced.
How does the Nations' Cup actually work, and how does it run alongside European Championship qualifying? There are about as many explanations out there as there are about the offside rule. And just like the offside rule, it should be very easy to explain but why can't anybody make it simple? In a nutshell the Nations' Cup replaces friendly matches in the international calendar. Matches will be played from September-November this year. In March 2019 the Euro qualifiers will start. Twenty teams will qualify. The other four teams will come from playoffs amongst the four group winners in each division of the Nations' Cup. But if one of those group winners has already qualified for the Euros then the next best team in that division will compete in the playoffs. The expectation is that all the teams from Division A will make it through the qualifiers. So the Division A playoffs will be made up of the best Division B teams.
Get it? That was easy. Now how about the offside rule....
Arsenal beat Chelsea today and will play Man City in the final of the Carabao Cup on February 25th. Mouthwatering. It's just too bad that the competition has a name that makes it sound like a pre-season exhibition non-tournament.
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