How a Parisian suburb created its own AFCON 🇫🇷🏆
@hashimotban is on the hunt for football’s soul. And after travelling to Colombia for one of South America’s fiercest street football tournaments, his journey continues in the outskirts of Paris. Where, every year, the city’s African diaspora come together for the Coup d’Aulnay des Nations — a community tournament inspired by AFCON itself. Featuring flair by the bucket load, as you’d expect from one of Europe’s greatest talent hotbeds.
Soul Searching: Paris is live now on the COPA90 YouTube channel 🎥
The 1994 FIFA World Cup™ was a sun-drenched celebration of football and a tournament of firsts. The first to be held in the USA, the first to have matches played in baseball stadiums and in Michigan’s Pontiac Silverdome, the first to feature a game played indoors.
Despite a perceived lack of interest in soccer, the stands were jam-packed and with an overall attendance of 3,597,042 at an average of 69,174 per match, it is still today the highest ever attended FIFA World Cup™.
On the pitch Brazil beat Italy in the final 3-2 on penalties, the first FIFA World Cup™ Final to be decided by a shootout, USA beat Colombia to get their first win in a FIFA World Cup™ since beating England in 1950, and Bulgarian powerhouse Hristo Stoichkov and Russia’s Oleg Salenko won the Golden Boot with six goals a-piece... five of Salenko’s coming in a single group stage match against Cameroon.
Superstars, cult heroes, surprise packages... USA ‘94 put football firmly on the map in the States, two years before the launch of MLS.
Here are our five picks from the tournament that we want to highlight from the 580 FIFA World Cup™ matches before 2002 that didn’t have an official Superior Player of the Match.
Tell us who we’ve missed and who your nation will always remember.
Johno Ramsay is Hearts through and through. From day dot he’s called Tynecastle home, side-by-side with his father, Eno, until the latter’s sudden passing in 2021. In the years since, grief and love have intertwined in all things maroon. Leaving Johno struggling to reconnect with the Jambos.
This season, that all changed.
Gorgie now sits on the edge of glory. One game away from a first league title in 66 years and getting over the line would mean another outing for Johno and Eno. An opportunity to feel connected once more - a fairytale run providing a cathartic release.
📸+✍️: @__matthew.thomas
When Manchester City won the FA Cup in 2011, it began the new era of the club that we all know today.
Micah Richards was on the pitch as City won their first major trophy in 35 years. But remembering who else was on the pitch with him that day proved to be a challenge.
You can watch the FA Cup final this Saturday on BBC One and follow the game on BBC Sport.
We’re all for novel approaches to cursing opponents, so fair play to this Al Kholood fan. We’ll remember this.
To find out all about Al Kholood, a US-owned Saudi side doing it differently do everyone else, check out our YouTube channel now.
The greatest story of the season is happening as we speak. For the first time since 1985, the Old Firm’s grip over Scottish football could be broken, so Eli set course for the Scottish capital to document Gorgie on the edge of glory.
The team whose fans proclaim themselves as always the “bridesmaids” have shaken Scotland to the core. Setting out a five-year plan to disrupt the big 2, but history has come knocking after just 12 months.
With smart signings and one of the best songs in football, “All we need is Claudio Braga”. Hearts sit at the precipice of football folklore.
Here’s what they saw on their first day.
For one summer, from the Wembley Arch to the Stadio Olimpico, Raheem Sterling carried England’s hopes and dreams. The Boy from Brent became the man of the hour in his own back garden.
A season removed from spending a year in the Ballon d’Or conversation, the goal was earning international acclaim by any means necessary. First came Croatia, and the demons from 2018 were exorcised. Clinched the group against Czechia. Die Mannschaft dared to stop him in his stride, so he turned 55 years of history on its head as quickly as you can say ‘Matthias Ginter, track the runner’. In Rome, he found Kane in acres of space and then forced the issue against Denmark. Realising his true potential as the world watched on.
Heartbreak came calling eventually, as it so often does when England are involved. But Raheem Sterling allowed a nation to dream, just a stone’s throw away from where he once dreamt of summers like this one. Poetry in motion.
28 years ago, the greatest footballers on the planet descended on France, hosting the FIFA World Cup™ for the first time since 1938. There were debuts for Jamaica, Japan, South Africa, and Croatia, and teams absolutely stacked with big names, but nobody could stop Les Bleus from lifting the trophy for the first time... and on home turf.
The tournament was crammed with ecstasy, heartbreak, heroes, villains. Romanians with bleach blonde hair upsetting the applecart, a battle for the ages between Argentina and England, the Reggae Reggae Boyz winning their first FIFA World Cup™ match, Ronaldo being mysteriously left off the team sheet, and of course... Zizou scoring a brace in the final to bring glory to the nation.
An incredible festival of football, and these are five superior player performances that we want to highlight from the 580 FIFA World Cup™ matches before 2002 that didn’t have an official Superior Player of the Match.
Jump in the comments to tell us who we’ve missed, what you remember most, and who your country will cherish forever.
Beth Mead found a home in Arsenal Women. And by doing so, in the manner that she did, she helped thousands to find a home in the club as well.
From WSL nights at Boreham Wood in 2017 to sold-out Champions League semi-finals. The ending is a fairytale, but so was the journey.
Homesickness dominated the beginning. She was 22 years old and a ways away from the North East, where she grew up, and had become one of the game’s brightest young talents for Sunderland.
She arrived in North London, set to become Arsenal’s new number nine, but it was on the wing where she found a home.
One of the WSL’s most creative players. Fashioning chances for herself and her teammates over and over again. When Arsenal lifted the WSL trophy in 2019, it was in no small part due to her.
It hasn’t all been highs, though. The loss of her mother and the ACL tear she suffered during the 2022/23 season created a heartbreak she didn’t know if she would ever recover from. But it was through her teammates and through the Arsenal family that Beth Mead became Beth Mead again.
That afternoon in Lisbon will live long in the memory of everyone who loves Arsenal Football Club. And that includes Beth Mead. Her assist for the match-winner cemented her status as a club legend. Forever.
When Meado was on the wing for Arsenal, she was at home.
