World Cup

The World Cup remains arguably the pinnacle of the beautiful game, a festival of football where the planet’s biggest stars compete for the chance to be crowned world champions. Entering the footballing calendar just once every four summers, opportunities to make an impact on the biggest tournament in the game …

The Topographical Dictionary of Ireland comes in two volumes and was created by Samuel Lewis in 1837 to illustrate the local history of the Country. In his writing, Lewis describes the village of Feakle in Co. Clare ‘as presenting, throughout, a succession of mountain and valley, including the extensive and …

A music scholar once wrote, the art of song writing can be broken down into three essential building blocks: ‘Lyrics, Chords and Melody’. Over the decades the music charts have been infiltrated on occasion by footballers, we think of Paul Gascoigne crowing about ‘the Fog on the Tyne’, Chris Waddle …

Eden Hazard has revealed he made the decision to leave Chelsea and join Real Madrid after the 2018 World Cup. The Belgian international fulfilled a boyhood ambition by moving to the Bernabeu last summer, bringing an end to a successful seven season stay at Stamford Bridge that delivered two league …

Huge strides are being made in women’s football, but have the FAI already missed the boat to capitalise on the success of the World Cup for the betterment of Irish football? The Women’s World Cup comes to a conclusion this weekend. Sweden have claimed third place after their 2-1 win …

England manager Phil Neville’s criticism of Cameroon players came across as hypocritical and unnecessary, while VAR is resulting in more problems than solutions. Picture the scene: it’s a mild summer’s day in suburban England, when a football match breaks out into an all-out brawl. Young girls are spitting on their …

The Women’s World Cup has so far contained everything one could hope for from a great international tournament, including drama, last-minute goals, and unbelievable comebacks. And there’s still more to come. In 2015 the Fifa Women’s World Cup was expanded from 16 teams to 24, which gave the competition a …

The kits on display in this summer’s World Cup are sensational, but which one comes in first and, more importantly, last place? The Fifa Women’s World Cup is kicking off this week and the competition promises to be stronger than ever. The defending champions USA are good odds to retain …

Former England captain Wayne Rooney has said that the performance put in by the current crop of internationals at the World Cup this summer has restored the nations pride in the national team. Rooney brought the curtain down on his international playing days in August 2017, having established himself as …

Carlos Tevez has pleaded with Argentina captain Lionel Messi not to quit international football after yet another tournament of disappointment for the La Albiceleste at this summers World Cup in Russia. Messi and his team-mates came in for some heavy criticism after a humiliating 3-0 Group Stage loss to Croatia, and …