Suarez, headbutts, corruption and an assassination attempt.

[JamieD 19,030]

Here's an absolutely bizarre article by an American journalist who became interested in the story that Luis Suarez headbutted a referee when he was 15 and tried to get to the bottom of it, uncovering a strange tale about intimidation and an assassination attempt on an investigative journalist Uruguay sounds like a complicated place.

I warn you, it's very long.

http://espn.go.com/e...eautiful-player

[JamieD 19,030]

The story about his wife is actually kind of amazing

[the goal machine 7,810]

The story about his wife is actually kind of amazing

Have you read his article on Messi from a while back? It's pretty fascinating.

[JamieD 19,030]

Have you read his article on Messi from a while back? It's pretty fascinating.

Yeah, it was great. It's weird that the two best football writers around right now (if we consider Hugh McIlvanney to be practically decomposing at this point) are American. And who do we get? Henry "I bought the Special One some custard creams before I interviewed him so he would like me" Winter?

[the goal machine 7,810]

Yeah, it was great. It's weird that the two best football writers around right now (if we consider Hugh McIlvanney to be practically decomposing at this point) are American. And who do we get? Henry "I bought the Special One some custard creams before I interviewed him so he would like me" Winter?

The English newspapers are pretty awful for good sportswriting except for The Guardian really and they don't really do any long-form pieces.

I really liked this article on the Belgian national team:

http://grantland.com/features/world-cup-2014-belgian-national-team-vincent-kompany-eden-hazard-marouane-fellaini/

[West_Side 1,571]

Yeah, it was great. It's weird that the two best football writers around right now (if we consider Hugh McIlvanney to be practically decomposing at this point) are American. And who do we get? Henry "I bought the Special One some custard creams before I interviewed him so he would like me" Winter?

Winter has a lyrical writing style but has been criticised ^[4] for egregious and frequent malapropisms, including repeated misuse of the word "enervated".

[JamieD 19,030]

The English newspapers are pretty awful for good sportswriting except for The Guardian really and they don't really do any long-form pieces.

I really liked this article on the Belgian national team:

http://grantland.com...ouane-fellaini/

Grantland's team is just outstanding. I would read Brian Phillips on literally any subject. His uber long-form piece about the Iditarod dog sled race was incredible

[the goal machine 7,810]

Grantland's team is just outstanding. I would read Brian Phillips on literally any subject. His uber long-form piece about the Iditarod dog sled race was incredible

Yeah, that was brilliant. Imagine finding something like that in one of the British papers.

[JamieD 19,030]

My all-time favourite Winterism was when Hodgson made his joke about "feeding the monkey" in reference to Andros Townsend and Winter wrote an article criticising Hodgson for his bumbling, confusing team-talks. He went on to say "Footballers do not want Wittgenstein at half-time; they want bullet-points. Keep it simple. Less is more."

Of course, shoe-horning a smug reference to Wittgenstein into the piece might have been more impressive if it were not for that fact that Wittgenstein's most famous work actually was written entirely in bullet points.