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[Featured Article] Twitter Feedback November 2016 till February 2017

Paul Grech Tuesday, February 28, 2017 , , ,











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[Interview] Femmetastic

Paul Grech Thursday, February 23, 2017 , , ,
Some interviews can be tough.  There are people who are prone to clamming up; offering monosyllabic answers regardless of how hard you try to put them at ease.  It is even more frustrating if you know that there’s a really good story waiting to be told if only they’d give you something to work with.

This was not such an interview; in fact it was quite the opposite.  The two young women who sat opposite me in a cafĂ© in Naxxar exuded confidence and both were extremely eloquent in their replies.  Caroline Spiteri and Francesca Mercieca, who perform together under the name Fuzzhoneys, are two musicians who know their mind and don’t shy away from expressing it.

So it was a bit of a surprise when Francesca admitted that she can suffer from nerves when she has to perform.  Which, given that she is the lead singer, can something of a problem.

“During live performances I get so excited, there is so much adrenalin flowing, that sometimes I have to look at videos of our gigs to really appreciate what went on.”

The full interview can be read on Snapshots of Malta.
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[Featured Article] Antonio Sibilia: Avellino's Unique and Unforgettable Commander

Paul Grech Monday, February 20, 2017 , , ,
As the ground staff made their way to Avellino’s Stadio Partenio on morning of 20 April 1992, their mood was dark. Over the weekend the team had lost once more, just the latest in a series of squalid performances which had pushed them ever closer to relegation from Serie B.

All their troubled thoughts, however, could hardly have prepared them for the sight that greeted them as they entered the stadium, where a row of crosses stretching from one goal to the other had been planted on the pitch overnight.

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"The coach is the most disposable element in a football team."

Having delivered tiki-taka and a generation of players that dominated world football for almost a decade through a system based almost exclusively on ability, Spain is rightly seen as the home of technical football.  Out of this success a culture has developed that is appreciative of the aesthetic and confident that the best results can be achieved through the domination of possession.

Fueling this culture are coaches who bring the ideology to life.  Ismael DĂ­az Galán is typical of this class.  His experiences might have been limited largely outside the Primera Liga but he is a deep thinker about the game and a keen educator who is eager to share the vision that lights up Spanish football.

The full interview can be read on Blueprint for Football.
 
Copyright 2010 Paul Grech: Writer