Lost In Time Futbol

While cricket is by far the most popular sport in India, football is actually the most followed in some states like Goa, Kerala and West Bengal. The latter in particular is known for its passion for the game, and the city of Kolkata, the state's capital, is one of the main hubs of Indian football.  There's three main football clubs in Kolkata. Mohammedan SC, who represent the Muslim community of West Bengal, are the least successful of the three: the  Black Panthers  had a golden era in the 1930s and 1940s, but had a major downfall in the late 20th century and have only recently made a return to the top division, competing in the Indian Super League in 2024-25. The two other clubs, on the other hand, are total juggernauts of Indian football. While not necessarily being representative of the Hindu community in the region, the fact that Mohammedan has "claimed" the Muslim following has left the remaining fans split between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal.   A moment from a...

It's pretty common to have more than a club in a single city, especially if it's a National capital. For example, Belgrade has both Red Star and Partizan, Wien has Austria and Rapid and so on. However, a fight for domination over a city by two clubs who claim to be the same exact thing is a completely different story and much rarer. That's exactly what is going on in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, where FCSB and CSA Steaua have been fighting for years, each claiming to be the righteous heir of Steaua Bucharest's historic sporting achievements, including their famous 1986 European Cup triumph. FCSB fans displaying the historic badge of Steaua and FCSB's one [FCSB]   The concept of two clubs arguing about which one is the real successor is a little hard to grasp, but it's not that uncommon in Eastern Europe. Something similar is going on in Bulgaria, where CSKA 1948 Sofia was founded by people breaking away from the original CSKA Sofia after their bankruptcy, ...

Everyone loves an underdog. Whether it's an unlikely Champions League run, a small nation making the World Cup or your notoriously untalented friend scoring a worldie in your Sunday League match, enjoying a spectacular event happening against the odds makes countless predictable matches worth the wait. Sweden's Allsvenskan has taken this concept a step further. Despite crowning an astonishing 11 different clubs as champions between 2000 and 2024, this year has surpassed any possible result in terms of shock. The 2025 edition of Sweden's top tier has been won - mind you,  dominated - by Mjällby AIF, a club based in Hällevik, a town located in Blekinge County, which by land mass is the smallest in the country. Tom Pettersson celebrates the title [Getty Images] Blekinge  län , as the Swedes would call it, is home to about 150,000 people, and happens to be less than any of the 10 biggest metropolitan areas in the country. Of these 150,000, just 17,000 live in the municipality o...

Forget the Camp Nou and La Liga, the Sant Andreu vs Europa rivalry is born in the neighbourhoods.

When on October 1st 2022 Arema FC fans were entering their home ground, Kanjuruhan Stadium, they never would have imagined how that evening would change their club, their lives and Indonesian football forever. The match was massive: the Super East Java Derby against Persebaya Surabaya is one of the fiercest rivalries in Indonesia. The distance between Arema's city Malang and Surabaya is just a two hour drive, so supremacy over the East Java province and bragging rights are at stake.  Indonesia has had extensive problems with football hooliganism in the past: 95 deaths have happened in football-related incidents between 2005 and 2018. For this reason, authorities banned Persebaya fans from travelling to Malang, closing the away end.   Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang, Indonesia [dreamstime.com] Concerned because of the buzz around the match, the police tried to move the game from the evening to the afternoon and to reduce the tickets available from 42,000 to 38,000, without success...

Football in the United States of America is still a growing sport. Up until the 1994 World Cup, interest in the country was extremely low, and although that tournament has helped raise football's popularity and set up the MLS, it wasn't until the late 2000's that the league really started picking up momentum with David Beckham's arrival at Los Angeles Galaxy. Despite the MLS growing in popularity and size over the last few years - they now have a massive 30 clubs competing - the closed environment, typical in American professional leagues like the NBA or NFL, has made it difficult to see anything other than billionaire or corporate-backed clubs competing at the highest level. A Bundesliga-type of football club is very unlikely to happen in the MLS, but it isn't in the lower divisions - and that's exactly what  San Francisco City FC  is. The club, founded in 2001, is the oldest supporter-owned football club in the United States.    San Francisco City supporters c...

Belfast, as capital city of Northern Ireland, has for centuries been plagued with tensions between the Protestant Unionist and the Catholic Republicans. Such a tricky cohabitation has seen the city become theatre of plenty of violent incidents, political unrest and deeply rooted hatred between the two factions, creating a similar environment to that of Glasgow, which has seen Celtic and Rangers grow into one of the most notable pair of rivals on the planet. As it does to this day in Glasgow, football also played a role in Belfast, partly taking inspiration from its Scottish counterpart. In 1891, four years after the founding of Celtic FC, the Catholics in Northern Ireland founded a club of their own and named it Belfast Celtic, adopting the same name and colours of the Scottish side. The Celtic mural in Belfast [sky.com] Quickly becoming a pillar of the Catholic communities of west Belfast, the club started achieving success at the turn of the century, winning its first league title in...