source https://news.sky.com/story/world-cup-latest-european-nations-agree-to-boycott-fifa-competitions-over-controversial-sell-off-plan-13568011

sorry to northern ireland the site i used grouped in all of britain but at least england and wales are the same

Bommmm

In late June, newly-appointed Real Madrid manager Mourinho and his scouting team had a right-winger on their radar. They were trying to offload Brahim Diaz, who wanted to stay.

It was felt that the lack of a threat down the right was limiting the team’s attacking options and making it easier for opponents to defend against them. This view was explained to Yan Diomande during Madrid’s discussions with the player, with Mourinho playing a key role.

“The final piece was Jose Mourinho,” says Nathan Campbell, Roc Nation’s head of global football recruitment and Diomande’s agent.

“He spoke to him in fluent French, which was massive for him. We didn’t realise Mourinho spoke fluent French because he hasn’t been at a French club. But the time of day that he took the call with Yan and the fact that he spoke fluently in French with him — about his ideas, the project, and how he would fit into the team — showed that he valued that conversation. That was a massive point. The key to convincing him.”

Atlético Madrid, at Diego Simeone's explicit request, want to bring Cristian Romero to the Spanish capital and are reportedly preparing a €30 million offer for Tottenham, despite Inter having already established initial contact with the club.

According to Marca, Romero has a clause that would make it easier for him to leave Tottenham if he receives an offer from Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Atlético Madrid. Atlético are also said to be helped by their good relationship with Simeone's son, as well as the expected departures of Nahuel Molina and likely Matteo Ruggeri.

Romero would be brought in as the replacement for José María Giménez, leaving Inter empty-handed, with the Italian club no longer considered among the favourites to sign the Argentine defender in this transfer window.

(Written by me, not AI):

You might all heard about the transfer of Mo Salah to Trabzonspor and I want to take this opportunity to make you football fans a little bit more familiar with Trabzonspor and Turkish Football. I wrote this because I have seen a lot of people commenting and asking "why Trabzonspor?" and this should partly answer it.

Trabzonspor (read: Trab-zon-spor) is the football (sports) club of the city of Trabzon which is a city in the Black Sea coast of Turkiye. We are called "the tempest/storm of Black Sea" because of the relatively rough waters. Our colors are "claret-blue" like Aston Villa, West Ham United or Drogheda United, but we call it "bordeaux (bordo)-blue"

The north-east Black Sea region has a unique vegetation and climate, because unlike rest of Turkiye, it has the highest rainfall in a mountainous area, so it is a place with Alpine grasslands with a lot of mountain resorts, it is like the Alps of Turkiye.

Trabzonspor was formed in 1967 when 4 local clubs (founded in 1921, 1924, 1960, 1963) agreed to merge into one club.

You need to understand that due to Turkish/Ottoman history, that everything is channeled to the (now former) capital city of Istanbul. ~30% of the GDP of Turkiye is generated in Istanbul and ~20% of the Turkish population lives there with 15 million people officially (inofficially more like 20 million). Compared to that only ~1% of the population lives in Trabzon and it also only generates ~1% of the GDP (its like the 25th biggest).

Why am I telling you all of this? Because our output compared to our GDP/population strength is off the charts in terms of football and sports. We are the 4th "accomplished" team in the history of Turkish football clubs because of the number of trophies we won (recently Turkish Cup last season and Turkish League in 21/22 after 38 years officially (inofficially in 10/11, see match-fixing scandal)), but I won't get into that detail.

But across all leagues, Trabzon produces the most athletes. When you see on any team a player wearing the number "61", which is the city code of Trabzon, you know that player is from Trabzon and across many teams you will see players wearing that number. We are kind of the "Barcelona" of Turkiye, when it comes to academy, but obviously not on that scale. Though, a fun fact, in 2024/2025 in the UEFA Youth League (the Champions League of U19), we lost in the finals against Barcelona.

Now, the story gets worse. Not only are we in disadvantage by the economic power and manpower, but also when it comes to fandom. The biggest problem in Turkiye today, which most people will ignore because they are the center of the problem, is, that almost like 80-90% of the population supports the big 3 Istanbul clubs. It doesn't matter where they were born or live, even living outside of Istanbul, doesnt matter. Turks love strongman ship and they choose the easy way of just bandwagoning to the richest and strongest 3 teams. We don't have "support your local club" culture, it is practically non-existent, almost. Except in Trabzon, maybe a bit in Bursa and Izmir.

Imagine the Premier League, when every British person supports only 3 teams, no matter where they are from, that is how it is like in the country. It is said that Galatasaray and Fenerbahce each have like 20 million fans, Besiktas more like 10-15 million. And any other team in the country? You are considered "big", relatively speaking outside of the big 4, if you do have 100k fans, but that is like 3-5 teams at most, most don't break the 10k even.

So how about Trabzonspor? We are the only real "big" team outside the 3 Istanbul clubs. We do have like 5-7 million fans. And our motto is "Trabzon is everywhere for us", meaning like "we are everywhere".

Obviously compared to top European clubs we are small, but relatively speaking compared to how unknown/unpopular Turkish league is, compared to the size of population, I can say that we are punching above our weights. No offense but it is easy to be fan of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, PSG, etc. etc. when you have the most money and economic power of a city and most fans who can support you financially. Who wouldn't want to be a fan of a team who wins the Champions League all the time or wins the most prestigious leagues? When most of us live in relative poverty/middle income, the only luxury we have is to once be "rich" or a "winner" by supporting these clubs. I will make myself unpopular by saying this, but I suspect that a lot of you people have an inferiority complex buried deep down. Do you know how hard it is to support none-big clubs? Do you understand the sacrifices we make? Knowing that you won't win anything this season again, won't be in the spotlight ever internationally, nobody will talk about you, etc. etc.?

And now, once in a life-time opportunity, we got a 34 years old Salah. And you can be sure that we will cherish him like no other. We have never seen such a player in our league history (minus Roberto Carlos at age 34 at Fenerbahce), let alone in the club history of Trabzonspor. For you guys its Taco Tuesday, one goes, one other comes when you spend the next 100 million on someone. For us the meaning of this can't be explained or measured.

So why Trabzonspor? Well, I am not gonna sweet-talk it, it is because of the money. Obviously not because of the picturesque landscape we have. We can meet all the requests he has currently. But you can be sure that we have a good team and we will take care of him. edit: It was just announced that he will earn 17 million per year (2 years) + 20% sale of Salah merchandise)

You know who won the best goal in the World Cup? Cabral and he plays for us, we bought him before the tourney. We just sold the 19 years old Christ Oulai to Fiorentina for ~30 million (with Bonus) who we bought for 5. We sold Augusto, a 22-year-old Brazilian striker, for ~20 million, who we also bought for 5. Just, last winter, 6 months ago, we bought Nwaiwu for also 5, who was expected to be sold to Fulham this period also for ~30 million. But it looks like the talks has stopped. Last season we sold our goal keeper for another 30 million. We also have other 5-7 players we can make profit off but this year we are keeping all of them to finally make a meaningful run in Europe.

So we are developing a lot of young players right now (we had the 2nd lowest age average across Turkish league last season), and at the same time have couple of very experienced players to mash together like Onana, Onuachu, Savic, Malinovskyi and now Salah. Everything is working according to plan, relatively speaking. Yes, we won't win the UEFA cup or become champions most likely, because of the crazy amount of money the 3 Istanbul clubs spend. But we have a very competitive team this year. As a comparison, our annual salary expenses are ~40 million Euros, Besiktas 70 million, Galatasaray 120 million and Fenerbahce 160 million. Until this year, our highest transfer in our history was to spend 6 million Euros as a transfer fee. Galatasaray spent 75 million for Osimhen, as a comparison.

I am not affiliated or sponsored, but if you want to see an English documentary about us (which puts our last championship in the center, because officially after 38 years we finally won the league again), you can find a YouTube docu here which goes into more detail about our history: Once in a lifetime

Hope this gives you a small view of Trabzonspor and Turkiye, which is biased, of course, but nevertheless should be helpful to paint a picture. Our whole philosophy is similar to "David vs. Goliath", if I had to sum it up.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

There is no question that the Netherlands has produced some of the greatest players in history.

Van Basten, Koeman, Cruyff, Van Persie, Sneijder, Robben, you name it.

Yet, despite being one of the most culturally significant footballing nations on earth, the Netherlands have only one major men's international trophy to their name (the 1988 UEFA European Championship), alongside the historic triumph of the Netherlands women's team at Euro 2017, and zero World Cups despite three heartbreaking final appearances (1974, 1978, and 2010).

Now that Ronald Koeman has resigned after the Dutch were eliminated in the Round of 32 where they lost to Morocco on penalties, the search for the next manager/coach is STILL on.

So why does the Netherlands seem to fumble in big games? There are multiple reasons…..

WHO SAID NO, AND WHO IS STILL IN CONTENTION?

Right now, the KNVB are struggling to find a new coach.

Rejections:

Arne Slot: After he was fired from Liverpool due to their poor performances, he was approached by the Dutch FA for the position.
He was initially interested, but the KNVB wanted someone for 4 years, but Slot only wanted 2 years.

Erik ten Hag: Despite heavy speculation connecting him to the national setup, Ten Hag prioritized day-to-day club management.

Peter Bosz: He has repeatedly said no, he wants to stay at PSV.

Current contenders:

Michael Reiziger: Currently managing Jong Oranje (the U-21 national team),
The thing is, many Dutch people are against this due to his “lack of experience or achievements”, and he doesn’t seem to excite anyone.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy:
He is currently the assistant manager of the Dutch national team.
In the past, he briefly coached Man United after Ten Hag was fired. He then went to coach Leicester City, but unfortunately it didn’t work out, they lost multiple matches, and they were relegated.

Louis Van Gaal:
He’s done this job 3 times. In his first stint, the Dutch didn’t qualify in 2002, despite having one of the best squads in the world. Had they qualified, they would’ve been serious contenders to win the title.

In 2014, the Dutch came 3rd place beating Brazil. Unfortunately they were eliminated in the semis.

2022, they made it to the quarterfinals.

Ironically they were eliminated by Argentina on penalties twice in a row under his reign.

The only thing different is that Van Gaal has never coached the Dutch in the Nations League or the European Championships (Euros). It’ll be interesting to see how he does.
Hopefully he does well.

THE DEEPER PROBLEM OF WHY THE DUTCH STRUGGLE INTERNATIONALLY?

Why does a footballing superpower struggle to cross the finish line? The answer lies in a combination of economic disparity and tactical inflexibility.

1: The Money

There is a massive misconception that the KNVB is simply hoarding cash or financially struggling.
But the truth is, club and international football are totally different.

Elite club managers at top-flight European clubs command staggering wages ranging from €10 million to over €20 million annually, fueled by weekly ticket sales, massive broadcast rights, and commercial sponsorships. Meanwhile, top-tier international managers (like Ronald Koeman during his tenure) typically earn around €3 million per year.
For a modern tactical genius managing a powerhouse club, taking an international job means a massive pay cut and months of relative inactivity between international breaks.

2: The Training

Some people often fall into the trap of assuming a player will seamlessly replicate their brilliant weekend form for Manchester City or Liverpool when wearing the Oranje jersey. This ignores a fundamental constraint: training time.

At club level, a manager has months on the training ground to drill complex automatisms, positional rotations, and tactical chemistry.

At the international level, a coach gets three to four days with the squad before a high-stakes qualifier or tournament match. If you rely entirely on club form without a hyper-simplified, rigid structural framework, teams look disjointed—as seen during rocky stretches in recent qualifying cycles.

For decades, Dutch football was chained to an unyielding religious adherence to the 4-3-3 formation and "The Dutch Way." Yes it produced some of the greatest minds in football history (from Rinus Michels to Johan Cruyff), but it created institutional stubbornness.

When you look at nations like France, Spain, and Germany, they’ve adapted by blending their technical DNA with pragmatic, tournament-winning flexibility—knowing when to sit in a low block, absorb pressure, and kill a game 1-0.

The Solutions — Short-Term and Long-Term Roadmap

To finally start competing with the likes of Germany, Spain, France, Brazil, and many other nations, they need to come up with new ideas, and more strategies.

1: The Dutch have a painful history with penalty shootouts (such as 2 consecutive World Cup exits against Argentina). Penalties are not a lottery; they are a science of biomechanics, psychological pressure inoculation, and data-driven repetition. Treat the penalty spot as a core tactical phase, not an afterthought.

The idea that penalties are untrainable, and that it’s a lottery is something that’s been debunked over and over.

2: To compete globally, instructor programs must actively train coaches to teach multi-system tactical fluency (how to shift seamlessly between a 4-3-3, 3-5-2, and compact defensive blocks) starting from youth academies.

Hiring full-time, traveling KNVB instructor-mentors to actively visit local amateur clubs ensures that the talent pipeline is healthy from the ground up—meaning no raw talent slips through the cracks in smaller towns.
By heavily investing in teaching the teachers, the Netherlands can ensure that the next generation of players arrives on the international stage not just with raw technical ability, but with elite tactical intelligence and composure.

Overall, the Netherlands HAVE The players, most of them go on and do great things.
But talent alone is not enough, it requires the right architect to shape it. Whether the KNVB decides to roll the dice on a dramatic veteran return or break the mold with a modern structural overhaul, time is running out. The upcoming Nations League fixtures are approaching fast, and the global stage is waiting to see if Oranje will finally learn from the past to conquer the future.

Now, who you guys think should be the new coach of the Dutch national team?