The Platonic Tyranny of ‘The Beautiful Game’

Many thanks to Jeré Longman for his liberal quotes of my "The Spoken Word of Ray Hudson" feature in his new New York Times profile of Lionel Messi. And, of course, all credit and thanks to Ray Hudson for the raw material.

Fake Sigi on the Mondaini/Mullan suspension discrepancy

Martin Samuel: Gazza's greatest game...and then the fall

Surreal Football's ways to make football better, part 1 and 2

James Horncastle's possibly definitive takeout on the French quota situation (HT: Football Further)

Martin Samuel: Wenger's latest false dawn

Sid Lowe: For Real-Barca, now it's impersonal

Pitch Invasion: The golden thread of Jimmy Murphy for "United"

Rob MacDonald: The FA discovers this "futsal" thing could be quite beneficial

Sid Lowe on Javier Aguirre's wrath

Tim Vickery: Why England lacks the tournament mentality

Sid Lowe: Racing Santander's new owner shows the team bank slips

Jonathan Wilson on what Atsuto Uchida learned in Germany

Sid Lowe: Why a red card is never just a red card

A Beautiful Numbers Game: Can referees' bias against Arsenal be quantified?

Zonal Marking: Real Madrid/Barca in five dimensions

Why Arsenal needs an old head

Wouldn't it be great if Slate gave Brian Phillips his own RSS feed, so you could read great pieces like his one on Arsenal and Stan Kroenke right away and not have to sift through all their other reflexively contrarian write-the-headlines-first bullshit? Oh, wait -- but they're Slate...

twohundredpercent: Why relegation might be the tonic for St. Pauli's civil war

Steve Davis: The most innovative franchise in Major League Soccer

Futfanatico: Prejudice, Dani Alves and chewing that gum you just kicked

The Equaliser's serialized dissertation on Spanish politics, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona: Part 1; Part 2 (The Political Life of FC Barcelona)

Twohundredpercent: "That's not my Manchester City"

Raphael Honigstein: Why Van Gaal didn't work out at Bayern Munich

Tom Goulding: In praise of football tribalism

Papiss Demba Cisse: The "perfect African player in Europe"?

Paul Gardner: Messi as our Mozart (child genius edition)

Get rid of anti-Semitism on the terraces...but what if the bloke chanting "Yiddo" is Jewish, asks Left Back in the Changing Room?

Sid Lowe: In the Quadruple Clásico, you want to win the 2nd game and the 4th

Paul Gardner: What RSL has to teach the rest of American soccer

What's wrong with Fernando Torres? Views from Martin Samuel, Jonathan Wilson, Left Back in the Changing Room, and Miguel Delaney

Man City: Better off bad

Martin Samuel on the myth of German superiority in league arrangements

Martin Samuel: On Wayne Rooney and lines finally drawn in sand

Sid Lowe on Mallorca, Manzano, and whether the paella will ever be right.

Fredorrarci on the difficulty of some sports

Fake Sigi: Reasons for the Red Bulls' attendance "problems"

Paolo Bandini on Davide Santon's fall from Inter's grace

David Conn: 20 questions for the Premier League chiefs

Tim Vickery: Why Brazilians are flocking to Eastern Europe

Shakhtar Donetsk = Brazil's B side

Gabriele Marcotti: Why can't Balotelli catch a break?

Inside Spain's on-again, off-again strike

Raphael Honigstein: Bayern steps up BIMBYism

Lingering questions on Racing Santander's new owner

Sid Lowe on Barcelona's sad transfer history

Dan Loney takes apart Grant Wahl's FIFA presidential candidacy

Fake Sigi: The fatal fashion flaw of the UMWNT's new jersey

Paul Simpson has zero tolerance for Zero Tolerance

Said and Done: fake kidnapping, gay bashing, and the balls of Hernán Barcos.

Bets on Mario Balotelli's future:
car crash; found hung in a closet; big man in Almería.

Alan Jacobs on Camp Nous

Previously on Well Struck

Brian Phillips: Parity vs. Greatness

Mariana Castillo Deball and Gianluigi Buffon: Chance, Intelligence, and Humor: An Interview with Gianluigi Buffon

Jonathan Wilson: The Joy of Nets

Fake Sigi: More Deplorable Ideological Twaddle

Pitch Invasion's supporter-ownership series

Sam Wallace: David Beckham: England Legend -- Or a Vain Failure?

The Millions: The Magisterial Goal

There are No Fours: Draw Up a Morality Play on the Clipboard

Sport is a TV Show: In Respectful Disagreement of Mystics

This is American Soccer: Good People Doing Bad Things

Sid Lowe: Getafe Emerge from the Shadow of Their Own Advertising Campaign

Sid Lowe: Benítez returns with a reminder of what might have been

Running Downhill: Sports and the Truth in Being Wrong

The Run of Play: Barcelona and the Idea of the Beautiful Game

The Run of Play: The Tuesday Portrait: Zlatan Ibrahimovic (2)

He founded and edited Arts & Letters Daily, the inspiration for this site. Read Sam Sacks' tribute to Dutton.

Messi vs. the Laser Pointers

Smoother than the back of a spoon
Lasers flying
Looks like he's in a disco

Whoever's doing that
The morons
Your village is missing you.

(Real Madrid-Barcelona, GOLTV, 16 April 2011)

"In 1994, during an English match-fixing scandal, Nick Hornby argued in the FT that if match-fixing existed, it dwarfed all the game’s other problems. 'Once we begin to doubt that what we are seeing is real, then we will cease to care,” he wrote, “and without the caring, it is all over.' China’s rise, and the internet, bring that moment closer." (Simon Kuper/FT.com)