Less than a year after being hired by the Canadian Soccer Association, Ecuadorian manager Octavio Zambrano has been replaced by the hugely successful coach of the Canadian women’s team, 42-year-old Englishman John Herdman. Former Herdman assistant Kenneth Heiner-Møller will now take charge of the side ranked fifth in the world with the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup just 17 months away.
Arsene Wenger was probably going to be fired after failing to qualify for the Champions League with Arsenal last season. However, Arsenal won the FA Cup, and Wenger held on to his job.
He is still holding on to it, but his position has become a little more precarious after Arsenal was bounced, 4-2, from Wenger's favorite competition (he has won seven times with Arsenal) by Nottingham Forest and in particular American defender Eric Lichaj.
U.S. Soccer’s annual January Camp takes on a completely different look this World Cup year with 26 of the 30 players called into camp harboring five caps or less, including 15 uncapped players. Experience will be provided by Gyasi Zardes (37 caps), Juan Agudelo (27), Jordan Morris (24) and Paul Arriola (15).
With Manchester City holding an unassailable 15-point lead at the top of the Premier League table, the managerial mind games in the race for second place began in earnest on Thursday with Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho outlining how his work sets up future managers for success and how he refuses to “behave as a clown on the touchline,” both quips being viewed as digs at Chelsea coach Antonio Conte.
Where to begin with this game? We'll start with Alvaro Morata. If Chelsea had someone else playing striker, they probably would have won this game running away. But, they did have Alvaro Morata, and he missed three clear chances. So it goes.
You know who didn't miss, though? Jack Wilshere! Welcome back, Jack!
You know who else doesn't miss? Hector Bellerin, who nailed Eden Hazard squarely in the foot with his foot to set this up:
In an interview with Russian news source Blic, Barcelona and Argentina demigod Lionel Messi spoke on how he’d like to improve his penalty taking in 2018 and his future prospects as a manager.
Pep Guardiola has it all backwards when it comes to the festive schedule. In a postmatch interview after his side beat Watford 3-1, Manchester City’s manager discussed the busy fixture list and how the English FA doesn’t care about its players. That’s not what we’re taking issue with; we totally agree with that. What we think Guardiola, perhaps the best coach of this generation, is wrong about is why people watch football.
“We’re going to kill them,” Guardiola said of playing two matches in three days. “Here in England they don’t protect their players.”
Who are the longest serving managers in Premier League history? Well, if we exclude the time before the Premier League’s formation in 1992, Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger tops this list, but we’re not going to do that. Including both the Premier League and the original First Division, here are the 10 longest serving managers at any one club in English football history.