Ben Jarman Futbol

Sunday started and finished as many US citizens had predicted, their women's national team lifting their fourth World Cup and the men's team succumbing to their fiercest rivals.  As the USWNT confirmed the notion of being the world's best on Sunday afternoon, their counterparts confirmed they are not even the best in their own continent. The defeat to Mexico underlined, again, the recent failings of the men's team which has become the butt of jokes for soccer fans across the States. Their failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia was a national disaster, and their exploits in the Gold Cup hardly convincing on the whole. The USMNT's humbling at Soldier Field, Chicago in front of a heavily pro-Mexico crowd further disenfranchised their following, as their women continue to stride on. During his seven months at the helm of the USMNT Gregg Berhalter has slowly but surely began to rebuild a side that crashed out of World Cup Qualifying in spectacular fashio...

In the 1970's under dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina sunk into financial crisis like they had never seen before, the gap between rich and poor widened to record levels and unaccounted Argentines disappeared, beaten to death by the police. Living in Argentina was a life and death struggle. Literally.  Slim, long-haired with a cigarette drooping out of his mouth as he conducted his players, César Luis Menotti was everything Argentina's dictatorship wasn't during the 1970s. Menotti was a socialist, a thinker, a rationalised football man who understood that the game acted as a social voice for the people when it felt that all hope had evaporated. He provided a platform for society to speak and when he spoke himself, quoted writers, musicians and poets to his players. Menotti was a shining light in Argentina's darkest time.  As globalisation enveloped the world and liberalism was surging across South America, Argentina had divided itself in to an 'absolute...