Brian Cook Presents

A recent 4-4-2 magazine article about marginal nations banned from FIFA piqued my interest in some fascinating cultural enclaves. It’s hard to define or draw comparisons between these places/groups of people, but football appears to be a common thread. Combined with some fascinating geography, here are four of my favorite non-state footballing nations.
Basque
As non-FIFA teams […]

After seeing numerous end-of-year lists around the web, I thought it fitting to sum up my Top 5 in each category of The Cookblog. And so, without further ado, here they are:

Art
These are the best web sites and artists that I discovered during the past year.

Edward Gorey - I’ve posted about him before, but the […]

Happy Birthday John, you magnificent bastard.

John Mayer - Kid A (Radiohead cover)
John Hartford - Indian War Whoop
Paul McCartney - Dance Tonight

In the past few days, no topic has been receiving as much attention as this the England vs Russia Euro 2008 qualifying match on Football365, my soccer news source of choice. Everyone has been writing into the site’s famous mailbox with their two cents on England’s likely tactics, best team selection and chances of winning.

Much […]

With the English Premier League set to kick off this upcoming weekend, the pundits have been weighing in with their predictions for the new season. Despite the large number of columns devoted to the topic, almost everyone agrees on a few things:

Manchester United and Chelsea will be the top two teams.
Liverpool will finish 3rd.
Rivals Arsenal […]

This past season in Europe has seen some great football. My beloved Manchester United recaptured the Premier League title from Chelski, Spain’s La Liga went right down to the wire, and the Italian league was basically a joke after Juventus were demoted with several other clubs docked points. With all of the foreign investors looking […]

This was the first Champions League final in a while where I haven’t had the opportunity to watch it live. Fortunately, ESPN Classic had the game on at 7 PM (an instant classic?), so I even had time to grab some India Pale Ale to enjoy as I watched.

Since Liverpool are a bunch of long-ball […]

Shortly after earning a place in my Contemporary XI, Leo Messi popped up and scored the best goal of the 21st century thus far.

There’s a great column by my favorite soccer writer, Phil Ball, over at Soccernet. Ball writes about the Spanish league, and captures the culture around the game in Spain brilliantly. I particularly […]

A current debate rages about the justice of allowing a team, such as Chelsea, to buy success. Seemingly, Chelsea have been fortunate that they were purchased and bankrolled by a cutthroat Russian oligarch that raped his motherland and pillaged her natural resources for personal gain.
I am of the opinion that there’s nothing wrong with a […]