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FOCUS
New-look Limerick take next step with online lotto
Limerick FC was once a case study in League of Ireland mismanagement but the new powers-that-be have hauled the club into the brave new world, with a major online lotto initiative to be launched next month. Club media officer Joe Sweeney spoke to eleven-a-side.com.
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FOCUS
Club Med calls for Fabio
Having left the League of Ireland for the short-term at least, Declan O’Brien is looking forward to making a mark in the Mediterranean with Maltese league leaders Valletta.
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FOCUS
The World Cup play-off picture
There are several World Cup qualifiers taking place throughout Europe on Wednesday night. How could they affect the play-off picture, and Ireland’s place therein? eleven-a-side.com took a closer look.
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BOOK REVIEW
Trapattoni: A Life in Football
Written by two Austrian journalists and appended with a relevant foreword and epilogue for the Irish audience, this biography of Ireland’s manager is slight but nevertheless worthwhile.
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FOCUS
A day with the Croatians
It’s early Thursday evening in Temple Bar. The anarchy of the weekend, when Dublin’s condensed nightlife district bubbles with stags and cackling hens, is still a day or two away but Fitzsimons’ pub is bustling as I step inside for a possible rendezvous with “30 or 40 Croatians”.
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FOCUS
Watertight Swiss fancied to bounce Czechs
Switzerland have been preparing for this tournament for years – bank on them to edge the over-rated Czech Republic in Saturday’s Euro 2008 opener.
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FOCUS
Group A: Czech mate for old-stagers
They may have topped their qualification group but the Czech Republic could be one of the flops of the Euro 2008 finals.
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FOCUS
France, Holland provide Euro value
It’s a big if, but if France and Holland successfully negotiate the pitfalls of Euro 2008’s most precarious group, have the class – and prolific young strikers – to become leading contenders for outright glory over the next three weeks.
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BOOK REVIEW
Banter & Bustle, by Jeff Scott
Banter & Bustle is an enlightening insight into the Saturday afternoon experiences of the football-supporting Everyman – a breed which, due to the impact of an authorised mass media, may well become an endangered species.
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BOOK REVIEW
Freestaters, by Donal Cullen
With talk of an All-Ireland League in the offing again in 2008, Donal Cullen’s Freestaters – which includes a detailed history of the split between Belfast and Dublin football associations almost a century ago – is a welcome addition to the canon of work on the history of the game on these shores.
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