By Nick Harris 8 June 2010 England will reach the World Cup final and beat Spain to lift the trophy, according to predictions based on the ages of the 32 squads and five other key “indicators” identified as being influential at previous events. The predictions have been made by the Professional Football Players’ Observatory (PFPO) […]

By Nick Harris 8 June 2010 Along with the many 2010 World Cup articles about the first match in Group C – between England and the USA on Saturday – there have been, and will be, plenty of references to the famous, fabulous occasion when the USA beat England 1-0 at the 1950 World Cup. No […]

By Pete Wilson 7 June 2010 Whether David James actually gets to play a game at the World Cup remains to be seen – he was unused in today’s 3-0 friendly win over the Platinum Stars – but England’s goalkeeper is the oldest player involved in any squad at the tournament. Sportingintelligence‘s resident statistician Brian […]

By Keira Daley 7 June 2010 The Roland Garros Trophy has left French soil today for the first time ever and will be exclusively displayed at The Queen’s Club for the duration of the Aegon Championships this week, for which BNP Paribas is an official sponsor. La Coupe Des Mousquetaires (The Musketeers’ Trophy) is the trophy awarded to the […]

By Nick Harris 7 June 2010 The Glazer family, owners of Manchester United, have net assets of slightly more than £1.1bn according to calculations based on figures cited today by anti-Glazer campaigners who have unearthed details of the family’s property-related debts in America. The Glazers now own only three major businesses: Manchester United in the […]

By Nick Harris 7 June 2010 The World Cup, which starts on Friday and will have a huge economic impact in countries far outside the host nation South Africa, will be the biggest event in British sports betting history, bookmakers said yesterday. “The World Cup will smash all gambling records, becoming the first sporting event […]

Martin Smith spent more than 20 years on staff at The Daily Telegraph as assistant sports editor and sports writer and, as such, is well placed to edit the sporting anthologies culled from the newspaper’s prodigious output. To his previous compilations on the Tour de France and Formula One, has been added ‘Anyone for Tennis? […]

By Nick Harris 4 June 2010 As Liverpool’s search for a new manager begins in earnest, and umpteen re-evaluations of Rafa Benitez’s time at Anfield are underway, sportingintelligence’s resident statistician Brian Sears has crunched a few numbers to illustrate why, statistically, the Spaniard was Liverpool’s best manager of the Premier League era. The table below […]

By Andy Cole 4 June 2010 Fabio Capello’s England squad held no surprises for me (Theo Walcott didn’t deserve to go), and just one disappointment: Darren Bent’s omission. The Sunderland striker could not have done any more at club level to warrant inclusion, having scored 24 Premier League goals this season, so I can only […]

By Nick Harris and Brian Sears 3 June 2010 English football clubs will again be sending more players to the World Cup than clubs from any other country, cementing English football’s reputation as the No1 melting pot for the cream of global football. A new study by sportingintelligence has found that 118 players who earn […]