Spain enjoyed a cultural boom akin to Shakespearean England in the late 16th and early 17th century, often simply termed Siglo de Oro (Golden Age). The global success of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (which is still reprinted), together with the artworks of Diego de Velazquez and the dramatic playhouses of Madrid and Iberia, helped shape a lasting legacy. To this day, Spanish theatre – particularly that of Catalonia – is renowned for its diversity of genre.

Futbol is no different.

On April 24 and April 25, at the Camp Nou and Bernabeu footballing theatres, neutral fans saw drama, improvisation, a pantomime villain, and were even witness to a near four-hour epic.

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You must be aware of the buzz around your performances at the moment, but do you feel that anything particular has changed or clicked in the last couple of months?

I often hear things like you’ve just said – that something has changed – but I’m not sure about that. My preparation for games and training has not altered at all; it’s the same as it has ever been. Sometimes you can look at a player, see that he’s suddenly doing this and that and it’s making a difference, but that’s not the case here. So if you ask why things are going well, it’s hard to say – obviously the whole team is playing very good football at the moment and I think I fit quite well into the team now. We enjoy playing together and that’s a big part of it.

Having Alex Song and Mikel Arteta behind you must have done a lot for your creative freedom…

The balance we have looks great at the moment, and the midfielders complement each other very well. Mikel and Alex may start behind me on the pitch but they’re both very good in the attacking phase, so it’s not that we have a defensive midfielder, a central midfielder and an attacking midfielder. We’re not rigid; we often alternate and I sometimes even cover for those two. We can all play forwards but we can all defend, and this is equally important.

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Throughout the 1980s, the Nehru Cup attracted a number of stellar names in world football. One of the most famous men to have come to India thanks to the tournament was Valeriy Lobanovskyi.

Lobanovskyi, one of the greatest innovators in modern football and two-time UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup champion with Dynamo Kyiv, came with the USSR football team for the 1989 edition. A former Indian national team player was assigned as his local point of contact. The former player was also an aspiring coach and he impressed Lobanovskyi with his tactical acumen during their interactions. Before leaving, the great Ukrainian left a note saying that the young man would one day become a great coach. His famed eye for talent was not wrong. That young man eventually turned out to be one of the greatest coaches in Indian football, ever – Armando Colaco.

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Much was expected of Kenny Dalglish and his men this season. The club hierarchy and the Kop faithful would have expected the side to book one of the Champions League spots while hoping for a title challenge after spending big and early in last summer’s transfer window. Strong runs in the domestic cups would also have been high on the agenda, especially considering the fact that they had no European commitments of any sort.

Looking back, as the season edges towards a thrilling finale, it’s difficult to judge just how successful or disappointing this year has been for Liverpool FC. Their runs in the domestic cups have been spectacular, with the Carling Cup ending a six-year trophy drought and the possibility of adding the FA Cup to that still very much open as the club prepares for the final. Their league form however, has been amazingly poor. At the time of writing, Dalglish’s side are languishing in 8th place, with 46 points. They’re a whopping 37 points behind league leaders Manchester United, and an incredible 16 away from Newcastle in fourth.

While there is ceaseless, and perhaps perennially inconclusive,  debate among rival fans over the importance of winning trophies vis-a-vis securing a Champions League spot, looking at Liverpool’s league performances in greater detail raises a few searching questions that the Reds will have to answer in the coming months.

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Much has been said about Levante’s stellar 2011-12 La Liga campaign, and rightly so. For a team that has seen only seven seasons in Spain’s top flight in their entire history, they have done exceedingly well to get themselves up to 5^th place, remarkably in contention for a Champions League or Europa League spot.

However, a similar story has been unfolding in the Bundesliga this season, at Borussia Park. If you had magically fallen into a Snow White-esque slumber at the end of last season and awoken now, you’d probably find it difficult to understand Borussia Monchengladbach’s position in the table.

Their disastrous performances (at times almost loony) last year left them with only 16 points from the first 22 games. Former FC Zurich and Hertha Berlin coach Lucien Favre was called in for damage control, replacing Michael Frontzeck, and Die Fohlen (the foals) somehow managed 20 points in their last 12 games to save themselves.

It came as no surprise that after flirting with the 2^nd division for the whole of 2010-11, and no significant business in the transfer market, Monchengladbach were branded favourites to go down this time around. However Lucien Favre has done a remarkable job in instilling a brand new system within the side, making Borussia Monchengladbach the Cinderella story of European football this year.

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Having ruled the footballing fraternity in the early 1990s, and then again in the first half of the last decade, the AC Milan team has undergone a surgical makeover following a few low-key years in which they’ve seen both Juventus and Inter enjoy their moments as Italian champions. They now, however, look to be back with a vengeance, led by an ambitious managerial brain in the form of Massimiliano Allegri, and are expected to face minimal difficulties in winning their second Scudetto in a row (also partly due to Juventus’ self-inflicted disintegration).

While their push for domestic honours looks to be on track, they also hold the distinction of being Italy’s only representative left with a chance of European glory. Having won the Champions League twice in the last decade, the Rossoneri have a well-documented connection with the tournament, and they’re dreaming once again of becoming the toast of Europe.

However, there’s just one major problem that haunts this AC Milan side – their ‘split personality’.

There’s one Milan that comes out all guns blazing and looks likely to topple any and everyone, while another is lackadaisical and could triumph over an amateur high-school side at best. They’re both so contrasting in nature that it’s frustratingly difficult to believe they could possibly be the same side. Let’s take the much-talked-about Arsenal tie as an example. After putting on a near-perfect performance in their 4-0 drubbing of the Gunners in the first leg at the San Siro, they followed it up with an abysmal first half in the return leg, and made it through to the CL quarters by the skin of their teeth.

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Hi Frank. Thanks for speaking to 90 Minutes. Firstly, how are you enjoying club management at Ajax? How difficult has the transition from player to coach been?

Of course it was a great opportunity for me, to be head coach of Ajax. Being an ex-player, it was a chance to give my best for the club that I love, this time as manager, so that was very nice. We have a great staff and after I became coach we were also crowned champions. This year it’s more difficult because we’ve had some problems with the board and everything. So it was quite difficult, but still my main job is the first team and every day I’m giving everything to the club.

As far as the transition is concerned, in the beginning, you think more as a player than a coach. So even when I started out as manager, maybe I was 60% coach, and 40% still a player, you know? But in these jobs you need to be more of a manager than a trainer or coach, so I’m learning every day and the technical staff around me are helping me with the things I’m not that good in, so I’m enjoying it.

Do you have any role models as manager, or someone you look up to for inspiration?

Of course one of my favourite managers is Louis van Gaal. I played under him as well. I like other coaches as well, and I try to pick up the best from everybody. Of course I try not to be a copy of anyone. I’m Frank de Boer, I have my own style, but I’d be stupid if I didn’t pick up the good things from other coaches. I try to do that.

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FC Porto won the treble last season that included the Portuguese league and cup, and the Europa League. The rarity of such an achievement itself made it a monumental feat, but when you add the fact that they went undefeated in the League – read invincibles – and dropped only 6 points in 30 games while playing football the beautiful way, their triumph transcends the scope of usual football-related superlatives.

Among those highly impressed was Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, who promptly shelled out €15m in order to secure the services of Porto’s young manager Andre Villas-Boas. The Russian owner has, over the years, clearly demonstrated his desire for winning the Champions League and for playing an attractive brand of football.

AVB, as he is popularly known, previously had a successful stint as an assistant scout under Mourinho at Chelsea, wherein he even established the rather sinister-sounding Opponent Observation Department. Naturally, the Portuguese manager must have seemed like the perfect choice to lay the foundations for the future and re-engineer the ageing squad in order to accomplish the owner’s targets.

History will record that it didn’t quite work out for the prodigious manager who lasted only 256 days, or even for Abramovich, who must have made another multi-million pound payout even as his side was precariously placed in the Premiership and the Champions League.

As with any failure, many theories have been put forward to explain why it happened. Some have blamed AVB for his tactics while others have hinted at the ill-effects of player power at the Bridge. Abramovich too has come in for his share of criticism as this sacking makes it seven departures in his near decade-long reign. The reality, as is usually the case, is probably a concoction of all these factors in some unknown proportion…

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As if Cristiano Junior’s accident, which occurred more than seven years ago, was not enough; as if Arun Kumar’s demise less than a year ago was not enough; even poor Ivory Coast student Allebi Djwrey Abale Albert Aguste’s tragedy, who fainted on the field while playing an inter-college football tournament and eventually died on the way to hospital, was not enough.

The same horror haunted Bangalore once again, as footballer Venkatesh D, 23, playing a Bangalore District Football Association (BDFA) Division ‘A’ match for his team Bangalore Mars, collapsed on the Bangalore Football Stadium pitch. The tragic incident took place around the 87th minute, when he was playing against South Western (SW) Railway. Venkatesh’s side was leading 2-0 when he collapsed.

As is well-documented by now, no ambulance was present at the stadium. Venkatesh’s teammates hired an auto rickshaw and took him to Hosmat Hospital for immediate treatment. Apparently, this hospital is closest – diagonally behind – to the stadium, but he was declared dead on arrival by the doctors. The exact cause of death was ascertained only after the post-mortem report – cardiac arrest…

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For Athletic Bilbao, playing Manchester United at Old Trafford was an achievement in itself. As historic as they may be, the Spanish side are not often found playing in European competitions, and even when they do, they hardly come up against some of the most popular teams in the world.

Bilbao players’ eyes lit up at the prospect of taking to the pitch at the Theatre of Dreams and featuring against one of the biggest clubs on the planet when the draw was made, and fans came in large numbers for the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie in Manchester. A reported 7,000 Bilbao supporters were in the city for what was the most special occasion in the club’s recent history, and for once they were not disappointed.

The Basque giants won 3-2, with goals from Fernando Llorente, Oscar De Marcos and Iker Muniain. There was a hint of offside about the second goal and the third was a bit controversial, but yet there were few suggestions that Bilbao did not deserve the victory. One could also state that Man United were not really interested in the Europa League, but all those excuses – and indeed, they are nothing but excuses – should not detract from the fact that Bilbao’s performance at Old Trafford was (arguably) the best away display in Europe this season…

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