Football | Renato Fantoni

THE BEAUTIFUL MIND GAME

Football is a common denominator that acts like a language connecting millions of people across the world. It creates interest and sparks emotions in a way that regular conversations usually fail to do.

THE BEAUTIFUL MIND GAME takes metaphors and tactics from the pitch and applies them to work and home life in a powerful coaching experience.

The book accurately describes the life of football.

Nigel Howe

Chief Executive, Reading Football Club

Describes the influences of the game from a fan’s perspective. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!

Gary Mabutt MBE

Former Captain, Tottenham Hotspur

Yes mate, I like it.

Jack Wilshere

Footballer for Arsenal, 2008-2018

False Starts?

The 2013-2014 Season in the English Premiership is all but nine days old and the other Euro leagues somewhat younger. The oddest thing is that very few of the participants actually know who their teams even are. This is all because the so-called ‘transfer window’ is...

The Language of Football| Blog 2010

This is a partially edited compendium of the blogs I wrote during the 2010 World Cup. No smoke without fire, no sting without bee Momentum begins to gather as football coaches name their final FIFA World Cup Squads. I, however, am not here to discuss that just yet...

The Field of Gove Dreams – an un-level playing surface.

Michael Gove MP minister for Education, has just finished another big day. He appears to have been speaking since yesterday (Sunday morning February 2nd) and a bit like David Bowie’s re-launch a year ago, he seems to have this incredible self-awareness and knowledge...

Creating a club culture for the England Team

Now England has qualified for Brazil 2014, common wisdom suggests we need to build a greater sense of cohesion. Should we bring people’s differences out into the open or conversely do we focus on the things we have in common? These last few weeks have seen some...

Football; The sport of Apollo. It’s a messenger that speeds up when the journey’s end is near

As The Football World Cup is damned on the front pages for financial corruption and sexual exploitation and lauded on the back pages in anticipation of the forthcoming on-the-pitch carnival, it can still offer valid parallels for life and work. As a coach who extols...

The changing shape of the promised land.

I wasn’t going to write about football again. I was going to move on, widen my audience and write about Health & Safety. But then the last week happened and I’m obliged to peep again over the lip of the soccer worms' tin and give those squirmers another airing....

Walk This Way. Life lessons from Walking Football

Arriving at Barnet’s Hive to play Walking Football (WF), I felt that same trepidation and excitement as when I first played. I hadn’t kicked a ball in eight years and I later learned that others hadn’t done so in decades. As I looked around at this sample of...

The final (part 1)

I have always supported Italy in this kind of play-off but yet am not really sure why

To be a gay footballer or not, that really is not the issue in question.

However, in the context of football equals life, life equals football, it throws up some important issues about society. The context of this item has little directly to do with Thomas Hitzlsperger , but I use his story to make the point that football (like...

Keep Your Friends Close. Your Enemies Closer Still

When I tell people I both write and give talks on football from a non-football point of view they ask me to explain what I mean... I explain that as a simple, basic pastime, it has so many parallels, so much emotional depth and such a wide ‘contact list’ that it...