Author: James Cormack

James Cormack has been the managing editor of the popular Arsenal site "Pain in the Arsenal" for three years and was previously a managing editor of Old Juve, covering Juventus. He has written about world football for 90min since 2019. James has a vast wealth of expertise in covering the Premier League and Serie A.
Eden Hazard: The supreme entertainer that no coach could change
Features

Eden Hazard: The supreme entertainer that no coach could change

The exact date escapes me, but I recall it being early 2012. Perhaps it was late 2011, I don't know. Anyway, life as a Tottenham supporter was pretty sweet under Harry Redknapp. Despite the success of 2009/10, 2011/12 lives fonder in my memory. Bale, Modric, Van de Vaart, Adebayor, Parker; Redknapp's Spurs at their apex. This was also a time when transfer discourse appeared pre-historic compared to the current information overload. Jim White and his yellow tie was the Fabrizio Romano of that era. His word was gospel. However, that's merely to contextualise the time. Twitter/X hadn't yet emerged as a cesspit of transfer gossip, and Teletext may have still been in fashion - possibly. So, when my dad uttered to me during an innocuous car journey that he'd heard "from a bloke down the pu...
Features

Lionel Messi’s ultimate fairytale will not define his indisputable legacy

Argentina, for so long, had just given it to him and prayed, pleading for divine intervention. For some, Lionel Messi is God, but the magic man himself has previously rebuffed such metaphysical comparisons. "I think it's very exaggerated to call me that [God]," he once said. The Argentine superstar is currently embarking on a potentially legacy-cementing World Cup campaign in Qatar, with his country progressing into the round of 16 as Group C winners following a comfortable 2-0 victory over Poland in their final group encounter. The performance and subsequent result epitomised why the latest iteration of La Albiceleste entered the tournament as one of the favourites. No longer are they utterly reliant on their magnificent protagonist for salvation, as Alexis Mac Allister and Julian A...
Can José Mourinho return AS Roma to the promised land in 2022/23?
Features, Serie A

Can José Mourinho return AS Roma to the promised land in 2022/23?

Without a moment's hesitation, Vincenzo Montella sprayed the most audacious of diagonal switches in behind for his revered strike partner. The weight of the pass was so perfect that the receiver required just two touches to outwit a Parma defender and beat Gianluigi Buffon at his near post. An already raucous Stadio Olimpico burst into a heightened state of frenzy. Gabriel Batistuta's 20th goal of the 2000/01 Serie A season all but sealed Roma's third Scudetto on a sweltering mid-June afternoon in the capital. Fabio Capello was a champion again, and the Giallorossi had reached the pinnacle of calcio for just the third time in their storied history.  For Roma supporters, such success was necessary following an albeit brief period of Biancocolesti supremacy. Their fiercest rivals ha...