It couldn’t have been a better week for Rafael Benitez. At Naples, his boys in sky blue kick-started their campaign at the Champions League with a superb 2-1 victory over last year’s runners-up Borussia Dortmund, while at his former ‘temporary home’ Stamford Bridge in London, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea were embarrassed by a similar scoreline by Swiss champions FC Basel.

Manchester City have acquired a gem.

Fernando Llorente used to be called El Rey León (Lion King in Spanish) in Bilbao.

Former Barcelona player Michael Laudrup is embarking on a historic mission in Wales. Under his able guidance, Swansea City are taking their brand of aesthetic football and sound business to Europe.

Jasvir Singh of Army Yachting Node, Mumbai, continued his impressive run at the Laser National Sailing Championship by winning one and finising third-best in the other two races held at the Hussainsagar lake in Hyderabad on Friday.

It’s a recurrent theme. Every transfer window, football fans loathe the amount of money being spent by rich clubs to get a big leg-up in the competition. When Chelsea splashed money after their acquisition by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich almost everyone, except the Blues fans, despised it.

For the purists, the transfer window is loathsome. It’s that time of the year when money, loads of it, pushes everything beautiful about football into the background.

Money, money, money. Must be funny. In the rich man’s world. Money, money, money. Always sunny. In the rich man’s world...

For Naval Commander Atool Sinha, the sombre story continues. Just when it seemed that he finally found the missing ingredient to surge to the title, his nemesis Ayaz Shaikh stepped up the ante.

The year 2013 provided two important moments for football afficionados, especially for the ones who like to delve into the tactical battles in games.