Welcome to the latest instalment of It Is What It Is, the sister column to Adam Hurrey’s Football Cliches podcast, a parallel mission into the heart of the tiny things in football you never thought ...

Soccer’s lexicon is a rich reservoir of often curiously contorted cliche and phrasing, frequently the subject of parody. Now, the linguistic ingenuity of two of the most influential coaches in modern ...

In squeaky bum time, the false 9 pulled off a nutmeg and scored a worldie in the top bin. Make any sense? Soccer fans from ...