Svein Grøndalen is a former footballer from Norway, like so many others before him. Born in Halden, Grøndalen had a fairly successful career. He generally played as left wing-back or central defender, and was noted for his "physical" style of play.

Many people remember him best for a brutal tackle which injured Swedish forward Ralf Edström during a 1977 international match, so it's pretty fair to say Grøndalen wasn't the most technically skilled player on the pitch. If I was to characterize his style of play, the term "butcher" would be appropriate.

Despite his apparent lack of technical skills, Svein had a fairly successful career. At club level, he was active for Raufoss, Rosenborg, and Moss. He also got into the Norwegian national side. In total, he racked up 77 caps for Norway over the course of his career.

To summarise the text above, the man had a fairly successful career, but nothing special and surely not enough to merit the status of cult hero.

Or so one would assume anyway. The truth is, the name "Grøndalen" pops up every year in football quizzes world-wide, mostly under "Trivia" or "Humour."

The fans call him "Keizer Keisuke", Emperor Keisuke. It's a fitting nickname for VVV Venlo's Japanese midfield star. The young Japanese play-maker has been the inspirational for VVV this season and last.

Honda is the driving force in midfield for the current leader in the Dutch Jupiler League. Only 21 years of age, Honda has a mature style of play and he is already capable of dictating the tempo in a match. A pretty impressive achievement for a such a young player, active in a foreign and strange league.

Honda was brought to VVV's attention by their former manager Sef Vergoossen. Vergoossen had trained Nagoya Grampus Eight in the Japanese J-League for a season, before returning to Holland to take over at PSV. After his return, he tipped off VVV regarding Honda.

VVV brought in Honda during the winter-break and the youngster looked pretty impressive. He managed to play 14 games and scoring one goal (from a trademark free-kick) in the second half of the season and was generally one of VVV's best players, together with revelation Nordin Amrabat.

When the yellow-blacks from Venlo were relegated at the end of the season, everyone expected Honda to make a transfer to one of the top flight teams. None of the top flight teams were interested, however. There was some interest from J-League clubs, but Honda wanted to stay in Europe.

When you say great Turkish football, I bet most people will name Galatasaray forward Hakan Sükür. In Turkey, most people think their nation has produced a striker far more talented then the "Bull of the Bosporus." I present to you, Lefter Küçükandonyadis.

I have to admit, when I first read the name in a football game, it sounded like something I'd order at a kebab shop. "I'll have a Lefter Küçükandonyadis please and some fries." It also sounded like a name TV and radio reporters would hate, or a nice name when playing Scrabble.

Some more research dug up an interesting tale. Lovingly referred to as "Ordinaryus" or "Professor", Lefter plied his trade for Istanbul giants Fenerbahçe. The fans dubbed him Professor, as he taught everyone a lesson in goalscoring with his clinical finishing.

His goalscoring record is an impressive one, both domestically and at international level. In 615 matches, Lefter bagged a staggering 423 goals for "Kadıköy". For the national side, he put the ball away 22 times in 55 international games.

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In a time when Greece and the former Ottoman Empire were still at each other's throat, Lefter was a multi-cultural player. Born in 1925 as the son of a fisherman of Greek descent and a Turkish mother, he grew up in Istanbul and learned to play football at local club Taksim.

Holland is a nation that is internationally renowned for the many fine football players it has produced over the years. The likes of Johan Cruyff, Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit, Clarence Seedorf, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Jaap Stam, Edwin van der Sar, Johan Neeskens, Ruud Krol, Dennis Bergkamp, and many, many others have never ceased to impress on the world stage.

Everyone has heard of these players, yet when Dutch pundits compile a list of our nations finest, one completely unknown name is always included in the top 10. Quite an accomplishment, considering the amount of stars our tiny nation has produced over the years.

I'd like to tell you more about Servaas "Faas" Wilkes, born 13-10-1923, who was one of the very first Dutch superstars ever. Johan Cruyff himself called Wilkes "his idol."

Wilkes comes from an era long-lost, where tactics were less dominant and individual skill made the difference on the pitch. Wilkes was a superstar back in those days, due to his superb first touch and control and ability to skip past multiple opponents with fancy moves. If he was having a good match there would be no stopping him. He was able to slip past any opponent with tremendous skill and agility.

The agile and gentle forward is seen as one of the most graceful and elegant players that has ever graced the Dutch fields. The Rotterdam-born forward was known for his long rushes, skipping past several opponents before slotting the ball past the keeper.

Football is about passion, about emotions. Every single one of us has been part of that moment where an entire nation holds its breath, when social life stops for ninety minutes so everyone can be witness to that one thing we all understand.

The sport is basically a common language understood by all. Some may say it's just a game, I say football is about heroes and tribes, loyalty and devotion. To some people, football has become faith, a complete religion. They become ecstatic when they feel the fever of the crowd, and hear the roar of the faithful in the stands.

Now as Illya McLellan stated in his article "Football and War: The Warlike Origins Of The Game," and I quote:

"Football is a funny old game and there are always moments when you see how it is very similar to the warfare of the old world. Or even the warfare of the new world. For when has earth really ever been at peace? Never.

Football truly is the continuation of an ancient theme. That of war and the commitment of some to be better than others.

In an age where football is becoming less about individual skill and finesse and more about team tactics and defensive responsibilities, some players and their style of play are like a breath of fresh air.

Fans and spectators want to be entertained and it's generally not the team players who provide most of this entertainment. It's not the Makelele's, Gattuso's, and Senna's of this world people want to see when they go to a football stadium.

People want to see players who are prone to skipping past defenders elegantly, people want to see a great piece of skill and entertainment. Sure, we admire the defensive qualities of players like Cannavaro and Terry, or the crossing abilities of someone like David Beckham or even the cool killer-instinct of strikers like Fernando Torres and David Villa, but it's the flair players-the ones who perform tricks-that generally entertain the most.

Almost all of us, the commons fans, love watching players who can do special things with the ball. We might not like it when they do it against our team, but as a neutral, it is exciting and fun to watch.

Which brings me to the point of this a goal I witnessed last weekend. A superb piece of skill by Uruguayan/Spanish Groningen forward Gonzalo Garcia-Garcia. Just watch the video here and be amazed at this light-footed technician dancing through the PSV Eindhoven defence.

In a time where fans are becoming more and more like customers, whose loyalty can be bought with fluffy seats and prawn sandwiches, it's becoming quite a rare sight to see fans who actually care about their clubs history and traditions.

I know I'm stereotyping the modern fan here, but due to the world becoming more and more of a global village, the increase in glory hunters over the past few years has been alarming. Well, in my eyes anyway.

I can't stand people who start supporting a club simply because they're successful. These same people will not stand by this club in its time of need.

As I said, I can't stand glory hunters, so whenever I hear about fans who are willing to go the extra mile for their club, it's like a breath of fresh air to me. My heart jumps with joy, so to speak.

In recent times, I've heard several of these touching tales of club loyalty. There's the tale of a group of Russian fans who travelled all the way across the country (quite a journey) to see their team lose an away match.

An old adage says no guts, no glory.

Unfortunately, this is not quite compatible with the way the top Dutch sides play these days. We can all blame Johan Cruijff for that (yes, it's Cruijff and not Cruyff...), who once claimed that possession of the ball was the most important thing ever.

Now as any novice to football will tell you, teams that aim to retain control of the ball over longer periods of time, in the process making a large percentage of passes that give low risk of losing the ball, are said to play possession football. Utilizing this tactics demands players skillful in ball control and precise passing.

If successful, it will tire the opposing players because they have to run and tackle more. Also, the term sometimes indicates that each player retains possession for a longer period of time, using more touches. That will ensure that the move will be precise and effective.

One manager who loves (or used to love, when he was still active) his possession football is Johan Cruijff. At Barcelona, most of his training sessions consisted of playing two-touch football, six against four, in an area half the size of the penalty area.

Football and politics generally don't really mix, but there's always the odd exception. Dutch minnows TOP Oss are following the Barcelona model with representation by the "socios" or fans.

Barcelona socios are eligible to vote on a new chairman, and several other matters, when they are season ticket holders over 18, who have held their ticket for at least a year.

Dutch Jupiler League side TOP Oss are looking to duplicate this system by selling certificates to the fans. Such a certificate allows a fan to speak his mind on several club affairs.

If you're willing to pay 75 euros a year, you'll become a certified TOP-supporter. By logging on to the website http://www.mijntop-oss.nl/ you can vote on matters involving club policy.

The general idea is to not only allow the fans to speak their mind but even generate some extra income. The club is aiming for 10,000 fans to buy such a certificate, which would generate about 750,000 euros.

The computer game series "Football Manager" is considered by many fans to be one of the most realistic football-management simulations ever. The in-game database includes the data of over 370,000 players scattered all over the world.

Most of the data is gathered by local fans who send their findings to a main researcher for a specific area. He filters out the unrealistic entries before mailing his research to London to the headquarters of the developing firm Sports Interactive Games.

Over the past decade or so, Football Manager (FM), its predecessor Championship Manager, and developing firm Sports Interactive Games (SI Games) have built up an excellent reputation for scouting talent at a very early age.

Many talents that have exploded onto the world stage were recognised by gamers world-wide as FM talents two or three years ago.

Just to give you an example, a player like Javier Saviola moved to Europe in 2001, but he's been a big hit with FM fanatics ever since the 1999 version of the game where he was one of the biggest young talents in the game. The same applies to players like Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cristian Ronaldo, and many others.