Back of The Net: more football finds from around the internet by Aaron› 11 Jan 2013

So how many of you are still keeping your resolutions up? We may have fallen off the wagon, given up the gym and ditched the 'learn Latin in an hour' books, but our commitment to Back Of The Net goes from strength to strength. Trawling the net to find the most interesting sites and stories for you, this week we've got another bundle of stuff to keep you occupied until the weekend kicks in...

With the world set to descend on Brazil next year, there's a real focus on the country and its football at the moment, but there's obviously a lot more to South America than samba and caipirinhas. For anyone that wants to get up to speed on the state of the game over in South America, two of the strongest leagues over there have some great blogs dedicated to them, with La Celeste concentrating on Uruguay's football scene while Hasta El Gol Siempre looks at all things Argentinean. Both offer knowledgeable insight into their respective leagues, and both are great for getting you up to speed on two of the favourites before next summer's big tournament.

A little closer to home, and a little bit of technological know-how has given us an excuse to dig up one of the age old football arguments - how many fans does your club have compared to its rivals? The Guardian have highlighted this great graphic created by the Oxford Internet Institute, which counts football fans by their postcodes, based on the amount of Twitter followers. There's some obvious flaws to the argument - not every fan is on Twitter, believe it or not - but it's still an interesting insight into who supports who, and where they are.

Saying that we're football shirt fans is a bit of an understatement, so it's always great when we find a new group that share our enthusiasm for this particular part of football culture. The Football Shirt Collective have already shot to the top of our favourites list thanks to some of the more unusual shirts they've dug up on their Tumblr, including an inspired Aztec goalkeeper shirt, and a stripeless Umbro Stoke shirt. Their background would make some cracking wrapping paper as well.

This week's serious football topic has been inspired by the amount paid by away fans in England's top flight this season. There's been lots written about this particular topic from every side of the argument, but one of the best we've read on the subject was over at The Boot Room, which highlights how this argument is always split by club loyalties whereas it tends to bring fans together elsewhere.

Finally this week, we've got two more surreal stories for you - first of all, the always reliable Football Cliches has a special collection of familiar phrases that the co-commentator specialises in, while this Groundhopping site has a picture gallery of something you probably never imagined you wanted to see - Belgian lower-league grounds. Strangely appealing to browse through!

Category:
Football Shirts