Articles by Paul Williams

About Paul Williams

Paul Williams is an Adelaide-based football writer who has reported on the comings and goings of Asian football for the past decade. Having covered the past two Asian Cups, he writes regularly about the J.League for Optus Sport in Australia, while he also regularly contributes to Arab News. Further, he has previously been published by outlets such as FOX Sports Asia, Al Jazeera English, FourFourTwo, and appeared on numerous TV and radio shows to discuss Asian football.

Merger marks the death of Mohun Bagan

January 17, 2020 Paul Williams

The thing with history is once it’s gone, you can’t get it back. When an animal species is declared extinct, there’s no getting it back. When an historic building is knocked down for shiny new […]

Minamino ready to take centre stage

January 16, 2020 Paul Williams

Eighteen months ago, despite three and a half impressive seasons with Red Bull Salzburg in which he scored 31 goals in 95 games for the perennial Austrian champions, Takumi Minamino wasn’t included in the extended […]

OPINION: Time to review the ACL’s 3+1 rule

January 13, 2020 Paul Williams

Park Il-gyu has had a pretty unremarkable career. The Japanese-born South Korean shot-stopper has spent most of his career in the lower tiers of Japanese football, mostly in J3 with Fujieda MYFC and FC Ryukyu. […]

Hola! Asia’s future shines in Spain

January 3, 2020 Paul Williams

It doesn’t take much for a young player to get hyped up in the social media age. A few fancy step overs, a few nice goals and the twittersphere is abuzz about the ‘next big […]

The man behind the Lions of Mesopotamia

December 10, 2019 Paul Williams

Picture this. It’s the semi final of the AFC Asian Cup and your nation is one of the final four teams left after a pulsating quarter final win over your biggest rivals. The players walk […]

Where Postecoglou goes, silverware follows

December 5, 2019 Paul Williams

When you appoint Ange Postecoglou, you know what you’re getting. I’m not talking about the style of play, the swashbuckling, free flowing, fluid attacking football. You get that, but more than that you get something […]

Vale Pim Verbeek

November 29, 2019 Paul Williams

The world, not just the footballing world, but the world has lost a special soul. Pim Verbeek was many things – footballer, coach, husband, father, grandfather and friend. Anyone who ever had the delight of […]

Take II: Red vs Blue in epic ACL finale

November 8, 2019 Paul Williams

It’s often said the sequel is never as good as the original, but this year’s AFC Champions League final will hopefully buck that trend. The original, in 2017, saw two of Asia’s biggest and best […]

OPINION: Al Hilal is Asia’s biggest club

November 6, 2019 Paul Williams

You can use a lot of different metrics to define ‘biggest’ – crowds, trophies, and in the modern world that we live even social media following – and in almost all of those Al Hilal […]

Honda driving Cambodia forward

October 26, 2019 Paul Williams

Keisuke Honda has never been afraid to forge his own path. His unique personality sets him apart in the world of Japanese football, where conforming and adhering to centuries old traditions and hierarchy is the […]