Inhaltsverzeichnis für January 2022 in FourFourTwo UK

Editorial Editor James Andrew Art Director Anthony Moore Chief Sub Editor Gregg Davies Staff Writer Mark White Editor at Large Andy Mitten Deputy Editor Joe Brewin Senior Staff Writer Chris Flanagan Online Editor Conor Pope Staff Writer Ed McCambridge Thanks to Andrew Murray, Jon Crampin, Mark Guidi, Aly McHugh, Claire Brown, Zoe Rudin, Ben Campbell, Dan Francis, Oli Beatson, Jo Tongue Contributors Marcus Alves, Paul Brown, Caio Carrieri, Ian Murtagh, Sean Cole, Richard Edwards, Chris Evans, Emanuele Giulianelli, Andy Greeves, Martin Harasimowicz, Si Hawkins, Steve Hill, Louis Massarella, Martin Mazur, Nick Moore, Leo Moynihan, Andrew Murray, Gary Parkinson, Sam Pilger, Felipe Rocha, Paul Simpson, Jon Spurling, Tim Stillman, Ivan Tomic Photography PA, Getty, Offside, iStock, Reuters. All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected Advertising Media packs are available on…

25 STEVEN GERRARD 24 ZINEDINE ZIDANE 23 LIONEL SCALONI 22 STEFANO PIOLI 21 MARCELO GALLARDO 20 MARCELO BIELSA 19 DIDIER DESCHAMPS 18 GARETH SOUTHGATE 17 DAVID MOYES 16 CHRISTOPHE GALTIER 15 BRENDAN RODGERS 14 UNAI EMERY 13 KASPER HJULMAND 12 GIAN PIERO GASPERINI 11 MAURICIO POCHETTINO 10 LUIS ENRIQUE 9 ERIK TEN HAG 8 JULIAN NAGELSMANN 7 HANSI FLICK 6 ANTONIO CONTE 5 JURGEN KLOPP 4 ROBERTO MANCINI 3 DIEGO SIMEONE 2 THOMAS TUCHEL 1 PEP GUARDIOLA On New Year’s Day at the start of 2021, Manchester City sat eighth in the Premier League table. By the end of the campaign, they had won the title by 12 points. City began the calendar year with an astonishing 18 straight victories in all competitions – a jaw-dropping feat even by Guardiola’s…

Hi Mark. We’ve got an old edition of Shoot! from 1980, when you were at Coventry. Can you remember what you said for “Likes” and “Dislikes” in their popular ‘Super Focus’ column? Hi. Ooh, that was a while back. For likes, was it ‘food’? I ate monstrous amounts of food… and still do. Incorrect! Oh. [Period of thinking] Was it ‘driving’? I’ve always loved driving. Correct! Driving’s not as fun now as it was in 1980, mind, razzing around in a brown Ford Cortina. You’re right. And I did have a Cortina GT! Some days it started, some days it didn’t. I had to park it on a hill to get it going the next morning before training. Driving was more exciting, and there was a lot less traffic. You…

Turns out you’ll like him even less if he’s angry. After a disappointing end to an otherwise stupendous 2019-20 – a campaign in which 55 goals were scored and a Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and Champions League treble was secured – Robert Lewandowski went full Hulk-mode in 2020-21. The Polish frontman was cruelly denied his Ballon d’Or 12 months ago – France Football’s annual gala was scrapped due to the global pandemic, with Lewy an absolute shoo-in – but responded by somehow taking his game to extraordinary new heights. Bayern sauntering to their ninth-straight Meisterschale was nothing special, but the man firing them there certainly was – and starting the calendar year, had a seemingly unassailable club record in his crosshairs. Forty-nine years earlier, in 1971-72, Gerd Muller had plundered a whopping…

Who was the only English footballer to score on the night England played Scotland at Euro 2020? It’s a question destined for pub quizzes in years to come. That drab game at Wembley was a poor 0-0; John Stones’ header onto a post was the closest any Three Lions player came to getting themselves on the scoresheet. A couple of hours after the final whistle, 5,718 miles away in Cuiaba, Brazil, a 22-year-old Blackburn Rovers striker, born in Stoke-on-Trent, was steadying himself to become a nationwide sensation. After rifling his 10th-minute goal into the bottom corner, Chile’s new No.22 wheeled away and kissed the badge of his country. Ben Brereton Diaz’s first international goal had secured La Roja a 1-0 win against Bolivia in the 2021 Copa America. Breretonmania was…

PHILIPPE COUTINHO Suarez’s final Barça game hurt the most. Bayern Munich romped in locked-down Lisbon, but really started taking the mickey when they brought on loanee Coutinho… borrowed from their opposition. The £140m Brazilian, hapless in Catalonia, bagged a brace for his temporary employers to make it 8-2. Then went on to win the Champions League… EMMANUEL ADEBAYOR The most incendiary goal celebration in Premier League history. Adebayor’s 2009 full-length pitch dash and knee-slide for Manchester City in front of Arsenal fans was apparently a reaction to insulting chants about his parents. The Togolese firestarter later joined Tottenham and even bagged in a North London derby against his old side. JERMAIN DEFOE Aged 16, Defoe left Charlton for West Ham in acrimonious circumstances. In 2007, then with Tottenham, he scored…

“IF OUR TEAM HAD THE SAME DRAW AS SOUTHGATE’S SIDE LAST SUMMER, WE’D HAVE WOn EURO 96” PAUL IN CE Which person influenced you most during your football career? There are lots of people you meet on the way playing for so many fantastic clubs, but when people ask who’s been the most influential person in my career, it’s not Sir Alex Ferguson. It’s my wife, Claire. We’ve now been married for 30 years and went to school together. She had a career at 18 but left it so I could pursue mine. She sits in the shadows but without her, you don’t play for Manchester United and you don’t play for Inter. How did it feel when you first walked into West Ham’s dressing room as a teenager? There…

To borrow a football analogy, 2021 was a year of two halves. In the UK, we began the year in lockdown, with games played in empty stadiums. Thankfully, we ended it with fans back in the stands where they belong. While fake crowd noise was a brain-numbing necessity during those dark days behind closed doors, nothing could ever replace the roar of a real crowd backing their team. One man who did get to celebrate in front of real people, in a frankly greedy year, was Jorginho – after claiming Champions League glory in Porto with Chelsea, his Italy side broke English hearts at Wembley to win the Euros. In this issue, the Blues metronome talks FFT through it all. Declan Rice is another midfielder who’s enjoyed a fine year…

OUCH In Colombia, Millonarios midfielder Daniel Ruiz was hit by a scalpel lobbed from the crowd during a match at Atletico Nacional. That’ll sting Uniao Sao Joao 1-0 Coritiba March 25, 1992 Brazilian Serie B “A month earlier, I’d made my senior debut for Brazil against the USA. I was only 18, but my whole life had been like this – things moved very fast. To achieve this while playing for Uniao Sao Joao, a small team from Sao Paulo’s state countryside, was really something. I’d been at Uniao since I was 13, so to take them back to Brazil’s Serie A in my farewell season meant a lot to me. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the goal I scored on this day. It was hot…

THAT WENT WELL Wisla Krakow fans accidentally set fire to their own stadium, while attempting to burn scarves of rivals Cracovia during a local derby It’s been quite the year for journalist Josep Pedrerol – and not because he dressed up as a frog and sang. From Sunday to Thursday each week in Spain, between midnight and 2.45am, the 56-year-old hosts TV programme El Chiringuito, which has hundreds of thousands of viewers but is also hugely controversial. In Spain, a chiringuito is a beachside restaurant, and Pedrerol’s show imitates that atmosphere with news, opinion and lively debate about the evening’s action. The direct host divides audiences – viewers either love or hate him. Pedrerol has been in the media for nearly four decades, but 2021 was the year when his…

FEELING THE HEAT Zambia fielded goalkeeper Toaster Nsabata against Tunisia, before burning their hopes of reaching Qatar with a 3-1 defeat What was the first game that you ever attended? I think it was in the early stages of the 1990-91 season. We’d reached the FA Cup final the previous campaign, then were on fire after that – we came third. I saw us in our pomp: Andy Gray, John Salako, Nigel Martyn, Geoff Thomas, Ian Wright and Mark Bright. Sometimes I tell people that I’m a glory supporter, as the first game I remember watching on television was our FA Cup semi-final win against Liverpool in 1990. I’d been getting rinsed at school because of the 9-0 humiliation at Anfield earlier that season, and everyone was a Liverpool fan back…

LONG JOURNEY HOME Tahitian club AS Venus made a 20,000-mile round trip for their Coupe de France clash against Trelissac – they lost 2-0 When you scored for Bologna against Genoa this season, you were the first Scot to find the net in Serie A for 35 years. As humblebrags go, that must have felt good? I knew it had been a long time, though I didn’t know the specifics until I was back in the dressing room and turned on my phone. Just to be mentioned in the same breath as Graeme Souness, Joe Jordan and Denis Law is amazing. You shone as a 16-year-old at Hearts, then had offers from Bayern Munich, Bologna and Celtic in the summer of 2020. What swung it in the end? I gave…

If this year has taught us anything, it’s that the Home Nations don’t need high-profile bosses to make history. England, Scotland and Wales thrived – led by men sacked by Middlesbrough, Reading and Northampton. Just as Gareth Southgate had the least dugout pedigree of any recent England gaffer when he first assumed control in September 2016, the same was true of both Steve Clarke and Robert Page, with Scotland and Wales respectively. Clarke guided West Brom to eighth in the Premier League in his first season as a manager – the Baggies’ highest finish since 1980-81 – but was sacked months later, then dismissed by Championship outfit Reading after less than a year in charge. The ex-Chelsea man restored his reputation by guiding Kilmarnock to third in the Scottish Premiership.…

It’s been a memorable 2021 for you and St Johnstone – winning both the Scottish Cup and League Cup made last term the club’s most successful campaign ever. How does that feel? It’s just phenomenal for St Johnstone, considering we’d only won one [major] trophy before in 137 years – no small, provincial club has ever done that [the double]. To be the first team to achieve that hasn’t really sunk in, if I’m honest. It’s something I’ll look back on in 10 or 15 years and say, ‘That was incredible’. You only took charge in 2020 and it’s your first managerial role – how did all of the pieces fall into place? The big thing for me was the difference between the first couple of months of the season…

JOEL PIROEM SWANSEA THE LOWDOWN Replacing the goals and guile of Andre Ayew was never going to be easy for Swansea – but in Piroe, they did a fine job. The Welsh side’s £1 million arrival from PSV was hot from the off, netting in nine of 16 league matches by early November. The Dutchman, previously taught by Ruud van Nistelrooy, was once linked with a raft of big hitters – but for now his deadly instincts are being greatly appreciated in the Championship. HIGHLIGHT Notching in a 3-0 derby rout of Cardiff led to Piroe answering inevitable questions about his former mentor. “Ruud was the best guy that I could learn from,” he gushed of the ex-Manchester United striker. “I know that I can always ask him for advice.”…

“TOTTEN HAM JUST SELF-DESTRUCTED WHEN THEY LOST THE TITLE – THEY DESERVED TWO REDS AT CHELSEA” A lot of referees don’t get the opportunity to explain their decisions – do you feel like your book helps to set the record straight? This is what I wanted to do with the book – not to criticise anyone, but just to talk about what my life was like from childhood, how I got into refereeing and how I went through the different levels. I hope people who want to be referees can be inspired by reading it. Was there one set of fans that were upset with you more than most? [Laughs] Everyone! Seriously though, Crystal Palace. My first Premier League game in 2004 was at Palace and they lost 3-1 to…

BARÇA Simon Kuper (Short Books, £20) Perhaps more by accident than design, this Barça tour de force couldn’t have been released at a more prescient time. With the Blaugrana mired in debt and still reeling from Leo Messi’s exit, the current outlook for the Catalan giants appears bleak. As one insider tells the author: “After Messi, you see the desert, you see the darkness.” Kuper forensically examines the reasons for their malaise, which include a spiralling wage bill, COVID, an ageing squad and ‘Messidependencia’. Both the club and city were at a low ebb when Dutch legend Johan Cruyff arrived in 1973, and it’s his seismic influence – as the talismanic player, then the coach who steered Barça to their maiden European Cup victory in 1992 – that coarses throughout…

✱ STAR TWEET “You’re supposed to, you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to be a gnome” – to the rather short defender Danny Jackman. @jimmneal When Gary McAllister was playing for Leeds against West Ham in the ’90s, there was a campaign at the Boleyn around chlamydia. Posters everywhere. So Leeds fans were chanting, “We’ve got McAllister, you’ve got chlamydia…” Priceless. @SherlockJoe “Your dad’s a cucumber” to opposition keeper Dean Gerken. Craig Shearer Buckland Newcastle away to Monaco [above]: “In your Monaco slums; you look in the dustbin for something to eat, you find a dead lobster and think it’s a treat; in your Monaco slums…” Craig Nicholson “We’re going to deep fry your pizzas” – Scotland fans to Italians in 2008. Adam Codd Solihull Moors vs Wycombe in the FA…

In a stunning year, Declan Rice has helped his country reach a major tournament final for the first time since the 1966 World Cup, and West Ham to their furthest point in Europe for 40 years. Ask the midfield maestro himself, though, and it’s merely a starting point… Declan Rice outstretched his arms and embraced the abuse. He may have been in front of Dinamo Zagreb’s fearsome Bad Blue Boys ultras, but the young midfielder wouldn’t be cowed during his big moment. Besides, he’d almost made a sport of continental crowdbaiting by now. A fortnight earlier, the 22-year-old had netted as England won 4-0 in Hungary, and delivered the game’s defining image by cheekily pretending to swig from a plastic cup thrown at Raheem Sterling by the baying home fans.…

Twenty-five movies into the James Bond franchise, 2021 was the year a woman finally got the 007 moniker. In another life, however, the role of international super-spy might have been Emma Hayes’ instead. “That was the path I wanted to go down – I really wish I’d had enough confidence to do it,” the Chelsea manager tells FFT with a smile. She was just 17 when her playing career at Arsenal was cut short after an ankle injury on a ski trip – so naturally, she turned to espionage. One of three sisters from Camden, she abandoned football altogether for a while and headed for Liverpool Hope College to read European Studies, Spanish and Sociology with hopes of working in intelligence. “I did a Masters at Salford in Intelligence and…

PASCAL CHIMBONDA MARKET DRAYTON TOWN (2013) CREDENTIALS His 2005-06 season at Wigan was so impressive that it earned him places in the Premier League PFA Team of the Year and France’s World Cup squad, followed by a £4.5 million switch to Spurs. Legend has it that he handed Latics boss Paul Jewell a transfer request from his sock straight after the final game of the campaign. “It wasn’t in my sock,” Chimbonda rebuffed to FFT earlier this year. “I had it in my bag. I wasn’t aware of how transfer requests really worked in England – my agent told me I had to write a letter. I didn’t know Jewell would open it in front of the team!” Pascal tasted League Cup glory with Spurs before turning out for Sunderland, Blackburn,…

1 GOING VIRAL The first football website of any kind? An Ipswich Town one, of course. In the 1990-91 campaign, before dial-up had launched or the newfangled ‘internet’ was a thing, supporter Phil Clarke used his gig at BT to update a single prototype page with results. It boomed, and soon he had curious Scandinavians joining his mailing list in droves. 2 SLY VICTORIES Escape to Victory featured an array of Town stars, such as John Wark, Kevin O’Callaghan, Russell Osman, Robin Turner and Laurie Sivell. Two more, Kevin Beattie and Paul Cooper, relieved Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone when Proper Football Men were required, with Beattie winning $100 off Stallone in an arm-wrestle. Rocky? Twaddle. 3 FORTRESS PORTMAN Ipswich’s biggest claim is that they’ve never been beaten at home…

“WEST HAM MADE THREE BIG SIGNINGS THAT WEEK: TEVEZ, MASCHERANO, YOURS TRULY!” Your breakout season at Norwich ended in a penalty shootout defeat in the 2002 First Division Play-off Final against Birmingham. What do you remember? I remember being on the coach going to the ground and seeing my parents among all the Norwich fans. I’d never seen them on the way to a game before. It was my first full season as a first-team player and it was brilliant. In the play-offs themselves, the semi-final was amazing, playing against Wolves at Molineux [in a 1-0 second-leg defeat]. When they got the tie back to 3-2 on aggregate, it was one of the best atmospheres I ever experienced. Then to play in front of 70,000 people at the Millennium Stadium…

THE GAFFER GLENN HODDLE “The way he explained the game was different to any other coach I played for. I was 21 when he was my Wolves manager; I didn’t appreciate just how much he was helping me at the time.” THE SUBS 01 PATRICK VIEIRA 02 LOUIS SAHA 03 JOLEON LESCOTT JOE HART “During his spell as both Manchester City and England’s No.1, he was ridiculous. One game stands out from 2015, against Barcelona at the Camp Nou – he saved basically everything that night and must have racked up double figures against Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar. Crazy talent and a great guy, too.” MICAH RICHARDS “People will assume it’s because he’s a mate and I’m biased but, honestly: his best games are among the greatest I’ve…