Indice dei contenuti per December 2020 in FourFourTwo UK

Lionel Messi stunned football when he told Barcelona that he wanted to leave in August. His move was more than a transfer request: it was a major political act that exacerbated the many issues plaguing life in Catalonia. In this issue, we get to the heart of what really happened in a stormy summer, speaking to those behind the scenes about the root of his unhappiness. What does the fallout mean right now? And then that big question: will Messi be a Premier League player in 2021? He’s not the only Argentine in focus this month, however. Love him or hate him, you can’t ignore Diego Maradona or his colourful existence on and off the pitch. As he turns 60, we celebrate one of the game’s greatest ever entertainers in…

25 GARETH AINSWORTH 24 ROBERTO MARTINEZ 23 PAUL COOK 22 PAUL JEWELL 21 SIMON GRAYSON 20 NIGEL ADKINS 19 IAN HOLLOWAY 18 SAM ALLARDYCE 17 HARRY REDKNAPP 16 RAFA BENITEZ 15 KEVIN KEEGAN 14 DEAN SMITH 13 STEVE COPPELL 12 MARCELO BIELSA 11 NUNO ESPIRITO SANTO 10 JEAN TIGANA 9 SEAN DYCHE 8 SLAVISA JOKANOVIC 7 NIGEL PEARSON 6 MICK McCARTHY 5 CHRIS HUGHTON 4 STEVE BRUCE 3 CHRIS WILDER 2 EDDIE HOWE…

MAKH THE STRIFE After reading about ex-rich Anzhi Makhachkala in the latest issue [FFT 319], I was curious to see what life is like for them in the third tier of Russian football now. To my surprise, I discovered that they were playing in the new Makhachkala derby on the same day that I was researching them – against a newly formed club, FK Makhachkala. FK were founded in 2019 and have Gadzhi Gadzhiyev as their president, himself having coached Anzhi a number of times. Let’s see what the future holds for football in Dagestan, in the hands of old Anzhi or the new Makhachkala. Varoujan Kei, via email 50+1 = SECURITY? As a Manchester United fan, I was glad that the club was featured in FFT 318, but I…

RONALD KOEMAN “From day one, Leo has trained and played well, and given the maximum for the club, for his team and for his team-mates. I have had no complaints about him on any day. There’s no debate: for me, he has always been the best player in the world. I thought it before from the outside, and I think it even more now I’m working with him.” GERARD PIQUE “I ask myself, ‘How can it be that the best player to have played the game, who we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy, wakes up one morning and sends a burofax because he feels like he’s not being listened to?’ He deserves everything, and the new ground should be named after him. We must preserve our figureheads, not underappreciate them.…

Hugo Gatti won’t forget November 9, 1980. It was the day Argentine football saw the real character of its shimmering new star for the very first time. The day when he made Diego Armando Maradona angry. The pint-sized prodigy had carried his tag of wonderkid since a bright breakthrough in 1976, then guided Argentina to their maiden Under-20 World Cup win three years later. Even still, he remained at Argentinos Juniors, a small club with few aspirations. Until then, Maradona had only amassed praise. That week, aged 20, he discovered his first enemy: Boca Juniors’ eccentric keeper. Maradona’s famous vindictive spirit, the fuel to fulfil his greatest deeds, was soon about to come to the fore. “There was an interview where Gatti was saying that I was a chubby boy,…

Did you always think you were going to be a professional footballer when you were growing up? When I was a kid, becoming a professional footballer wasn’t really a popular ambition in Korea, but my dream was to one day play for the national team and play at a World Cup. When I moved to high school, our city had a professional football club, so I started as a ball boy with them, then began to dream of turning pro in the Korean league. You signed for Japanese side Kyoto Purple Sanga in 2000, aged 19, while still studying at university. How did that come about? It’s strange because, during that time, I was already in the South Korea Under-23 team – back then, you could represent your country even…

He landed top-flight titles at Nantes, Real Madrid and Chelsea, hoisted the Champions League trophy and played in four major tournaments with France – but Claude Makelele’s greatest accolade is more lasting than all of those achievements. More than 17 years after he swapped the Bernabeu for Stamford Bridge and perfected the art of unselfish midfield destroying, Makelele still has a position named after him: football’s universal benchmark for grafters at the coalface. However, it wasn’t the Frenchman, understated as ever, who trumpeted his value to the world. Peers regularly pointed in his direction when asked to reveal their indispensable team-mates. Famously, Zinedine Zidane responded to Real Madrid’s recruitment of David Beckham in 2003 – tied to Makelele’s exit that summer – with the words, “Why put another layer of…

Releasing the combative Lee Cattermole and recruiting a toddler may not sound like the best way to shore up your defence, and so it proved for VVV-Venlo. The Dutch club play their home matches at the De Koel stadium, located in an old pit – but sadly for them, it was their performance that was the pits when they hosted Ajax this season. After falling 4-0 behind inside 50 minutes, they shipped nine more when they went down to 10 men and lost 13-0, an Eredivisie record in its 64-year history. The result was all the more puzzling given that VVV had lost only two of their first five league matches, and secured a creditable 2-2 draw at AZ Alkmaar in their previous fixture. Even after losing 13-0, they still…

If you’re a Football League outfit desperate for a boost in fortunes, the solution has long been obvious – send for Neil Warnock. The 71-year-old may not be known for frilly football, but he’s developed a career as a Championship specialist – earning promotion to the Premier League with a trio of different teams. After taking boyhood side Sheffield United into the top flight in 2006, he then repeated the feat in his first full campaign with QPR in 2011, and did the same with Cardiff in 2018. On all three occasions, he had walked into the club when they were languishing in the Championship’s bottom five. True, his longevity is partly due to his less-than-stellar record once he reaches the top flight – in each of his five seasons…

2008 Barcelona didn’t want Messi playing for Argentina at the 2008 Olympics in China, but Pep – who’d won gold with Spain in 1992 – secured himself early brownie points. “Pep was phenomenal with me,” recalled Messi. “After a game he grabbed me and said, ‘You want to go, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes’. When I’m frustrated, I can’t hide it.” 2009 A glorious Treble in Pep’s first season featured a Leo goal in a Champions League final – one he’d later tell FFT was his all-time favourite. Weeks earlier, Pep had watched the 21-year-old devastate Real Madrid in a 6-2 thrashing, having told Messi about his famous ‘false nine’ role the previous night. “I’d never been a centre-forward, but I knew the position,” shrugged Messi. 2010 Zlatan Ibrahimovic once…

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How did your move to Newcastle happen? In 2007, Newcastle were the only team keen to sign me until I boarded a flight to England. Then Manchester City called and I told them Newcastle were a bigger club, who’d already put a deal on the table, so I was going there. Did you find it difficult adjusting to life at Newcastle after leaving Spain? Sam Allardyce liked old school football, so it was hard for me to break into the first team because I didn’t know how to play that way. When Kevin Keegan took over, it was a good change for me, but he didn’t want me in the team either. I understood, as I hadn’t started particularly well in England, but when Kevin left I began to flourish.…

1 “WHAT’S YOUR BEEF, PAL?” With an axe-wielding maniac setting up stall on the edge of the penalty area, it’s little wonder that Real Sociedad have been so tough to beat in the opening stages of the new La Liga season. Well OK, he’s not actually a maniac – his name is Jon Gorostiaga, president of the Iruki beef firm, and he’s come up with a scheme that helped fire the San Sebastian high-fliers to Spain’s summit early on. Txuleton steak is a delicacy in the Basque country – Real Sociedad used to award the prized meat to their man of the match and John Aldridge became known as ‘The King of the Txuleton’, tucking in after each of his 40 strikes from 1989-91 following a £1 million move from…

Hull 1 Bournemouth 4 January 13, 1990 Second Division “I made my debut in this match, aged 16 years and seven months. I started on the bench on a freezing night at Boothferry Park, with the wind coming in off the North Sea. My dad was Bournemouth’s manager – as I went on, I remember him telling me to look out for Hull striker Billy Whitehurst, who was a renowned hard man. After a few minutes, I gave the ball to our left-back and he got flattened by Whitehurst. Before I knew it, there was pushing and shoving and it had all kicked off. My first ever pass in senior football and I’d started a riot!” Southampton 1 Liverpool 1 December 7, 1991 First Division “This was the first time…

OUT OF THE DARKNESS Matt Piper (Pitch, £19.99) ●●●●● Even before Matt Piper recalls how his life unravelled after premature retirement at 24, his razor sharp recollections of life at Leicester City make for a compelling read. With bold Foxes team-mates including Dennis Wise, Robbie Savage and Stan Collymore, he describes a litany of pranking: Garry Parker floods Savage’s £200,000 sports car with water, while internal feuds between Savage, Wise, Collymore and Trevor Benjamin turn ‘handy’. Piper – the last goalscorer at Filbert Street – was flogged by toiling Leicester after their drop to the Championship in 2002, and forced to join Sunderland. Sadly, things would worsen: after a series of knee ops ended his career in 2006, he became reliant on whisky and Valium as his life spiralled rapidly.…

Hi Louis. This is, historically, the first Ask A Silly Question done via Zoom. Have you been embracing technology during this year’s funtime pandemic? Hi. I’m actually really into the world of technology. I’ve been creating a digital platform [the app, AxisStars]. I’ve even done a bit of coding and quite enjoy it. It’s not something I was into as a kid, but I’m an entrepreneur now so have been learning all about it. I’m trying to understand the field and work out how people do these things. What’s harder: coding or being very good at football? Ah, coding is much harder. Believe me, it’s not easy at all. My God, it’s tough to get used to. Did you learn anything new while you were in lockdown or, like FFT,…

How did your move to Inter Miami in September come about? They contacted me towards the end of last season – it didn’t take very long to reach an agreement. When I heard about Inter Miami’s interest I analysed everything, and pretty much decided straight away. This is a new project and I see a lot of good things – in how we work, the structure, the coach’s style, the players we have and how we train. When you arrive after playing so many years at the top level and start seeing similar things, it makes you feel really confident that everyone wants to do things right, so I’m happy to be here. The club offered me the terms I was looking for and we got the deal done. Your…

If it had been up to Tony Yeboah and his knowledge of English football, he might never have arrived to grace it in January 1995. “I never knew Leeds before I was told they wanted me – I’d never heard of them,” he admits to FourFourTwo, almost 26 years later. But, of course, Leeds had heard of him. United’s scouting network could hardly have missed the Ghanaian at Eintracht Frankfurt in 1994, after he had picked up a second consecutive Torjägerkanone – or the Goalscorer Cannon, the Bundesliga’s very own Golden Boot. Predictably, Bayern Munich were quick to pounce. The Bavarians had clinched the title in 1993-94 but they needed reinforcements upfront, with their top scorer Mehmet Scholl having finished on a meagre 11 league goals. Yeboah had netted 18…

Early in your career, you spent time playing in Lithuania. How did that happen? I was on trial with Watford when my agent, who was married to a Lithuanian and knew about the country, arranged for the president of Atlantas Klaipeda to come over and watch me play. I was unsuccessful at Watford, but got invited to Lithuania instead. To be honest, I’d never even heard of Lithuania! They were in the UEFA Cup and had a strong squad, but in my first game I was subjected to monkey chants and the crowd sang about “shooting ni**ers”. I was only 18 and on the receiving end of that, a long way from home. I chose to stay for the season, as I didn’t want to let the racists win. We…

It’s 16 years since you retired as a Premier League referee – have you still been going to football matches? Since my refereeing career finished in 2004, I’ve followed hometown club Middlesbrough home and away, and also Rangers home and away. I watch Hartlepool and Darlington, too, and further down the pyramid I’ll turn up at Stockton Town and Redcar Athletic. During a normal season, I’ll go to about 150 games. So you’re something of a football fanatic? The first time I ever went to Ayresome Park, Boro’s old home, I got hooked. From the age of about eight, I’ve been football daft. I only became a referee by accident – and it really was an accident. I used to work in a bank – fans who knew my background…

SCOTT CARSON “He spent 2006-07 with me at Charlton, and that was the best single-season goalkeeping display I’ve ever seen. We were relegated in the end, but probably would have gone down in January were it not for Scott. It’s a crying shame that people only remember that one game for England against Croatia.” GLEN JOHNSON “I’ve known Glen since we were 14 years old. We won the Victory Shield together and went through the England age group teams up to the under-21s, then into the seniors. He was a scorer of great goals and a top defender.” LEDLEY KING “If he wasn’t so injury-prone, he’d have been playing for Barcelona or Real Madrid. Ledley never used to train during the week and just played in the games. He only…