Indice dei contenuti per November 2021 in FourFourTwo UK

Valencia 2-1 Espanyol April 27, 2002 La Liga “This comeback at home to Espanyol, with two goals from Ruben Baraja, was huge for us. We were down to 10 men from the 30th minute because of Amedeo Carboni’s red card, and conceded in the same action. Scoring twice in the second half helped us to win the league in our next game at Malaga, after 31 years of waiting. Those two games built confidence in a group of players that made Mestalla vibrate, and were the culmination of a super season for one of the greatest Valencia teams – we won another title and the UEFA Cup [in 2003-04]. The side felt untouchable thanks to their solidity, balance and ability to compete.” Milan 3-3 Liverpool (2-3 pens) May 25, 2005…

IKER CASILLAS After 725 appearances for Real Madrid, the goalkeeper departed in 2015 – his parents claimed he’d been forced out by president Florentino Perez. Casillas joined Porto and won the league in 2018. A year later, he suffered a heart attack, aged 37. He never played again. STEVEN GERRARD A European champion in Istanbul, Gerrard’s 17 campaigns as a Liverpool player ended with a 6-1 shellacking at Stoke in 2015. He headed to MLS with LA Galaxy, but didn’t enjoy the lengthy journeys to away matches and hung up his boots less than 18 months later. XAVI If there’s a perfect way to sign off at your boyhood club, it’s by lifting the Champions League trophy. Xavi did that when Barcelona beat Juventus in 2015 – then he jetted…

As soon as Abedi Pele gave him the look, Basile Boli knew exactly what to do. “We had talked about it in training,” the Olympique Marseille centre-back recalled, “and just before we walked onto the pitch in Munich, he’d told me, ‘On corner kicks, don’t stay at the back post – try to run and cut to the near post’. When he went to take the corner against Milan, he gave me that look. I felt as if I was the only person in the stadium.” Boli went to the near post, leapt, connected and scored. It was a moment of joy, pain (he was carrying an injury) and, as he later told French journalist Philippe Auclair, liberation. “We wanted to be called a great European club,” he reflected. “For…

In one short sentence, the dream was all over. “From today, Jiangsu Football Club ceases operations of its teams,” a statement read. Less than four months earlier, Alex Teixeira had curled home the decisive goal in front of thousands of jubilant fans, to give the club its first Chinese Super League title. This was a club that had outbid Liverpool to recruit the Brazilian from Shakhtar Donetsk in 2016 – the same year in which they had lured Ramires from Chelsea. This was a club that had hired Fabio Capello as manager in 2017. This was also a club that came close to signing Gareth Bale from Real Madrid in 2019, on a deal reported to be worth £1 million per week. But by the end of February 2021, the…

What do Peterborough United and Cristiano Ronaldo have in common? Not a lot at face value, but it turns out they’re both inspiring discussion about English football’s hallowed Saturday 3pm blackout. While Ronaldo’s second debut for Manchester United in September may have caused a ruckus after red tape meant it couldn’t be shown live on domestic telly, it’s not just Red Devils fans lamenting the rule. It’s also proved a bone of contention for Peterborough co-owner Stewart Thompson, who thinks the blackout – and Article 48 of UEFA’s statutes that enforces it – stifles clubs further down the pyramid, rather than safeguards them and their crowds. “Who is the beneficiary of getting rid of the 3pm blackout?” Thompson asks FFT. “I believe the dissolution of Article 48 is a benefit…

I’ll try to give you an insight into what it’s like going into a dressing room that’s got used to losing. It’s never easy and isn’t usually a very nice place to be. There are reasons why you’ve been handed the reins in the first place, aren’t there? To be honest, I’ll start by saying that I didn’t stand out in those situations: I couldn’t keep either QPR or Leicester up, although I did win promotion with Crystal Palace in 2012-13. One thing I eventually learned is that it’s about you adapting your style, not just your new players. I don’t think I did that well if I’m being brutal with myself – I demanded and expected things that were maybe too much. I’d like to think that I give…

For nearly half a century, Peter Shilton lived a double life. Widely known as a two-time European Cup winner, England’s most-capped men’s player and someone with a world-record 1,390 competitive appearances to his name, Shilton did his best to hide a gambling addiction that consumed him away from the football pitch. “It lasted 45 years,” he explains to FourFourTwo. “Horse racing was my thing. I was quite well-known from the age of 17, so going into a bookmakers wasn’t ideal, but you could pick up the phone and put on a bet. It started out as a hobby, but gradually accelerated in the 1980s and ’90s. When internet betting began, I lost £800,000 with one exchange company.” With the support of his wife, Steph, Shilton finally stopped gambling six and…

Few games of football have ever been quite as dramatic as Arsenal’s title-clinching win at Liverpool in 1989 – and now it’s received the classical treatment. The Gunners’ 2-0 victory at Anfield has been set to music by Mark-Anthony Turnage, with his symphonic piece scheduled to be performed at London’s Barbican Centre on November 5. It must surely have been a dream project for the composer, who’s also a Gooner. Turnage! It’s up for grabs now! No? “I batted it away for quite a while,” says the 61-year-old, who was previously the composer for the London Philharmonic Orchestra and was awarded a CBE back in 2015. “I thought, ‘Ninety minutes, that’s a lot of music’. And if you’re honest, most of that match is boring, until Alan Smith scores, then…

In 2019, Sheriff Tiraspol lost 3-0 at home to Saburtalo Tbilisi in the Champions League’s first qualifying round. Two years later, they were triumphing at the Bernabeu. The first Moldovan club ever to appear in the Champions League group stage have a curious story – not least because they don’t consider themselves Moldovan. Instead, Tiraspol is the capital of Transnistria, a sliver of land 250 miles long but only 15 miles wide by its eastern border with Ukraine. The region fought a war of independence with Moldova after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 – backed by Russian forces, it established itself as a breakaway state, albeit one that isn’t recognised internationally. Transnistria is the only state in the world to have a hammer and sickle on its…

Life is pretty good for Jeremie Makiese right now. Last month, the goalkeeper got the big break he was waiting for by joining Excelsior Virton in the Belgian second division. Four days later, he was chosen to sing at the Eurovision Song Contest. If it seems like Belgium randomly went around second-tier football clubs, asking if any goalies fancied crooning for a continental audience of 200 million people, sadly that’s not the case – don’t get your hopes up Sam Johnstone, that call to sing for the UK might not be coming your way. Makiese is already an accomplished singer, having won the Voice Belgique in April thanks to rousing renditions of Labrinth’s Jealous and planet-saving monster ditty Earth Song, by fellow glove-wearer Michael Jackson. The 21-year-old started to make…

BEST, CHARLTON & LAW Ever heard the one about the Englishman, Scotsman and Northern Irishman who walked into a football club and changed it forever? Manchester United fans know this is no joke. Bobby Charlton came first, thrust into action just before his 19th birthday in 1956. The future Munich Air Disaster survivor was a thoughtful player with no favoured foot, an expressionist outside the penalty area with a long-range shot as striking as The Scream. Denis Law was interested in punctuation only: the lethal forward buried any dropping ball within the area and plundered 29 goals in 1962-63, his first season at Old Trafford. SOME STILL SEE THEM AS THE PERFECT BLEND OF PERSONALITIES AND TECHNICAL ABILITIES And then there was George Best, whose defiant individualism extended through his…

Quick, name all 50 Premier League clubs since the start of 1992-93. You forgot about Oldham, right? Guessing the 72 current Football League teams would likely bring the same result. Still, most Latics probably didn’t care if outsiders had forgotten them… until now. In 1990, Oldham Athletic reached the League Cup final and FA Cup semis under Joe Royle, drawing 3-3 with Manchester United before losing the replay in extra time. A year later, they played top-flight football for the first time since 1923. Today, Royle’s name adorns Boundary Park’s North Stand with unfortunate irony, as it’s emblematic to fans of what’s tearing the club apart – but more on that later. In the intervening three decades, the Latics’ gradual decline went largely unnoticed, until a soporific existence was enlivened…

It wasn’t just Marseille who felt the consequences of their cheating Whistleblower Jacques Glassman wasn’t exactly lauded in France for uncovering corruption – quite the opposite. The Valenciennes man arguably came out of it worst of all. He was condemned as a snitch, jeered by supporters wherever he went, and even received threatening letters. His club were relegated in 1992-93 and then again the following year, when he was released. The struggle to find another club took Glassman to amateur team Maubeuge, before he finished his career with Sainte-Rose on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion (later, he maintained that this wasn’t his entry into exile; rather, “the project won me over”). There was a happy ending, at least. In 1995, FIFA presented him with their annual Fair Play Award,…

XI BEST: Craig Gordon, Takis Fyssas, Craig Levein, David Weir, Sandy Jardine, John Colquhoun, Paul Hartley, Neil McCann, Colin Cameron, John Robertson [right], Rudi Skacel. WORST: Joel Pereira, Nerijus Barasa, Dawid Kucharski, Kevin James, Lennard Sowah, Kevin Twaddle, Leigh Jenkinson, Mo Berthe, Danny Swanson, Arkadiusz Klimek, Paul McCallum. PLAYER B: No one rivals Robertson, who hit 310 goals in 719 matches wearing maroon. With 27 coming against Hibernian, he’s definitely earned the ‘Hammer of the Hibs’ moniker. Statue required. W: It’s difficult to see past Manchester United loanee Pereira: poppadom hands and utterly incapable of catching a football. MOMENT B: Watching Gary Locke and Steve Fulton lift the Scottish Cup in 1998 [right], having beaten Rangers 2-1. After 36 years without a trophy, none of us thought we’d ever see…

The qualifying rounds of the FA Cup feature a fine array of non-league clubs. Traditional employers’ outfits take on cultural communities – or village sides with names nabbed off a cheeseboard (yes you, Charnock Richard). Then the odd metropolis pops up amid the hamlets, and you wonder: who are City of Liverpool FC? Just an inclusive, fan-oriented socialist utopia, that’s all. COLFC played their maiden fixture in 2016, but the dream formed from the embers of a 1980s nightmare. “After the Heysel disaster in 1985, I and others began looking into how football was run and why fans were bottom of the pile,” says co-founder Peter Furmedge. “Bonds formed in the ’80s remained strong, and with the formation of AFC Liverpool [in 2008] and FC United of Manchester [2005], we…

1 “I’M ONLY CARRYING THIS DOG IF IT HASN’T GOT WORMS” If anyone thought Romanian football had gone to the dogs in recent years, this time it really has. After delivering European champions in 1986 and World Cup quarter-finalists in 1994, the country has had a harder time of late, with a number of clubs hit by cash problems. Dinamo Bucharest, who thrashed Everton 5-1 in 2005, have been among those falling victim to financial woes and finished 12th last term… but they were back in the headlines recently. Nicknamed the Red Dogs, they emerged for their derby match at FCSB with canines instead of children – finally, mascots that Lorenzo Insigne and N’Golo Kante would be taller than. The dogs appeared as part of the ‘Fill A Gap In…

01 Tottenham strike legend Jimmy Greaves played for one overseas club in his 14-year professional career. Who were they? 02 Host nation England will launch their Women’s Euros campaign next summer at which ground? 03 Which boss ended the 2007-08 season as Derby boss when the Rams posted a Premier League low of 11 points? 04 Brentford plucked their former wideman Said Benrahma from which French side for a bargain £2.7 million in 2018? 05 Who were Scotland supposed to be facing when they kicked off against no one in a famous 1998 World Cup qualifier? 06 Who was awarded the inaugural Ballon d’Or, presented by France Football magazine in 1956? 07 At the start of October, six teams in the National League averaged crowds above 5,000 this season. Can…

When you can put a shark in a bathtub, you can pretty much achieve anything. The best player of his generation had teamed up with the star of one of the world’s greatest national teams, and an awesome goalscorer in his prime, thanks to the biggest spending spree in history. In one of the globe’s most famous cities, the triumvirate had just one season to deliver, before their much-hyped partnership was scheduled to come to an end. Before Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, came Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia at the New York Cosmos. United by the finances of Steve Ross, chief of Warner Communications, they faced sky-high expectations, as they attempted to win the North American Soccer League in their one and only campaign together before Pele…

Marcos Andre had yet to score in his debut La Liga campaign with Real Valladolid. Having joined from Celta Vigo over a year earlier, the young Brazilian had started in his new club’s B team before being turfed out on loan to second-tier Mirandes. He would get used to being patient: upon his return to Valladolid, six appearances passed without a sniff of glory. But then he found himself receiving advice from a football icon. Andre couldn’t believe it. Valladolid’s majority owner, Ronaldo Nazario, wasn’t just the young frontman’s boss – the former World Cup winner was the man he’d grown up idolising. When Ronaldo summoned him for a chat before Valladolid’s home clash with Athletic Bilbao in November 2020, Andre listened. He listened very carefully, until his hero delivered…

George Graham is about to leave his local café in Hampstead when he comes across an old acquaintance. FourFourTwo have just finished up a pleasant cuppa with the Arsenal great in north London, but we’re not the only ones interested in having a chat this afternoon. “They need you back, George,” says his pal glumly, with a grave shake of the head. Although it’s fairly obvious that the Scot, now 76, won’t be returning to his spot in the dugout, the sentiments are clear. They’re also shared widely among Gooners. Graham’s managerial style – one that made his Highbury heroes champions of England twice, with three more domestic trophies and even some historic success on the continent – is still appreciated by supporters who believe their team could benefit from…

BERNARD TAPIE Tapie served eight months behind bars in 1997, yet returned to his beloved club for another stint four years later, this time as minority shareholder and sports manager. He made his stage debut in 2000 as the lead in a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He recently died aged 78. JEAN-PIERRE BERNES The general manager was hit with a two-year suspended sentence and also received a life ban by the French FA, later overturned by FIFA. He then became a high-powered agent for the likes of Didier Deschamps, Laurent Blanc, Franck Ribery and Samir Nasri. JEAN-JACQUES EYDELIE The Marseille midfielder who handed over the cash was banned for 12 months by FIFA, given a one-year suspended sentence and spent a brief spell in prison. He…

You signed for Bayern Munich in 2009 but faced big competition upfront with Mario Gomez, Miroslav Klose and Luca Toni in the squad. Was it hard to break into the team? Definitely. After I arrived from Hamburg, the coach who signed me, Jupp Heynckes, soon left and his replacement, Louis van Gaal, said I wasn’t in his plans. At the start I was often sat on the bench, but after a few weeks Louis could see how hard I trained and how much I cared about the team. It helped that I was at the peak of my career. He told me that if I continued to practise well, I’d get chances. At first I thought he was just saying that, but it turned out to be true. I’ve always…