Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i FourFourTwo UK

The first time I picked up a copy of FourFourTwo, I was a 10-year-old boy way back in September 1994. On the front cover of that very first issue was then-England manager Terry Venables. So it’s somewhat fitting that as I sit here writing my first letter as Editor of this fine publication, 26 years and 308 issues later, it’s Venables and his England team from 1996 that feature prominently in this issue – and on our cover. That long, hot summer was the last time football came home. Now it’s coming back 24 years later, with Wembley hosting seven games at Euro 2020. England will play in at least three of them – fingers crossed, it’ll be five. In these pages we celebrate Euro 96, taking a day-by-day look…

Osasuna 1 Getafe 0 February 28, 2007 Copa del Rey “The most special day of your career is when you make your senior debut. To play for Osasuna when I was an academy player aged 17 was something I dreamed of, but I was so nervous. I got the call from my reserve-team manager two days before the match. It was the second leg of the Copa del Rey quarter-final – we lost 3-0 in the first leg, but won the second leg and I got an assist! I couldn’t play more than about an hour – I was completely burned out after giving everything for the team.” Chelsea 6 Wolves 0 September 25, 2012 League Cup “I’d been looking forward to my Chelsea debut and was excited when I…

You’ve spent the last two years playing for Al-Nasr in Dubai. How have you found it? Life’s totally different here and Dubai is like no other city that I have seen, but we’re happy. The weather is really good, the people are friendly. I feel that the club really respects me and the feeling is mutual. Who did you support as a kid? Rayo Vallecano – my family are from Vallecas. It’s not a very rich area, but a humble, working class area in Madrid. I stood behind the goal with my friends and brothers, next to the ultras. My father went to every game and still does. Then I got into the first team, aged 19, which made everyone proud. Then Real Madrid came for you… I went there…

JAPAN ON THE UP I couldn’t help but notice that you mentioned a leap in attendances within your excellent feature about Vissel Kobe [FFT 308]. The J1 League has actually just cracked a 20,000 average for the first time in its history, meaning only Europe’s big five leagues can better it these days. This is good going for a nation that loves baseball more than any other sport. There was a boost of interest in the build-up to the 2002 World Cup but it didn’t last – until now. Young people are getting the bug thanks to an increase in professionalism and more regular visits from European clubs, which do make a difference. We’re seeing the same trends in the US these days – a dip in baseball interest and…

THE GOOD England are hosting a major tournament for the first time since You Know When. For all of the press negativity, fans are excited: Paul Ince recalls to FFT that, “As we left Burnham Beeches Hotel, going towards Wembley Way, there were all of these people hanging out of the windows, flags and cars beeping...” More importantly, this temporary footballing multiculturalism heralds a shift away from isolationism that is soon to be bolstered by Premier League clubs importing the world’s finest players. Football’s Little Englanders have had their day. THE BAD The entire country settles down with a beverage and small sigh upon realising that the tournament’s opener is on ITV and therefore helmed by Bob Primrose Wilson, a man you’d trust to look after your spare house keys…

STORY OF THE DAY Though they’re gagging to get at England, Scotland must first face the tournament favourites at Villa Park. In truth, while Guus Hiddink’s side enjoy almost all of the possession they are ominously incohesive, reflecting what turns out to be a deep divide in the Dutch ranks. But Craig Brown’s team do show organisational resilience and spirit ahead of the Battle of Britain. On Monday evening, the North East gets its first taste of the action. USA 94 entertainers Romania start well at St James’ Park but then conspire to gift France the winner. Gheorghe Mihali inexplicably presents the ball to Youri Djorkaeff, whose cross just about bounces in off the top of Christophe Dugarry’s bonce while keeper Bogdan Stelea is somewhere nearby asking for directions back…

STORY OF THE DAY The afternoon events at Wembley foreshadow similar tension in the evening, as France and the Dutch manage one decent first-half opportunity apiece at Anfield. The second half is different only in that they’re fitfully attacking different ends, though Phillip Cocu’s deflected free-kick kisses a post and Bernard Lama saves from Clarence Seedorf. And so to the shootout. Six uniformly fantastic penalties are tucked home but then Seedorf misses – and no one else falters. Stepping up last, Laurent Blanc seals a semi-final spot for France, whose tournament decade post-1986 consisted of three failures to qualify either side of three winless group games at Euro 92. THE GOOD Giving every overgrown schoolboy a little snigger with his name, Johan de Kock appears willing to live down to…

STORY OF THE DAY For the final time in a World Cup or European Championship, both semi-finals are on the same day. Old Trafford hosts what the Anglophone narrative might call an appetiser, but the French and Czechs would call the main course. It’s far from tasty. The Czechs are even more of an unknown quantity than usual, missing four first-choice players through suspension, while the French are shorn of Christian Karembeu and skipper Didier Deschamps. With both playing one up top, this game seems destined for penalties. The fall guy is Reynald Pedros. Petr Kouba watches the poor penalty and then saves it, allowing his captain, Miroslav Kadlec, to score the winner. Pedros is only 24 but his career never recovers. The Czechs are in the final. THE GOOD…

“BRYAN ROBSON TOLD ME THE ONLY TIME HE GOT THE HAIRDRYER OFF FERGIE WAS AFTER THE FIRST TIME HE FACED GAZZA AT NEWCASTLE” You can tell that something genuinely remarkable is happening, just from Colin Hendry’s face. The rugged Scotland centre-back always had a distinctive look – fierce Highland warrior with the face of an old Russian woman – but suddenly that stoic frame crumples with confusion. Against the run of play, a supposedly portly and past-it Paul Gascoigne lifts the ball into a perfect orbit over Hendry’s head, sprints like a naughty kid and prepares to apply the coup de grace. It wasn’t supposed to happen; according to a number of newspapers, Gascoigne shouldn’t even have been part of the England squad. A Mirror survey suggested that 86 per…

There was one topic that wasn’t supposed to be on the agenda when FourFourTwo interviewed Gareth Southgate for our cover story in November 1996. It was a subject that had already been dissected, analysed, sliced and diced by every hack with a story to spin; examined by academics about its effects on the national psyche; and even fussed over by physicists looking for the perfect equation to prevent it from happening again. Even so... we could hardly ignore that penalty. As fellow members of the Sorry Shootout Club, Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle knew what Gareth was going through following his nightmare moment on June 26, 1996. At the 1990 World Cup they, too, had missed when it mattered in a semi-final against (West) Germany. But this time felt different.…

Euro 96 was one of the most remarkable summers in modern English history, but spare a thought for those who were too young – or abroad, or in prison – to experience it. Not just the games, but the whole Britpop-fuelled spirit that pervaded the nation’s bars, before they became gastropubs and stopped showing football. If only there was a way to go back. Enter Jack Pop and Chris Webb, who loved that era so much they’re recreating it. Rematch of the Day is a one-off one-dayer in which people relive the sights, sounds and smells of Euro 96. It’ll happen on May 2 at London’s Boston Music Room and Dome, where Pop – usually a record label boss – staged a recent festival. “Chris came down to that, shortly…

Football is indeed heading home this summer – but according to one historian, that home isn’t England. No matter what the Three Lions lyrics say, Ged O’Brien is adamant that football’s birthplace was in Scotland, another of the Euro 2020 co-hosts. In fact, he says the sport’s most important historical site is a humble bowling club, jammed next to a scruffy railway and a main road. An art historian from Southampton who later became the project director of Glasgow’s Scottish Football Museum, O’Brien wasn’t looking to challenge football’s traditional narrative until he stumbled across a picture of Queen’s Park FC player Andrew Watson. “I knew, as everyone did, that Arthur Wharton of Preston North End was the first black footballer,” says O’Brien. “But when I saw that photo of Watson…

John Arne Riise certainly knew how to pick his moments. The Norwegian left-back had already introduced himself with goals against Bayern Munich (in the Super Cup final), Everton and Newcastle (both Premier League) within two months of his debut season at Anfield, but he was merely warming up for greater things. Manchester United were on Merseyside reeling from a home defeat to Bolton in their previous match, and Michael Owen ensured their misery continued with a 32nd-minute opener. Seven minutes later, it got worse. When Liverpool won a free-kick 22 yards from goal, Riise sensed blood. “I lined up with Dietmar Hamann, who also took some free-kicks,” he tells FFT. “We decided he was going to fake hit it, then roll it to me from a yard and a half.…

ENI JUSTICE? After reading your recent interview with Eni Aluko [FFT 307], I just had to write in. The treatment she received from people she trusted was abhorrent, and yet it somehow led to the end of her England career. The media are quick to applaud players like Raheem Sterling for their stances towards racism – and rightfully so – but it would appear that Aluko has been overlooked. She showed the ultimate courage in standing up against racism, bigotry and bullying... which cost her a World Cup, friends, happiness and further reward. That doesn’t seem right to me.…

Pleasingly for traditionalists, the first game of Euro 96 kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday. Less happily, it was preceded by an opening ceremony featuring Mick Hucknall in a grey shirt and even greyer suit, retooling Simply Red’s lift music into the easily (and eagerly) forgotten official Euro 96 dirge We’re In This Together. A better anthem would emerge. It was a low point in the opening ceremony’s assortment of dancers, medieval jousting, Sir Stanley Matthews, the Red Arrows, 40,000 balloons and a 30-foot inflatable version of what everyone was theoretically here for: the Henri Delaunay Trophy. Also mooching about was leonine tournament mascot Goaliath, the sanitised son of 1966’s World Cup Willie. Meanwhile, England were preparing for their first competitive match in over two and a half years,…

As the closing notes of God Save The Queen hung in the north London sky on a baking hot June 23 afternoon, Stuart Pearce turned to Gareth Southgate, beaming with pride. Seldom had the England pair experienced an atmosphere anything like this – particularly Southgate, a well-mannered young lad from the Home Counties who was still a little green when it came to the raucousness created in England’s summer of football love. Tens of thousands of supporters went mad, a wall of noise swelling to deafening decibels. Pints of piss then began to rain down from the well-lubricated crowd. “And another one, please!” came the raspy voice of Johnny Rotten across the PA system. “Who wants a good shag?” Some 24 hours before the Sex Pistols were introduced to the…

For all of the history with Scotland, the Germans were England’s real ‘old enemy’. Hosting a tournament again precisely 30 years after beating West Germany in the World Cup final didn’t help to quell echoes of footballing history, but the echoes were largely tremors after July 30, 1966. Of the next seven World Cup tournaments, England had reached only four and been sent home twice by the Germans, at Mexico 70 and Italia 90 – and the latter was the undisputed high point of England’s “30 years of hurt”. The Three Lions whimpered from mediocrity to misery while Die Mannschaft rolled serenely on: World Cup ever-presents, twice winners, twice runners-up. This was also their sixth semi-final in seven European Championships. In those 30 years, the English had met the Germans…

“Germany against England was the real final of Euro 96.” So said Franz Beckenbauer in a piece published on the morning of the final – hardly motivational, but the Germans did have historical wrongs to right, 30 years after losing a Wembley final, 20 years after losing a Euros final to Czechoslovakia, and four years after Berti Vogts’ side had been shocked by Denmark in the 1992 showpiece. Vogts was down to the bare bones. Without Jurgen Kohler, Mario Basler, Steffen Freund, Fredi Bobic (all injured), Stefan Reuter and Andreas Moller (suspended), he was allowed to fly in Jens Todt as a 23rd squad member. The Czech Republic turned down this luxury: they had three players returning from bans and one, Vladimir Smicer, from his midweek wedding ceremony at Prague’s…

When I got to Preston with the rest of the Czech Republic squad for Euro 96, we had a feeling that our opponents weren’t taking us seriously. We were going into the tournament as one of the biggest underdogs ever, in a group alongside Germany, Italy and Russia. We were just happy to be there – some of my team-mates didn’t even unpack their suitcases. In our opening match against Germany, we lost 2-0 and I was taken off at half-time. I really struggled. But Euro 96 was a life-changing tournament for me. After that incredible summer, nothing was the same as it had been before. I grew up in the communist regime of Czechoslovakia, and made my senior debut for Ceske Budejovice at 17 – I had to be…

Fingers tremble with hope as FourFourTwo rips open an original pack of Panini Euro 96 stickers. An unlikely dream result from our 21st-century purchase would be a national team shiny, Scotland hotshot Ally McCoist, England hotshot Alan Shearer (with bonus hair), Zinedine Zidane (also with bonus hair) and at least one Euro 96 cult figure: Bulgaria goalkeeper Borislav Mihailov (with suspiciously bonus hair) or Czech wizard Karel Poborsky (his luscious locks all natural). The first sticker staring right back at us reads ‘Birmingham’. It’s a host city sticker and, with all due respect to the Venice of the North, not quite the opener we wanted. This is followed by Steffen Freund, Emil Kostadinov, the Dutch national team – blissfully unaware of the 4-1 hammering that’s to come – and Oceano,…

01 Who was the Golden Boot winner at Euro 96, having not scored in 12 internationals before it kicked off? 02 Who was crowned Player of the Tournament, scoring twice in his country’s triumphant campaign? 03 A pair of Premier League referees featured on the 24-strong list of Euro 96 officials. Who were they? 04 Brian Laudrup scored three goals for Denmark at Euro 96 – which club did he play for at the time? 05 Which English group performed the official Euro 96 theme song, called We’re In This Together? 06 The uncle of a tennis superstar saw his decisive penalty saved in Spain’s quarter-final loss to England. Can you tell us his full name? 07 Which Ajax frontman scored the Netherlands’ consolation goal in their 4-1 loss to…

“WHY DON’T WE SEE ANY BABY PIGEONS IN LONDON? GOOD QUESTION. PIGEONS ARE FAT, SO MAYBE THEY EAT THEM?” Hi Matt. We’re going to kick off this interview with a compliment. You’re apparently 45, but look around 26 – what’s happening? Hi. Good question! I do get called Peter Pan a lot. To be honest, I can’t explain it. I think it might be in the genes. My nan is 92 and she looks like she could be in her seventies. Maybe that’s it. Are you tremendously well-hydrated with a substantial skincare regime? FFT keeps forgetting to drink enough water each day and now we have the complexion of Weetabix. I’m not that well-hydrated, no – I don’t drink a lot of water. I should be having more, but I’m…

You know the story of Euro 96, don’t you? A footballing opera played out against a backdrop of endless summer, accompanied by a timeless theme song, with cameo roles for great goals and that most enduring of central themes: England coming up agonisingly short (even before the tournament began, it was “thirty years of hurt”, and that’s now well into the mid-fifties). “I WAS IN SWEDEN AND PEOPLE WERE LAUGHING AT US, AT OUR TACTICS,” RECALLED VENABLES Except, as is so often the case, the pocket opera tells only half of the story. Euro 96 was far more nuanced and more complicated than that. Albeit not on this subject, Charles Dickens penned: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” and that was Euro 96. It…

STORY OF THE DAY Groups B, C and D get underway with games that are intermittently intriguing rather than endlessly enthralling. At Elland Road, Bulgaria and Spain trade goals and red cards as a cagey game bursts into life for the final half-hour. Sendings-off for both Petar Hubchev and Juan Antonio Pizzi mean that each side are reduced to 10 men soon after finding the net from set-pieces. At Old Trafford, the Germans, after coming third at Euro 88 and then second at Euro 92, set about their task of going one better by cruising past the Czech Republic despite the loss of two Jurgen Ks: suspended frontman Klinsmann and injured centre-back Kohler. Finally, Hillsborough watches stodgy holders Denmark being pegged back by a thrusting young Portuguese side: Rui Costa…

STORY OF THE DAY Another 1-0 loss sends Romania home before the postcards, but they give it a good go in a pulsating Tyneside clash against their former Warsaw Pact neighbours. Hristo Stoichkov (well, who else?) fires Bulgaria ahead after just three minutes, PlayStationing his way straight through the defence before toepunting the ball into the back of Romania’s net like a joyful schoolboy. Dorinel Munteanu’s stunning piledriver bounces off the crossbar and over the line but the equaliser isn’t given, and the Tricolorii are out. After two hours of major tournament action against Scotland and Switzerland, the Dutch haven’t scored a single goal – but 20 minutes later they’ve banged home two in the evening game. Having missed two presentables, Jordi Cruyff breaks his international duck from the edge…

Let’s be clear: as a nation, England has been guilty of, and despised for, multiple crimes across its history. And the Scottish, Welsh and Irish have more reason than most to harbour anti-English feeling which rarely strays too far from the surface, even when benignly expressed as individual patriotism. By contrast, during the post-imperial half of the 20th century, the English largely wore an apologetic air and what The Independent’s Bryan Appleyard called a “chain of guilt that has been hung around the English neck”. “Think how hard it now is to be patriotically English,” he wrote in June 1996. “Professional Scots, Welsh, Irish, French and Americans are everywhere, flaunting their idiosyncrasies, but the English cower, occasionally making fun of themselves.” For many people in England, waving a flag was…

STORY OF THE DAY World Cup finalists two years earlier, Italy fail to get out of their group at a tournament for the first time since 1974. To avoid an airport full of flung tomatoes, the Azzurri need a better result than the Czechs, who beat Arrigo Sacchi’s semi-reserves five days earlier. But Zola’s penalty at Old Trafford is kept out by an inspired Andreas Kopke, and Germany’s 10 men hold on for a draw. At about 9.15pm that still seems enough for Italy, owing to simultaneous events at Anfield. At 2-0 down, Russia need to score five in order to qualify themselves – and give it a good go, surging 3-2 up with five minutes left. But then Vladimir Smicer nets his first international goal to send the Czechs…

STORY OF THE DAY Berti Vogts’ Germany reach the semi-finals by dispatching Croatia, who can only blame themselves. First, Nikola Jerkan stops a Matthias Sammer surge with a gormless handball, which enables Jurgen Klinsmann to gleefully gobble up the penalty. Then, after some Davor Suker magic draws Croatia level, Igor Stimac gives himself first go of the soap and, three minutes later, Sammer slams Germany into a lead they never lose. Villa Park hosts the tournament’s remaining outsiders in a tense teatime tete-a-tete. It isn’t a thriller, despite – or because of – eight yellow cards and a red, but it is decided by a goal of exquisite beauty. Karel Poborsky spends the rest of his life answering questions about his scoop: taken from 17 yards out, its parabola reaching…

They have been in the same room for less than five minutes, and already Barry Davies is threatening to punch John Motson. Clenching his fist and sending it very close to Motty’s jaw, Davies bursts into laughter when he realises that he’s not only taken his commentary colleague by surprise, but also FourFourTwo’s photographer. “Too late, you missed it!” exclaims Davies, realising that his split-second pretend assault hadn’t been caught on camera. The BBC duo were once the Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo of television commentators; two all-time legends sharing the stage in the same era. Their rivalry was hyped so much by the media that you could have been forgiven for thinking they didn’t get on at all, but from the moment they walk through the door together at…

You represented Croatia at Euro 96 – their first major tournament. What was that like? An unforgettable mixture of pride, excitement and responsibility. We’d only played friendlies for more than four years – we’d been waiting for FIFA and UEFA to finally let us take part in qualifying games. But we grew up as a team during that waiting period, and we knew how good we could become. Hearing our national anthem for the very first time at such a huge tournament was unbelievable, and such great feelings never go away. Being part of a historic moment was amazing. Was there a fierce pride in playing for your nation, after what had happened in the war just before that? It didn’t happen overnight – there were many signs of the…