Innehållsförteckning för November 2019 från FourFourTwo UK

01 WHAT CONNECTS THESE THREE PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTBALLERS? 02 Who appeared in four World Cup finals but played in zero World Cup qualifying matches? 03 Which Hollywood actor made an appearance at Fratton Park this season? 04 Leeds Road was the former ground of which Championship club? 05 What significance did Mario Balotelli’s one and only Premier League assist carry? 06 Who once played in matches for both Wales and Bayern Munich on the same day? 07 WHICH FORMER PREMIER LEAGUE PLAYER IS THIS? 08 WHICH GROUND IS THIS? 09 WHICH CURRENT PREMIER LEAGUE MANAGER IS THIS? 10 NAME THESE TEAMS FROM THEIR BADGES 11 WHO AM I? I kicked off my career with Z Cars ringing in my ears before becoming a full-time Cityzen. I decided to move up…

THE SILENCE OF THE FANS Club officials at MLS outfit Portland Timbers have decided not to take any action against members of a fan group for flying anti-fascist banners at games. The Timbers Army displayed various flags and banners, including one based on the Iron Front, an anti-Nazi and anti-communist organisation based in early 1930s Germany. The banners were in support of local communities targeted by hate crimes, going against MLS rules outlawing political insignia at any of their matches. The Iron Front was banned in 1933, so 33 minutes of a recent Timbers-Seattle Sounders derby was played out against a wall of complete silence, as the two sets of opposition supporters staged a protest against the ban, before both flew Iron Front flags. SQUEAKY BUM TIME A Game of…

XI BEST: Nigel Martyn, Rio Ferdinand, Lucas Radebe, Gary Kelly, Tony Dorigo, Gary Speed, David Batty, Gordon Strachan, Gary McAllister, Tony Yeboah, Mark Viduka. WORST: Paul Rachubka, Scott Wootton, Giuseppe Bellucci, Roque Junior, Tony Capaldi, Jermaine Wright, Paul Okon, John Stiles, Jimmy Kebe, George McCluskey, Steve Morison. PLAYER B: Billy Bremner [right]. A red-headed tiger who went like a human dynamo. You can’t ask for more than that. W: Paul Rachubka. Look up ‘hapless’ in a dictionary and you’ll find a picture of our goalkeeper – a glove-wearing, one-man disaster zone. HARD MAN B: Norman Hunter – winner on the pitch and a gentleman off it (who once let me try on one of his England caps). W: Kenny Burns – looked like Yosemite Sam, and played in the side…

“As I was travelling to meet Jurgen Klopp, I wondered what he would be like. He’s brought great personality and energy to the Premier League, but I thought, ‘Is that all just bravado? Is it just a show for games, or will he be different at the training ground?’ But when I met him, he wasn’t different at all. He was so open. It was a joy to be in his company – especially as a Liverpool fan. There has been a lineage of Liverpool managers, all the way back to Bill Shankly, who have had a relationship with the fans. That has always been pivotal, as has the relationship between supporters and players. At times in recent years, we hadn’t that understanding, but Jurgen has bonded with the fans…

When Ken Anderson arrived at BoltonWanderers in 2016, I knew early onthat something wasn’t right. When Steve Dale arrived at Bury, I didn’t. It’s been three years since I decided to join Bury. I’d played over 100 games for Bolton but my contract was running out and Anderson had just taken over. He had a meeting with the players, and I wasn’t convinced. There didn’t seem to be a plan, nor an idea of where the club would go next. They offered me a new deal, but I chose to leave. As things later turned out, my initial judgement about Anderson was right. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about Dale. He said all the right things when he bought Bury, and I thought he was a good person who’d…

IPSWICH TOWN The Tw sttor Boys had just been rwhicated into Division Three South when Alf Rion zoy took the reins in 1955. Ipswich duly secured promotion in only his second season, then reached the top flight in 1961 and won the First Division the year after that. Ipswich lost to Milan in the first round of the European Cup, but months later Ramsey was offered the England job. FULHAM  some help Al-Fayed, Michael Jackson and Uri Geller, Kevin Keegan led the Cottagers out of the third tier in 1999 before taking the England job. Fulham went up again with Jean Tigana and then won an Intertoto spot, making it to the UEFA Cup Third Round. And in 2009-10, after an extraordinary 10-month odyssey, they ended up in the Europa…

Sometimes it takes only a couple of seconds to fall for a player. In the case of Glenn Hoddle, even less was needed, as the 17-year-old tamed the ball on one long thigh and flicked it to his other foot, from which it was volleyed to a Tottenham team-mate on a distant flank, all in one smooth movement. The identity of the wideman eludes memory – it might have been Jimmy Neighbour on one wing, Ralph Coates on the other, or Steve Perryman driving forward – and so does the outcome of what was, for a newcomer to the highest level of English football, a pass of astonishingly beautiful simplicity. But it can be safely assumed that the recipient had no difficulty in controlling it. Even as a kid, Hoddle…

ANDRES ESCOBAR The defender (above) was shot in a car park shortly after his own goal led to Colombia being knocked out of the 1994 World Cup. ROBERT MENSAH The Ghanaian keeper, who began his career at Mysterious Dwarfs, died after a 1971 bar brawl in which he was stabbed with a bottle. LUTZ EIGENDORF ‘East Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer’ failed to recover following a suspicious 1983 car crash, allegedly set up by the Stasi after he defected to the West. ALFREDO PACHECO El Salvador’s record appearance holder was gunned down at a gas station in 2015, having been banned from football for life due to match-fixing. BELFORT DUARTE The Brazilian pioneer translated football’s laws into Portuguese and starred for Rio club America. He was shot dead in 1918 on his…

CHRISTOPHER FLANAGAN MANAGING EDITOR INTERNATIONAL SPORTS LAW JOURNAL “The regulatory structures in football have been slow to react to the pace of change in the game. There has been a major financial evolution that has accumulated in a very concentrated way to the top of the game, but most of the people involved in football don’t earn much money from it. The interest in football and the ease of following matches (and betting on them) at all levels means it’s not just football’s top earners whose games are being closely watched, and this poses an integrity risk. Conversely at the top of the game, you have so much cash that football becomes so attractive to those who want to wash money through it. We have a bifurcated industry with lots…

CLUBS 1982-88 West Ham 1988-94 Everton 1994-96 West Ham 1996-97 Selangor 1997-2000 Leicester 1997 Birmingham (loan) 2000 Norwich 2000-01 Barnet 2001 Millwall COUNTRY 1986-89 England MANAGER 2000-01 Barnet “It’s like Dubai, not Southend!” The sun beats down as Tony Cottee joins FFT for a stroll along the Essex coast. Even on this warm morning, though, the beach is pretty much deserted. Southend isn’t quite the holiday destination it once was, but it is now home to a West Ham legend, and he’s giving us an impromptu tour. “World’s longest pier over there – it’s over a mile long,” he says, smiling. “Anything else you want to know?” Cottee, 54, left London some years ago but football is still at the heart of his life: he commutes for his regular duties…

First game you ever attended? Bournemouth vs West Brom, Christmas 1987. My dad supports Bournemouth but he encouraged me to support my local team, Bristol City. I’ve extended that to my own son, who’s growing up near Arsenal. They’ve got a better deal than me... I was seven for my debut at Dean Court. We stood right at the front, and a boy next to me got hit in the face by a clearance. Who was your childhood hero and did you ever meet them? Bob Taylor, a prolific centre-forward for us in the late-80s. One of the players had a testimonial at a cricket club and Bob was strolling around the boundary eating an ice cream, so I nervously asked him for an autograph. I couldn’t believe that a…

CLUB BARCELONA POSITION CENTRAL MIDFIELD Value £30m Age 21 Foot Left Height 5ft 11in Nation Spain THE STORY SO FAR: Carles Alena joined Barcelona aged seven after a trial, and his natural ability helped him to glide through the ranks at La Masia and settle into Ernesto Valverde’s squad last term. Expectations are high for any budding Barça prodigy, but Alena has managed them well. After scoring a spectacular solo goal during a November 2015 UEFA Youth League game against Roma, the starlet then impressed on his first-team debut a year later, netting a similarly impressive long-range equaliser against Hercules in the Copa del Rey last 32. Alena – who is one of the first clients at Carles Puyol and Ivan de la Pena’s new agency – soon signed a…

fourfourtwo@futurenet.com FourFourTwoUK FourFourTwo ARISE, SIR DAVID DEIN I was particularly interested to read the story ‘Helping Offenders Get Onside’ [FFT 304] as I currently work for Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. Ever since the introduction of the Twinning Project, co-founded by former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein, there has been a noticeable change in the atmosphere around the prison I work in. Whether that’s down to the project is not for me to say, but it’s clear to see there is a child-like euphoria that takes over even the most hardened of criminals when you put a size five football at their feet. It gives prisoners something to look forward to and work towards. Time for a knighthood for Mr Dein? Nathan Kitch, Durham GERRARD THE GER Steven Gerrard deserves…

“A few months after the shock of Brexit, I came across two stories that stayed with me. The first was a series of photos of Syrian children in Aleppo using a bomb crater filled with rain water as a swimming pool. The second was drone footage of kids playing football in Aleppo’s dusty, desolate ruins. Just two lads kicking a ball back and forth, not a single other person in view. I wanted to find a way of keeping the conversation going about displaced people, and came up with the idea of asking famous football fans to meet their heroes for a charity book that raises money for refugees. Between October 2017 and May 2019, 12 fans met with 12 footballers. When my iPhone wasn’t recording, the shy and serious…

WHAT’S YOUR BEST MEMORY FROM FILMING? Martin Bashir, journalist: “There are few privileges greater than meeting Pele, and interviewing him about England’s prospects under Mike Bassett was special. He played along brilliantly, naming a few nations likely to win the World Cup, never getting to England. When I volunteered England as contenders, his perfectly delivered giggle sent the entire crew into paroxysms of laughter. One take and done, as he did on the pitch. The absolute mutt’s nuts.” Rob Sprackling, writer: “We were filming at the old Wembley Stadium, which was about to be demolished. We relaid it with rolls of turf from a garden centre. After filming, we had a game, cast vs crew, on the hallowed B&Q grass. Our lot somehow came out on top, so we, not…

MARK HATELEY The former Portsmouth and Milan forward was signed by a thirtysomething Arsene Wenger at Monaco and enjoyed immediate success playing with fellow Anglo import Glenn Hoddle, winning the title in his first season. However, he struggled to recover from a nasty ankle injury picked up during his time there and, after three years, left to start anew with Rangers in 1990. CHRIS WADDLE Comfortably the most successful of les rosbifs on our list, Waddle departed Tottenham for Marseille in 1989 and remained there for the best part of four years, winning three league titles and losing one of the dullest European Cup finals, against Red Star Belgrade on penalties. He learnt the lingo, enjoyed a bit of local culture and even sorted his hair out, eventually. CHRIS KIWOMYA…

While you’re cheering your favourite players on the pitch, the football team you support could actually be a front. For all you know, its true purpose may lie in serious organised crime. Behind the scenes, your club could be operating as a great big money laundry. Taking illegally obtained money and making it look legitimate is known as money laundering, and, 10 years ago, the House of Lords investigated this practice along with the financing of terrorism. It concluded: “Serious organised criminals invest in property, shares, trusts and pensions, as well as accumulating high value goods. Investment in private and commercial property, including those overseas, is attractive because it appreciates in value over time. To that list of assets, we can now add football clubs.” None of what you will…

What are you up to these days? Playing football with my neighbours and just trying to live a happy life. After being in the limelight for a long time, sometimes nothing beats that feeling of spending time with the family and taking things easy, so I feel happy. On the career side, I’ve been helping out CAF [the Confederation of African Football] and also helping the young ones to train – not at coaching level, as I don’t think every former footballer should be a coach, but passing on knowledge as and when I can. You’ve been very critical of Liverpool in the past. Why do you hold so much resentment towards them? “LIVERPOOL LED CITY BY SEVEN POINTS LAST YEAR. AS THEY SAY IN ENGLAND: I THINK THEY BOTTLED…

Did a third-place play-off defeat to Sweden make you question your decision to retire? I did feel really angry and annoyed, yeah. You go into every game wanting to win, and it was just frustrating. There probably were moments where I was thinking, ‘I can’t end on that’, and after the match I had a burning urge to keep playing. But when I got home one of my ankles had swollen up, and the reality soon set in. It was the right decision and I’m happy with that. How hard did the daily struggle with your injuries become? I think my back was the biggest issue. It was something I struggled with, and I was having such a lot of treatment. I pretty much needed a personal physio at times…

PETER SCHMEICHEL “I had Peter at Manchester City near the end of his career, but he was still great. At his peak he was the best goalkeeper in the world, and almost single-handedly won Manchester United the league title in 1996 when my Newcastle side were up against them. If he’d been in goal for us, we would have won the title instead.” MANFRED KALTZ “I played alongside him for Hamburg in the Bundesliga. I know that when I first turned up from Liverpool, he had doubts about me and what I would bring to the team, but in the end we got on well. He was a very good player for Hamburg and West Germany, too.” BOBBY MOORE “I played both with and against Bobby, and what a player!…

HUMAN BY NATURE KITS $45 humanbynature.co Hipster fans everywhere rejoice! Human by Nature are back with a bang. The brand, launched in 2017 by Beijing-raised American John Lehman, stays true to its roots with this new collection. Their latest offerings mesh European football attire with classic Asian heritage and are almost painfully trendy. Hector Bellerin doesn’t make football kits, but if he did, this is what they would look like. Well played. ADIDAS RPT HEADPHONES £139.95 adidas.co.uk FFT were invited to the Ministry of Sound’s workout studio for the release of Adidas’ new headphones, and then put through our paces in a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) class that almost killed us; our season hasn’t started well. The headphones held up superbly, sounded amazing and soak up moisture better than…

Hi Will. You’re well known for being flammable on the football pitch, so what’s the closest you’ve ever come to setting yourself on fire? A chip pan disaster? Returning to a lit firework after six pints? Hi. You know, I genuinely almost set myself on fire about three months ago. I cook quite a lot – chicken fajitas and tuna pasta bake are my special dishes. I was doing fajitas for the whole family and I left a tea towel on the oven. It went up in flames. My three kids were in the kitchen so there was brief panic. I got it into the sink, and then outside. Everyone found it funny in the end. How were the fajitas? They were fine. I’m not a great cook, but I’ve…

THE NAMES HEARD LONG AGO Jonathan Wilson (Blink, £18.99) Hungary’s 6-3 defeat of England at Wembley in 1953 is widely considered to be the zenith of the Magical Magyars. A year earlier, they had won Olympic gold, and 12 months later they were defeated 3-2 in the World Cup final by West Germany. Following the 1956 revolution, Ferenc Puskas never represented his country again. Such key moments changed the trajectory of Hungarian football, but as Wilson’s superbly nuanced new book explains, the impact of ground-breaking Hungarian coaches significantly altered world football. Ernesto Erbstein coached the crack Italian side Torino, and perished along with many of his players in the tragic Superga air crash of 1949. Later, Holocaust survivor Bela Guttmann guided Benfica to two European Cup wins in 1961 and…

If you thought you knew Jurgen Klopp, think again. In his office at the club’s Melwood training ground, the Liverpool manager sat down for a chat with Huyton-born comic, presenter and ex-non-league footballer John Bishop for the forthcoming book A Game of Two Halves. In a fascinating and revealing conversation, Bishop spoke to the 52-year-old German about a wide range of topics including Pep Guardiola, Christianity, restoring Liverpool’s position at the summit of European football thanks to June’s Champions League final victory over Tottenham, and who should eventually replace him in the Anfield dugout. The proceeds from the book will go to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, to raise awareness of their work with child refugees. So, it seemed only natural that Bishop should start on that subject… BISHOP Thanks…

This Klopp extract appears in A Game of Two Halves, and FFT are giving away five free copies. To enter a random draw to win one, email fourfourtwo@futurenet.com with the answer to this question: With which German club did Jurgen Klopp begin his managerial career in 2001? The book is published by Allen & Unwin on October 3, and will be available in all good bookshops for £14.99. Every purchase raises funds for UNHCR – to support their work with refugees, visit www.unhcr.org/football…

BOCA JUNIORS 1-2 RIVER PLATE AUGUST 24, 1913 Pretty much from the get-go, there was an idea that River played an elegant and unrushed style of football to match their Los Millonarios moniker, while Boca were no-frills, industrious, a little bit sneaky at times and very much products of their tough portside environment. The Buenos Aires duo officially met in the league for the first time in the summer of 1913, with River triumphant thanks to goals from Candido Garcia and Antonio Ameal Pereyra. The final whistle was reportedly followed by fisticuffs between both sets of players and rival groups of supporters. A template had well and truly been set. BOCA JUNIORS 0-2 RIVER PLATE APRIL 6, 1986 As crowd incidents go, this mid-1980s encounter was hardly one of the…

“I’d say Adel is the most talented player that I’ve had under my wing in my entire 30-year management career. A lot of QPR  fans have been brought up on the likes of Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles and, although Adel is not a club legend in comparison, he is very similar in terms of ability.” QPR manager Neil Warnock, 2011 “He is pure talent. He came here with great determination and is a rough diamond.” Milan coach clarence Seedorf, 2014 “At the end of the day this is the top level of world football, and if you’re not prepared to work hard you’ll come up massively short.  If I was Adel Taarabt and I had his ability, I’d not be wanting to come up short having not worked hard…

Tommy Ball popped down to the pub on the night of Sunday November 11, 1923. The Aston Villa player was celebrating Armistice Day, and a 1-0 win over Notts County. He drank three-and-a-half pints of ale with his wife, Bella, and spoke to the landlord until a little past closing time at 9.30pm. Then Tommy and Bella went home, arriving just after 10pm. Bella began to make their supper, and Tommy went outside to look for his dog. A few minutes later, Bella heard shouting, then a gunshot. She ran outside and discovered her husband reeling towards her, covered in blood. “Oh, Bella!” he yelled. “He has shot me!” Tommy collapsed onto the steps and died. One of football’s brightest stars had been murdered. Ball was 23 years old when…

TARIQ PANJA JOURNALIST THE NEW YORK TIMES “I wrote a book with Alex Duff on this stuff [Football’s Secret Trade: How The Player Transfer Market Was Infiltrated], primarily because we were coming across a lot of characters in football and thinking, ‘Who are these people and what do they do?’ The more you peel the onion, the layers are fascinating. It’s totally unregulated. For organised crime, it seems to be an easy way to facilitate transnational money movement. This should pique the interest of the statutory authorities all around the world but it doesn’t, not really. In South America and in southern Europe, people are moving enormous amounts of money around without anyone paying attention. There is very little action ever taken. FIFA are trying to change the transfer market.…

Peckham Town of the Kent County Football League running out to the theme from Only Fools and Horses. Not the opening theme, though. The closing credits one. The good one. Beth England’s absolute screamer against Spurs Women at Stamford Bridge. Top bins. Inter’s new third kit (top left). My goodness. Full marks too for the Formula 1 themed launch. The social media chief of Romanian top-tier club Hermannstadt deciding to delete all of the online accounts as his final act before leaving the club. He’s going, and he’s taking everything with him... Lucas Moura and Juan Foyth (above) taking time during the launch of Spurs’ new third kit to read our Tottenham feature from the last issue of FFT. They loved it. Caster Semenya signing for South African football team…