Innehållsförteckning för Autumn 2019 från FourFourTwo UK

Which club did the first ever Ballon d’Or winner play for? Barcelona? Real Madrid? No, it was Blackpool. Stanley Matthews took the award in 1956, pipping Alfredo Di Stefano. Only four Englishmen have ever won the Ballon d’Or – now Raheem Sterling wants to be the fifth. That’s what he tells FourFourTwo in an exclusive interview in this issue, and why not be ambitious? A big nine months lie ahead for Sterling. Manchester City are bookmakers’ favourites to win the Champions League, and England are second favourites behind France to win Euro 2020. If he can lead club and country to success, he starts to put himself in the conversation for global honours. Sterling tells us how he’s defeated the doubters to become arguably England’s most influential footballer, on and…

01 WHICH ITALIAN CLUB DOES THIS QUARTET HAVE IN COMMON? 02 Who was Manchester City’s manager when the club won the Football League Second Division play-off final in 1998-99? 03 What was the name of the fictional football club featured in Sky One drama Dream Team? 04 Which ex-football manager’s four autobiographies are titled My Autobiography, Always Managing, A Man Walks On To A Pitch and It Shouldn’t Happen To A Manager? 05 Put these four clubs in their correct order from oldest to youngest: Fulham, Plymouth Argyle, Celtic, Newcastle United. 06 Which three-time winners of the Europa League and three-time European Cup finalists are nicknamed ‘Los Colchoneros’, or ‘The Mattress Makers’? 07 WHICH FORMER LIVERPOOL DEFENDER IS THIS? 08 WHICH GROUND IS THIS? 09 WHICH CURRENT LIGUE 1 MANAGER…

CLUB BIRMINGHAM CITY POSITION MIDFIELDER Value £15m Age 16 Foot Right Nationality English THE STORY SO FAR: A product of the Blues’ increasingly prosperous academy, Bellingham has been impressing staff at Birmingham since he was turning out for the club’s under-8 team. The midfielder (and occasional striker) made his debut for Birmingham’s U18s at only 14 years of age, scoring on his debut, and quickly worked his way into the U23 side, where his 12 appearances last season brought three goals. While all that was going on, Bellingham was also captaining England’s U15s and U16s, and this summer he led the U17s to Syrenka Cup glory, being named the player of the tournament in the process. In August, he became Birmingham City’s youngest ever player when he came on as…

89 Amy Lawrence (Century, £20) Arsenal have enjoyed a number of stellar moments during their (sometimes) illustrious history. But none can equal the final match of the season at Anfield in 1989, when George Graham’s team beat title rivals Liverpool to win the First Division, thanks to a late Michael Thomas goal. This book is a richly layered piece of football history. On one hand, it’s a 30th anniversary celebration, told from the point of view of Arsenal players and fans, revealing much about the intensity of the night and elation when Thomas finally struck. But it’s also a warts-and-all look at ’80s football, with recollections of racism, dilapidated grounds and the impact of Hillsborough. Graham’s tactical nous shines throughout the entire campaign, as does his uncanny forecast of how…

XI BEST: Tony Coton, Nigel Gibbs, John McClelland, Jay DeMerit, Paul Robinson, Ashley Young, Almen Abdi, Etienne Capoue, John Barnes (below), Luther Blissett (right), Troy Deeney. WORST: Perry Digweed, Patrick Blondeau, Gabriel Tamas, Ramon Vega, Paul Mayo, Gary Fisken, Jamie Hand, Roger Willis, Nordin Amrabat, Jamie Moralee, Kerry Dixon. PLAYER B: We just can’t separate our first two England internationals, Barnes and Blissett. W: Gary Plumley had a shocker in the 1987 FA Cup semi-final. Graham Taylor wanted to spare the blushes of a teenage David James and didn’t play him, even though he was next in line. Eddie Plumley was the club secretary, whose son owned a wine bar and had often played in goal. Spurs won easily. HAIRCUT B: Filippo Galli, the Italian Stallion. W: Gavin Mahon, if…

It was hard not to get excited when City signed Raheem Sterling. What’s better than signing a rival’s explosively talented young forward, let alone one who had just been named European football’s Golden Boy, voted as the best under-21 player on the continent? Sterling’s arrival weakened Liverpool and made us stronger. Perfect. It should have been the boost we needed. Manuel Pellegrini’s side were slowing down. The spark and the pace that made City so exciting to watch in his first season were gone. We needed goals, flair and speed. Sterling, unfortunately, didn’t change that. An early hat-trick against Bournemouth outlined his frightening potential, but we saw only glimpses of his talent as City’s season floundered. Those daring, exciting runs disappeared, as he became hesitant on the ball. Supporters started…

Tromso stunned Ruud Gullit’s Chelsea in the European Cup Winners’ Cup Second Round first leg in 1997, but the 3-2 win was best remembered for the onslaught of a ferocious Arctic Circle weather front. The home side took a shock two-goal lead inside the first 20 minutes through Steinar Nilsen and Frode Fermann, before the conditions seriously deteriorated during the half-time interval. A full-on blizzard enveloped the Alfheim Stadion and the second half was truly farcical. Play was halted on two occasions and Gullit launched into a glorious strop on the touchline, furious that the match was still being allowed to continue. Somewhere among all that weather, Gianluca Vialli pulled a goal back, but Tromso made it 3-1 thanks to Ole Martin Aarst before Vialli got a late second. The…

ALEX TRUICA @AlexTruica That Champions League semi-final defeat at Anfield broke something inside the club: Barça’s self-belief. Barcelona played with fear that night. They doubted themselves, because they remembered the Roma debacle a year earlier, when Los Cules also squandered a three-goal lead in the second leg. In Liverpool, they lost the match and their mojo – they should have sacked Ernesto Valverde and made a fresh start. The players needed motivation, a new voice and a change in dynamics. But Barça’s board and especially the president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, opted against it. Early this season, it was still the same old Barcelona – especially away from home, where something has been missing for some time. They have played predictably and slowly, bereft of ideas, a structure or a game…

Michael Owen has never been one to shout. At his absolute fresh-faced turn-of-the-century peak, there was no swagger, no smug look-at-me celebration – just the sense of someone going about his job to the best of his considerable ability, banging in goals for club and country. In 2001, Owen was irresistible. He picked up six trophies that year: the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup treble, plus the Charity Shield and UEFA Super Cup – and then, just three days after turning 22, the Ballon d’Or. He remains the last Englishman to win the award. The gong came on the back of 31 goals for a Liverpool side desperate to reinstate itself as a force domestically and in Europe. The bigger the game, the better he played. A highly…

You recently took over as coach of Crema in Serie D. Is your former Juventus captain Antonio Conte an inspiration, given all the success he has enjoyed in management? He is one of my most influential role models – his fitness sessions are so knackering, but his teams are always flying. I would like to have been coached by him. Conte has made history everywhere, even in the Premier League, and I follow him with great interest. You won the Champions League with Juve in 1996 – what did coach Marcello Lippi tell you before the game? There wasn’t much to say the week before the game. Lippi was mainly focused on calming the players down. The adrenaline levels were high, because everyone was excited and really looking forward to…

CLUBS 1988-91 Ajax 1991-93 Twente 1993-99 Ajax 1999-2000 Barcelona 2000-04 Rangers 2004-05 Al-Rayyan 2005-08 Al-Shamal COUNTRY 1993-2003 Netherlands For a man with 67 Netherlands caps, Ronald de Boer’s choice of location for our interview is very on-brand. The 49-year-old asks FFT if we can meet in Edam, a village just outside Amsterdam and home to the famous Dutch cheese. We briefly wonder if he’ll arrive wearing clogs, picking tulips and pointing at a windmill. Like Edam cheese, De Boer became a popular Dutch export, winning the Champions League with Ajax and more silverware with Barcelona and Rangers. Having flourished thanks to the Dutch philosophy of attacking football, he is now part of Ajax’s academy, inspiring and nurturing the next generation. Ronald is also half of one of football’s best-known double…

What was the first game you saw live? It was at Everton. I was in the Everton end, against United, and everyone was standing – I remember being up on my dad’s shoulders all game and, to be honest, I was a bit frightened. I started supporting United as a kid because my brothers were big fans, then I really got into supporting them properly later in life, after I took my break from music. I had some real time then. Who was your childhood hero, and did you ever meet them? George Best. He was the hero for a lot of people, even if you didn’t support United. He was in Mick Jagger territory – the first footballer to cross over and become a household name. Best was a…

TIANHE STADIUM GUANGZHOU On an autumn evening, there are few venues in world football more striking than the Tianhe Stadium. Situated near Hong Kong, Guangzhou has a population of almost 15 million, and skyscrapers dwarf its 55,000-capacity arena. The ground is home to Chinese Super League powerhouses Guangzhou Evergrande, managed in recent seasons by Fabio Cannavaro. You can just about pick him out in this photograph – if you have the planet’s most powerful microscope and look really closely...…

1989 The top of the table had a fairly familiar ring to it in May 1989. Chelsea were the champions and Manchester City the runners-up – but this wasn’t the top tier. Down in the Second Division, boss Mel Machin had a squad packed with bright young things that helped City to win automatic promotion back into the First Division. Among them was the highly rated Paul Lake (right), whose career was sadly blighted by several knee injuries, as well as defender Andy Hinchcliffe, midfielder Michael Hughes and forward David White. 1999 Few fans will forget May 30, 1999 – the start of the club’s revival. Third place in the third tier that season represented City’s worst ever league finish but it produced one of their best ever moments, in…

Competing with his chainsmoked Benson & Hedges fumes, anticipation fills the room. The walls are dripping with Masters art. History and period furnishings surround us. He is clearly comfortable in these surroundings. I look over his shoulder at the huge 14th-century fireplace; on the grand old mantelpiece, over the crackling flames, is a beautiful French clock, gilded with nymphs and swans. It is nearly midnight. He takes the butt of his cigarette and lights himself a new one. I sip on my Burgundy and pour him another malt whisky. There is a pause. I lean in. It’s time to ask the question. ‘Martin, how much money do you want for Manchester United?’ Thirty years ago, when I was just 37 years old but a semi-retired (and fairly successful) entrepreneur, I…

MAR 2000 Rivaldo tended to let his feet do the talking. So, when FourFourTwo were offered the chance to meet the player who had recently bagged the Ballon d’Or, how could we refuse? Simon Kuper, award-winning author, spent an entire day with Barça’s brilliant Brazilian playmaker and gained an insight into his tense relationship with Louis van Gaal. The following day, Van Gaal dropped Rivaldo from the squad. MAR 2003 Sid Lowe took us deep inside the Bernabeu to provide a fascinating insight into the world of the Galacticos, who, for all their hype, often fell short in Europe. When Sid asked Roberto Carlos whether David Beckham could become the next Galactico, the Brazilian replied, “But if he comes here, where’s he going to play? We’ve already got Luis Figo...”…

For the first time in years, Ashley Barnes is living in fear. Little worries the Burnley striker, as has been clear ever since he arrived in the Premier League. No matter how famous the club he’s facing, no matter how much stick he’s getting from opposition fans (on an average afternoon: quite a lot), Barnes is ready to go to war via any means necessary. But as he poses for photos for FourFourTwo on this Tuesday lunchtime, a Range Rover lurks in the background, with its windows wound down. It’s occupied by team-mates Joe Hart and Ashley Westwood, and they’re toying with the Clarets goal-getter. “Come on, we’ve got the school run!” yells midfielder Westwood. The trio share a car from Manchester each morning, and they’re jokingly threatening to leave…

Britain’s man on the ground in Central America was a 26-year-old York City supporter and economist named Vince Cable – now MP for Twickenham and a former leader of the Liberal Democrats. Cable was working over there on the eve of the war, and in his report for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, he accused the Honduran government of whipping up “nationalistic fervour” around the football matches in order to distract from its domestic problems, which included labour strikes and student protests. The “highly intemperate” language used after the second match was “directly responsible” for the riots that were the pretext for El Salvador’s invasion of Honduras, said Cable. In his report (The Football War and the Central American Market), football was “the catalyst which helped to ignite an…

LOVERS FC X TOO HOT £40 toohotlimited.com When Nigeria unveiled their now iconic zig-zag home shirt back in 2018, the football world’s jaw collectively dropped. It not only represented a triumph of football kit architecture, but signalled that fans were ready for something more exotic. Enter Lovers FC – from kit savant Neal Heard – and cool-kids clothing label, Too Hot. The pair’s collaboration is loud and jazzy, and will leave you with a banging headache if you stare at it for ages. It gets a big thumbs-up here. Long live lairy strips. NEW BALANCE PITCH CONTROL X BIG ZUU X MC EYEZ £180 newbalance.co.uk New Balance have linked up with DJs Big Zuu and MC Eyez to create the ‘Pitch Control’ version of its Tekela v2. The boots feature…

Hi Paul, how’s it going? I’m all right, thanks. I’m rushing over to Piccadilly station in Manchester, in an Uber, to try to get my train to London. Ooh, that adds a frisson of excitement to the interview. Let’s see if I make it! Now, we have been asked to include a walking-related silly question, as you’re taking part in a charity walk. So, let’s do lots. At what age did you learn to walk? Ha! I can’t remember. I’d have to ask my mum, but I’d say it was quite early. A bright, sharp boy like me would have been eager to kick a ball. How would you describe your walk? Does it ever become a swagger? It’s definitely a vast improvement on what it was three years ago…

“Oh my gosh!” FourFourTwo are deep within Manchester City’s incredible Etihad Campus training facility, and an eight-year-old’s jaw has just dropped. This early autumn evening, we are inside a vast indoor hall, and on one side of a dividing curtain, a training session for one of the club’s junior squads is taking place. On the other side of the curtain, Raheem Sterling is posing for a photo shoot with FFT. The youngsters are oblivious that Sterling is just yards away – that is, until a stray football finds its way around the curtain. A kid arrives to retrieve it, and suddenly he finds himself staring straight at an England superstar. Not only does his jaw hit the floor, he nearly faints with excitement. ‘Oh my gosh’ indeed. Mysteriously, a number…

“They thought we were primitives up here,” explains Orjan Berg, sporting director and former footballer from Bodo/Glimt’s Berg family dynasty in northern Norway. “We were direct, we spoke our minds, but we were not primitive. They used to advertise flats for rent in Oslo but say ‘no people from the north of Norway’ on them. We were bullied. They thought we were only farmers and fishermen. Some still think that we are. We weren’t allowed to play in the national league until 1971 because they felt we couldn’t compete with teams from the south of Norway.” FourFourTwo have travelled north of the Arctic Circle to write about the derby game between high-flying Bodo/Glimt and Tromso. It’s cold all right, but not freezing at the end of September. There are 16…

IVAN SAN ANTONIO @sanantheone Writer for Sport Winning the Champions League is like an obsession for Barcelona fans, and it’s the same for the team, too. It’s easy for players to play at their best at the Camp Nou, but they need more motivation away from home. They don’t really seem to be interested in the group stage – only in the bigger knockout games. But if they don’t start to compete better in the group stage, then they won’t know how to do it later. Barcelona know how to succeed in Europe – they have done it five times before. They can’t do it the Real Madrid way, performing badly and stealing it without VAR. The only way for Barça to do it is to be the best team…

In 1986, the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski published The Soccer War, an essay later included in a book of the same name. Kapuscinski – who claimed to have survived 27 revolutions, 12 wars and four death sentences – travelled to Honduras in July 1969 after reading about the football riots. His essay, often cited as the definitive account of the conflict, commences with the tale of an 18-year-old called Amelia Bolanios. According to Kapuscinski (right), she watched the first match between the sides on TV at her home in El Salvador. When Honduras scored a last-minute winner, Bolanios ran to her father’s desk, opened a drawer, pulled out a pistol and shot herself in the heart. The teenager, Kapuscinski implied, became “a national heroine” as the first victim of the…

Both of your parents had strong sporting backgrounds – were you always expected to follow in their footsteps? My dad was a heavyweight boxer for Sandhurst and played rugby as well. My sister swam and played tennis for Jamaica, so it was a sporting family. But I never thought of it as a profession until I came over to England. Even then, my dad was here on a diplomatic posting, so we were only ever going to be here for four years. I first came when I was 13. At 17, when I was preparing to go home to Jamaica or possibly on a scholarship to the USA, Watford asked if I’d like to sign a contract with them. That was the first time I’d ever really considered being a…

TIM FLOWERS “Tim was my room-mate before he left Southampton for Blackburn and won the Premier League. He was a consummate pro, and it would have to be something special to get past him. The best keeper I played with, by some way.” MAL DONAGHY “Mal helped me a lot when I first arrived at Luton from non-league, wet behind the ears. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but you couldn’t outrun Mal. He had great pace and defensive awareness – he was just a naturally good defender.” RIO FERDINAND “I’ve never seen a better 17-year-old to this day. When he was coming through at West Ham, you could already tell he had technical ability, a great physique and leadership skills. Having that level of technique at that…