Innehållsförteckning för December 2019 från FourFourTwo UK

Hated, adored… sometimes even ignored: Rafa Benitez has been subjected to all of the above and plenty more in a remarkable coaching career spanning more than 33 years in four countries – though suffice to say, there’s been plenty more love than loathing on English shores. It takes a saintly figure to spend over three years working under Mike Ashley, but Rafa finally reached breaking point last summer, as he let his contract run down at St James’ Park. In an exclusive interview with FourFourTwo – part of our exciting managers special – he tells us the truth about what happened behind the scenes, and why he had to leave Tyneside under a cloud. The Spaniard also reflects on a terrific life in management which has now taken him to…

FIRMA STELLA AUTOGRAPHED MEMORABILIA £9.99-£2,499.99 firmastella.com Few do signed football memorabilia better than Firma Stella, who deal only in 100 per cent authentic signed shirts, balls, boots and photos. All of their items also come with a Certificate of Authenticity and, in most cases, a picture of the stars signing the memorabilia. Their vast collection ranges from gloves signed by Gigi Buffon to a Champions League-winning jersey signed by the whole Liverpool team. These are gifts that will leave a lasting impression, not least after all the socks. YOUR FOOTBALL PROGRAMME £2-£850 yourfootballprogramme.co.uk Treat a football-mad family member to some classic football memorabilia. Your Football Programme isn’t a dealer or trader; just a bloke who decided the time has come to sell his incredible collection. Over the years he has…

The rain is pouring down on the Wirral, but we have a treat in store. Rafa Benitez wants to show us his holiday photos. Normally, such a prospect would fill FourFourTwo with dread; memories are immediately flooding back of family gatherings during our childhood, sitting through slide after slide of vacation snaps from Corfu or Fuengirola. But things are rather more interesting when the man sat in front of you is a Champions League-winning manager. “This is the hotel in Hong Kong,” says Benitez, swiping through photos on his phone. “This next one is Chongqing from the plane. There was a storm as we landed, but the bridge over the river was like the one in Newcastle.” All right, technically they are not holiday photos at all. Rafa is enthusiastically…

MANCHESTER CITY 2007-08 Rolando Bianchi Gelson Fernandes Geovanni Martin Petrov Vedran Corluka Elano Javier Garrido Valeri Bojinov Nery Castillo Felipe Caicedo Benjani LEICESTER CITY 2010-11 Kyle Naughton Curtis Davies Darius Vassell Greg Cunningham Roman Bednar Chris Kirkland Ben Mee Sol Bamba Yakubu Patrick van Aanholt Ricardo Danny Uchechi Jeffrey Bruma Diomansy Kamara Lee Peltier Kasper Schmeichel Neil Danns Sean St Ledger David Nugent Matt Mills Paul Konchesky John Paintsil Michael Johnson Gelson Fernandes Michael Ball Jermaine Beckford…

SHELLEY KERR After spells in charge of Kilmarnock, Hibernian and Arsenal in the female game, the Scot became the first woman to lead a UK men’s club when she was appointed boss of Lowland League side Stirling University in 2014. They secured consistent top-six finishes before Kerr took over Scotland women’s team three years later, guiding them to the 2019 World Cup. CORINNE DIACRE French second-tier outfit Clermont Foot put their faith in female coaching in 2014, originally hiring Helene Costa only for the Portuguese to swiftly quit, angry that players were being signed without her consent. Costa was then replaced by Diacre, who spent three years at the helm before, like Kerr, her country came calling and she became manager of France women’s team. IMKE WUBBENHORST Beware those who…

CLUBS 1997-2000 Metz 1999 Newcastle (loan) 2000-04 Fulham 2004-08 Manchester United 2008-12 Everton 2012 Tottenham 2012-13 Sunderland 2013 Lazio COUNTRY 2004-12 France If you want to see celebrities, hang around with Louis Saha. The former Manchester United and Everton striker has suggested meeting FFT at a plush private members’ club in London’s Soho district, and American actress Rose McGowan is chatting with friends at the next table. When we head out to the street for some pictures, our photo shoot is momentarily gatecrashed by a true A-lister: former Crystal Palace striker and manager Dougie Freedman, who walks past obliviously while talking on his Bluetooth headset. Get out of the way, Freedman! Saha lives down in the south of France these days, but he has made a brief trip back to…

01 WHAT’S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE FOUR PLAYERS? 02 What was the title of ex-Manchester United talisman Andy Cole’s 1999 single, which spent a week at No.68 in the charts? 03 Which actors played Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in 2009 film The Damned United? 04 Which Italian club did England midfielder David Platt join from Aston Villa in the summer of ’91? 05 Who were the three teams relegated from the old Football League First Division in 1992, the season before the start of the Premier League? 06 Arrange these four players in order of senior appearances made for the Republic of Ireland, from most to least: Denis Irwin, Pat Bonner, Robbie Keane, Liam Brady. 07 WHICH FORMER ARSENAL MIDFIELDER IS THIS? 08 WHICH GROUND IS THIS? 09 WHICH…

25 SLAVEN BILIC 24 LOUIS VAN GAAL 23 JEAN TIGANA 22 RONALD KOEMAN 21 DAVID WAGNER 20 MAURIZIO SARRI 19 NUNO ESPIRITO SANTO 18 MICHAEL LAUDRUP 17 MARTIN JOL 16 GIANLUCA VIALLI 15 RUUD GULLIT 14 ROBERTO MARTINEZ 13 GUUS HIDDINK 12 MANUEL PELLEGRINI 11 GERARD HOULLIER 10 ROBERTO MANCINI 9 CARLO ANCELOTTI 8 ANTONIO CONTE 7 CLAUDIO RANIERI 6 MAURICIO POCHETTINO 5 RAFAEL BENITEZ 4 JURGEN KLOPP 3 JOSE MOURINHO 2 PEP GUARDIOLA…

LadBaby. Bob the Builder. Mr Blobby. Chris Kamara? That’s the company Kammy wants to keep, as he aims to be No.1 in the singles chart for Christmas Day. The midfielder-turned-TV-personality celebrates his 62nd birthday on December 25 and, naturally, he’s bringing out a Christmas album to mark the occasion. Kamara did release a track called Sing 4 England before Euro 2012 but this time he’s going big, singing plenty of Christmas classics in a swing style, plus a new song of his own supported by a full 22-piece big band. It all started from a random invitation to feature on a celebrity edition of the BBC show, All Together Now. “I wanted to sing Brown Eyed Girl,” Kamara tells FFT, “but they said a few celebrities had picked sing-along songs,…

THE AGE OF FOOTBALL David Goldblatt (Macmillan, £20) Goldblatt expertly links politics, economics and culture to show how each has brought about a seismic change in football. He has a sharp eye for the most richly textured stories; in Africa, for example, stadia made for the 2010 World Cup are hugely underused a decade later, and players remain predominantly in their “class and ethnic silos”. Yet despite ongoing civil wars in a raft of states, globalisation’s more positive aspects have since enabled some to survive or even flourish. Shipping sponsorship saved several clubs in Somalia, while Chinese investment built several new stadia in Ethiopia, which filled as they came close to 2014 World Cup qualification. In Europe, the national hysteria which greeted Greece’s surprise victory at Euro 2004 contrasted starkly…

XI BEST: Lee Camp, Des Lyttle, Michael Dawson, Colin Cooper, Stuart Pearce, Michail Antonio, Lars Bohinen, Chris Cohen, Andy Reid, Stan Collymore, David Johnson. WORST: Iain Turner, Nicky Eaden, Andy Melville, Danny Cullip, Gino Padula, Nicolao Dumitru, Gary Holt, Danny Sonner, Kevin James, Neil Harris, Rafik Djebbour. PLAYER B: The best to ever don our jersey is John Robertson [right], but of the players I’ve seen in the flesh, it has to be Stan Collymore. Absolute box-office. W: Nicolao Dumitru – undoubtedly the worst player I’ve ever seen play for us. Woeful! GAME B: Winning 3-0 at Manchester City in the 2008-09 FA Cup. Nathan Tyson, Rob Earnshaw and Joe Garner ensured defeat for a side that included Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta and Vincent Kompany. W: Losing 5-2 at home…

Surely it doesn’t get more impressive than engineering a comeback from three goals down to win the Champions League? That is, unless you measure it against making Newcastle United feel like a normal club, albeit occasionally. I can think of no higher compliment for Rafa Benitez. The man from Madrid papered over cracks that had been smashed in by Mike Ashley, and actually made supporting the Magpies something to be proud of once again. Rafa gave the Newcastle faithful a little bit of self-respect. Rafa gave us all hope, and that’s why a remarkable 51,106 fans turned up on average for 23 home games in the 2016-17 Championship season. The Spaniard could see the club’s potential, even in such reduced circumstances, and he wanted this to be his last long-term…

JOHNNY McKINSTRY UGANDA gglers Fulham, McKinstry recently Southampton made history oy becoming the first man from Northern Ireland to coach three different international teams. Having previously enjoyed spells at the helm of Sierra Leone and Rwanda, he was named the new boss of Uganda in September – two wins from his opening two games made it a cracking start. JOHN HERDMAN CANADA Donald Trump, your boys took one helluva beating. In October, Canada beat the USA 2-0 – the first time they had bested their rivals in 34 years. The man who inspired that was Durham-born Herdman – he helped Canada’s women secure bronze at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics before swapping jobs in 2018. SIMON McMENEMY INDONESIA In 2009, Worthing’s assistant followed the natural path of non-league No.2s…

The weather is grey and gloomy on this Saturday morning, though you wouldn’t know it as Eni Aluko walks through the door. The Juventus forward has been through a lot during the last three years, yet she greets FourFourTwo with a beaming smile. Clouds may cast a shadow across the room we are in today, but Aluko isn’t about to let the turbulent events towards the end of her career cast one over a highly successful life in football. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Aluko and her family moved to Birmingham when she was only one. Soon she had a little brother, Sone, and in time both would become professional footballers –Sone with Birmingham, Aberdeen, Blackpool, Rangers, Hull, Fulham, Reading and now Beijing Renhe; Eni at Birmingham, Charlton, Chelsea, Saint Louis…

You left Celtic to join Manchester United in 1987. Was that a difficult decision? Not really. Alex Ferguson romanced me more than anyone else. When I signed, the big thing was that George Best had been the last United player to score 20 league goals in a season. It was one of the first things I got asked about, but I didn’t understand all the fuss. You need a team to win something. I scored 24 league goals in my first season, and we still didn’t win anything! We hadn’t won the title since 1967, and the best thing about finally doing it in ’93 was that it allowed a huge weight to be lifted off the football club. It allowed the players who arrived after that, and had incredible…

THE GAFFER ARSENE WENGER “He has an aura – it’s difficult to explain. He demands a lot, but makes you feel comfortable, too. It’s about trust. In hard times, he was a rock protecting us. I’ll always be very grateful to him.” ROBERT ENKE “He was a very good friend – his story is so tragic and so sad. I just loved playing with him. I was a young man in my first season at Hannover, but he came in as an experienced goalkeeper and took me under his wing. He hated conceding and liked that I was a dominant centre-back. When I left, we promised that we’d play together again one day, and we fulfilled that promise with the German national team to qualify for the 2010 World Cup.…

PUMA FAST RIDER OG $49 eu.puma.com Yes, it’s November. Yes, you should probably be thinking about sensible shoes. No, these won’t protect your feet from the months of driving rain. But do we really care? Nope. These bad boys look like they were taken straight from the set of City of God. The Fast Rider OG kicked off a new era as Germany’s first ever ‘jogging’ shoe 40 years ago, and now it’s returned with some samba vibes to brighten up those dingy winter evenings. Yes please. GOLDEN CABANE ANNIVERSARY SHIRTS N/A goldencabane.com By the time you finish reading this, these shirts will almost certainly be sold out. So why include them? Well, look at them – then look out for the next lot from Golden Cabane. The French studio…

What was the first game you saw live? You’ve got me already! I feel like it was against Everton at White Hart Lane in about 1995 – I would have been eight. I just wanted to see Jurgen Klinsmann play. It was really mid-table or below in those days, but I loved it. I grew up in Muswell Hill, so back then you could get the W7 to Highbury or the W3 to Northumberland Park. It was either Arsenal or Tottenham, and I picked the latter because my friend was going to games… but my brother went the other way. It’s a good job he’s a nice guy, or there could have been plenty of fights in our house! Who was your childhood hero, and did you ever meet them?…

Three league titles. Two domestic doubles. One unbeaten season. The question isn’t if Wenger – two-time LMA Manager of the Year, three-time Premier League Manager of the Year – is the best foreign manager in its history, but: how could he not be? The Frenchman changed Arsenal so fundamentally that it is now difficult to imagine the club’s reputation when he turned up, even for those fans who can recall 1996 with clarity. He quickly transformed the Gunners’ brand with a sophisticated, cosmopolitan style of football that became his hallmark. That he was able to successfully instil his innovative methods within a squad of hardened British veterans, and do it instantly, was even more astonishing. From his first full season, the trophies flowed as Wenger provided a pinch of continental…

✱ STAR LETTER TAKE ME BACK? Having been faithful to FFT for many years as a teenager, I decided that I didn’t need you for my football fix anymore, so I simply walked away. Fast-forward to issue 305 and the awesome interview by John Bishop with Jurgen Klopp. I thought this was a brief, one-off fling with FFT. Then I read many great other stories in the mag and realised what I’d been missing all these years. So, I ask for your forgiveness and promise that I’ll be faithful to you – well, once a month – if you’ll have me back... Liam Moynihan, via email It’s great to have you back, Liam. We forgive you just as Roy Keane forgave Alex Ferguson. No, wait… – Ed. Is there an…

Matt Ladson from This Is Anfield explains how Benitez became a hero on Merseyside Rafa Benitez is unique. He turned a squad containing Djimi Traore into champions of Europe. He sat calmly, cross-legged on the sidelines to watch a Champions League semi-final penalty shootout. He moulded Fernando Torres into one of the world’s most prolific centre-forwards. And he built Liverpool’s best team for two decades. When Rafa arrived on Merseyside in 2004, he’d already earned respect from Liverpool supporters who witnessed and applauded his Valencia side at Anfield two years earlier. That 1-0 loss highlighted how far away from Europe’s elite the Reds were at the time. Benitez’s six-year spell was a rollercoaster, with a massive high in Istanbul at the start followed by peaks and troughs in reaching, and…

When Sven-Goran Eriksson took over Swedish third-tier side Degerfors in 1977, he could not possibly have known where his managerial career would eventually lead. His time as a player was restricted to the Swedish lower leagues, but things have been different in the dugout. After success with Degerfors, his career took him to Gothenburg, then to Portugal with Benfica, Italy with Roma and Fiorentina, back to Portugal with Benfica, then to Italy again with Sampdoria and Lazio. His highest profile job, leading England from 2001-06, preceded stints at Manchester City and Leicester, either side of spells with Mexico and the Ivory Coast. He has coached in China with Guangzhou R&F, Shanghai SIPG and Shenzhen, and most recently took charge of the Philippines, leaving that role in January. Having accepted 17…

LUCY BRONZE Since joining Lyon from Manchester City in 2017, the England right-back has won the league title and Champions League in successive campaigns. Lionesses team-mates Izzy Christiansen, Alex Greenwood and Nikita Parris have now followed her to the French giants. MARY EARPS Wolfsburg from Reading last year and helped the club humiliate Hannover 11-0 on her debut. Earps was part of the squad that lifted a league and cup double in 2018-19, before heading back to Blighty this July to sign for Manchester United. TONI DUGGAN The Liverpudlian forward swapped Manchester City for Barcelona in 2017, but lost out to Bronze in this year’s Champions League final. Duggan did win the Copa de la Reina and Copa Catalunya, at least, prior to joining La Liga champions Atletico Madrid over…

You were possibly the first Portuguese star to thrive abroad. Did you find it difficult to adapt back then? It definitely wasn’t easy, no. After winning the European Cup with Porto in 1987, I was chased by several clubs but one thing intrigued me – I got the impression that they all wanted to check how mentally strong I was. Portuguese players had a bad reputation abroad for being weak, so if a club wanted to buy a Portuguese footballer, they investigated our lives. It didn’t piss me off. I could see their point. Most teams could have only two foreigners, so they had to be careful about who they picked. I had talks with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus, and they were like psychological tests, asking me a lot…

You retired at 43. What was your secret to such a long career? Focus, discipline and professionalism to keep playing well. When I became a professional footballer, I was 18 and everything happened really quickly. I joined Real Madrid when I was only 22. At the time, a direct transfer like that from Brazil was not as common as it is today. In Europe I realised how my body was vital to my job, so I started to look after it carefully. I didn’t suffer a muscle injury until I was 38, when I came back to Brazil to play in a mad schedule that didn’t give us a rest. If I wanted, I could easily have played for two more years. Why was your mother vital to your career?…