Innehållsförteckning för October 2022 från FourFourTwo UK

“AT THAT MOMENT, THE WHOLE WORLD WAS WATCHING – IT FELT LIKE A MOVIE” Corinthians 2 Santos 3 December 15, 2002 Brazilian Serie A final “For me, this game was a life-changing event. Back then the league had a different format: the best eight clubs qualified for a play-off competition, and my Santos team just made it into eighth on goal difference. We then reached the final against arch rivals Corinthians and sealed an unforgettable result to end an 18-year major trophy drought. Santos had an exciting crop of talent and I’m proud to have been part of it. We won the first leg 2-0 – in the second, Corinthians were 2-1 up after 88 minutes when I equalised at a full Estadio do Morumbi. We even scored an injury-time…

Mikel Arteta stood before his morose squad and let them have it. Four days after a 3-0 defeat at Spurs had gifted Champions League football to their north London rivals, Arsenal had just lost 2-0 to Newcastle, duly wrapping their present to Tottenham and adding a neat little bow. “They were 10,000 times better than us in everything!” spat Arteta in that St James’ Park dressing room on May 16. “We didn’t earn the right to play; we didn’t win a f**king duel, or a second ball. We were f**king horrible with the ball.” Heading to face the TV cameras, Arteta knew something had to change. “Today,” he went on, “it’s hard to defend you guys. Hard.” What the Spaniard wanted was a winner; someone with a single-minded spark to…

When Carlos Tevez tearfully announced that he was leaving Boca Juniors for the third and final time in June 2021, he didn’t offer any clues about his future as a player. Deep inside though, he knew. “I just woke up and said to my wife, ‘That’s it, I’m out’,” Tevez later said. “In my last season, my dad was in hospital with no brain activity. It was extremely difficult. I’d lost my number one fan, the one who had been with me since I was eight. I couldn’t look to his seat any more – it was empty.” Four months before his Boca departure, his father, Segundo, died from COVID-related complications to his pre-existing diabetes. Despite helping the club win Argentina’s Copa Diego Armando Maradona on penalties that January, the…

Istill remember my first experience of the Euros. It was 2005 and I was in my little Peugeot 106, driving to the Etihad, to watch England’s opening game as a fan. I was 18. My grandma bought me that car for £400, but we were on the motorway and it was screeching. “Jill, change gear!” said my friends. “It’s only got four gears!” I told them. When I joined Everton the following year, I drove on that motorway a lot. We were part-time and had the last training slot, 8-10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That was women’s football. Back in Sunderland at 2am, then I’d coach at Gateshead College the next day. Later, I commuted from Loughborough University to Everton – no wonder I never finished my degree! This summer,…

David Dein is sat in the study of his north London home, showing FFT one of his proudest possessions. Framed on the wall is a letter featuring a parade of club crests and a short message: “To David Dein, a founding architect of the Premier League. With thanks, from 45 eternally grateful clubs, on the 20th anniversary.” The 79-year-old received that gift a decade ago. Now, in the league’s 30th anniversary season, the list has grown to 50 clubs, all beneficiaries of the actions of a select few, back in the early 1990s. Dein was the driving force of the breakaway league. The former sugar trader joined the Arsenal board in 1983 and became one of football’s most influential figures over the next 24 years, taking in roles with the…

VISIT THE HOME OF THE FOOTBALL QUIZ fourfourtwo.com/quiz 01 Conor Coady sealed a loan move to Everton in August after seven years with Wolves. Which team’s academy did he graduate from? 02 Which Brazilian proved the most popular Fantasy Premier League player before this season began? 03 Which female Chelsea star is on the cover of FIFA 23’s Ultimate 03 Edition alongside Kylian Mbappe? 04 Real Madrid recently won a fifth European Super Cup, equalling the record for most titles. Which other two clubs have also bagged five? 05 The World Cup will kick off a day earlier than originally planned to allow Qatar to play the opening game. Who are their opponents? 06 Who is the only player in Premier League history to register at least 20 goals and 20 assists during the…

In the autumn of 1996, Kevin Keegan celebrated a 5-0 walloping of Manchester United, putting Newcastle top of the Premier League for a second season running. By the autumn of 1997, he’d joined a club sat 11th in the third tier. Twenty-five years ago this month, Keegan moved to Fulham as their chief operating officer – an incongruous job title for a man who’d always seemed reluctant to operate anything as complicated as a back four, never mind an entire office. Having fallen agonisingly short of the title at Newcastle in 1995-96, he quit as manager in January 1997 – a slump in form had followed that famous victory over old rival Alex Ferguson, even if his last two league games at the helm were actually a 7-1 home shellacking…

FAKE SHEIKH (PART ONE) Before his 2016 conviction for conspiring to pervert the course of justice, News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood excelled at posing as the ‘Fake Sheikh’, tricking a host of celebrities into making some outlandish comments. One of his most notorious stings came in 1998, when he met Newcastle United chiefs Freddy Shepherd and Douglas Hall. Impersonating a wealthy businessman, Mahmood eased Shepherd down the path to self-destruction. “Newcastle girls are dogs,” ranted the increasingly inebriated chief. He then laid into their star striker Alan Shearer: “He’s boring – we call him Mary Poppins.” Nor were the fans spared, with Shepherd labelling them “mugs” for spending £50 on team shirts which “cost only £5 to make in Asia”. As for Kevin Keegan – or ‘Shirley Temple’…

Football clubs have inspired many a podcast in recent years – at Open Goal Broomhill, they’ve done things the other way around. The Open Goal podcast began five years ago, fronted by ex-Swindon and Portsmouth midfielder Simon Ferry (below right) who was busy delivering kitchens along with working a night shift at the Royal Mail. Initially it was just him interviewing his old pals, but it grew into a weekly round-up of the Scottish leagues. The 34-year-old remained the host while playing for third-tier Peterhead – his regular podcast panel included former Sunderland striker Kevin Kyle, ex-Celtic wideman Paul Slane (below left) and current Hearts midfielder Andy Halliday. A hardcore following developed, even selling out Glasgow’s Hydro for live shows. This summer they’ve branched out a bit further, partnering with…

Laurence Bassini was on Sky Sports News, and he was brandishing a Bolton shirt. The same Laurence Bassini had previously been banned from any role of authority at a Football League club, following a chaotic spell in charge of Watford when he phoned the police to get a staff member to hand him the keys to a safe. Now, though, he looked like Bolton’s only hope. Bassini (below left) had agreed a deal to purchase the Trotters from owner Ken Anderson (below right), the subject of fan protests for months. But that April 2019 evening, their Championship game at home to Brentford was on the verge of being postponed due to a player strike over unpaid wages. Instead of going to Bolton, Bassini instead turned up at the Sky studios…

At 16 you joined Crewe’s youth academy, a club renowned for producing talents like David Platt and Danny Murphy. How did that come about? I was playing for my county when [current England assistant manager] Steve Holland scouted me and invited me up to Crewe. The coaching looked very professional and there were first-team players milling about. That definitely caught my eye and made me feel like I was at a special place. You were linked with Manchester United and Liverpool. How firm was the interest from those two giants? To me it was paper talk and the club would always play everything down. They’d tell me that nobody was interested, but I was even linked with Juventus at one point. My mum cut out and kept that story. It…

1 IN HOT WATER If you’re anything like FFT, you’ve probably always dreamed of watching a nondescript Ligue 1 fixture from a hot tub – when Troyes hosted Rennes in the battle for mid-table, two fans did just that. Troyes have spent the past 20 years struggling to recapture the drama of the early 2000s, when they drew 4-4 at Newcastle in Europe, then lost 6-5 on aggregate to Leeds. They’ve since become a sister club of Manchester City, bought by the City Football Group in 2020, and returned to Ligue 1 last year. Now boasting stars like Pamela Anderson’s ex Adil Rami, things got even more exciting against Rennes, who fielded Welshman Joe Rodon – little wonder that two topless supporters grabbed some beers, headed to the jacuzzi that…

“EDDIE HOWE HAS TURNED WATER INTO WINE HERE – HE’S BRINGING A WINNING MENTALITY TO THE CLUB” Bruno Guimaraes was on a flight to Quito when his phone began to buzz. It was January 24 and the Brazilian midfielder, having just helped Lyon to a derby win against Saint-Etienne, was convinced that he would be staying in Ligue 1 for the rest of the campaign. He had headed to Madrid and joined the rest of Brazil’s European-based players on a charter plane to Ecuador, for a round of World Cup qualifiers. It was an 11-hour journey, and Guimaraes passed the time watching TV. Suddenly his phone went crazy. On the other end of the line was Giuliano Bertolucci, one of his agents and the go-to guy for Brazilian footballers wanting…

“FOR SWINDON, IT WAS AN OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT – GLENN WAS PIVOTAL TO IT” Everything seemed to be going so well when Nicky Summerbee opened up his newspaper, one morning in August 1989. That was, until one particular headline left him stunned: “Swindon owner embroiled in betting scandal.” The Robins’ academy graduate, son of Manchester City great Mike Summerbee, had been eagerly getting ready for the 1989-90 campaign in the second tier of English football. Now, tabloid The People were publishing allegations that chairman Brian Hillier had been placing bets on his club’s results in a bid to raise funds, to be used for discreet player payments hidden from the Inland Revenue. “It was really shocking,” Summerbee tells FourFourTwo. “The players knew nothing about what the owner had been up to.…

XI BEST: David Marshall, Danny Gabbidon, Mark Delaney, John Charles, Andy Legg, Peter Whittingham, Graham Kavanagh, Aaron Ramsey, Robin Friday, Robert Earnshaw, Jay Bothroyd. WORST: Dimi Konstantopoulos, Martin John, Andy Jordan, Miguel Comminges, Jorn Schwinkendorf, Des Hamilton, Fan Zhiyi, Luigi Glombard, Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu, Wilfried Zaha, Oumar Niasse. PLAYER B: The late Peter Whittingham [below]. Just a maestro, a one-off, a fantastic player and an even better human being. Scorer of great goals, provider of great assists, and loved the occasional cynical foul. He’s missed every day. W: Where do you start? Australian goalkeeper Peter Zois played once before being shipped off due to an ‘erratic display’, then there’s Glombard, Niasse, Ndumbu-Nsungu, Schwinkendorf, and Solomon Taiwo too. We specialise in rubbish players, signed after impressing against us! MOMENT B: Ben Turner’s equaliser…

There’s no doubt they love a party at Dorking Wanderers. After a dozen promotions in the past 23 years, the National League newcomers dream of another one day. The Surrey side’s rise to the fifth tier is all the more impressive considering the club’s grassroots heritage. Set up as recently as 1999 to keep a bunch of friends entertained on Saturday afternoons, they entered the lowest rung of English football as a Crawley and District League outfit. Now they are in the same division as Southend, Oldham and Notts County. “Initially, me and some pals decided that instead of going around watching matches, we’d form our own team,” reflects Marc White (below), the club’s manager and chairman – roles he’s held since their inception. He’d been a disaffected Wimbledon fan,…

You kicked off your career with Doncaster and Sheffield United in the third tier. Did you ever dream of writing your name into top-flight folklore someday? As a kid, the only match we used to get on television every season was the FA Cup final. I used to watch that and dream of becoming a footballer, scoring in front of thousands of people. But that’s all it ever felt like – a dream. I never believed I’d become a professional, even during my teenage years when big clubs came to watch me. Even after I signed a pro deal at Doncaster, I still thought it would all end at some stage. It wasn’t until much later that I accepted I’d made it. How did you find England’s lower leagues as…