Innehållsförteckning för February 2024 från FourFourTwo UK

“I WAS SO TENSE ON MY DEBUT – I MIGHT BE THE ONLY GOALKEEPER EVER TO GO OFF WITH CRAMP!” Cruzeiro 3-1 Sao Paulo September 4, 2002 Brazilian Serie A “Like many Brazilians of my generation, I grew up wanting to be like Romario, but when I was 17 years old I became a goalkeeper. From that moment on, I looked up to Dida. He’d been a star at Cruzeiro when I went to watch them as a young fan. I eventually made my debut in 2002 against Sao Paulo, who had Kaka in their team. I was told I’d be playing the day before, and was so nervous I could hardly sleep that night. I felt massive pressure as the stadium was sold out. I played a good first…

GERMANY TO STINK OUT THEIR OWN EUROS Remember when Germany were good? Of course you do, it pretty much seemed like it lasted forever. In their annoyingly illustrious history, the Nationalmannschaft have won four World Cups and three Euros, appearing in seven other finals and reducing England to tears (literally in Gazza’s case) many times during those glory days. Which makes Germany’s current plight all the more bizarre. They’ve been absolutely scheisse across the past three tournaments, going out in the group stages of Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, and losing to England in the last 16 of Euro 2020. AS AN ENGLAND FAN WHO LIVES IN BERLIN, THEIR MISHAPS ARE ACTUALLY REFRESHING During this pitiful run they’ve changed their coach twice – Jogi Low making way for Hansi Flick…

Paul McCartney famously remarked that Hamburg “nearly wrecked” the Beatles. An early line-up of the ‘Fab Four’ – featuring Pete Best on drums instead of Ringo Starr – arrived on the city’s infamous Reeperbahn in 1960 in a bid to launch their fledgling project, and returned to Merseyside two years later, “looking like skeletons”. After screeching into Hamburg’s central train station on a teeth-chattering December evening, it doesn’t take FourFourTwo long to see what all the fuss was about. Germany’s largest port city, dubbed the “Gateway to the World” by the hardy locals, is connected to the North Sea by the icy river Elbe. More than 7,000 container ships visit here annually and, as FFT watches cranes load giant, barnacle-ridden ships in the harbour for a minute, the thought of…

The acceptance speech of his biggest personal accolade to date was an unusual place for a 24-year-old Wayne Rooney to reveal a change in career. Yet upon receiving the Football Writers’ Association’s Player of the Year award in 2010, the Manchester United forward chose to announce his ambition to become a manager when he retired. The natty black suit ‘Wazza’ was wearing that night must have channelled his inner boss. The England talisman was at the peak of his powers, bagging more than 81 per cent of the journalists’ vote after a season in which he’d plundered 34 goals in all competitions. If that wasn’t enough, Rooney explained that he’d also started his coaching badges during the campaign. “I can’t see myself running a restaurant,” he quipped. “One day, I’d…

For more than 20 years, the summer of ’96 was as good as it got for England. Not purely in terms of a tournament finish – Sir Bobby Robson had inspired a semi-final appearance just six years prior – but for how supporting your country is supposed to feel. Here was a team, lampooned by the press leading up to the finals and facing selection questions all across the pitch, delivering some of the most memorable results in the nation’s history. With Baddiel and Skinner’s quasi-national Three Lions still soundtracking the dizzying highs of England’s new era of consistent major tournament progress, it’s often forgotten that it was originally released when expectations were at their lowest: ranked 17th in Europe, absent from USA 94, and that infamous trip to Hong…

After securing promotion to the third tier at the end of last season, Hashtag United Women manager Jason Stephens predicted his side would do more than “make up the numbers” this term – and results have suggested he was spot on. Throughout 2023-24, the Tags have been locked in a fierce battle with Portsmouth at the top of the WNL Southern Premier Division. Following an FA restructure last summer, the champions of both the North and South tables now earn promotion to the Championship, making back-to-back successes a serious possibility. “Nobody is expecting us to go up this year,” club owner Spencer Owen tells FFT. “It would be a tremendous achievement to even finish in the top three or four when you look at the household names we’re competing with…

“It was 6am, and if I didn’t leave the Wales team hotel within half an hour, Bobby Gould was going to call the police and remove me” Robbie Savage is deep inside Macclesfield’s Moss Rose ground, showing us the photograph of the Class of ’92 on his office wall. His part in that Manchester United FA Youth Cup-winning side was the start of a journey that took him to 346 Premier League appearances – and pantomime villain status in tow – with Leicester, Birmingham, Blackburn and Derby. Today, on top of his punditry roles with TNT Sports and as Chris Sutton’s sparring partner on BBC Radio 5 Live’s 606 phone-in, he is the director of football at Northern Premier League promotion-chasers Macclesfield, the phoenix club formed after Macclesfield Town folded…

Remember, remember, the 5th of November. On that 1986 night, a plot took place – not involving gunpowder or Guy Fawkes, but Bobby Charlton and the boss of Aberdeen Football Club, on the outskirts of Glasgow. A day earlier, Manchester United had lost 4-1 at Southampton in the third round of the League Cup – a loss in which an 18-year-old Matt Le Tissier plundered the first two senior goals of his career. The Red Devils sat fourth bottom of the First Division, and the board decided time was up for gaffer Ron Atkinson. The man they wanted to replace him was Alex Ferguson, but they needed to sound out their target, without Atkinson or Aberdeen finding out. “We had to contact him to find out if he wanted to…

Henrik Larsson’s voice betrays him when he talks about Celtic. There’s often a seriousness to his clipped counsel during his chat with FFT, and he tends to choose his words very carefully. The delivery that he unwittingly reserves for his time in Glasgow is different. “I played in the UEFA Cup final and in the Champions League,” the 52-year-old reminds us, a warm timbre softening his answer. He pauses. “I had seven wonderful years at Celtic.” Nearly two decades have passed since Larsson left Paradise for the last time in May 2004, but memories of the forward’s guile and instinctive predation remain crisp. Overcoming a broken leg so bad that he struggled to walk to the toilet, Larsson plundered 242 goals in 313 Hoops appearances, won eight major honours to…

In 1991, I was living with my family in the Diepkloof zone of the township of Soweto, Johannesburg. There were four rooms in the house, and 12 of us all lived together – my parents, myself and my nine siblings. During apartheid, we weren’t permitted to move away from our zone because of the Group Areas Act. Black people had to carry passes. At that time, you were essentially confined to the community in which you were living. The township was so densely populated that you got to know everyone by name. When we grew up, my friends and I used to toyi-toyi, stomping our feet and chanting in the streets to demand freedom of education, speech and democracy. We were also mischievous, and there were times when things got…

It’s certainly never dull at Goodison Park. Just when Sean Dyche seemed to have turned a corner and set the Toffees on a path towards the relative paradise of mid-table obscurity, a brutal resolution to their Premier League investigation dumped them back into the drop zone. There was hope for the Everton faithful, however. This particular vintage had already shown more promise than the recent teams to circle the division’s plughole. They were no longer a soft-touch at the back, going down by only a single goal to Fulham, Wolves and Arsenal, then showed they were more than capable of threatening the opposition’s goal in victories against Brentford, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace. It won’t have escaped your attention that this upturn in fortunes was not the result of any major…

In December, 50,000 febrile fans watched Bruno Fernandes and his Manchester United team-mates succumb to a 1-0 loss at Newcastle. A little earlier that day, more than 300 miles south of St James’ Park, another Fernandes tasted defeat against North Greenford United in the third round of the FA Vase. Ricardo Fernandes, 34, is not just the captain of 10th-tier West Sussex outfit Roffey, he’s also the big brother of Red Devils skipper Bruno. You’d have little problem in pointing him out, either, given he bears a striking resemblance to his famous sibling – something which occasionally makes him a target for opposition players and supporters. “Oh, yes, that happens,” Ricardo tells FFT. “I’m not saying every game, but most games. I don’t mind people coming up to me and…

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME “HIGH FOOT, REF!” BANGKOK, THAILAND Teqball tables have cropped up at training grounds everywhere in recent seasons – a hybrid of football and table tennis, it has its own World Championship as well. Thailand won the mixed doubles event on home soil by going full Alejandro Garnacho. Photo Albert Perez/Getty TUNNEL VISION BELGRADE, SERBIA It’s a 240-metre walk from the dressing rooms to the pitch at Red Star Belgrade’s Marakana, taking players underneath the stands and out into the cauldron of an arena. At least they’ve got something pretty to look at on the way, thanks to some murals painted by a Red Star supporter. The eyes are a bit scary, though. Photo Andrej Isakovic/AFP/Getty “SACRE BLEU!” PARIS, FRANCE PSG’s men have made hard work of the Champions League…

01 Alan Shearer (right) represented a trio of clubs in his career: Newcastle, Blackburn and which other side? 02 Which flower features on the badges of Sheffield United, Manchester City, Leeds, Huddersfield and Blackburn? 03 Which future Premier League manager gave away a penalty against England at the 2002 World Cup? 04 Kensington FC and London FC were two names considered by which club before settling on their current title? 05 Who has made the most appearances in Real Madrid history (741)? 06 Salvatore Schillaci won the Golden Boot at which World Cup? 07 The European Cup/Champions League has been won by a Dutch team on how many occasions? 08 Which ex-England men’s international did Sarina Wiegman (right) succeed as England women’s coach? 09 Which former Chelsea striker won the…

As FourFourTwo always says, are you really a dictatorship until an unexpected team with links to the president has won the league in slightly dubious circumstances? Central Asian former Soviets Turkmenistan took note of some similar instances elsewhere over the years, and decided to turn things up a notch – courtesy of the country’s former dictator Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (don’t pronounce it all at once). The 66-year-old was ruler of Turkmenistan for 16 years from 2006 to 2022, going full cult of the personality thanks to giant banners of his face, as well as TV appearances of him riding horses, cuddling puppies and playing basketball while riding a bicycle. Because why not? After handing over his role as leader to his son Serdar, he then formed brand new football club FK Arkadag in…

The children of Palestine love football. “Like kids everywhere, they play wherever they can,” Susan Shalabi, vice president of the Palestine FA, tells FourFourTwo. “Public green space is very limited, so you often find them playing in the streets of their neighbourhood, to the dismay of their families who fear for their safety because of passing traffic. Or because they worry that a stray football may break a window or dent someone’s car.” Over recent years, the FA have pledged to provide mini-pitches in various cities and towns across the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. “There are still not enough to accommodate the increasing numbers of boys and girls who love the game,” continues Shalabi. “Many have shut or been destroyed, leaving children with few places to play.”…

From Mohamed Salah to Idrissa Gueye, a whole host of Premier League stars could be strutting their stuff at the Africa Cup of Nations this month. But it won’t just be top-tier ballers shining in the Ivory Coast – countless lower-leagues aces have represented the competing nations in recent times. Bizarrely, 21-year-old former Chelsea youth-teamer Ben Elliott, who signed for League One Reading over the summer, made his senior international debut for Cameroon before he’d played in a senior club game. Scouts had spotted him impressing for his old side in a pre-season friendly against Aston Villa in 2022 – during his spell at Stamford Bridge, he also totalled six appearances for the Blues’ under-21s in the EFL Trophy. The deep-lying central midfielder, born in Kingston upon Thames to an…

How did your career start, in the late ’70s? I was playing Sunday League football for a pub called The Red Duster and got spotted by a director of Hartlepool, who was walking his dog one morning. He invited me to train with the reserves and I eventually signed for £10 a week. I actually kept playing Sunday League, because I owed them my thanks for me getting scouted in the first place, so I was playing for Hartlepool but my loyalties lay with The Red Duster. Strangely enough that was illegal at the time, but I got away with it. Is it true that you were an electrician on the side throughout your career? I had an electrical business that I maintained pretty efficiently throughout my playing and coaching…