What's in the latest issue: excellence as standard
In the new issue of the world’s greatest football magazine - available in print and in a specially-designed-for-iPad version - we take you back to the last time a side was dominant enough to retain the European Cup. The time was the late 1980s, the team was Milan, and the heroes were a triple Dutch combination of brains, brawn and brilliance.
That timeless Milan team is among the front-runners in our analysis of the Greatest Club Sides Ever, while elsewhere in the magazine we’ve got Mario Balotelli meeting Pope Francis, Brazil striker Fred telling us how to become a penalty-box assassin – and the undercover story of the civil war among the Boca Ultras...
In the late 1980s, shorts were high and Serie A ruled Europe. Three Dutch players triumphant at Euro 88 helped Milan combine catenaccio and Total Football, with stunning results. Adding Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard to Baresi, Maldini and Costacurta made Milan the kings of Europe. FourFourTwo takes you back to the golden era, analysing the team and asking those in the know how they did it.
Speaking of asking those in the know, FFT wondered exactly how to win the Champions League - so we got dozens of different pieces of advice from 26 men who’d won it. We also learn how the last three finals were won and lost, using FFT’s award-winning Stats Zone app.
Who would win if Beckenbauer’s Bayern played Eusebio’s Benfica? Were Herrera’s Inter better than the Independiente who dominated 1970s South America? Paisley’s Liverpool, Lobanovskiy’s Kyiv or the Lisbon Lions of Celtic? FourFourTwo assembled global experts to thrash out the game’s finest 20 sides ever – and put them in a fascinating order...
The loan market has long been a boon for young players seeking first-team football. We recall how soon-to-be-big names earned their lower-league chops – including Becks at Preston, JT at Forest, Lamps at Swansea and Crouchy at Dulwich Hamlet...
When fans fight among themselves… forums can get narky and occasional harsh words exchanged in the stands, but that’s got nothing on Boca’s civil war. The club’s hooligan Ultras have turned on each other and we report from the middle of football’s bloodiest civil war.
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Glasgow has another club back in the big time. No, not them: FFT hitches a ride with newly-promoted Partick Thistle as they find their feet in the new top flight after nine years away.
Beacons in the darkness, primitive satnav for lost away fans, victims of betting syndicates, banned by the authorities – football’s floodlights have a fascinating back story. And nobody tells a back story better than FourFourTwo.
Not many men are beloved by both Barcelona and Real Madrid fans – but then not many men are Luis Enrique. And he doesn’t speak to the media much, but he happily gave FourFourTwo hours of his time for this month's One-on-One interview. topics include his impressions of Jose Mourinho, the dressing room reaction when Luis Figo left the Camp Nou for the Bernabeu, and Mauro Tassotti’s elbow at USA 94...
And if you’re still wanting more, there’s plenty of it: an interview with Italian wonderkid Stephan El Shaarawy, how the Premier League is arriving in New York, advice from Jamie Carragher in our Performance section, and the story of the Brazilian side including Jesus, Gandhi and John Lennon...
The October 2013 issue of FourFourTwo was brought to you by Arrigo Sacchi, Samuel Eto'o, Fred, Pele, Alan Stubbs, Tom Ince, Stephan El Shaarawy, Tony Woodcock, Luis Enrique, Richard Hughes, Peter Withe, Jamie Carragher, Sean O'Driscoll, Miguel Angel Nadal, Demba Ba, Chris Waddle, Marcel Desailly, Steve Fletcher, Phil Neal, Christian Edwards, Peter Schmeichel, Nuno Coelho, Ryan Kidd, Gianluca Vialli, Sergio Torres, Clarke Carlisle, Diego Forlan, John McGovern, Charlie Nicholas, Duncan Oughton, Paul Raynor, Phil Neville, Steve Torpey, Hunter Davies, Jon Goodman, Jackie McNamara, Mark Lawrenson, John Lennon, Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi and the history-making winners of San Marino.
