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Another Pre-Match Poser for your World Cup brain!
Which player follows the following sequence: Cafu, Marco Amelia, Alberto Gilardino, Toni Kroos, Andre Schurrle, Kylian Mbappe…
We'll reveal the answer this time next week in the next edition of The Pre-Match Poser – stay tuned for that – but for now, here's the answer to last week's conundrum…
Q. If Cristiano Ronaldo wins the World Cup, he’ll automatically leapfrog Lionel Messi, who’s at the bottom of the list. A former Tottenham Hotspur captain is second on the list. What is this list?
A. The list is the time spent as the incumbent captain of a World Cup-winning nation. Let’s start at the very beginning: no player has ever captained a team to successive World Cup final wins, meaning that every captain has been “the current World Cup-winning captain” for around four years each… except three men. The 2022 World Cup took place in the winter – meaning that former Spurs skipper and France’s 2018 captain, Hugo Lloris was the World Cup-winning captain for four years and five months: that, in turn, gave Lionel Messi five months less as the incumbent winning captain. So if Ronaldo wins the World Cup this summer, he’ll hold the title for four years, leapfrogging Messi, yet falling behind Lloris in the list. So who’s top of the list? That’ll be Giuseppe Meazza, who was the last captain to win the World Cup before the tournament’s 12-year hiatus between 1938 and 1950 – we gave you a clue in the picture last week, when we put Messi and Ronaldo in front of the San Siro (or Stadio Giuseppe Meazza).
More football quizzes we know you'll love
Cracking the Pre-Match Poser is like picking out a 40-yard diagonal pass that splits the defense in two: it’s about seeing patterns that others miss entirely. You’ve proved your mental archives already, but we have more quizzes powered by Kwizly, from the prestige of the Allianz Arena to the historic rungs of the English pyramid.
We’re heading straight to the continent to separate the European heavyweights from the one-season wonders and the Bavarian mainstays. We want to see if you can track the shifting sands of the boardroom by identifying whether these 20 managers have coached Bayern Munich, before widening the lens to the entire continent: can you name every club to have ever played in the Champions League?
Next, demonstrate your respect for the climb by naming every club to have ever won the English second tier, then prove your eye for current excellence by naming every player who has scored a Premier League hat-trick in the last 10 years. From the historical giants of the old Second Division to the poachers who have claimed a match ball in the last decade, it’s time to see if your footballing IQ is truly world-class.
To lower the intensity after that data-heavy session, settle into the dugout with FourFourTwo’s Weekend Crossword 57, featuring a special focus on Belgians, battles, and big-game players. To stay ahead of the pack, subscribe to our newsletter for your daily afternoon briefing of hand-picked trivia. To truly cement your legacy, join our free membership portal, The Club: it serves as your ultimate digital headquarters where you can unlock secret hints for the toughest quizzes, fight for the top of the global leaderboards and leave your own tactical analysis in the comments.
