It's May 2025 and Ajax fans are reeling.

In one of the biggest collapses in Eredivisie history, their side has just thrown away a nine-point lead in just six matches, handing the title into the incredulous arms of PSV Eindhoven.

Scapegoats to apportion blame are instantly sought. And very quickly, one conspicuous difference between the sides during the season rears its head - scoring goals.

Across 34 games in the campaign, PSV found the net a substantial 36 more times than their main title rival. And a significant reason for that was the struggles of Ajax's forwards, in particular one Brian Brobbey.

The Dutchman had ended up with just four league goals - fewer than the top scorers at two of the relegated sides, Almere City and RKC Waalwijk. This stretched to merely 7 in 44 appearances in all competitions.

The fact that this pitiful return came just one year after the best goalscoring season of his career perfectly encapsulated Brobbey’s time in Amsterdam, which repetitively veered from exciting potential to frustrating inconsistency. In a mixed time with his boyhood club, Brobbey often sparked without truly setting alight.

It meant that, when Brobbey was, as expected, sold that summer, the overriding feeling was that it was right for both club and player. If there was any major emotion, it was surprise that he had secured a Premier League move, with newly promoted Sunderland coughing up a reported £21.6 million fee.

Fast-forward a year and the Life of Brian looks totally different.

Few could have predicted that just over a year after that tepid end to his Ajax career, Brobbey would not only be starting for the Netherlands at the 2026 World Cup but wreaking havoc upon opposition defences. For a long period, fans of the Oranje viewed Brobbey at best as a muscular impact sub and a squad player. Now, after scoring three goals in three starts at a tournament where he also linked the play brilliantly and showed his pace and power in abundance, he is the undoubted first-choice no.9 for the foreseeable future.

It has proven to be one of the more remarkable redemption arcs of the past year. And it all started with the foresight of those at the Stadium of Light.

The Brobbey Paradox

Those who watched Brobbey a lot in the Eredivisie would have perhaps considered that if the Black Cats were after that vital ingredient to ensure Premier League survival - a goalscoring striker - then Brobbey was better off being left on the shelf for someone else.

The academy graduate had previously returned to Ajax after a difficult half-season with RB Leipzig, initially on loan and then permanently in 2022. Even factoring in the leniency given to players with time on their side, there was a clear Brobbey paradox over the course of the next three and a half seasons.

One game he would look like a young player with all the attributes to become one of the world’s best old-school centre forwards. The next like one of those bigger kids who’d get picked for the school football team, but then give the distinct impression that they had never properly seen a football in their life.

As fans of Sunderland will now attest, Brobbey is able to combine fantastic strength and hold-up play with speed and a predatory instinct to get himself into the right positions in the box. The problem was, too often at Ajax he would do everything right but then fail to supply the necessary finish. It was as if a scientist had constructed the perfect young centre forward but then got distracted when applying the final and most important touches.

Blossoming in the North East

It turns out there was a real striker in there. He just needed the North East, not North Holland, to blossom.

With his physical attributes, there was no doubt Brobbey was going to be able to cope with the rough and tumble of Premier League football. Nevertheless, it has been a surprise - including to those across the North Sea - at how quickly he settled into life on Wearside.

A total of seven Premier League goals and one assist aren’t exactly big numbers on their own to get excited about, yet it was the nature of these contributions and the wider improvements in his game that have been so impressive.

After a slow start where he was initially brought in off the bench, two moments kick-started his career in England - one showed the player he has been, the other the player he is quickly becoming. In an away win at Chelsea, it was Brobbey’s superb strength, hold-up play and lay-off that enabled the cavalry to arrive in the form of Chemsdine Talbi to score a late winner. It was textbook Brobbey. Then, two weeks later we saw a far rarer side to his game with an acrobatic 94th-minute finish to earn a point against Arsenal. It was the sort of instinctive play that was often missing at Ajax.

At present, Brobbey looks like a man increasingly able to deliver at crucial moments. Last season included late equalisers against Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, the equaliser that sparked an away win against Everton, plus winning goals against Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and of course in the Tyne-Wear derby at St James’ Park. Throw in the aforementioned assist against Chelsea, and Brobbey directly played a part in securing 11 points for his team. Without them, Sunderland wouldn’t have been qualifying for Europe but ending just four points outside the relegation zone, nestled in between Tottenham and Nottingham Forest.

The capacity Brobbey has for drawing in defenders and being a physical nuisance is also invaluable for Sunderland when looking to get up the pitch, freeing up space for others. His quick turn of pace to break into the box - often after laying the ball off and spinning in behind - is frightening when he gets it right. The best example of this was his opening goal against Sweden at the World Cup, when he looked more like a 100 metre sprinter than a footballer.

On his day, watching Brobbey can feel like being taken back in time to an era of old school strikers getting their hands dirty, backing into defenders and revelling in the physicality of it all. A player happy to run the channels and to simply get in the box to cause some mayhem. He looks like he was made to play in the noughties, running out to ITV Football’s ‘Beautiful Day’ theme tune.

The really exciting thing about Brobbey is that theoretically there is still so much more to come from a player who is only 24 years of age. The challenge for the Amsterdammer is to now take his output to another level, and prove that he can get over the fallow periods that have previously knocked his confidence. Some strikers give an aura that they know they were made to score goals. Sometimes you feel Brobbey needs a calm tap on the shoulder to remind him of his potential.

According to XG Stat, compared to other Premier League strikers, he was in the top 16% for goal conversion last season but in the bottom 25% for non-penalty expected goals, demonstrating that if he can refine his decision-making in the attacking third, his ceiling for goal numbers is high. And for a player who does his damage within the penalty area, being in the bottom 22% for touches in the box per 90 minutes clearly needs improvement. Furthermore, as outlined by FotMob, a player who is one of the best in the whole division for aerial duels should definitely be having more than just six headed efforts on goal across a whole season.

An enigma no more

For much of his short career, Brobbey has been a bit of a footballing enigma. Could he actually be a good striker or not?

The question marks over his capacity to play in the Premier League were also understandable. Especially when, as has been proven in recent years, Dutch strikers in England - a bit like their country’s local Bitterballen cuisine - have been hit-and-miss. For every Ruud van Nistelrooy, there’s been a Memphis Depay.

There is room for improvement, but the doubters have been proven wrong. And the humble pie for those who doubted him, is still being eaten.

The different pieces needed for Brobbey to become a high-level centre forward were always there. Perhaps all it needed was the right environment to place them correctly together.

When you watch the 1966 World Cup final now, even through modern eyes, one thing jumps out at you immediately: Bobby Moore was really bloody good.

A lot has changed about the game in the 60 years since England lifted the World Cup, but Moore would be right at home in the modern game.

The centre-back's grace, composure, and willingness to come forward with the ball and offer a threat in the final third would be just as much an asset to Thomas Tuchel now as it was to Sir Alf Ramsey then...and yet it's still not the first thing people talk about when discussing Moore.

Sir Geoff Hurst: 'Bobby Moore was my role model'

Just ask Sir Geoff Hurst, who came through the youth ranks at West Ham alongside Moore before the two of them went on to play well over a thousand games combined for the club, winning the FA Cup and Cup Winners' Cup along the way...to say nothing of their achievements together on the international stage.

But despite Moore being just eight months older than his centre-forward, Sir Geoff admits that he always saw Moore as a role model.

Sir Geoff told FourFourTwo: "[Bobby] was a fantastic player - the best player I played with - and his reading of the game, and his calmness and his distribution were terrific. He made two goals in the 1966 World Cup Final as a central defender.

"But he was always one I looked up to, although he's similar age to me.

"The word I often use with Bobby is ‘immaculate’.

"When we went to lift the World Cup trophy at Wembley in ‘66, I was right behind Bobby. He saw the Queen wearing white gloves and he wiped his hands before he shook hers so as not to dirty her gloves

"I mean, who does that after winning a World Cup Final? An immaculate man with an immaculate character."

Sir Geoff added: "It's funny because some people are just born with it.

"Without being elected, it's like they are in parliament, and often without even realising it, they’re just born for greatness – born to lead and inspire.

"You get them in all walks of life, from business to sport, and these people automatically show themselves as leaders.

"Bobby was the captain of West Ham’s youth teams, then the captain of West Ham and then England.

"He didn’t ask for it, he didn’t scream or shout or dominate people, he just inspired. He had that glow about his character you can’t really describe – you just followed."

Harry Kane believes he has never played better, delivering as a 10 and 9. “This is the best version of myself for sure,” says the Bayern Munich and England forward, who was today presented with the European Golden Shoe as leading scorer across the Continent with 36 goals in the Bundesliga.

“Last season speaks for itself, my best season in my career, no doubt.”

In all competitions for Bayern, Kane scored 61 times and made seven assists in 51 games. Including England, Kane scored 73 times in 65 games.

"It’s been building"

Kane has invariably responded to the challenge of a centre-half and is enjoying working for Vincent Kompany, Bayern’s head coach and Manchester City legend. “Since the Boss has come in here (2024), he's elevated my game to another level. That's down to the style of play, the way we attack, the way we defend, the way he gives the players (like Kane) freedom to come and receive the ball sometimes deeper, and arrive in the box later.

“It's a multiple of different things. I also had a lot of these different positions during my Tottenham career as well, especially from the (Jose) Mourinho stage onwards (2019). Same sort of thing: I had freedom to come and drop, pick the ball. I had a great relationship with Hueng-min Son. It’s been building.

Pick the ultimate 4-4-2 line-up from players in FourFourTwo's definitive Top 100 List

“With the team I have around me, with the players I have, and the system that we play from the coach, it's just elevated me to another level. I feel extremely comfortable on the pitch. I know where I should be. I know where the players are going to be.

“I just use my instincts and my freedom to score the goals I score but also dictate the play sometimes in certain games. Each game poses a different test. I'm able to determine what game I need to drop, what game I need to stay high. Last season I got that balance really well.”

Kane played down the possibility of returning to England to break Alan Shearer’s Premier League goalscoring record of 260 (Kane has 213). He’s obviously loving life at Bayern where there's talk of a new contract for the 33-year-old. “When I first left (Spurs in 2023), for sure it was something that I thought I'd definitely be coming back. That itch isn't there as much anymore.

“I'm extremely happy here in Munich. It’s opened my eyes to a totally different world of football outside of England. It’s made me appreciate European football even more. With the team we have here, with the manager. My family are really settled here. It's just about being in the best place possible. I never say never but, for now, I'm concentrating on Bayern Munich, and we'll see what the future holds.”

He’s determined to keep building on even record seasons. “That’s the aim. You know me, it's always to improve. 73 is such a big number and, for sure, going to be difficult to beat. But the team I have around me, the way I'm feeling right now mentally and physically, there's no reason why I can't push that level again.

“The goals are a consequence of loads of hard work behind the scenes, doing stuff every day when people aren't watching. It's just about improving on all those little aspects as well.”

In receiving the award, Kane said he loves “making a sliding tackle as much as scoring a goal”. Really? “The goal is the best feeling in terms of that moment! The celebration, the adrenaline, the way it feels when you score, especially a winning goal. No doubt!

“That's the best feeling, but I also love the different parts of my game, the different sides of the game. I love those sliding tackles or tracking back, running. When I'm watching my clips to improve my whole game, I find myself watching those moments maybe more than the goals now.

“I've always loved doing my bit for the team. I love to see the reactions of the players when I do those things. It’s a big part of my game that maybe isn't always seen because I'm judged on goals. Maybe the last couple of years people have been seeing more of that and appreciating a little bit more.”

As for the Golden Shoe, Kane reflected on “an extremely proud day, my second one now”. Bayern staff attended the presentation, as did his family. “This one definitely feels a little bit more special after the season we had as a team, as well to win the trophies we won.” Bayern won the Bundesliga, German Super Cup and DFB-Pokal but lost to Paris St-Germain 6-5 on aggregate in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

“Looking ahead, the Champions League is a big goal of ours,” Kane continued, a comment that surely ends those headlines about Saudi. “You're coming up against the best teams in Europe and PSG are back-to-back champions. It’s going to be really difficult.

“Arsenal reached the final. Real Madrid always. There's so many top teams that you have to beat to be European champions. I’m looking forward to that challenge again. We got extremely close to reaching the final last year. This year we need to try and do everything to go that one step further.”

Kane hails PSG’s centre-backs, Marquinhos and Willian Pacho, as the best around. “I love playing the best because they bring out the best in me as well. Against PSG was tough match-ups – Marquinhos, Pacho, two great defenders. We had good battles. They won some duels, I won some duels. There's a reason why PSG have been so successful over the last couple of years, and they have been a big part of that. They are probably the two that stand out. A lot of the top teams have great centre-backs, and I enjoy those challenges.”

He was quick to show his support for his Bayern teammate Jamal Musiala, who suffered two absence seizures in pre-season games. “Jamal is obviously going through a bit of a difficult moment right now. I know he posted on social media about the small condition that he has. From our point of view, it's just about supporting Jamal. He's a great player, extremely talented. He's a big part of our team.

“We feel really sorry for him. We feel frustrated for him when things like that happened in the last couple of games. He knows he has the full support from everyone here at FC Bayern and his friends, his family. We'll be there to help him deal with it.

“He's going through something that not everyone goes through, but also there are people who have dealt with it well before. He's doing everything possible to be his best version. He'd come off the back of a tough injury last season (broken fibula). I know how much he works behind the scenes, how much he's working on the training pitch.”

Kane’s focus is immediately on Bayern and his teammates with the resumption of England duty to come next month. He’s used to the relentlessness of the international programme. “We've gone pretty far in all those tournaments,” Kane reflects on the summer’s World Cup and preceding tournaments such as the 2018 World Cup, Euro 2020, the 2022 World Cup and Euro 2024. “I'm used to these quick turnarounds.

“In a way, sometimes it suits me. You don't lose too much rhythm, you don't lose too much fitness. You just get into the routine of going again, and that's where I'm at now. For England, it was an amazing summer in a lot of ways. Of course, a real disappointment to lose in the semi-final the way we did (to Argentina). But to win the 3rd/4th game was important, to get the feeling for everyone involved and also for the fans. And now we tackle a new year. You’re right at the bottom of the mountain again; you're getting ready for Nations League, and then that goes into European qualifiers.

“The Euros being in England, in a couple of years (2028), is obviously a big motivation. For now it's just about getting back into club football, hit the ground running, hopefully scoring some goals. And then before we know it, we'll be back in that international camp in September, a bit different this year with the two-week camp and the four games.

“We play the world champions, Spain, in the first one (at Wembley on September 26). A lot to look forward to from that point. There will be a lot of things to process that we've done in the summer, the good things, also a lot of things we can improve on, and now that's the challenge to try and get better for the Euros in a couple of years.”

Real Madrid begin their La Liga campaign on Saturday – for the first time since 2013, they’ll be under the management of Jose Mourinho.

The Portuguese boss previously spent three years at the Bernabeu, winning the league in 2012, during a time when Barcelona had both Pep Guardiola and Lionel Messi.

After a spell at Benfica last term, Mourinho was reappointed this summer by Florentino Perez, who believes he could be the man to turn things around after a difficult couple of seasons for Real Madrid.

Real Madrid great gives his verdict

Former Bernabeu favourite Steve McManaman works as a co-commentator and analyst for Disney+, who will screen Real Madrid’s opening match at Espanyol this weekend.

McManaman is fascinated by the club’s decision to rehire Mourinho, and is sure it will make the La Liga season an entertaining one.

“He’s going to have to do well,” McManaman told FFT. “That’s why he’s been brought back – it’s as simple as that, he’s got one job, and that job is to finish above Barcelona.

“With all respect to Atletico Madrid, Villarreal etc, the team they need to beat is Barcelona. They’re the strongest side, so that’s his job – to usurp them. Challenging for the Champions League is secondary.

“Hansi Flick has done the most incredible job since he’s been at Barcelona – they’re starting to get their finances in an upward trajectory, Camp Nou will bring in more and more people, therefore helping their financial situation, and with the signing of one of the world’s best players in Rodri, that will strengthen them as well, as will Anthony Gordon.

“It will be a hell of a La Liga season – it’ll be fireworks all around, watching Jose and everybody.”

Real Madrid have spent heavily to add the likes of Yan Diomande and Marc Cucurella to their squad, but Barcelona have won the title in each of the past two seasons, and McManaman knows Perez cannot afford that to happen again.

“There was a lot of criticism about them last year and they have to turn it around,” he says.

“Either you win things, or you don’t and you’re losers, aren’t you? It’s as simple as that. When it’s as cut and dry and as black and white as it is in Spain, when it’s Real Madrid and Barça, if your main rivals win, it’s a disaster.

“So it’s up to Real Madrid to sort themselves out and try to come strong. It’s going to be a hell of a contest this year.

“Barcelona were excellent last year and for all their frailties – you saw them at times and thought ‘How on earth can they keep winning?’, because they let in a number of goals – the proof is in the pudding. They’ve been winning and they’ve been successful.

“The only blot on their campaign was their loss to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, and that was circumstances, red cards etc.

“Bringing in Rodri, he will be the metronome, they’ve got the Pedris and the like around him and a new quick forward line with Lamine Yamal and Anthony Gordon, as well as Rafinha, that’s exciting.

“Expect lots of goals in La Liga this year, and fantastic football, certainly between the top two.

“I don’t want to keep saying the top two because hopefully you want to see Atletico, Villarreal and other teams challenging, but the two biggest teams have invested more than anybody this summer and look as if they’re going to be streets clear.”

ESPN on Disney+ is home to live LALIGA action every Saturday night, bringing the best of Spanish football to fans across the UK

Peter Crouch was known for his sense of humour during his playing days – but even he didn’t expect to become a comedy actor following retirement.

Crouch scored an impressive 22 times in 42 games for England and also famously entertained fans with his robot goal celebration.

After hanging up his boots in 2019, his light-hearted approach to life has led to him becoming the star of his own podcast, as well as an author.

The weird world of Peter Crouch

As time has gone on, Crouch has also been approached to do regular acting in adverts for betting company Paddy Power, who similarly take a tongue-in-cheek approach to football. It’s led to some unexpected moments for the former Liverpool striker.

“Just the other week, I was up in a hot air balloon, which was also designed like a pair of pants, in LA overlooking the California countryside – my life is very strange,” he chuckles as he talks to FFT.

“I remember when I was 18 years old, trying to make my way in the game – if you’d said then that we’d fast forward to being 45 and I’d be over California countryside vineyards in a pair of pants at a World Cup, I’d have told you you were mad.

“There are times where I look at myself and think ‘How have I got myself in this situation?’ There was one where I was lying in a bath with just my underpants on, there were rose petals in the bath and they were filming me from above – it was basically the scene from American Beauty, but with me in the bath. I was like ‘How has this happened?!’

“But it’s all good fun, I’ve found that being shy and retiring doesn’t work, you’ve just got to go for it and embrace it.

“When I’m working with Paddy Power, it’s exactly my kind of humour, it’s very similar to what I like – I don’t think we should take football too seriously. I think I'm alright at it too, so we work well together. I love every moment of it.”

Crouch has teamed up with Danny Dyer and Danny Murphy for Paddy Power’s latest advert ahead of the start of the new Premier League season, entitled 'Why The Football Not?', which references some of the weirdest moments in football over the last few months.

There's a nod to Murphy’s long lost cat Bob, while Crouch recreates Southampton’s infamous Spygate incident outside Middlesbrough’s training ground.

“The Danny Murphy cat situation tickled the nation, and my part is alluding to Southampton and what happened there,” Crouch explains.

“I’m walking past the tree, and there’s a lad who looks very, very similar to the guy that was actually spying.

“It’s about the weird and wonderful things we love about football – it’s what makes football magic. I’m no different in the things that we try to capture with my podcast, and Paddy Power do it very well.”

Some ideas have even had to be shelved over his time working with the company, because they were simply too weird.

“There have been loads, Paddy Power come up with them on a regular basis!” Crouch smiles. “Certain things, you're like ‘Can we get away with that?!’ because it’s very close to the bone. Sometimes the closer it is to the bone, the better it is, but it’s a difficult balance.

“I don’t know what I can and can’t say with regards to what they were trying to do, but some of the things they’ve tried to do over the years have been outrageous!

“I feel very blessed to do what I’m doing, it keeps me in the game and it’s good fun.”

There will be more from Crouch in FourFourTwo soon.

Yan Diomande has been the most coveted winger in world football this summer, with Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool both attempting to sign the 19-year-old winger.

Ultimately, though, it was Real Madrid who won the race, paying a club-record €125 million plus €15 million in bonuses and signing him to a contract through 2033. However, it was just two years ago that hardly any team was willing to take a chance on him. Back then, Diomande was just an anonymous teenager looking to realize his dream of becoming a professional footballer.

When Diomande was just 15 years old, he booked a solo, one-way flight from the Ivory Coast to Florida, where he started his journey at DME Academy. Despite not speaking any English, Diomande quickly adjusted to life in his new surroundings in Daytona Beach and impressed for both DME and their semi-pro affiliate club, AS Frenzi.

Yan Diomande's path to the top was paved with rejection

Diomande spearheaded Frenzi to the 2023 United Premier Soccer League title, winning the Playoffs MVP and Golden Boot, but he wasn't able to turn that into a professional contract, with teams from MLS and Europe turning their nose up at the precocious teenager.

"I think he did slip through the cracks," his former coach Todd Eason tells FourFourTwo. "We were in Daytona, 45 minutes from Orlando City, and at the time, I had told some representatives at Orlando City, 'Hey, I've got a kid coming that looks pretty special, and I would love him to come down and train with the B team.' But they just kept delaying and delaying."

"I was very disappointed that Orlando City wouldn't come 45 minutes to watch him or at least take them into camp," adds Eason, who worked as DME's Director of Soccer and then Director of Athletics from 2021 to 2024. Today, Eason serves as the General Manager for USL Championship side Miami FC.

"I do think MLS teams have probably dropped the ball a lot on some domestic talent that have come through, but every team's a little bit different, so you can't really speak on all that. Orlando City was the one that I was really disappointed in: you couldn't go out of your way to see this kid play, and now you lost your chance."

After being rejected by Orlando City as well as other European clubs like Rangers, Chelsea, and Bournemouth, Diomande returned to Abidjan after his student visa expired. Shortly after, Spanish club Leganes signed him in November 2024, and after just 10 professional appearances, he earned a €20 million move to RB Leipzig.

The rest is history: Diomande quickly emerged as one of the most exciting talents in the German top-flight, taking home the Bundesliga Rookie of the Season award. He also established himself as a key figure for the Ivory Coast national team, scoring in the Africa Cup of Nations and helping Les Elephants advance to a World Cup knockout match for the first time.

After steering RB Leipzig from a seventh-place finish in 2024/25 – the worst finish in their Bundesliga history – to a third-place finish in 2025/26, Diomande will now be testing his skills in the Champions League. He won't be representing Leipzig, but Real Madrid, who are seeking a record-extending 16th title.

It has been a decade in the making for Diomande, who left his family at nine years of age to join Academie Inter Foot Sud Comoe and moved to a new continent at 15, all by himself. All of it in the pursuit of one objective: to receive a world-class footballing education and become a good enough player to carry his family out of poverty.

Two years after being left in the shadows, the sun is shining on Diomande, who'll be looking to stake out a starting spot on the right side of Real's attack alongside Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham, and Vinicius Jr. And while he never managed to make his professional debut there, he'll always be grateful for his time with Eason in the Sunshine State.

"I think I'm just most proud that he still answers my calls," added Eason. "He's just very true to the people that mean the most to him, and I think that's a true testament of who he is. That's what I'm proud of: that he's a good, respectful man, and is still paying attention to the people that have helped him in his life in some way."

Is Yan Diomande worth the investment from Real Madrid? Tell us in the comments below

Becoming a professional footballer requires you to take full advantage of any point of difference you can possibly find – and proficiency in another sport can be a huge asset.

Peter Schmeichel attributes his famous starfish sprawl to his handball background. Petr Cech believes playing as a goalie in ice hockey prepared him well for football. Didier Drogba points to the intelligence and footwork skills he learned playing basketball. Ruud van Nistelrooy and Zlatan Ibrahimovic both learned balance and body control from taekwondo.

For Georgi Kinkladze, it was dance.

“Traditional Georgian dance is very physical"

More specifically, it was the traditional stylings of Georgian folk dancing, which for men can be extremely explosive, fast-paced and involved a lot of spinning and quick, intricate footwork.

That just so happens to be exactly how Manchester City fans would describe Kinkladze’s work on the wing at Maine Road in the 1990s.

Kinkladze remains an icon in the blue half of Manchester for his sensational goals and for sticking by the club for two more seasons even after their relegation from the Premier League in his first campaign in 1995/96.

Asked if he believed his childhood dance lessons had an impact on the way he played, Kinklaze told FourFourTwo: “Yes, I believe that they did.

“Traditional Georgian dance is very physical. With this kind of dance, you are on your toes, moving with high energy and with perfect balance.

“Taking dance lessons gave me the core strength to change direction instantly while keeping my upper body still.

“People said I looked like I was gliding when I played; that was thanks to the dance training”

Kinkladze is also grateful to have got the opportunity to play international football for Georgia when he was still just a teenager, believing it put him on the radar for clubs like Boca Juniors and City before his later move to Ajax.

He said: “Back then, the Georgian league wasn't scouted heavily.

“Playing for the national team was my chance to show that I could perform on the big stage. Without those international caps, I might never have left Georgia and moved abroad.”

Critistiano Ronaldo has hinted that the upcoming 2026/27 season is likely to be his last year as a player.

The Portuguese forward has broken numerous records across his 24-year senior career since breaking through at Sporting in 2002.

The 41-year-old's honours list includes five Champions Leagues, nine league tiles across his spells at Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Al-Nassr; and a Euros winners medal with Portugal.

Cristiano Ronaldo drops retirement hint

No player can go on forever, though, and Ronaldo now seems to be seriously thinking about calling it quits next summer.

It's definitely not because he knows his powers are waning, though; it's simply because there's so much else he wants to do in life.

Ronaldo told Vogue: "This is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy.

"I have my future all mapped out.

"I have so many things to keep me busy that to tell you just one thing is hard.

"Because football could leave a big hole, you have to fill your time in various ways, not just one.

"Have more fun, travel more, watch and play padel, which I really like, and continue to enjoy what I've earned - what we've earned - because after all, it's been 25 years with a lot of sacrifice."

The Saudi Pro League campaign is already under way, with Ronaldo sitting out Al-Nassr's 3-0 win over Al-Fateh on the opening day.

Ronaldo spent the summer at the World Cup with Portugal before getting married, and as a result has not had a full pre-season under his belt.

His manager Ange Postecoglou could now turn to Ronaldo to face Diriyah in the cup on Tuesday.

Myles Lewis-Skelly is not simply part of Arsenal’s future. He is very much part of the champions’ vibrant present. Headlines linking the teenager with a move away thankfully disappeared for good in Cardiff on Sunday.

The Community Shield often throws up more questions than answers, but one argument certainly settled, and no doubt dispelled in the 3-0 humbling of Manchester City, was the importance of Lewis-Skelly to Arsenal for footballing and financial reasons.

Arsenal should sell even world champions like Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino before even considering moving on Lewis-Skelly. He’s that important.

One down, 60-odd to go

He’s more than a number for Arsenal, even an obscure number in 49 vacated by an Estonian goalkeeper, Karl Hein, now Werder Bremen’s No.1. He’s more than a talented midfield option to rotate in when the new first choice of Declan Rice and Bruno Guimaraes has done its ferocious work and needs a break or the game is won.

Given the innate impatience of youth, the teenager will want to play every game. But there are so many. Arsenal are one game into what could prove a 68-game marathon. Mikel Arteta will sensibly rest and rotate, ensuring freshness for each game, a lesson surely learned from Rice’s draining workload last season.

“MLS” brings energy and intensity of press. He brings composure and invention in possession. For Arsenal’s first against City, Lewis-Skelly calmly let the ball run across him and then guided Riccardo Calafiori through on goal. Few players have the intelligence to see that pass and the technique to deliver it. He spots opportunity early. That anticipation and nimbleness, changing direction quickly, reflects early years as a tennis prospect.

He’s versatile, best in central midfield but launching himself onto the scene with Arsenal and England at left-back. He played centre-back for his school team but lacks the height. There are elements to his game that still needing work, including developing his shooting, but he’s still only 19. Like any young professional, MLS will be learning the art of total devotion to his craft. He certainly has great role models to learn from at London Colney.

MLS is an exciting symbol of a trait that fans always love – one of their own, an admired academy graduate, a link between the dressing room and the stands. He’s a Hale End boy, joining at eight, and imbued in the ways of the club like Bukayo Saka and the poster-boy for the next generation, Max Dowman. In the age of sky-high transfer fees and clubs needing to balance their books (which Arsenal do well), it makes even more sense to develop talent. The flaw in the system is that it then encourages clubs to sell the homegrown as it goes down in the books as pure profit.

How much is MLS worth? Headlines have him at £45m, which seems laughably low, almost disrespectful. He’s 19, got four years left on his contract and is an England international (with the added Three Lions premium to any fee).

Little fazes him: he scored against City in 2025 and famously mimicked Erling Haaland’s meditation celebration. The act felt more cheeky than insolent or arrogant and was a slight response to Haaland’s previous “who are you?” during an Etihad flare-up. MLS is not short on character.

He provided an assist against Real Madrid and scored on his England debut. Arteta rated the teenager highly enough to start him ahead of Zubimendi in last May’s Champions League final against Paris St-Germain. Best in a double pivot, Lewis-Skelly enjoyed helping Guimaraes dominate Elliot Anderson and the struggling Mateo Kovacic in Cardiff.

Talk of him leaving, however brief and caused by whoever, was dispiriting. Arsenal are a global institution, with players and supporters drawn from all over, and that is a celebration of their appeal and welcoming nature. But reminders of their roots, their Englishness, need protecting and promoting. Local heroes are part of Arsenal’s history going back to Tony Adams and Charlie George.

Midway through the second half at the Principality Stadium, Arsenal fans began singing about the late, great David Rocastle, whose name, image and mission statement adorn parts of Hale End. “Remember who you are, what you are, and who you represent.” MLS represents Arsenal’s present and future.

Frank Lampard has been here before. The Premier League was his playground for nearly two decades and he was indisputably one of its greatest ever players by the time he left it behind.

He’s been here as a manager, too, with both Everton and former club Chelsea. The Coventry City boss is no Premier League novice but it’s different this time. His work at Goodison Park and Stamford Bridge had merit but the three years since his third Chelsea exit have been the making of him.

Steering the Sky Blues to promotion as the winners of the Championship in his first full season in charge was a serious achievement. Owner Doug King gave no indication in the autumn of 2024 that he felt he was taking a risk by appointing Lampard, who has repaid that confidence many times over.

Lampard is back among the big boys

Others weren’t so convinced. There are still doubters now, not least those whose interest begins and ends with the Premier League. They’ve seen Lampard deliver results in the form of promotion but the substance, the material evolution of Lampard the Gaffer in the West Midlands, remains out of view.

Expecting the same Lampard is folly. We’ve all learned a lot in three years, about ourselves and our lives and our priorities, about our strengths, weaknesses, methods and motivations.

Lampard is no different, and yet it must be acknowledged that, yes, the immediate task he faces is a difficult one.

Transfer activity has to be carried out in quantity and quality, but is impossible to complete.

City have that in common with most promoted teams but have invested heavily to bring in players they hope – with some justification – will prove shrewd acquisitions.

Carl Rushworth was their number one all along. Frank Onyeka was an easy choice in midfield after a positive loan. Gustavo Hamer is the returning hero seeking the creative freedom of home.

Loum Tchaouna and Aurele Amenda are big-money, high-potential risks; Caleb Yirenki the young superstar record buy.

King, Lampard and Dean Austin have already achieved a lot in the transfer window and there will be more to come, but Coventry will start the season at a disadvantage as a club promoted into the Premier League for the first time in the modern era. They have a world of work to do and none of it is easy.

The cost of the spotlight

Lampard returns to the Premier League as a more skilled and more experienced manager but his deftness and adaptability were developed away from the hyper-exposed top division.

It’s possible to look at Lampard’s managerial career as a series of specific challenges. Both spells at Chelsea were appointments of hopeful convenience, Derby County a mutual show of ambition, and Everton a rescue mission.

Whether or not it’s overly generous to say that he was more of a success in those roles than he’s given credit for is beside the point. Lampard did all this as a young boss, in the years when many managers are able to learn and fail and evolve away from the glare under which he was operating.

Lampard at 48 is a different kind of coaching archetype, cerebral and even studious without being yet another caricature off the one-dimensional high-performance conveyer belt. He’s dedicated but thriving, it might be said, precisely because of the respect he has for balance in life.

When advice is offered by people who succeeded in management before him, Lampard is able to take it on board without questioning his own outlook and methods. In time, he has become a more rounded manager than he was when he last took charge of a Premier League match.

Lampard has tactical ideas and plans like any other manager but doesn’t allow them to hold him back. In a Championship title race that occasionally threatened to become competitive, Lampard succeeded not as an idealogue but as a manager who found a way to build a team that finds a way.

Coventry’s resilience will be the making of their manager

The pivotal moment in Coventry’s season and Lampard’s managerial career came in February, when the injury-hit Sky Blues found themselves looking up at Middlesbrough from second place after the Teessiders logged their sixth win in a row.

Coventry, winless in three and with two wins in their last eight Championship matches, beat Boro relatively comfortable in their very next game, won six on the spin and never looked back.

The bond between Lampard and Coventry is real and their new adventure is a shared one, but all outcomes are possible amid the trials and tribulations of a promoted club. Even good managers need a fair wind in that brutal first season.

Coventry might stay up, they might go down. Lampard might last the season regardless, he might get an offer he can’t refuse from elsewhere. King might be the man to make that decision, as unlikely as it seems now.

In FourFourTwo’s opinion, the only thing we can be relatively certain about is that Lampard, one way or another, will be among the Premier League managers again next season.

Thirty years ago today, Premier League Champions Manchester United were kicking off their title defence vs Wimbledon at Selhurst Park.

The game had gone as predicted: a strengthened Manchester United team, whose 'Class of '92' had established themselves and grown in confidence, took on perennial mid-tablers Wimbledon. Sir Alex Ferguson vs Joe Kinnear.

Eric Cantona opened his account with a good strike from the edge of the area, before Denis Irwin doubled the lead. The game was coming to a conclusion when youngster David Beckham spotted Wimbledon keeper Neil Sullivan off his line and swung his soon-to-be very famous right foot back...

An iconic moment, in an iconic career

The silhouette of Beckham leaning back, ready to unleash a right-footed pass or strike, had yet to sear itself into the consciousness of English football fans, and his effort at Selhurst Park epitomised the type of thing that was to come later in his career.

The pin-up, who was still six months or so away from meeting his future wife, Victoria Adams, delivered an outrageous shot from the halfway line to cap a 3-0 rout and steal the limelight on opening day, 17th August 1996.

"It was just a normal game," explains Wimbledon keeper Neil Sullivan 30 years on, like a crime victim setting the scene before a shocking documentary programme unfolds detailing his misfortune.

"We were 2-0 down going into the last couple of minutes of the game. He [Beckham] hit it, and it kind of moved in the air quite a lot. I didn't quite change my feet around properly and, as soon as he hits it, you think, ‘That's going to be close’.

"When it went in, I was kind of hanging onto the net, looking up, and all the Man United fans were behind the goal. I was getting pelters from the stands. I just kind of had a little smile and a chuckle to myself, and that was it, really.

"Then you don't really think much of it. You wake up the next day – obviously no social media back then, no nothing. You pick up a newspaper, and it's all over the back pages. You think, ‘Wow, that's quite special'. And you’re kind of inadvertently a part of Premier League history.

The goal launched Beckham, who was yet to make his senior England debut, into instant superstardom.

Prior to that afternoon, Beckham was a promising talent in Manchester United’s first team. The moment that ball hit the net, he transformed overnight from a rising prospect into a household name.

"My favourite goal has to be the one against Wimbledon," said Beckham years later. "Everybody talks about it, everybody knows about it."

The goal wasn't just reported on the back pages of newspapers; it crossed over to the front, where a lot of Beckham news would stay. It marked the moment he first captured the public imagination outside of sport, setting the stage for brand Becks to become a global pop-culture icon, advertising powerhouse, and the ultimate celebrity-athlete of the late 90s and 2000s.

The goal rode the wave of a period of massive growth and rebranding for the Premier League, driven by Sky Sports' coverage. Beckham’s goal was cinematic, daring, and breathtaking—the perfect highlight reel moment for a league pitching itself as the most entertaining in the world.

It was the era of the montage, and Beckham's goal made a lot of them. Spare a thought for Neil Sullivan the next time you see it.

Neil Sullivan’s route from a Premier League regular to international football did not follow the conventional path.

In fact, Sullivan’s opportunity to represent Scotland all came down to a chance remark to a reporter from this very publication during a promotion event.

The former Wimbledon stopper would win 28 caps for Scotland and go to the 1998 World Cup with the Tartan Army, and while stories of this nature can often be over-egged, the man himself insists it is true.

How FourFourTwo helped Sullivan earn his Scotland call-up

“Yeah, 100 per cent true,” Sullivan tells FourFourTwo when asked if the magazine really did help him earn a place in Craig Brown’s squad back in 1997.

As was the case with Sullivan’s other most famous moment in football, a certain future England captain was also on hand.

“I was sponsored by Sondico gloves at the time, and I think David Beckham’s shin pads were sponsored by them,” the former Spurs and Leeds stopper continues.

“We were doing a kind of promotional event at the same place, promoting the brand and taking photos and doing autographs with fans - no prizes for guessing whose queue was longer – and a FourFourTwo reporter was there.

“We had a bit of a general chat and then I just happened to mention that I had a Scottish grandparent. That went in the magazine and somehow it made his way back to Craig Brown. He rang me up and I jumped at the chance.”

Sullivan would make his Scotland debut under Brown against Wales in May 1997 and he would do enough to ensure he was part of the squad for the 1998 World Cup.

After former Manchester United ‘keeper Jim Leighton returned from international football in 1998, Sullivan became a regular starter during the Euro 2000 and 2002 World Cup qualifiers.

“It was amazing,” Sullivan says when asked about being part of the 1998 squad. “I went as our third-choice ‘keeper with Jim Leighton and Andy Gorham ahead of me.

“We went to America on a kind of pre-World Cup tour, and Andy decided that he didn't want to be involved, so I moved up to number two goalkeeper. We played the opening match against Brazil so we missed the opening ceremony as we were down underneath the pitch getting ready. That feeling was pure excitement.

“It was a brilliant summer, great to be involved even in a small way and soak up the atmosphere.”

From Arsenal’s Invincibles to Manchester City’s emerging superstars, Kolo Toure played with some of the greatest footballers of his generation.

The Ivory Coast international spent 14 seasons playing for Premier League contenders, from his time with the Gunners to the Citizens, up to his three-year stint at Liverpool which took in the beginning of the Jurgen Klopp era.

Selecting his Perfect XI for FourFourTwo, therefore, is no easy feat - but it’s a task Kolo set about with relish.

Kolo Toure's Perfect XI

GK: JENS LEHMANN

“Jens was a great shot-stopper who could catch the ball from corners and crosses – but he was also good with his feet. He had a strong personality… but oh my god, he was so crazy! You need that though, I think, as a goalkeeper. A lovely man, but very crazy. You didn’t want to get in his bad books, trust me.”

RB: LAUREN

“To be honest, I was torn between Lauren and Emmanuel Eboue. I played with Eboue for the Ivory Coast and at Arsenal and he was underrated both going forward and defending – but I’ve gone with Lauren. He was just immense, and he would kill me if he didn’t get in my team!”

CB: SOL CAMPBELL

“I’ve chosen two centre-backs, so of course, I went with Sol Campbell. He was powerful, strong in the air, an aggressive player – and he was lovely, too. I felt like I could always trust him and play my best football with him alongside me. I had a good relationship with him at Arsenal.”

CB: VINCENT KOMPANY

“I’ve gone for Vincent. We played a few games together at Manchester City and technically he was really good, as well as being as strong. He was very young when I played with him – but he was really mature and a leader for his age and of course he went on to have a tremendous career.”

LB: ASHLEY COLE

“I’ve got to go for Ashley Cole at left-back. Such a good player. Going forwards or backwards, it was easy for him; no problem. He had such energy and he was a really generous player. [FFT: you sometimes played right-back on the opposite side to Cole…] Yes, we’d both get forward a lot. But he was more natural in that role.”

DM: STEVEN GERRARD

“I’ve gone with a diamond – so I’ve gone with Stevie G from my time at Liverpool to ping the ball right and left. He’d moved into a deeper role by that stage in his career and his vision and passing range were perfect in there. A brilliant footballer and captain.”

CM: YAYA TOURE


“On the right of the midfield, Yaya Toure. [Laughs] If I don’t pick Yaya, he’ll ask why! He was a top player, technically and tactically. He could run with the ball and he could score goals as well. Oh, and he’s my brother! Yaya was always the better player of the two of us growing up, too, which I was happy with, I don’t mind my brother being better than me.”

CM: PATRICK VIEIRA

“I’ve chosen Patrick over David Silva – it was very hard. But Patrick had everything for a midfield player: he was so tall and powerful. Technically, he was really good, he could run, get from box to box and he scored goals, too. For me, he was a perfect midfielder.”

AM: DENNIS BERGKAMP

“I’ve got to have Dennis Bergkamp at the top of the diamond in this team, to find players and chip in with some goals. He was an unbelievable player and you couldn’t find anyone better past or present to do this role in this team, with these team-mates around him.”

ST: THIERRY HENRY

“What is there to even say about Thierry that hasn’t been said? His speed, his power, his desire to win… he was so professional, I have to choose Thierry Henry. He was a phenomenon.”

ST: DIDIER DROGBA

“For the last one, I didn’t know who to pick. It’s between Luis Suarez, Didier Drogba and Sergio Aguero… I’ve got to go for Drogba – but I have subs as well, right? [laughs] He doesn’t like the ball too much, but I’ve got to pick him because he was so physical, so determined and a guy you could always rely on in the biggest moments. A legend of African football and a great guy, too.”

SUBS: Gael Clichy, Sergio Aguero, Luis Suarez

THE GAFFER: ARSENE WENGER

“It absolutely has to be Wenger. He was immense, he was the guy who gave me my opportunity to come to the Premier League. No one believed in me until him and David Dein (Arsenal’s vice-chairman until 2009) and they both gave me the opportunity to play for one of the best clubs in the world. It’s not easy to pick a boy from Africa, take him straight to England and put him in the Arsenal team after not even a year. I owe him everything.”

West Ham will play their first second-tier match in 14 years today when they visit Burnley in their Championship opener at 4pm.

The club’s relegation at the end of last season came after the Hammers spent a decade trying to establish themselves as a Premier League force, only to be undone by a series of poor transfers and recent managerial instability.

As he sees his old club get set for the new season, former Irons defender Tony Gale believes that the drop could represent an opportunity for the slate to be wiped clean,

Gale on West Ham’s reset

“We’ve spent as much money as everyone else, but we’ve spent it unwisely,” Gale tells FourFourTwo. “It’s time for a reset.

“We’ve got to be looking more into the players we buy – studying their characters, not just their playing style. Character is even more important in the Championship than the Premier League – nobody can underestimate that division.”

Gale insists that the team cannot assume they will be in the promotion mix come the end of the season. “It’s no good thinking that six teams will get into the Championship play-offs this season, so we’ll get promoted by hook or by crook,” he continues. “West Ham have to be aiming to go up automatically. It’s not going to be a cakewalk.”

One thing the Hammers do have going for them, Gale adds, is their fanbase. “The fans have rallied around, with 30,000 season tickets sold within a few weeks of relegation. They’ve shown their loyalty.”

Gale has first-hand experience of relegation and believes mentality will play a defining part this season. “Going down is all about your mindset,” he continues. “I did it twice and came back up. We were lucky because the footballing world wasn’t so financially based then, and a lot of us stayed. Relegation clauses didn’t exist at the time. Our attitude was that we went down, so it was our responsibility to get them back up.

“The first thing on a lot of players’ minds nowadays is finances. No doubt some will have pay cut clauses written into their contracts but there might be boys going into the Championship who have hardly played lately who’ll be on £100,000 a week.

“West Ham went down because of complacency, thinking that the three sides who come up are always going to go down. But Sunderland were sensational and spent wisely. Leeds? Their home record was brilliant and Elland Road kept them up.”

Yet despite the anguish of last season’s campaign, Gale does have room for optimism this year.

“Relegation isn’t the disaster that everybody thinks, though,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to the Championship. If you’re a fan, you’re a fan. West Ham may lose the tourist supporters who came over to London to watch a game of Premier League football and visit the old Olympic Stadium. Maybe 10,000 will drop off the average gate.

“But you’ll still have the same number of away supporters, because they’ll all want to come to our stadium. Even little Lincoln will fill it, don’t worry about that, it’s their cup final. Our fans have shown their loyalty and hopefully the club is about to turn a corner, for a brighter future.”

Looking back, it’s funny to think we might have picked berries from the same bush. Back in 1959, those blackberries proliferated to the rear of The Bend, the most unlovely corner of an unfashionable ground – Vicarage Road, home of the equally forgotten Watford FC.

Then, I was 18 and one of the 'Boys on The Bend', a disparate cluster of perhaps 20 fans who used the low bank as a vantage point to peer over the greyhound track and watch the newly-named Hornets. I was only aware of my own group, yet I might have noticed a podgy 13-year-old Pinner County Grammar School boy looking equally pleased.

Perhaps, had we talked, he might have volunteered that he’d inherited his love of Watford from his father, Stanley, and that his uncle, Roy Dwight, had scored and broken his leg in the FA Cup final that year. But the gulf between our teenage years was a chasm unlikely to be bridged at that stage.

The fifty quid a year Director

We’d have been shocked if someone had predicted that, as a result of my negotiations, our paths would next cross deep in the breeze-block heart of Watford’s unimpressive main stand. That young schoolboy, Reggie Dwight, would later burst on to the scene as Elton Hercules John, the iconic, flamboyant rock star. I would take a somewhat less exotic route to our eventual meeting, by joining the local newspaper.

In the early 1970s, after a series of phone calls to my home from Elton’s European manager Vic Lewis informing me that the star wanted to become a director, I persuaded him that I could sell the idea to Watford’s autocratic chairman Jim Bonser.

Beleaguered by fan criticism, the chairman treated the approaches of monied men as a threat to his regime. However, I convinced him the concept of Elton becoming one of the 20 or so vice-presidents – paying £50 per annum for a seat (plus access to a pay-bar and free sandwiches) – would be good PR.

So, one Friday morning in August 1973, the short, dapper, personable Lewis arrived at Vicarage Road, soon followed by Elton who, apart from platform shoes, was by his standards soberly dressed.

Bonser – expecting to meet an inarticulate, bizarrely dressed ‘nutter’ of whom he’d never heard – was pleasantly surprised. Elton impressed, being polite, well spoken, knowledgeable on the game and deferential to the chairman, to the extent of addressing him as ‘Sir’.

On cue, Bonser offered honorary vice-president’s facilities, which Elton declined, saying: “I’ll pay. I’m here to help not sponge”, and Lewis mentioned, casually: “Perhaps Elton might do a concert to raise funds.” It would become a well-worn Fleet Street cliche over the years, but Elton had set foot on the Yellow Brick Road, the third phase of a love-affair that started with schoolboy enthusiasm, developed into a teenage crush and became a full-blown adult affair lasting several decades.

There were break-ups and splits – he was twice appointed chairman, three times a director and twice life president – but no matter how many times he left, he kept coming back to Watford. It was an affair that would cost him in excess of £4m (largely spent on ground improvements), a gigantic hike in his personal phone bill and tears of frustration. But mainly, it brought the joy of seeing his dreams realised. Watford emerged from Division Four in 1978 and five years later finished runners-up to Liverpool in the top flight, reaching the FA Cup final in 1984.

Mozart and mustard

It was not all plain sailing. The early days were depressing. Soon after he’d held a 1974 concert at the ground, he was elected on to the board, only for the club to be relegated to Division Four that season. Elton did not take setbacks well. When Watford went through a slump, he was seldom contactable and if they were heading for defeat at Vicarage Road, the then chief executive Eddie Plumley recalled: “He would go down the stairs from the directors' box, and turn and peep over, like a small child. I have known him turn to his mother and say ‘Come on, we’re going’, long before a match has ended.”

Not everyone welcomed him into the hallowed halls of League football. Elton was asked to leave one club’s boardroom because he was deemed ‘improperly dressed’.

A few years later, among those guilty of ‘funny looks’ were the patrons of a distinctly up-market hotel restaurant in Vienna, one of several unusual venues, including Paris and Milan, selected for board meetings. “Elton was in Austria on tour, and we flew out there and met at this crowded hotel restaurant,” remembered fellow director Muir Stratford. “Elton joined us at the table dressed as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, complete with wig. You could have heard a pin drop when he came in.”

He was not asked to leave on that occasion, but initially Elton took the snubs, the looks and even relegation in his stride, pointing out: “This is not a momentary indulgence by a showbusiness personality who will tire of it and look for a new toy. I’m here for the long haul.”

His arrival pleased the players, bringing an element of celebrity to an unfashionable Fourth Division club, but there was some irritation over the media’s obsession with the Elton connection.

“I see Elton scored again,” moaned one player after a win was greeted by the all-too-familiar headline of ‘Rocket Men take off’. The star himself admitted: “Everyone at Watford is so normal and down to earth. It’s a stabilising influence on my life and keeps me sane, compared to the falseness of showbusiness. I get my leg pulled more at Watford than anywhere else.”

In turn he was appreciated, not least because he was natural. Luther Blissett, who rose with Watford from Division Four to Division One and was capped by England, said: “The thing with him, he just wanted to be one of the lads. He would come into the dressing room before games and the older players would even give him some stick over what he was wearing.”

After hiring a plane to fly to a Division Four fixture at Workington, he travelled back on the train with the Watford party. When it was discovered that the ordered meals were in the kitchen but there was no sign of British Rail staff to prepare and serve them, without hesitation the rock star mucked in with a fellow director and his wife, serving the players, taking it in good heart when they asked: “Any mustard, my good man?”

A call from Auckland

After two relegations in four seasons, Jim Bonser was under pressure, but he wasn’t ready to bow to the fans’ demands. “How can Elton John be chairman, when he’s out of the country most of the time?” he fumed. Throughout it all, Elton kept a low boardroom profile until the time was right, in May 1976, when he bought out Bonser and took over the club.

We scheduled a major interview for a Monday morning, only for the national press to come out on the previous Saturday with Elton’s revelation of bisexuality. That afternoon, there was an abnormal interest from the press in Watford’s game at Rochdale. Elton fended off most of them, before hearing Spotland’s faithful become the first to chant: “Elton John’s a homosexual.”

I despaired that it would end the likelihood of the interview, but he was true to his word, arriving on the Monday and answering every question. Checking over his quotes, one did worry him: “I’m not a raving homosexual.” The coming out was only partial, then.

Yet he was relaxed enough to remove his hat during the interview. A few wispy hairs were no big deal; his biggest concern was how the dressing room – “such a heterosexual environment” – would take his dressing-room revelations. On arriving at Rochdale, he’d been assured by manager Mike Keen: “We are behind you, your private life is your own affair.” Elton found that “uplifting” and was saddened by the “maturing experience” when he had to axe Keen a few months later.

“I’m not a quitter, I’m used to setbacks and jibes,” he said, but there were occasions when it got to him, not least when Watford were becalmed after appearing certainties for promotion to Division Two. Elton made for the boardroom toilet to contemplate and come to terms with the setback, having witnessed much of a 3-0 home defeat at the hands of Colchester on Good Friday.

Later, manager Graham Taylor noted the chairman was clearly angry. It transpired, while in the toilet, he heard a group from Colchester’s party come in to relieve themselves and joke how their team had “shoved it up Watford and that poofter”.

“I said he must be used to rising above it and suggested, as chairman, he should go over to the Colchester directors and express congratulations and wish them all the best for the rest of the season,” Taylor later revealed. “He did just that but when he came back, he looked at me, said ‘F**k you’ and went home.”

On occasions, visiting chairmen, immediately after a match, would be amazed to receive a call from the star congratulating them on their defensive work, discussing their missed chances and other results.

“If he’s so keen, why doesn’t he attend games?” was the observation of many after putting the phone down, only to be stunned to discover the Watford chairman was in Auckland or the like, on tour.

“Those phone calls were amazing. No matter where he was or what time zone it was, he would phone in before a match,” remembered Plumley. “He would get the team news, then hook into the local hospital commentary and listen to it for two hours. He would talk to me and the manager afterwards. It might be the middle of the night where he was, but he was always on, practically every home match.” For away games, he phoned his mother all afternoon for updates from teletext.

Graham Taylor, or Bobby Moore?

Elton was generous throughout. When I requested an interview to mark a decade of his chairmanship, he arranged for me to fly to Miami where he was touring and spend 48 hours in an opulent country club.

Every pre-season, he would throw open his Old Windsor home and garden to players, staff and their families for a party, complete with bouncy castle, and enter into the spirit of the day. “I remember Elton grabbed my baby son Elliott, and laughed when he was sick all over his shoulder,” recalled Blissett.

Under his chairmanship, Watford trailblazed the ‘family club’ image, and Elton was very much hands-on, giving out Easter eggs and Christmas presents to the Junior Hornets. Vicarage Road was even extolled in Parliament for being a hooligan-free family environment – a concept Elton had gained from his association with the US club LA Aztecs.

The chairman’s biggest disappointment was at Watford Council’s “lack of people with similar vision”, as he sought to build the first all-seater stadium in the country since the war. The council blocked every scheme, finally turning down plans to develop Vicarage Road and causing Watford to appeal to the minister for the environment. The club won with costs – Elton taking the field before a match and holding up a sign stating simply: ‘We’ve won’. So, when he and Taylor were accorded the freedom of the borough, Elton did not accept the accolade personally.

“Elton’s main contribution, apart from the money for the ground, was his enthusiasm, that was terrific,” recalled director Stratford. “But there were a couple of times when we took issue with him.”

The first was when Elton’s early Watford association saw him develop a friendship with England boss Don Revie and his squad. When looking for a manager to lift the Hornets from the depths, he first approached England skipper Bobby Moore, to the consternation of his fellow directors, who were keen on Lincoln’s Graham Taylor. Moore, as events were to prove, was not managerial material, but 10 years later, after Taylor had left Watford, Elton angered his fellow directors by lining up Dave Bassett as his replacement, without consulting the board. The result was strife and relegation.

Back in 1977, when Revie confirmed that Taylor was “the best young coach in the country”, Elton made an approach. After one false start – Taylor had no intention of hooking up with a rock star and his temporary whims – he attended an interview at Elton’s home and listened to him outline his dreams of taking Watford, not just to the Third Division, or even the Second. Taylor, who was interested in creating something unique rather than duplicating past successes, was hooked.

“He said he wanted to get Fourth Division Watford into Europe,” Taylor later explained. “I asked him how much he thought such a thing would cost, and he replied, ‘About a million’. I thought, ‘You will do for me pal’.

They targeted achieving First Division status in 10 years, but made it in five – Taylor telling his chairman after the promotion-sealing victory: “Mission accomplished.” And it was pretty much on budget – the club’s accounts showed Watford owed Elton £1.2m.

The Hornets celebrated their debut in Europe, through the UEFA Cup with games in Kaiserslautern, Sofia and Prague, six years into Taylor’s management and appeared in the FA Cup final after seven, watched by a tearful Elton and his new wife Renata.

“You can’t equate the millions with the joy being involved with Watford has given me,” he said, after shelling out a further £2m towards building a new stand in 1986.

Yet within a year, hounded by The Sun and reports on his private life, which resulted in the issuing of 17 writs, Elton attempted to sell the club. Sensing the honeymoon was over, Taylor moved to Aston Villa, before Elton finally sold to developer Jack Petchey, accepting just £1 in settlement of his £4m loans.

Boardroom to board games

He was to return as a director a few years later, but resigned over the policies of his successor, only to reappear once again in 1997 as figurehead chairman with a consortium that re-appointed Taylor as manager.

Second time round, despite two successive promotions and a season in the Premier League, Elton attended only a few matches in four years because – in dressing-room vernacular “his missus doesn’t like football”.

After Taylor retired and Watford suffered financial meltdown under Gianluca Vialli’s management and the collapse of ITV Digital, Elton quit as chairman and director. He later kept in regular touch by phone with a succession of managers, financing a couple of purchases and their wages, also donating £750,000 proceeds from a concert held at Vicarage Road.

Throughout the years, his relationship with Taylor was pivotal. “He’s like a brother to me,” admitted Elton, who in the early days spent many evenings with the manager and his family, playing board games and chewing the cud. They were both bad losers, prone to tantrums, I was assured.

“Graham even tells me what he thinks about my records, clothes and concerts – he ‘s straight to the point, which I love,” said the star, who remembers being asked to pop in for coffee at the manager’s house one morning, and arrived fearing he was going to lose Taylor to a big club. “Rita served her husband a coffee,” Elton revealed. “Then Graham poured champagne and brandy into a pint pot and passed it to me, saying: ‘You can’t face the day without this’. That was an example of his being like a brother, giving me a wake-up call.”

Subsequent revelations have pinpointed those years as when Elton was struggling with drugs. “I was never aware of that – as he said, he did drink a bit,” admitted Taylor.

Stratford endorsed that point: “I wasn’t aware of drugs – he was volatile, up one minute, down the next, but great company. We got pissed a few times. Sometimes we’d stay and drink, and plan ahead in the boardroom after a match, late into the night, sending out for fish and chips.”

Drink also played a part when Watford residents were surprised to discover one night that the carol singers at their door were none other than the club’s chairman and his manager.

“We’d been to the Chinese Embassy, for instructions, before the club toured China the following summer,” Taylor explained. “We had so many of these really potent liqueurs. Elton came back to our house and we were dropped off somewhat the worse for wear. That’s my major claim to fame – I went carol-singing with Elton.” The session came to an end when they sung outside Taylor’s house by mistake and were dragged in by his wife.

For all those associated with Watford, Elton John’s involvement, along with Taylor, helped the club realise the ‘impossible dream’ – its treasured halcyon era.

One day Elton opened the station halt to the rear of the ground, enabling visiting fans to avoid the streets and emerge on the concreted away terrace. Years before, it had been The Bend, just clinker and railway sleepers. Walking back into the ground, I motioned to the back and he broke into a large smile when I reminded him: “The blackberry bushes were just there.”

This article originally appeared in the September 2009 edition of FourFourTwo

As Zinedine Zidane gets set to return to the France national team setup as head coach, it is worth remembering just how big an impact the 54-year-old has had on his nation’s football culture.

From his upbringing in Marseille to becoming the face of France’s historic 1998 World Cup victory, few players have left such an indelible mark on the game.

For his former France teammate Djibril Cisse, Zidane’s influence went far beyond his impact on the pitch, as the ex-Liverpool striker believes that the former Real Madrid man’s journey, personality and playing style all contributed to making him a sporting and cultural icon.

Cisse on Zindane’s influence

“He was a little kid from the mean streets of Marseille,” Cisse tells FourFourTwo of Zidane’s beginnings, where he was born and raised in the city’s gritty La Castellane neighbourhood.

“He came from a very tough neighbourhood - a background that swallows so many people up. It’s not easy to become someone with this kind of start in life, but he did it.”

It was this ability to rise from such humble beginnings to the very top of the globe’s most popular sport which makes Zidane’s story so compelling.

And for Cisse, this - in addition to his sublime ability with a football - all plays into why Zidane was able to make such a difference in society.

“The best players in the world don’t just win matches but they influence people’s lives,” he continues.

“Zidane didn’t do that with his personality, like Ali, but he did it with his technical ability, his winning mentality and his elegance.”

This came courtesy of Zidane’s positive approach on the pitch, as he would let his attack-minded football do the talking.

“He was never the type of player who would sit deep and hope for a draw. He always saw the possibility to break forward and go for the win and you always had a chance with him in your team.

“Not only that but his sublime skill, his showboating and his effectiveness made so many people around the world fall in love with French football. Playing alongside him for the national team was an honour.

“Again, like Jordan, he is the GOAT of his sport in my opinion. A legend in my country."

Uruguay’s 2010 World Cup campaign was something of a rollercoaster ride for La Celeste.

After missing out on the 2006 edition, the team topped a group featuring France, Mexico and hosts South Africa on their way to the semi-finals, where they were eventually eliminated by the Netherlands.

This would prove to be Uruguay’s best World Cup campaign since their 1970 fourth-place finish, but the two-time winners needed to dig deep to even make it to the tournament.

Forlan on his memorable World Cup qualfying strike

With their qualification hopes hanging in the balance, the team travelled to Quito to face Ecuador in their penultimate qualifying match, knowing that defeat could end their hopes of making the World Cup.

The challenge of playing at 2,800 metres above sea-level is a well-documented one, but this particular match would go on to be one of striker Diego Forlan’s most memorable performances.

“It was the penultimate matchday of qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup,” former Manchester United striker Forlan tells FourFourTwo.

“We were in Quito, a city where it’s always difficult to play because of the altitude. In the second half, Antonio Valencia scored to make it 1–0.

“We were against the ropes, because a defeat would have left us with no chance of reaching South Africa.”

A goal behind and in tough conditions, Uruguay needed someone to step up.

“Straight after that blow, we put together a good move, I assisted Luis Suarez and we made it 1–1,” he continues. “But we needed to win.

“In the very last attack, Ecuador’s goalkeeper fouled Edinson Cavani inside the box. I was the most experienced one, so I decided to take the ball and assume responsibility.

“Even though it was a critical moment, I don’t remember feeling particularly nervous. I struck it perfectly into the top corner.

“That win took us to the play-offs against Costa Rica and we ultimately reached the World Cup.”

“I know what to expect from George Best.”

Some statements are just destined to make their speaker look foolish from the moment they leave their lips. On September 4, 1976, it was the turn of Lindsay Parsons to find that out. Bristol Rovers’ stalwart full-back was speaking to the press ahead of his side’s Second Division fixture against Fulham at a packed Craven Cottage – more than 21,000, double the average gate, would cram in to witness the debut of the former Ballon d’Or winner.

“I’ve played against him before against Manchester United,” Parsons went on. “I’ve never had a complex about him and I’m not going to start now. I’ll mark him out of the game. There will be no dream debut for George Best.”

It took just 71 seconds for Fulham’s new star man to make his brash man-marker look silly, curling an exquisite free-kick around the Rovers wall and into the net with effortless class, as spectators still made their way through the turnstiles.

It would be the only goal of the game, but for the remaining 89 minutes, Best made Parsons and his team-mates dance to his tune, as if to highlight just how misplaced the defender’s arrogance had been. A drop of the shoulder would send them one way, a stepover the other, a feint of a pass bringing them back again, all against a backdrop of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from Cottagers who couldn’t quite believe their luck.

Best’s performance raised a glaring question that dominated the backpages of the tabloids the next day. How could this footballing icon, one of the greatest players in the world, be playing in the Second Division?

The simple answer lay in direct opposition to Parsons’ claims: after he left Manchester United, you never really knew what to expect from George Best.

“Damn those electric curtains!”

When people recall the magic of the Manchester United great, they remember him in the iconic number seven shirt, just as he remains in statue form outside Old Trafford. Most likely, they remember his stratospheric rise to global stardom, and his goal against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, in the year he was crowned the continent’s finest player. They might also remember him scoring six goals in a single game, during an 8-2 FA Cup thrashing of Northampton Town.

For the most part, they remember Best of the 60s, but that was merely part one. Throughout the 70s and early 80s, the second part of Best’s career was as bizarre and chaotic as the first was miraculous.

Over the course of a decade, Best turned out for a plethora of different clubs across the globe, was sacked by some, walked out on others, was taken to court by one, and was served a worldwide playing ban by FIFA. It was a cyclical tale of brilliance, hope and self-sabotage that few could take their eyes off.

“He was never late for training. Never missed it. And he was a great trainer, too,” said former Manchester United team-mate Willie Morgan. “His downfall started when he had that bloody house built.”

In July 1970, Best moved out of his humble room and board at Mary Fullaway’s house in the Manchester suburb of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. He’d stayed with the maternal figure since moving to the club at the age of 15, and throughout his rise to the top, but was now settling into his first own home – one much more befitting to his level of celebrity.

The purpose-built luxury bachelor pad, which he named Que Sera, was packed with smart-home gadgets far ahead of their time and was said to be one of the most famous modernist designs in the country. It was also credited as the catalyst of its owner’s unravelling.

With little to no security and a design of floor-to-ceiling windows all around, Best found himself living in a £35,000 goldfish bowl, as crowds of people would form outside the building. The problem, compounded by the fact that regular planes on the Manchester Airport path would set off the automated curtains and give the tourists a good look at Manchester United’s top scorer in his bedroom, made him seek an escape. As he sought refuge from his own home in the city’s bars and nightclubs, a spiral of missed training sessions, disciplinaries and public criticism began.

“I just don’t know what’s wrong with the lad,” his boss Matt Busby told reporters after the first such incident. There would be many more under successors Frank O’Farrell and Tommy Docherty – by New Year’s Day in 1974, Best was playing his last game for the club, an unbefitting 3-0 defeat at QPR.

He was just 27 years old, but as time moved on from that fixture at Loftus Road, doting fans grew doubtful of ever seeing him on a football pitch again. For nearly two years, one of the world’s most talented sportsmen spent his prime living the life of a retired footballer in Spain, insisting he was done for good. The only football he played came in the form of a handful of games for Jewish Guild in South Africa for an £11,000 payday, and two friendlies for non-league Dunstable Town.

Throughout it all, Best remained registered to Manchester United, and needed the club’s permission to play. His sustained attachment left some hope of a return to Old Trafford, although not much expectation. What nobody could have possibly expected, however, was what happened next.

The friendlies at Dunstable – a favour for their manager Barry Fry, his former team-mate in the Manchester United youth system – had lit a fire in Best, and he announced to the world that he was making a comeback. It wouldn’t be with the Red Devils – instead, the superstar decided to officially sever ties with the club and sign for fourth-tier Stockport County.

“I want to harden up,” he said. “I want a bit of kicking from eager youngsters in the Fourth Division to keep me on my toes, to keep me moving. But I’m after the big time and I’m determined to make it.”

Playing only in Stockport’s home games, he set about getting himself into shape and dodging the temptations of his vices by checking himself into a health farm. He was determined for it to be the beginning of a rise back to the top. Where better to start than the bottom?

“He’s the greatest player I have seen,” Stoke City forward Jimmy Greenhoff declared after a friendly match between his First Division side and Stockport on November 10, 1975. “No-one else could have come back after two years and played as he did.”

The crowds were drawn in – Stockport’s attendances tripled for a glimpse of Best on the pitch. They got what they came for. The Northern Irishman scored his side’s only goal in a 1-1 draw, but was unlucky not to bag a debut hat-trick, hitting the crossbar twice.

Over the next 47 days, Best played three league matches for the club, starring in all of them, scoring two goals, inspiring two wins and a draw. Having suffered defeat in seven of the previous 11 matches before the shock signing, Stockport now looked like a side who couldn’t lose. Suddenly, every club wanted a piece of George Best – his outlandish plan to use the Fourth Division as a way of putting himself in the shop window seemed to be working.

“I’ll give some team at least three good years if they give me a good contract,” the 29-year-old declared in one of many ‘come and get me’ pleas. “If I can get to Spain to sign for Real Madrid, who’ve come in for me, I could make a fortune. No woman, no taste of high life, is going to take that chance away from me.”

Handcuffed to a model

Real Madrid and Barcelona were indeed said to be interested, but no official approach was ever made. There were advanced talks with top English clubs, but they wanted insurance for taking on a footballing magician with a penchant for disappearing acts, so offers from the likes of Chelsea were on a pay-as-you-play basis. The FA had made it known that such a deal wouldn’t be allowed, with the concern being that the terms would facilitate another home-games-only affair.

Best had a brief spell in Ireland with Cork Celtic – on the other side of the Atlantic though, the burgeoning North American Soccer League (NASL) was going all out for his signature. Los Angeles Aztecs were so desperate to stave off the competition that they agreed to Best’s request for them to also sign his pal – gambling buddy, Bobby McAlinden. George made the case to the Aztecs general manager John Chaffetz by describing McAlinden as a “good little midfield player” who’d “played for Manchester City”.

“That satisfied him,” Best recalled. “I simply neglected to say that Bobby only played once for the City first team, before being transferred to Port Vale and then Stockport.” At the latter, McAlinden had only played for the reserves, before quitting to become a roofer – before his move to Los Angeles, he was more used to five-a-sides at the local YMCA.

A smug Best thought he’d tricked his new club, and perhaps he had. But the willingness to bend to their star player’s will was a sign of things to come. Chaffetz realised the way to deal with the reputation of his new signing, as well as the media circus that tagged along, was to lean into it. He met Best at the airport and immediately handcuffed him to a young model he’d brought along for the occasion, telling everyone who’d come to welcome the star that the stunt was to “make sure he doesn’t go anywhere”.

The club’s head coach Terry Fisher also understood the assignment. “There was going to be one set of rules for George and another set for the other internationals on my team,” he said. “Once you understood it wasn’t about trying to get George to conform to anything, it was more going to be about trying to understand what George wanted from coming to America, you could form a partnership.”

The approach was a welcome change for Best, who found glittering form, armed with a point to prove. Previously he’d ducked out of an agreement to join New York Cosmos from Manchester United – the NASL side instead signed Pele and general manager Clive Toye, still reeling from being stood up at Manchester Airport, teased: “Why sign George Best when you can sign the best?”

Just like a certain Second Division full-back later found out, words like that tended to stay ringing in the ears of the former Ballon d’Or winner. “I’m better than Pele,” Best told reporters after arriving in the NASL. “In fact, I think I’m better right now than Pele was in his prime.”

During his time there, Best lit up the league, named in the division’s all-star team alongside Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Gordon Banks. “For me, America offered a fresh start,” Best wrote in his autobiography, Blessed. “It took me out of the goldfish bowl at home and the drinking, gambling routine which I knew I had to stop. It also allowed me to play football without the massive pressure that had been on me when I played for United. I was training like a lunatic at the beginning... I drastically cut down on my drinking too and for a time, at least, I kept the demons at bay.”

Two other names to feature in the NASL’s all-star line-up were Rodney Marsh, of the Tampa Bay Rowdies, and Bobby Moore, who’d joined San Antonio Thunder on loan from Fulham. Once the NASL campaign finished in late August 1976, the trio all headed to Craven Cottage.

Best’s dream debut against Bristol Rovers was followed by one of his greatest showings since the glory days, in a 2-1 League Cup win over Peterborough. With Best operating on one wing and Marsh on the other, the two played as though the rest of their team-mates were front-row spectators, seeking each other out every time one of them received the ball. Towards the end of the first half, Best broke the deadlock with what one newspaper reporter described as “one of the finest goals I have ever seen”. Taking the ball from Marsh, the long-haired and bearded No.7 casually flicked it up into the air and volleyed a looping shot from 30 yards, which dipped into the top corner.

While Manchester United gave Best his greatest memories on a football pitch, Fulham provided him with the most fun he’d ever experienced on one. That Peterborough victory was the start of a partnership that brought entertainment back into English football, during a time when it was criticised for being dull and defensive. On occasion, Best would even run over to the opposite wing and tackle his own team-mate, as an audacious party trick.

“We had celebrities coming to watch us every week,” remembered Tony Gale, a youngster at the club back then. “Anyone and everyone wanted to come and watch Fulham play in the Second Division. Rodney and Mooro brought a certain glamour, but George is the man I still regard as the best I played with. Goodness knows what he was like in his pomp. Every day in training, we watched him do things with the ball that I never saw anyone do again throughout my career.”

Behind bars

It may not have been the return to the top that Best felt he was destined for, but those years in the white of the Aztecs and Fulham, rather than Real Madrid, remain celebrated. Sadly, his association with both soon turned sour as he admitted later that he began to “wake up in the mornings needing a drink”.

A drink-driving car crash outside Harrods in London catapulted Best through the windscreen, fracturing his shoulder and leaving him needing 57 stitches in his face. After heading back to LA for the 1977 NASL campaign, he returned to Fulham that autumn, but made just 10 more appearances, fleeing back to America to open a beach bar and become his own most loyal customer. “I decided I’d had enough and went back to LA,” Best wrote in his book. “It was the off-season of course, but there was no off-season as far as drinking and women were concerned.”

Fulham were furious. Following Best’s appearances in the 1978 NASL, he didn’t return to Craven Cottage at all, instead heading off on a European friendly tour with Detroit Express. The Cottagers took him to court, prompting FIFA to issue a worldwide playing ban that remained in place for six months.

By then, Best had already left Los Angeles, too. A new owner had taken over the Aztecs and planned to tap into a new supporter demographic by filling the squad with players from Mexico, resulting in a fast decline in the standard. “I followed the familiar pattern of drinking to forget the football and managing it so well that I even forgot to turn up for training,” Best said. “In the end, I told them I didn’t want to play for them any more – they packed me off to Fort Lauderdale Strikers.”

With the “demons well and truly returned”, as Best put it, he played on for another six years, although that was broken up by his fight against the ban, two spells in a rehab centre and a three-month prison sentence for drink-driving and assaulting a police officer. He had spells at Hibernian, San Jose Earthquakes, Bournemouth, Brisbane Lions and Northern Ireland’s Tobermore United, as well as making guest appearances for Hong Kong duo Sea Bee and Rangers, Newry Town, Australian club Dee Why, and Reading for a friendly against New Zealand at Elm Park in October 1984, by which time he was 38.

Despite Best’s struggles, there remained moments of mind-boggling brilliance. His Fort Lauderdale debut had seen him score with his first touch, finding the back of the net again from “an almost impossible angle” in a 5-3 thriller. So great were some of his performances for the San Jose Earthquakes that Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson arranged to meet the 35-year-old in London to discuss a shock return. Just like the Cosmos boss at Manchester Airport, Atkinson was left waiting on a no-show.

Asked years later what his biggest regret in life was, Best responded without hesitation: “Leaving United.” Finally given the opportunity to return though, he’d instead signed for Bournemouth – at the Third Division club, a notice reading “George Best will not be playing today” was a more common sight than the man himself. You never really knew what to expect from George Best.

Manchester United have been punching beneath their weight for some time. Ruben Amorim might not have been the most disappointing head coach appointment, just the man in the plush racing seat when the music stopped on the Red Devils’ aura.

Amorim was in the Man United job altogether too long but ultimately left them in a salvageable position last season. After a couple of matches under caretaker head coach Darren Fletcher, the club turned again to former midfielder Michael Carrick.

The brief for the interim head coach was clear enough: Get results with a team that previously couldn’t even count as high as the sum of its parts, never mind perform beyond them.

How it all went right for Michael Carrick at Manchester United

Carrick’s interim spell was a success. Finishing third in the Premier League and returning to the Champions League after a season that totalled a meagre 40 matches was an admirable achievement, albeit the influence of Bruno Fernandes simply cannot be ignored.

The outer-layer assumption is that Carrick was able to unlock United’s capabilities by engendering a sense of simplicity and freedom, most notably by doing away with a formation Amorim was smitten with but which plainly wasn’t working.

There’s some merit to that simplistic analysis.

Very good players can perform or not on their own but they can also be held back by their environment and, for very many reasons that don’t all apply in Amorim’s case, by a head coach that doesn’t suit, motivate or maximise them.

Relieving that internal pressure on a presentable playing staff by simplifying things and switching to a back four might sound obvious but isn’t just basic stuff that any incoming gaffer could have translated into results.

Carrick didn’t stroll back into Carrington in January, tell his players that back threes are for dorks and immediately defeat Manchester City by just going out there and enjoying themselves. It was an actively smart move on his part to see what he had and understand how to unleash it.

It earned United the desired outcome and got him the job on a permanent basis. With third place and a Champions League spot in the bag, he was the obvious choice.

The audition is over and it’s time to play the part

What happens now is for real and it’s Carrick’s to own. ‘Interim’ is gone. There’s no bounce, no release from loathed methods of old. The only yardstick is the same one against which all United managers are evaluated and that’s an entirely different challenge.

The power of ‘getting it’ typically doesn’t carry from one season to the next. There’s a big difference between getting it and doing it. Doing it is now the task at hand.

There are reasons to be optimistic. Carrick himself is one of them; it would be unreasonable to discount the very tangible success of last season, and it bodes well.

After all, the former United midfielder hasn’t betrayed any reason to doubt him. His team’s recovery in the second half of 2025-26 amounted to just two losses and three draws in 17 matches and included wins over City, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Liverpool, all of whom finished in the top five with them.

United have brought in some top-quality players in the transfer windows both this summer and last.

Senne Lammens, Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko are all major contributors, and the same will be expected of Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos even if supporters hope for more additions. Even prodigal son Marcus Rashford could be in line to play his part.

For Carrick, the bar is high. Qualifying for the Champions League is the baseline for United, not a target, and even that would be deemed by some supporters as falling short of expectations.

The likes of United, Liverpool and Villa can also expect to face more significant opposition from big-spending Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, neither of whom can afford another season like the last and are doing everything in their power to make sure it doesn’t happen.

We’ll find out in the early part of 2026-27 whether United are set up for success. This time last year, with plenty of money spent in the summer but holes in the team and a head coach who steadfastly stuck with methods that seemed to do more damage than just not working, they were doomed to fail

Carrick is the face of what United supporters hope will be a different experience, with players performing to their abilities and operating as a team capable of re-planting the United flag.

His first match of the new season takes United to promoted Hull City. The second is at home against Ipswich Town. The expectation will be that they win both. It’s a familiar standard that Carrick is going to have to embrace.

Former Coventry City manager Gordon Strachan is delighted to see pride restored to the city after 25 years in the football wilderness.

Few sets of fans have suffered as much as Coventry fans in the 21st century.

The club's 34-year stay in the top flight came to end when Strachan was in charge in 2001, and things only went from bad to worse from there for year upon year.

“The eyes of the world are now on Coventry - and they're actually talking about football"

The club failed to challenge for promotion back to the Premier League for 11 years before eventually sliding into League Two amid constant drama around the club's then-ownership.

Coventry fans quite rightly protested as the club dropped down the leagues, were twice exiled from the city due to wrangling over the stadium, and were given little hope of better days ahead.

But Strachan says there is a very different feeling around Coventry after the club climbed their way back from those depths and finally won the Championship last season to put themselves back in the big time.

Strachan told FourFourTwo: “There are signs up, even on the road signs, saying ‘We’re back’.

"The community, football-wise, took a battering for 25 years. It’s a different world now in Coventry.

“The eyes of the world are now on Coventry, which is great, and they’re actually talking about football."

(Eyes don't talk, Gordon).

He went on: "For 20 years, it was ‘Who owns the stadium? Who’s got the shares in it? Where are we playing? Are we at Northampton or Birmingham? Who’s the owner?’”

Coventry will kick off their season with perhaps the toughest game they will face all season: an away trip to champions Arsenal on Friday, August 21.

The Coventry Building Society Arena will then host its first-ever Premier League game as fellow newly-promoted side Hull City come to visit on Saturday, August 29.

Strachan was speaking as an ambassador for Coventry Building Society. To find out more, visit thecoventry.co.uk

Erling Haaland has been a record-breaker throughout his incredible career - and now it's official.

The Manchester City star is the proud owner of four Guinness World Records certificates after he was rewarded for his feats for club and country.

Haaland has been prolific wherever he has played and is currently on 162 goals in 198 games for City, while he is also Norway's all-time top goalscorer, finding the net 62 times in just 55 matches.

The numbers behind Erling Haaland's four Guinness World Records

Haaland's long list of individual achievements include three Premier League Golden Boots in four seasons, the European Golden Shoe in 2022/23, and six successive Norwegian Footballer of the Year awards.

The 26-year-old's goals have fired City to six major trophies since his arrival from Borussia Dortmund in summer 2022, including the Treble in 2022/23, while he also scored seven times in just five matches at World Cup 2026 to help Norway reach the quarter-finals.

Haaland now has four more prizes to cram onto his mantelpiece after he was awarded the Guinness World Records certificates at the Etihad Stadium ahead of the new season.

His first award was for the most goals scored in a Champions League match, having struck five times in a 7-0 thrashing of RB Leipzig in the last 16 in March 2023.

Haaland shares that record with Lionel Messi, who scored the same number in Barcelona's 7-1 mauling of Bayer Leverkusen in March 2012, and Shakhtar Donetsk's Luiz Adriano, who equalled the feat in a 7-0 thrashing of BATE Borisov in October 2014.

The forward's next prize recognised his international exploits, as he received a certificate for scoring the most goals in the Nations League.

His tally of 19 is four clear of the next highest scorers - Portugal legend Cristiano Ronaldo and Serbia striker Aleksandar Mitrovic.

Haaland was also awarded a certificate for scoring the most goals in a Premier League season, having struck 36 times in his debut campaign in 2022/23 - surpassing even Andy Cole and Alan Shearer's shared record across 42 games in 1993/94, when the duo each found the net 34 times for Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers respectively.

The City superstar's final record was for being the fastest player to reach 100 Premier League goals, with his strike against Fulham last December bringing up the milestone in only 111 games - beating Shearer's mark by 13 matches.

Haaland, who features on the cover of the Guinness World Records Football Edition 2027, is set to begin what he hopes will be another record-breaking season on Sunday, when City face Arsenal in the Community Shield.

Manchester City begin their season in the Community Shield this weekend – with uncertainty about what their midfield is going to look like for the 2026-27 campaign.

City have recruited Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest this summer but look highly likely to lose linchpin Rodri.

The Spaniard is wanted by Barcelona, who have made bids for the 30-year-old after he was previously being linked with Real Madrid.

Decisions to make

Rodri only has one year left on his contract but Barcelona’s initial offer was reported to be less than £40m – understandably turned down, for a man who won the Ballon d’Or in 2024 and was crucial in Spain winning the World Cup this summer.

Former Manchester City defender Joleon Lescott knows that his departure would be a big blow to the club, but thinks his World Cup performances should be reflected in the fee.

“The length of contract plays a huge part – if he’s got three years left, I doubt he’s available, and he’s definitely not £35m,” Lescott told FFT.

“But he definitely didn’t do the club any harm in the fee he warrants, after his World Cup performances.

“He’d be a huge loss for City if decided to leave – he’s a top quality player, probably the best at his role.”

Manchester City have been strongly linked with Morocco’s World Cup star Ayyoub Bouaddi and Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez as possible replacements for Rodri, with Lescott suspecting the latter may be the better fit to step directly into the Spaniard's shoes right now.

“I haven’t seen a lot of Bouaddi but Enzo can obviously perform in the Premier League, so that would make more sense to me,” says the pundit for TNT Sports, who will be screening live coverage of Sunday’s Community Shield.

“I don’t think there’s a bad option or a bad decision, because they're both top quality players, but if you were to pick one of them, you’d probably say Enzo due to the fact that there’s no culture change – he’s already experienced and that’s a big factor.”

"Arsenal are the favourites"

As well as the likely loss of Rodri, Manchester City also go into the season without Pep Guardiola.

Arsenal are their opponents in the Community Shield – being played at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, because Wembley has been booked up by The Weeknd – and Lescott thinks the Gunners start the campaign as favourites to win the Premier League again.

“It's going to be difficult for City, with the fact that Pep’s not there,” he says. “And just generally – if Pep was there, I would still have said Arsenal were the favourites due to them being champions.

“And I think they’re favourites even more so now with all the factors that might be difficult for City – new manager, new players.

“Arsenal are the team that are most used to things – their manager’s been in charge for seven years, their players and their squad has been the same, they got to the final of the Champions League last year and won the league.

“All the things that are potential obstacles, they’ve experienced before, so I would say Arsenal are the favourites.”

With the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Europa League, Conference League, Emirates FA Cup and Women’s FA Cup ALL in one place. There’s levels to this. TNT Sports.

Erling Haaland scores too many goals to become Manchester City's new captain, according to Enzo Maresca.

The Norway striker has found the net 162 times in just 198 games since his £51m move from Borussia Dortmund in June 2022.

Haaland has helped City win six major trophies in the past four seasons, alongside a host of individual awards, and will be key for new manager Maresca in 2026/27 after the Italian replaced Pep Guardiola this summer.

The unusual reason why Erling Haaland won't be Manchester City's next captain

Haaland's importance to City appeared to have made him one of the leading contenders to become club captain, after former skipper Bernardo Silva joined Real Madrid this summer.

The other candidates included defender Ruben Dias and midfielder Rodri, although the latter could soon be out of the picture if he completes his expected move to Barcelona.

However, Maresca suggested that Haaland isn't in the running for the captaincy, telling reporters: "Erling was one of the first to send a message when I joined the club.

“At Leicester and Chelsea, I had a rule that when we scored, the captain had to come to the bench, not to celebrate, for instructions.

“But if he scores, then he can celebrate. So if Erling is the captain, we have a problem. F****** hell, can you imagine?”

Haaland is yet to feature under Maresca after he was allowed to miss City's pre-season tour of Asia due to Norway's run to the World Cup 2026 quarter-finals.

The Italian gave the armband to Phil Foden in the club's opening pre-season friendly against Inter Milan, before Dias skippered the side against a K League All-Stars XI and Atletico Madrid - and Maresca's rule was already evident in the middle game.

“If you saw the game on Wednesday, when we scored the first goal, Ruben came over to the bench," the 46-year-old said.

“I think even if it is two or three minutes, there is always something to adjust.”

Haaland was one of seven players who didn't travel to Asia as a result of their World Cup exertions, but the group - which also includes £116m signing Elliot Anderson, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki - are expected to be part of the squad for the Community Shield against Arsenal in Cardiff on Sunday.

It's been a long road for Matt Grimes to earn himself a chance to play Premier League football once again - but for Coventry City, it's been even longer.

Grimes made just four top-flight appearances for Swansea as a youngster after joining from Exeter more than a decade ago, and spent the past ten years trying to find his way back to the very elite.

But Coventry's wait has been more than twice as long – and they have virtually been to hell and back in the meantime.

"To win the league like we did... I don’t think people realise the magnitude of it"

Coventry's relegation in 2001 was followed by 11 years mostly in the bottom half in the Championship before the club slid all the way down to League Two in 2017.

Along the way in their rise and gradual climb back up the pyramid, Coventry fans went through exile from their stadium, protests, uncertain ownership situations, and the heartbreak of Championship play-off final defeat.

Having only joined the club in January last year, Grimes admits he can only really imagine the depths of despair Coventry fans must have reached during their darkest days.

But he was delighted to finally be able to give them a big moment to celebrate when they mathematically confirmed promotion with a late 1-1 draw away to Blackburn in April.

Grimes told FourFourTwo: “The club have been down to League Two, had to groundshare, all of that.

"So I feel like a bit of an imposter talking about it, because I haven’t endured it the same as the fans have.

"But to give that back on that night when we got the club promoted in front of 7,000 away fans, who travelled all the way to Blackburn on a Friday night, it was very, very fitting."

That promotion was the culmination of several years of going close to promotion, first under Mark Robins and then Frank Lampard.

Grimes believes that doesn't make the way they did it any less remarkable, though, saying: "When teams come down from the Premier League, it’s normal that all the bookmakers have them to be top two or top six

"So to win the league like we did, 11 points ahead of second... I don’t think people will realise the magnitude of it until maybe a couple years down the line. It was a season where most of what we touched turned to gold.”

Ruud Gullit won one major trophy as a manager – and Dennis Wise was the captain who lifted it.

After a legendary career in which he claimed two European Cups and the Ballon d’Or, Gullit joined Chelsea as a player in 1995, then was appointed as manager a year later following the departure of Glenn Hoddle for the England job.

The Dutchman would spend around 18 months as Stamford Bridge gaffer, guiding Chelsea to the 1997 FA Cup – the club’s first major trophy for 26 years.

When Gullit managed Wise

Wise had been part of the Chelsea squad since 1990, and was 29 when Gullit took charge six years later. He’d won 12 England caps but had not been a regular presence in the Three Lions squad, and didn’t go to Euro 96.

The midfielder was sceptical about whether his new manager would be good for him.

“We clashed early on because Dennis was convinced I was only interested in fielding foreign players,” Gullit revealed.

“I told him directly ‘I want you to play to your full footballing potential, not like a wild street-fighter picking up constant yellow and red cards’.

“I invited him over to my home for a proper talk. I said ‘If you play the way I know you can play, you’ll represent the national team.’ He literally laughed at me!”

In October, Chelsea travelled to Leicester for a Premier League match, and Wise was brought off at half-time.

“Shortly after our chat, I substituted him while captain against Leicester when we were 1-0 down, and we turned it around to win 3-1,” explained Gullit, speaking on behalf of NY Sports Day. “He was furious and didn’t speak to me for two weeks!

“Eventually, a mutual friend I played golf with told Dennis he was misjudging the situation and urged him to talk to me properly. He did, and the rest is history.

“Dennis Wise was an outstanding footballer when focusing on his technical game. I gave him an ultimatum – ‘Either play the way I know you can play, or you don’t play at all, captain or not.” He chose to adapt, and he was magnificent for us.”

The ability to play in football matches has been the story of the last eight months for Aston Villa striker Brian Madjo.

The 17-year-old signed for Villa from Metz in January but his new club couldn’t register him. Despite being born in North London, Madjo is a full international for Luxembourg.

His registration was complicated as a result and it was ruled that Madjo could not be registered until he turns 18 next January.

Could Brian Madjo play for England?

Eagle-eyed fans will have noticed that Madjo did indeed play for Villa in Wednesday’s UEFA Super Cup match against Paris Saint-Germain in Salzburg.

The back-to-back Champions League winners were clinical enough to come out on top despite being behind a fitter Villa in their pre-season schedule, but it was Madjo who hit the headlines by thrashing a volley past PSG goalkeeper Matvey Safonov despite the close attentions of Willian Pacho.

Thanks to Villa’s appeal, upheld late last month by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Madjo is now registered and active. His captain, John McGinn, believes he will be a ‘big player’ for the Europa League winners this season.

It doesn’t take much more than a glance in Madjo’s direction to see how literally true that will be, but his international eligibility is in the spotlight as a result of an eye-catching debut against the European champions.

Madjo is not a home-grown player. He was born in Enfield but played his junior football in Luxembourg before joining the youth set-up at Metz three years ago. He represented Luxembourg at international age levels and won three senior caps last year.

The teenager, who was also eligible for Cameroon, is qualified for England by birth and was able to change his international allegiance through FIFA’s one-time switch rules. Madjo has committed to England and quickly amassed nine caps – and four goals – for Liam Bramley’s under-17 side.

It’s premature to suggest that his international career will develop in any particular direction from here but Madjo is a player who backs his ability and has the physical presence to back it up, as PSG’s continent-leading defence learned in Salzburg on Wednesday.

“I know how to adapt because I’ve played in Luxembourg and in France, so I know what it’s like to change to another country,” he said on his arrival at Bodymoor Heath in January.

“On the pitch and off the pitch, that will really help me in Birmingham. Playing against senior teams helped me very much in every way: intensity, responsibility.

“It really helped me to be here because I know now what it’s like to be with experienced players. And I know how mature I am now because experienced players helped me.”

It’s easy to see why there’s such excitement about a player who has potentially 20 years ahead of him and yet already appears physically capable, but Madjo is 17 years old. He will need to be carefully managed, not only by Unai Emery but within the England set-up.

Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany is the football-minded figure who should lead FIFA in the future, according to former Belgium teammate Toby Alderweireld.

Kompany, a serial title winner as a player in Belgium and England, has also won back-to-back Bundesliga titles as the manager of Bayern, a position that comes with significant political context in the German game.

He played 47 times with Alderweireld as the pair formed part of the sturdiest and highest-quality defensive unit Belgium has ever had to offer, arguably one that should have been good enough to produce more at the base of the so-called golden generation.

‘He would be my president, always’, says Toby Alderweireld of Vincent Kompany

Former Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur centre-back Alderweireld was clearly inspired by Kompany as an international teammate and remains impressed as the 40-year-old emerges as a top-level manager.

“Who would be my pick to be the next president of FIFA? Vincent Kompany,” Alderweireld told Sveacasino.

“I never thought before that he wanted to become a manager. He always talked about going on a mission to change football but maybe it’s his mission to protect football. He would be my president, always.”

Gianni Infantino arrived at FIFA after rising to become the top administrator at UEFA, but he is not regarded as a football man. He has been accused lack of true insight into the substance of football and a perceived disregard for what makes the game what it is.

In Alderweireld’s estimation, that shortcoming is a serious one. Kompany’s primary qualification for the role in the eyes of his former colleague is that he was a top player and is a fine manager who quite clearly knows football inside and out.

“It’s very important that the FIFA president is someone who played the game and knows the game,” added the former Belgium defender.

“We've all been a fan. Then we've become a football player. We know both sides. When I was a child, I went to all the away games on the bus. We're not just people who made good money out of playing in the Premier League and Champions League.

“We’re football fans too. We played the game. We know how it is. What it is to be a player and a fan.

“The one thing that's very important is that the person who's doing the talking should be a football guy because look at the World Cup. A 20-minute show at half-time? That’s where you need someone who knows football to say no.

“The most beautiful thing about the sport is its traditions. New things have their place too but we need to protect the traditions as well and that’s why you need football players, football people who have been around the game, to keep the businessmen in check.”

Neither Kompany nor Bayern Munich have commented on Alderweireld’s recommendation. Watch this space?

Former Arsenal midfielder Anders Limpar has identified the key to unlock the best from England winger Bukayo Saka.

Arsenal begin their Premier League title defence against promoted Coventry City next Friday and manager Mikel Arteta will have his fingers and toes crossed that Saka is fit and ready to make a big contribution sooner rather than later.

Saka struggled for fitness during the World Cup and was used sparingly by England manager Thomas Tuchel but has been in pre-season training with his club and working towards a new season with the champions.

Trent Alexander-Arnold to Arsenal? ‘It would be absolutely great for Bukayo Saka’

Limpar, who was a key figure in the impressive Swedish national team of the early nineties, wants Arsenal’s recruitment team to look ahead with maximising Saka’s peak years. The key, he says, is an England player who wasn’t at the World Cup at all.

“I don't think Trent Alexander-Arnold is going to leave Real Madrid,” Limpar told Hajper.

“He's tough. He will be ready to fight to get his place back. He is not soft. He is a strong character.

“Of course, Arsenal need good players and strong characters and Alexander-Arnold is a good player with a strong character, especially when it comes to playing forward and going on the attack.”

Building a team and indeed a transfer strategy around Saka’s potential would be a major vote of confidence in the 24-year-old, who has more than justified that degree of faith in his seven seasons as a regular in the first team.

“It would be great for Arsenal but it would be absolutely great for Bukayo Saka if Alexander-Arnold arrived because there is a similarity between Saka and Mohamed Salah, and Trent would know exactly what to do with Saka,” added Limpar, who admitted that his suggestion is unlikely to come to pass.

“I don’t think Arsenal need to worry about this now because Trent Alexander-Arnold is a grafter of a player and he will stay at Real Madrid for another three or four years or however long it takes because he hasn’t shown his best for them yet.

“He has had injuries, he has been in and out, and he isn’t the only player who struggled there last season. He will want to fight his way back into the team under Jose Mourinho and prove everyone wrong.”

Limpar played more than 150 top-flight games in his seven years in England, winning the First Division with the Gunners in 1991 and the FA Cup with Everton four years later.

He went on to brief spells with AIK and Djurgarden in Sweden, and with Colorado Rapids in the early years of Major League Soccer, before returning to his first club, Brommapojkarna, to see out his playing career.

Brian Madjo twice headed wide as Aston Villa battled for an equaliser against Paris Saint-Germain in Salzburg on Wednesday night.

The 17-year-old is used to waiting. Madjo signed for Villa from Metz in January but has been unable to play. Despite being from London, the former Luxembourg international’s registration was restricted until he turned 18.

In the midst of a pre-season campaign in which he’s featured regularly and scoring goals, Madjo was freed up when the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a Villa appeal. He made his overdue competitive debut in the UEFA Super Cup.

George Hemmings is thriving in a new position

Madjo eventually got his goal, bullying one of the best defenders in Europe at the back post to thump home from John McGinn’s cross, but rewind the move by one more pass and you’ll find the biggest positive of the night from Villa’s perspective.

Midfielder George Hemmings, now 19, came to the fore last summer. Villa’s first friendly was against Walsall at the Bescot Stadium and Hemmings immediately caught the eye.

He continued in that vein all summer and did so with various partners in the double pivot favoured by manager Unai Emery. The teenager was kept with the first team while others went on loan and made four appearances off the bench including one start in the Europa League.

Hemmings struggled in that start against Red Bull Salzburg but has been redeployed this summer and has been consistently impressive. Friendlies don’t count for much but performing in a Super Cup match against back-to-back Champions League winners PSG crystallised his shift into Villa’s three attacking midfielders in style.

The former Nottingham Forest youngster did everything against PSG that he’s been doing in his friendly appearances. His move up a line, primarily but not exclusively to the left wing, has unlocked a whole new battery of skills.

Hemmings looks a different player when he gets the ball out of his feet and carries the ball into green space, as he did in the first half in Salzburg.

His link play in the attacking third is more polished than anything he produced from central midfield suggested and he’s a threat, too. He was as close as anyone to scoring a second Villa equaliser against PSG.

The teenager has been used on the right this summer even with McGinn available, but it’s clear that Emery’s preference for him now is to play from the left in the role that brought the best out of a resurgent Emi Buendia in 2025-26.

Buendia has moved into the 10 after the British transfer record sale of Morgan Rogers to Chelsea but played the same way he always has. It was Hemmings who got at PSG, Hemmings who connected the play and Hemmings, ultimately, who did the lion’s share of the work left behind by Rogers, in both boxes and everywhere in between.

What’s planned for Hemmings this season isn’t clear. The arrival of Swiss international Johan Manzambi will affect how Villa configure their three off the striker and Hemmings is behind the newcomer in terms of his development as a first team-ready player.

But whatever Emery has in mind, Hemmings’ rather familiar performance might well have sharpened the manager’s faith in his promising youngsters in advance of what’s sure to be a busy and difficult season.

Under-fire FIFA chief Gianni Infantino has the explicit support of Donald Trump but is still in his post regardless.

Infantino is clinging to his role despite the widespread backlash to his plans to sell a significant percentage of the commercial rights to the World Cup to private investors. Associates of Trump were reportedly lined up but resistance from around the world and within FIFA itself halted the sell-off in its tracks.

UEFA took its opportunity to flex a muscle or two. That Infantino’s scheme allowed the European confederation to mount its guns on the integrity of football only serves to show how abhorrent the FIFA president’s leadership has become.

Gianni Infantino set to play his other trump card

Opposition to Infantino’s sell-off plan and his presidency in general has been global but by no means universal. UEFA is among the bodies willing to dig in but there are reasons Infantino has enjoyed such widespread support and they’re not going away.

Waving enormous stacks of cash under the noses of struggling federations was supposed to win a vote on Infantino’s plans for the World Cup. When it comes to protecting his throne, he has other tools in the box.

“Gianni Infantino has reportedly expressed a willingness to support another expansion of the World Cup,” reports the Mirror.

“It has been suggested that Infantino would be in favour of the tournament increasing from 48 to 64 teams, amid ongoing uncertainty around his future in the job.

“Infantino travelled to Colombia on Friday to attend the inauguration of the country's new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, where discussions over a potential expansion of the World Cup are said to have taken place.”

Expansion of the men’s World Cup from 48 teams to 64, and indeed from 32 teams to 48, is motivated by matters beyond the sheer commercial weight of a larger tournament or any paper-thin notion that it welcomes more federation in the name of growing the sport.

Each FIFA Member Association holds an equal vote. Major changes are passed on that basis, which is vulnerable to disproportionately incentivising smaller federations with, say £30 million, and to complications like bloc voting.

With 211 members around the world, FIFA’s president would effectively be saying to a significant proportion of his electorate that he is opening the World Cup to them for the first time.

It’s difficult to vote against that, and it’s difficult to vote against the president who gives it his backing, no matter the extent to which he’s abdicating his responsibility towards a sport for which he shows little regard.

The fly in the ointment from Infantino’s point of view is that a 64-team World Cup can only be a meaningful pillar of his manifesto if some of those teams are European.

As it stands, the shelving of his plans have not yet stood down UEFA’s threat to boycott FIFA competitions – the European governing body demanded that future assurances be put in place and appears to smell blood in the big office.

UEFA is not fighting alone but even if an expanded World Cup tempts away its allies, even if all 156 non-UEFA nations voted for and then with Infantino, Europe can kill the World Cup at a stroke.

There's only a short list of footballers who have a particular technique named after them, like with the Cruyff turn, and, in different parts of the world, the Papinade and the Pele kick.

Fifty years on from the spot kick that made him a worldwide name, Antonin Panenka remains on that list.

The goalscoring midfielder enshrined his place in football terminology in the Euro 76 final, stepping up as his country's fifth and final penalty taker in the shootout against West Germany and dinking the ball into the middle of the net to win the trophy for Czechoslovakia.

"Even today, people in my country still want to take photos with me"

The sheer composure and audacity captured the imagination and changed the career of the then 27-year-old who plied his trade for hometown club Bohemians Prague.

Panenka went on to play in Austria, most notably for Rapid Vienna, with whom he won two Bundesliga titles, the second of which was part of a league and cup double, as well as finishing as the top scorer in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1984/85.

Panenka believes he never would have got that opportunity had it not been for that magic moment in the Euros final. As he told FourFourTwo: "My penalty in 1976 changed everything.

"Not only did I play abroad, I also had the chance to play in exhibition teams with some of the greatest footballers ever, like Eusebio, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff.

"At first I felt almost intimidated, but I realised they were completely normal people – open and generous with team-mates and fans.

"Even today, people in my country still want to take photos with me. They know who I am and what I did. I’ve left my legacy – to my country through that European Championship trophy, and to my fellow citizens by always behaving well and trying to set an example, both on and off the pitch.

"Of course, people only remember me for that penalty today, even though I trained hard all my life and did far more than just that on the field. Then again, how many footballers are able to say they invented a shot that will forever carry their name?"

Panenka's penalty did have a more unfortunate legacy for another player, though: the West German goalkeeper Panenka fooled, Sepp Maier.

"My God, how much Sepp Maier hated me afterwards," Panenka said.

"I think he stayed angry with me for more than 35 years. We have a mutual friend who visited his house in Germany and told me that Maier keeps a dartboard in his garage with a photo of my face on it!

"I couldn’t believe it, but he swore it was true. Later, we met and even drank a beer together, but never brought up the penalty. I don’t think he holds the resentment any more."

Poor Roberto Martinez. Wigan Athletic’s finest is in line for another of European football’s top international jobs, and there’s not an iota of excitement online from anyone: it’s all just comments about how he wasted Belgium’s great-ever generation of talent. Of how he must possess sensitive information of big-wigs at some of world football’s biggest federations. Of how if his name was Bob Martin, he’d be coaching in League One.

After this summer, few can defend his Portugal tenure and his decision to play a 40-something up front. And yes, perhaps it is surprising that Martinez – whose finest achievement in football happened within days of suffering relegation – keeps getting the biggest jobs on the continent. Though to give them their credit here, this is a forward-thinking move by Dutch football association standards, an organisation who lost their contact book about 15 years ago, but were lucky enough to still have the phone numbers of Ronald Koeman and Louis van Gaal scratched on a desk somewhere in the office, in case of emergencies, and have flitted between the two like a moth stuck between two streetlights in a cul-de-sac.

No, but seriously, the Belgium accusations simply aren’t true. Yes, they had good players. Yes, he hired Thierry Henry as a coach. But not every golden generation gets its flowers – and that one certainly should never have gotten as far as a World Cup semi-final in 2018.

Just saying that sounds utterly bananas. Thibaut Courtois in goal. Vincent Kompany leading the backline, flanked by Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen. Youri Tielemans, Mousa Dembele, Yannick Carrasco and Dries Mertens all from the bench. A front three of Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard, for god’s sake.

Were you to name the 23 best footballers to ever come out of Belgium, there’s a fair likelihood that around 15-20 of them were in that selection. That team would walk most leagues in Europe – two or three times in a row. But that’s not how tournament football usually plays out. It’s not how it’s played out for every so-called ‘favourite’ in international football for the past couple of decades.

The Belgians had been dumped out of the previous two tournaments at the quarter-final stage with a whimper. Despite the wealth of talent available to Martinez, there were chronic issues across the pitch: Martinez had absolutely nothing resembling a left-back, with Nacer Chadli crowbarred into a wing-back berth out of necessity rather than invention. At the time, that was seen as the biggest problem.

It wasn’t. Not really. A lack of central midfield options meant that Axel Witsel – playing in China, at the time – was the one constant to rely on. Mousa Dembele had missed the last few games of the season and looked way off the pace during the tournament, getting dragged off after an hour of Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kante giving him the runaround in the semi. Tielemans was still just 21; Marouane Fellaini was a battering ram and De Bruyne had to play deeper at times, despite not being a double-pivot player.

Thomas Meunier was good, if not spectacular. The three-man defence, meanwhile, was fairly solid, if not ageing. The lack of pace from Kompany and Vertonghen put a lot of burden on Alderweireld’s legs. But really, all the spotlight was hogged by that attack: a get-out-of-jail trio who were surely capable of destroying all before them.

And to reiterate the point, yes, they would’ve done, had this been the Premier League. But here’s where this really gets controversial: were De Bruyne, Hazard and Lukaku really the men for tournament football?

Again, not really. They did their best, though. De Bruyne actually didn’t have a bad World Cup: he actually created the third-most chances of anyone in Russia – behind Neymar and set-piece specialist Kieran Trippier – but coming off the back of a historic 100-point season with Manchester City, we all expected him to flourish in his free role, delivering more than just the single goal he netted.

He seemed quiet: yet this would become a theme of the playmaker in knockout footbal. He’d never escape the ghost accusations when it came to European ties – he was subbed off in both Champions League finals he played through injury, which didn't help – but this was just who De Bruyne was. In the very biggest matches, he would enhance other players around him, rather than rocketing a ball into the top corner. His sole strike in 2018 came against Brazil – so he couldn’t have gone missing that much in big games – but he was more of a complementary piece when it came to international competitions.

Even Hazard was attacked with the ‘missing in big games’ cliche. The Chelsea legend netted just two Champions League knockout goals – and one was a penalty. Yet in 2018, he was absolutely magical, his performance against Brazil one of the finest of the tournament (and the 85th best of all time, according to FourFourTwo). He scored three times: you couldn’t have asked much more.

Lukaku, meanwhile, came out of the tournament with four goals and an assist, following a first season at Manchester United (yeah, that really happened). And it’s fair to say that the years have not been kind to the striker’s big game reputation, either. Despite 93 goals for his nation at the time of writing – and 26 scored against teams who have reached the top 10 of FIFA’s ranks since he made his debut – abiding memories of Big Rom at World Cups are not the braces he put up against Panama and Tunisia in Russia: they’re of his disasterclass against Croatia four years later, and his cameo roles in the States, which are fairly fresh in the memory.

2018 was right about the time that the 25-year-old was midway through his target man conversion, too. Despite his strength and build, Lukaku was never the guy to hold the ball up and bring others into play, with his first touch oft-slammed: he was at his best on the shoulder of a defender, or alongside another Martinez (Lautaro, at Inter Milan). He became a worse player when the likes of Jose Mourinho and Thomas Tuchel tried to turn him into something that he wasn’t – yet at the 2018 World Cup, he was there to run into space, to bully defenders who couldn’t handle his movement, and to take on the thankless task of stretching play for Hazard and De Bruyne to work in, since Belgium didn’t really have another top-level runner in attack.

It’s levelled at Martinez that he should have done more with that frontline, all at their peak, at the 2018 World Cup. In the years since, there’s a very good case – almost watertight, in fact – that each of Hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku had their very best international tournament that summer.

It’s pretty well-established, too, that they lost to the better team: France were miles better in every department – and the Belgians gave them their trickiest game. The Red Devils comfortably beat England twice (in two games that didn’t matter). They outplayed Brazil; yes, they went 2-0 down to Japan, but pulled it out the bag when it mattered.

Belgium had the second-best players in the competition, and lost to the team with the first-best. But they were brilliance without balance: a semi-final was a proper achievement.

And by the time the Euros rolled around three years later, the golden generation had passed them by – Kompany had retired, Vertonghen and Alderweireld were well past their expirations and this was Real Madrid-era Hazard – yet they still didn’t disgrace themselves. Three wins in the group stage (caveated by the fact they played an understandably shellshocked Denmark after Christian Eriksen’s cardiac arrest), before beating a very good Portugal, and losing to the eventual winners. Again, was it really an underachievement? Or simply what we all expected from this group?

It’s really easy to look at talent that a team has on paper and deem them a failure for not winning something. But it’s an oversimplification to wonder why a Croatian side who have very few star names – but stars in all the right places – often do better than a Portugal side who have standout attackers that struggle to gel together; or why England looked quite so poor trying to cram Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden into a midfield, when a team like Spain are quite happy to take off a big name like Pedri in the middle for Mikel Merino, if he offers them box threat.

International football is very rarely about who has the best squad, but who has the best moments. Belgium had very few players who have consistently pulled something from nothing in the biggest knockouts: they're all league specialists. And over the course of 38 games, Roberto Martinez would’ve been chastised for not finishing in a Champions League spot, at least, with the players he had at his fingertips. Across just seven matches, he probably did well to get to the last four of a major competition with Fellaini and Witsel in his engine room.

And maybe we’ve been harsh on him. Maybe the Wigan relegation and a fairly un-notable Everton stint have shaped the worldview that this is a guy you shouldn’t hand top-level talent to. No, he’s not a world-beater. No, he didn’t work miracles with Belgium. But did you really expect him to win the World Cup with that?

Everton striker Martin Sherif has been formally charged by The Football Association for allegedly breaching its gambling regulations.

According to an official statement released by the governing body, the 20-year-old forward has been charged under FA Rule E1.2 in connection with 61 bets placed on football matches over a 15-month timeframe.

The FA states that the alleged infractions occurred between November 20, 2024 and February 12, 2026. Sherif has been given until Monday, August 17 to provide an official response to the charge.

Everton striker charged with betting offence breach

Rule E1.2 enforces a complete ban on betting for anyone involved in professional football in England.

Under the guidelines, players, managers, coaches, club staff, and officials are prohibited from betting, directly or indirectly, on any football match or competition.

The legislation also forbids passing on inside information to third parties for gambling purposes or instructing others to place bets on their behalf.

Sherif is a Liberian-born Netherlands youth international who joined Everton’s youth academy at the age of 13 in 2019 after making the switch from Dutch outfit Almere City.

He impressed in the youth ranks at Finch Farm before signing his first professional contract with the Merseyside club.

The young striker spent the 2025/26 season on loan in League One with separate spells at Rotherham United and Port Vale, making 29 senior appearances across all competitions and scoring four goals.

Should the allegations be proven, the Toffees forward faces potential disciplinary measures ranging from fines to a prolonged suspension from all footballing activity. Neither Everton nor Sherif have publicly commented on the charge.

Former Liverpool manager Arne Slot has released a new statement to clarify his current status.

The Dutchman won Liverpool their 20th league title in his first season, after taking the reins from Jurgen Klopp – but his team struggled in their title defence, limping to fifth in the Premier League.

The former Liverpool boss has been linked with the Netherlands job in recent days and has spoken about his next moves and “incorrect speculation”.

Arne Slot clarifies position post Liverpool

Slot was given his marching orders on Merseyside at the end of the season, following a difficult campaign in which he fell out with talismanic forward Mohamed Salah and finished the season trophyless – despite a summer spend of over £400 million.

The 47-year-old has confirmed that he had talks with Dutch football federation, the KNVB, but that he declined to take over as the Oranje's head coach from the outgoing Ronald Koeman, with the job now likely to go to Roberto Martinez.

“Over the past few weeks, and particularly the past few days, various reports have appeared regarding the vacancy at the Dutch national team, suggesting that I had withdrawn from the process after lengthy negotiations, including regarding salary and contract duration,” Slot said, via Voetbal International.

“That speculation is incorrect. We simply never reached that stage of the talks.

“At this stage of my career, I prefer to see myself on the training pitch with my players every day. Something that is simply not possible in the same way with a national team.

“I have enormous respect for the national team and for the KNVB and can only be positive about the professional manner in which the talks proceeded that week. For now, I believe that club football still has a lot to offer me.

“It would be a great honour to represent my country as national coach one day. However, this was not the right moment for me.”

Slot's success in his first season on Merseyside made him a leading candidate for the Dutch job, following an excellent spell coaching in his homeland.

The Hardenberg native achieved success at Feyenoord by winning the Eredivisie and reaching the inaugural Conference League final, only to be beaten by Jose Mourinho's Roma.

Slot left the Reds with a 58 per cent win ratio in 113 games. Liverpool take on Newcastle United when the season starts.

The 2026 UEFA Super Cup sees Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain take on Europa League holders Aston Villa at the Red Bull Arena in Salzburg.

All eyes won't just be on the lineups, though - the man in the middle will also take centre stage, at least for a short while.

Tonight's referee is 34-year-old Somali official Omar Artan, whose appointment represents an historic and unusual refereeing selection.

Who is Omar Artan?

Artan is an international referee registered with the Confederation of African Football (CAF). He joined FIFA’s international panel of match officials in 2018 and in 2024 became the first Somali official to referee at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

A year later, he was named the CAF Men's Referee of the Year following his displays across continental competitions. More recently, Artan officiated the second leg of the CAF Champions League Final.

Why is a CAF referee officiating a UEFA competition?

Under normal circumstances, UEFA match appointments are drawn from Europe's elite refereeing pool.

Artan’s selection for PSG vs Aston Villa is an anomaly, marking the first time a non-European referee will take charge of the UEFA Super Cup.

UEFA confirmed the appointment stems from a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between UEFA and CAF. The partnership was established to 'foster exchange programs, referee development, and cross-continental cooperation'.

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has praised Artan as an official of 'exceptional quality,' awarding him the match to demonstrate respect for African officiating standards.

But, there is more to Artan's story than his exploits in Africa.

2026 World Cup US Entry Controversy

Artan’s appointment in Europe comes straight after the high-profile geopolitical controversy he found himself at the centre of before the 2026 World Cup.

Having been selected by FIFA as one of the tournament's lead match officials, Artan flew to the United States in June. However, upon landing at Miami International Airport, US Customs and Border Protection denied him entry to the United States and placed him on a return flight.

US authorities cited strict travel bans and unspecified 'vetting concerns,' sparking backlash from the international football community. FIFA expressed regret but conceded they lacked the legal authority to override US immigration enforcement.

Following his exclusion from the World Cup, UEFA decided to grant Artan the high-profile European fixture as a gesture of solidarity. He will be supported by an all-African officiating team in Salzburg, too.

A player scores a last-minute winner and caught up in the emotion of it all, whips their shirt off, sending it as far into the crowd as physics will allow, or leaving it strewn on the turf behind them.

How many times have we seen it? Countless. And as sure as day follows night, the referee begins reaching into their pocket to provide the customary yellow card that goes hand-in-hand with the so-called 'offence'.

It's not hurting anyone, except for perhaps the egos of men who don't boast athletically-trained physiques. So, why are players penalised for this display of emotion?

Introducing Gillette's 'Shirt-Off' campaign

Arsenal legend Ian Wright and Gillette have teamed up to say enough is enough, once and for all. It's 30 years since the first yellow was shown for it, before the rule was brought into law in 2004.

Now joining forces, Wrighty and Gillette reckon it's had a fair run but the consensus is it's football's stupidest rule. You only need to listen to the boos from the stands whenever the official brandishes the yellow to determine whether the footballing populace are in favour or not.

Gillette’s ‘Worth Celebrating’ petition calls on football's decision-makers to scrap the automatic yellow card rule for players who do shirt-off celebrations. The aim? To defend emotional, spontaneous celebrations.

Liverpool's Hugo Ekitike made headlines last season when he was shown a second yellow card for taking his shirt off after scoring the winner against Southampton in the Carabao Cup.

IFAB (International Football Association Board) - which is an ironically joyful-sounding acronym - state players are permitted to celebrate when a goal is scored, but it cannot be excessive.

The rule exists to prevent players from engaging in provocative behaviour towards the opposing team and its fans, as well as displaying political messages.

At the heart of Gillette's campaign is the mantra that passion should be celebrated, not punished. And so, should the petition reach 100,000 signatures, Gillette will write an open letter to IFAB formally calling on the rule to be axed.

“Can we get rid of this silly shirt off rule and give them back a bit of passion and joy?!" Wright says.

“Sometimes players are getting sent off for two yellow cards when one of them is for taking their shirt off!

“I hope the fans get behind the petition, help us bring back the joy to goal celebrations.”

Gillette's bring back the joy petition can be found HERE. The GilletteLabs BODY + INTIMATE range is available now at major retailers nationwide and Gillette.co.uk.

It has been a summer of chaos and upheaval at Newcastle United, but you wouldn’t know it looking at Matthias Jaissle as he faced the media for the first time at St James’ Park on Tuesday.

Donning a smart suit, slicked-back hair, the Magpies’ new coach began by shaking every hand in the room before taking to the stage. He is supremely cool and confident, knowing his own mind and radiating belief that everything will not only be okay on Tyneside, but that great days and nights will follow.

Yet, having arrived at the end of July following Eddie Howe’s swift departure, in just enough time to see captain Bruno Guimaraes follow Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon out of the exit door, Jaissle is under no illusions. He faces a tough task, with just over two weeks until the Premier League opener at home to Liverpool.

"A big challenge"

The 38-year-old insists he sees opportunity rather than negativity. “It is a challenge, a big challenge,” Jaissle said. “We lost big characters; this is a vacuum. Others need to step into it, either through signing these profiles or existing players. We are aware of what we need internally.”

“Always when there is a transition period, it is not time to complain. We see the chance, not the negative. We want to do our best, and we are here to support the players. There will be adjustments in the next days and weeks, but we are focused on our daily work."

“I would have loved to have started from the beginning and been involved in everything, the signings and being involved from the first day. It is something I cannot influence.

“We’ll use every day in the best possible way to improve. This is a collective task for the whole club. If we are all thriving in the same direction, it is going to be successful.”

At their best under Howe, Newcastle were a nightmare to live with, hunting every ball and overwhelming opponents with their pressing and energy. It is no secret that the words “Intensity is our Identity” adorned the walls at the training ground.

As Howe’s flame began to wither towards the end of his reign, culminating in a 12th-placed finish in the Premier League last season, so did that core principle. But as a product of the Red Bull project, a disciple of Ralf Rangnick who has won league titles at RB Salzburg and Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia, Jaissle wants to reinforce it, describing Newcastle as a “perfect fit” for his ideals.

“[We should be] front-footed, intense, aggressive and, of course, successful,” he said.

“That is why I am sitting here; the belief we have as a coaching team, the identity of Newcastle United is linked closely together [to that]. It is a perfect fit in my eyes. It is going to be exciting.

“Football is really complex. We can press, why are we doing that? To get the ball, and then you need to have solutions and be smart. You have to have your identity, how we want to play, vertical, we want to score goals, but it depends how the opponent is playing, it is about adaptation as well. We need to use their weaknesses and our strengths.”

Jaissle also believes his relationship with England boss Thomas Tuchel could be important as he settles into Premier League life. They go all the way back to the early days of his playing career, and Tuchel influenced his coaching journey, too.

“The connection is there, it has been a long connection,” he smiles. “He was my coach when I was a youth player in Stuttgart. He is an amazing coach; I really admire him and appreciate him a lot – what he did and will do in the future. He is really special; I am looking forward to getting insight from him about the league.”

His persona on the touchline is at odds with the man sat in the chair at the front of the room. He says he is passionate, emotional and will not change that.

There were no promises of a long-term vision, and some fans could be forgiven for asking wider questions of the Saudi-backed project. But, ultimately, if first impressions say anything, Matthias Jaissle certainly believes he will leave his mark on Newcastle.

Liverpool can certainly challenge for the Premier League this season.

That's the view of former Reds striker Michael Owen, who says that he's been impressed by Andoni Iraola and that the Basque simply needs time at Anfield to show what he's capable of.

With Liverpool entering a new era, few are predicting the Premier League title to return to Merseyside – but Owen says it's “possible”.

Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola needs time to implement his own style, says Michael Owen

Liverpool were disappointing last season, with Arne Slot losing his job as a result of a fifth-place finish, despite winning the title 12 months earlier.

Speaking to FourFourTwo, Owen – who now helps UK gamblers compare online casinos as the British ambassador for Casino.org – believes that Iraola has a “building job”, and says he's impressed by what he's seen at Bournemouth.

“He has proven at Bournemouth that he is a top manager and has an excellent style of play,” Owen tells FourFourTwo.

“I have been very impressed when watching Bournemouth play and I hope this can be translated to Liverpool next season. It’s a rebuilding job for sure with Salah leaving and the way Liverpool ended last year and the style of football as well.

“So it’s a big job indeed and the pressure is on, as Bournemouth, with respect, are not as a big of a club as Liverpool, so he will need to look to implement a style of play quickly for the team to start winning.

Despite the size of the task at hand, however, Owen says that he's been so impressed with the style of play on the south coast that he believes that his former side could challenge for the title again.

“From the way Bournemouth played, if you can deliver that at Liverpool, with the quality Liverpool have now and can bring in, then it’s possible to begin to challenge again for sure,” he says.

Liverpool take on Newcastle United in the opening game of the Premier League season.

The best player on Earth right now, arguably, is Barcelona's right-winger. It's arguable, too, that Arsenal's, Chelsea's, Manchester City's, Manchester United's and – up until this summer – Liverpool's right-winger are all better than their left.

Scroll through the most valuable players in the world on Transfermarkt, and on the right, you'll be spoiled for choice: Lamine Yamal heading up the list ahead of Michael Olise, Desire Doue, Bukayo Saka, and new Real Madrid man, Yan Diomande. Transfermarkt actually values the top 10 right-wingers in the world right now to be a full £200 million more valuable than the top 10 on the left.

It begs the question of why there's such a difference between the two roles – which should surely be mirrored.

The dearth of world-class left-wingers has something to do with maths

Let's start with the very basics. Most left-wingers are right-footed attackers who cut in on their favoured foot to attack the goal: it's been that way ever since the likes of Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho revolutionised the game in the 2000s, but has a lot to do with players like Thierry Henry popularising the notion that an attacker in the opposite half-space to their favoured foot has more of the goal to aim at.

Estimates of how many players are left-footed fluctuate wildly, from 10 to 25 per cent – meaning that the vast majority of footballers on Earth prefer to use their right foot. From that, one may deduce that surely, there should be more quality left-wingers than right-wingers?

It's not quite that simple, however. Think of the maths.

Imagine you're coaching an academy team with five young attackers, who can all carry the ball, beat a defender, pick a pass and strike a ball with venom. Statistically, only one of them will be a left-footer. It simply makes sense to play the left-footer on the right wing, because he can do something the others can't: cut inside on his natural foot.

Right-footers thus end up elsewhere. Had Eden Hazard, Neymar, Jamal Musiala or Florian Wirtz been left-footed, they would have almost exclusively played on the right wing growing up – but because they're both right-footed, they've played plenty of football at No.10. Even a more physical profile like Jude Bellingham could have been developed as a right-winger, had he favoured his left foot.

By the time a left-footed attacker makes it in senior football, he has probably spent most of his development in the right-wing funnel. He knows that position better than anyone on the pitch – but having played his entire life with a touchline over his right shoulder, he may lack the 360-degree awareness that a right-footer may have had from having played a handful of attacking positions in his development.

It seems strange to imagine someone like Arjen Robben or Mohamed Salah regularly playing centrally, for example – but while Alexander Isak or Marcus Rashford have several of the same traits (speed, movement, finishing), the latter two have played as centre-forwards a lot more than the former. Their preferred foot has something to do with that.

There's certainly a perception, too, around what we expect from left-footed players. We expect lefties to be naturally more creative – they certainly look more graceful to the naked eye to some people – and that almost certainly has something to do with the fact that we just don't see them very often. There's a case, too, that left-footed right-wingers grow up in a right-footed world, and thus have to find solutions that right-footers will never have to.

And then there's the excitement of finding ‘the next Lionel Messi’ from those bringing the next generation through. If you have a mercurial left-footed attacker in your academy – whether that's Martin Odegaard or Ryan Gauld – there will be an effort to ensure a pathway: you've found the most valuable commodity in the game, after all.

The Barcelona side that gave Messi his platform has become so influential that dribbly midfielders and ball-playing centre-backs have both been prioritised in youth football over the last decade – to the detriment of several other roles in football. The role of a traditional playmaker has been phased out, with chance creation now mostly generated from a high press. Box-to-box midfielders have become rarer, as teams search for specialists.

And specialised right-footed left-wingers have usually either moved up front or into midfield, depending on their physicality and finishing – while players like Morgan Rogers and Junior Kroupi play behind a No.9, rather than straight from the left.

The lack of world-class left-backs

Thanks in part to that Barcelona side, we have more midfield profiles in the modern game than we know what to do with. A top-level midfielder with intensity can play right-back these days – just ask Arne Slot last season or Declan Rice over the World Cup – whether they're inverting or overlapping.

To highlight the maths once more, how many left-footed right-backs have you ever seen, compared to the other way around? Well, if fewer than 25 per cent of players really are left-footed, there's a fair chance that the average youth team doesn't even have a leftie in its back four.

And if this imaginary team really does have a left-footed left-back, capable of offering good support to the left-winger ahead of him, the chances of him being good at defending, too, are slim. Besides, even those left-backs who were world-class going forward and simply fine in defence – Bukayo Saka, Gareth Bale, even Alphonso Davies for Canada – usually get moved further up the pitch. Left-back is seen as one of the last priorities of any manager, despite how much world-class full-backs can elevate your XI.

Coaches are simply picking from a much bigger pool when it comes to right-backs: that's reflected in the lack of genuinely world-class left-backs at the top level. Just in English football, Gareth Southgate's golden generation was defined by its talent at right-back, with the likes of Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Reece James all fighting for a berth. The left full-back spot was all Luke Shaw's if he was fit: Ben Chilwell's, if he could make a case for it, and by the end, Trippier's.

But the game has changed significantly, and so many teams don't attack with Roberto Carlos-style full-backs anymore. That's partly down to increased physicality in the modern game, demanding more of what players are physically capable of – but it's also down to tactical shifts. Teams prefer to invert full-backs, or leave them at the back for building play. Wingers are expected to hold the width a bit more instead. Even the likes of Riccardo Calafiori and Nico O'Reilly – who really are attack-minded left-footed left-backs – aren't there to support their left-winger: often, the left-winger is there to hold the width for them to attack the box.

Which brings us to the left-wingers thriving in the modern game, and their constant behind them.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Bradley Barcola are lucky enough to play with arguably the best left-back in the world in Nuno Mendes. Vinicius Junior's best football at Real Madrid arguably coincided with Ferland Mendy's. Sadio Mane and Luis Diaz both played best alongside Andrew Robertson. Raphinha and Marcus Rashford both benefited from Alejandro Balde, Rafael Leao was world-class alongside Theo Hernandez, and Kingsley Coman was at his best with Alphonso Davies behind him. Cristiano Ronaldo had Marcelo, Hazard had Cesar Azpilicueta, Neymar had Jordi Alba, and Franck Ribery had David Alaba. Look at Ronaldinho and Carlos, or Henry and Ashley Cole.

Jeremy Doku has sparkled at times, and both Phil Foden and Leroy Sane were left-footed left-wingers holding width – but the right-wingers always shone more for Guardiola's Manchester City. Arsenal have had consistent right-backs in Ben White, then Jurrien Timber, while the left has been somewhat of a problem position, with arguably their last world-class left-wing option, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, having Kieran Tierney to work with behind him – while even Saka and Sead Kolasinac offered a solid overlap. Even Matt Targett and Ben Davies were solid Premier League-level players, there to provide a service for Jack Grealish and Son Heung-min, respectively: there are simply fewer and fewer of those bombing left-backs around these days.

That's not to suggest that any of those left-wingers wouldn't have made it without a left-back behind them to support. But it feels like the current generation of left-wingers are already at a disadvantage to their predecessors, when the standard and profile of left-back has changed so dramatically over the last decade.

And that's not even to mention the obvious: if top-level left-backs are in such scarcity, it's no wonder that the average right-winger looks so much better. The average left-winger is up against a right-back who, statistically speaking, fought off much better competition.

If Paris Saint-Germain value Barcola to be worth over €100m, there's a good reason for that. If Arsenal decide not to pursue an alternative to Vinicius Jr, that may well be because there are so few game-changers in that position in world football. If Nico Williams becomes a nine-figure transfer, that's maybe down to how few of his contemporaries are on his level. If Juventus charge more for Kenan Yildiz than RB Leipzig did for Diomande, it's not because of talent; it's because of scarcity. And perhaps, in a roundabout way, the cheapest way to sign a world-class left-winger is to sign a left-back who can improve what you already have.

Because strangely, world-class left-wingers have almost become a more precious profile than the Palmers and Sakas on the opposite side – despite all the odds. Does football need to evolve to produce more superstar left-wingers?

Trump claims it would be a 'terrible mistake' to replace him Infantino as FIFA President as the Swiss comes under increasing pressure to resign.

However, the Commander-in-Chief's defence has inadvertently exposed the exact reason for the rift threatening to tear at the fabric of world football.

Infantino is currently experiencing the greatest challenge to his presidency. For millions of supporters globally, the Swiss administrator has long been perceived as a symbol of corporate greed.

Stay in your lane, Donald

Dubbed a 'megalomaniac' by leading newspaper columnists and a man obsessed with endlessly expanding tournaments, diluting competition, and chasing commercial yields, Infantino is far from a popular figure.

All of the above has come at the expense of match-going fans and footballing tradition, too.

Fan hostility has now permeated executive corridors following the publication of a joint open letter co-signed by the presidents of UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and Concacaf.

The respective confederations have accused FIFA leadership of a 'failure of judgment' and a 'fundamental breach of trust' after Infantino attempted to push through a plan to sell off commercial stakes in the World Cup, and other FIFA competitions, to investors on a truncated timeline, which many believed was to limit scrutiny.

With three of football’s six continental bodies demanding an independent investigation and refusing to back Infantino, Trump took to social media to defend the FIFA chief.

"Fifa would be making a terrible mistake if, for any reason, they even considered replacing president Gianni Infantino," Trump said.

"He is fantastic, having just presided over the most successful World Cup, by four times, ever presented. If he is gone, it will never be as successful or profitable again."

Trump's mention of a 'profitable' World Cup misses the point spectacularly. To politicians and boardrooms, the tournament may be little more than a corporate asset. However, to the billions of people who watched this summer's competition, profit margins are of little importance.

The World Cup is cherished because it is a festival of football belonging to the collective. It is a global celebration of passion, national identity, emotion, and sporting endeavour.

When leaders reduce the world's greatest spectacle to dollars and cents, they highlight their blindness to the soul of the sport.

Newcastle United's close season of 2025 delivered the pain of losing one star player to a domestic rival, so how must it feel losing two?

Much has been written about the many big-name departures from Tyneside. The doom-mongering and pessimism was inevitable. Not only have Alexander Isak, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães left in the past year, but last season’s top-scorer in all competitions – Anthony Gordon – and the man who led Newcastle to a first domestic trophy in 70 years, Eddie Howe, are gone too.

Yet this has deflected attention away from those who have been arriving, in particular a relatively unknown 18-year-old from Ajax: Sean Steur.

The next Frenkie de Jong?

A new central midfielder with just 25 senior appearances was never going to get pulses racing, especially when stepping into an area of the pitch recently vacated by two players many deem worthy of the world-class category.

Unlike his ever-so slightly more senior fellow midfield signing Aladji Bamba, some have already made the judgement that Steur will be a rotation option. His capture, worth up to £23 million on a five-year deal, is merely indicative of an intelligent change of transfer approach, with the club now moving proactively for young talent with a look to the future.

However, based on what he has already shown in his short career and the undoubted potential, there is an argument that Steur is ready for first-team action now.

There have been few better all-round central midfielders to have broken into Ajax’s first-team this century than Frenkie de Jong. The Barcelona man may have struggled with injuries in recent years, but when fit he is still regarded as one of the best midfielders in the world. It thus stands that if the youth coaches at Ajax were describing Steur as the next De Jong, you should sit up and take notice.

The reasons for the comparisons, and the appraisal of Steur as the brightest emerging talent since the player Steur himself refers to as his idol, are numerous. As one might expect from someone who has come through the Ajax ranks, Steur is technically superb. Some players instantly look like they belong on a football pitch with a ball at their feet, and he is one of them. And not just because of his confidence as a 10 year old doing over 2,000 kick-ups pre-match in the Johan Cruijff Arena.

A two-footed passer, Steur can quickly glide up the pitch thanks to his ability dribbling the ball and has a quick change of direction for someone of his height. Akin to De Jong, he is always playing with his head up, able to slow or quicken the pace of the game. Although he made his debut under Francesco Farioli in the 24/25 season, it wasn’t really until midway through the last campaign that Steur became a first team regular.

This makes the stats from Opta even more impressive – of those midfielders who started the season 18 or younger in the Eredivisie, Steur came out on top for chances created and carries of the ball, and was second for passing accuracy and total passes. He was also first for duel success and second for tackles and possession wins. These latter statistics point to an element of De Jong’s game that is often overlooked and that Steur has also shown signs of having in his arsenal - the capacity to get around the pitch and break up opposition attacks. Interestingly, despite such a short space of time in the first team, he ended up the third-ranked Ajax player for pass completion in the opposition half, demonstrating an ability to make penetrating attacking passes, just like De Jong. Based on this, it’s unsurprising that Steur reads the game well, having an innate understanding of space that looks easy but we all know is not.

Even if he is still new to the stage, Steur has already shown he has the ability to conduct his own Dutch orchestra, just like his idol.

Mature beyond his years

One should never place too much weight on pre-season, but a recent piece of praise from The Chronicle on Steur is telling: “Looks to be playing above his tender years.”

Of the many reasons Ajax were reluctant to sell such a highly-rated midfielder, the maturity and confidence in Steur was a prominent one. For example, in terms of atmosphere and pressure, there are few more intense matches than ‘De Klassieker’ between Ajax and Feyenoord. In 2009, the mayors of Amsterdam and Rotterdam even came to an agreement with the KNVB to prevent away supporters from attending games, a ruling that still stands today. At just 17, Steur started in the fixture, before starring in the away game at De Kuip, scoring his first professional goal in the biggest fixture in Dutch football.

It takes a certain type of character to thrive in such an environment when still only a teenager. Indeed, it should also not be overlooked that he came to the fore during a period of significant instability at Ajax, where criticism rained down from the terraces more fiercely than the traditionally temperamental local weather. The club managed to get through three different managers last season and ended up a lowly 5th in the Eredivisie, their joint lowest finish since 1999. These are hardly stable foundations for a young player to find his feet. Yet Steur did.

Despite a slight frame, he is six feet tall and could yet become a real physical presence. Aligned with the aforementioned defensive statistics, he could offer more tenacity than people might expect. Furthermore, he is a player who knows his own mind. Make no mistake about it, he has arrived at Newcastle to play, not sit on the bench. One of the major reasons for him leaving Ajax was because of the lack of guarantees on his role whilst discussing an extension to his contract. It can only be a good thing that Steur knows what he has to offer and has the ambition to prove it on the biggest stages.

On its day, there are few more atmospheric stadiums than St James’ Park. To hold your own and thrive there – particularly in the middle of the pitch – demands a certain type of personality. A concoction of confidence, assuredness and resolve. Bravery is not just about putting your foot in but demanding the ball. Made of stern stuff, Steur will do both willingly.

A great fit for the new coach

Of course, another notable signing has been that of new head coach Matthias Jaissle. The former Red Bull Salzburg and Al-Ahli Manager is said to favour a dynamic, high-pressing and counter-pressing style, reliant on quick ball progression in the final third following a calm build-up from the back.

It almost reads like a product description for a Sean Steur all-action toy. The two-footedness and composure make him press-resistant on the ball, combining with his natural inclination to provide incisive forward rather than sideways passes to quickly spring attacks. The tempo of Premier League football may initially take some getting used to, but Steur has already shown at Ajax that he savours winning back possession. A midfielder for Jaissle needs to be disciplined, energetic and proactive – all attributes you can assign to Steur.

Moreover, he can play in multiple positions. This could be invaluable for Jaissle, who has shown a willingness to adapt shapes based on opponents and the context of a game. He can play as a deep-lying six, a box-to-box 8 and even as a number 10, although there is work to be done on adding goals to his game. The fact Newcastle moved so quickly for a relatively inexperienced player is perhaps evidence in itself that they believe Steur has what it takes to excel on Tyneside, even if the man originally in the dugout when he arrived has changed.

A player for now and the future

Fans should of course, keep their feet on the ground to an extent with Steur. He naturally needs time to adjust to a new league, a new home and to keep growing physically. Yet he has all the foundational attributes – technically, physically and mentally – that a player needs to succeed in the Premier League. There is no reason why he cannot start making a big impact in the coming season, and several reasons to suggest that Newcastle United now have a really exciting pool of young central midfielders to build around.

Ultimately, with the losses of Tonali and Guimarães, perhaps it will turn out to be short-term pain for long-term gain. And if that is to transpire, there is a strong chance that Steur will be at the very heart of that progress for many years to come.

Every footballer must have their own tale about the big transfer move that got away from them - but Michail Antonio's will have stung more than most.

The forward had already made the jump from non-league Tooting & Mitcham straight to then-Championship Reading as a teenager in 2008, but found minutes hard to come by in Berkshire.

Instead, the Royals sent him out on a series of loans - five of them in total - before making the final one permanent by taking up a move to Sheffield Wednesday.

'That was probably one of the best days I’ve had'

In the interim, though, Antonio spent time at Cheltenham, Southampton and Colchester...and his first two loan spells both left him with mixed feelings.

Antonio told FourFourTwo of his EFL debut for Cheltenham in 2009: "It was under Martin Allen, on loan at Cheltenham against Leeds. I went from playing in front of 200 to 500 people at Tooting, to 20,000 people at Elland Road in the space of six months. Unbelievable.

"The first 28 minutes, I was on absolute fire, beating people for fun, doing long throws, taking corners – I was doing it all. Then after 28 minutes, I tore three ligaments in my ankle."

Upon recovering from that injury, Antonio was sent out on loan to League One again.

This time he joined Southampton, where he played a part in their Johnstone's Paint Trophy triumph at Wembley.

He said: "That was probably one of the best days I’ve had.

"We had some unbelievable players in that Southampton squad – Kelvin Davis, Jose Fonte, Dan Harding, Morgan Schneiderlin, Adam Lallana, Jason Puncheon, Rickie Lambert, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – and we were in League One!

"It was crazy. Southampton had started the season on -10 points, and we just missed out on the play-offs.

"But we won the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final against Carlisle and I really enjoyed my time there.

"I actually wanted to sign for them again, but Reading told me no.

"The following season Southampton got promoted, then went from League One to the Premier League in only two years.

"I was left thinking to myself, ‘That could have been me…’."

Antonio made it to the Premier League himself just a couple of years later, though, leaving Sheffield Wednesday for Nottingham Forest before attracting the attention of West Ham, where he spent ten years and made 268 top-flight appearances.

Sometimes you just have to be patient, as it turns out.

West Ham’s move from the Boleyn Ground to the London Stadium remains one of the most contentious stadium relocations in recent football history.

The Hammers’ previous home was steeped in history and provided the kind of edge that is only found in old-school, tightly-packed stadiums that are becoming more and more rare in this age.

As the East Enders prepare for life back in the second tier, former Hammers favourite Tony Gale believes that the club’s fortunes on the pitch have indeed suffered following the 2016 move.

Gale on why West Ham struggle at the London Stadium

For Gale, the contrast between the side that left Upton Park under Slaven Bilic and the football that has been seen since is clear.

“Slaven Bilic took us out of Upton Park and I enjoyed that period,” Gale tells FourFourTwo. “Dimitri Payet, Manuel Lanzini, players that crowds wanted to watch.

“I remember listening to Slav, he was really interesting. He said the pitch is roughly the same size as Upton Park, but because of the vast expanse of the surroundings, there’s an optical illusion around the place and he said that reflected in the players. He found it hard to keep the team compact when they played at home.”

But Gale, who turned out more than 300 times for the Irons between 1984 and 1994, is aware that it is all too easy to look back with rose-tinted spectacles.

“But we must also remember that Upton Park didn’t always have a great atmosphere,” he admits. “You look at the start of our really good season in 1985-86, our crowds were down to 15,000.

“They’re now 62,000, and the acoustics of the new stadium are brilliant. Don’t tell me we haven’t had great nights with the European games there.

“The ground has changed but the crowd hasn’t. They’ll respond to 100 per cent effort and good football.”

And while the passion of the fans is there, Gale looks at the current infrastructure when it comes to why the club’s fortunes have been on the turn.

“Outside, it’s a different story,” he adds. “There should be more things around the stadium. You should feel like you’re coming up to a football ground, because it really doesn’t feel like that at present. It’s 20 to 25 minutes’ walk from Stratford station and it’s all wide open, not like the old cramped streets near Upton Park. That makes it hard to build an atmosphere outside.

“A lot of Premier League grounds suffer from that, but I miss the old programme sellers and old-fashioned hot dog stalls where you could smell the onions from the next post code. The London Stadium doesn’t ‘smell’ of football.”

When Diego Forlan put pen to paper and joined Manchester United in January 2002, it would prove to be a life-changing move for the then-22-year-old.

The £6.9million deal that saw him move from Argentine side Independiente to Old Trafford kicked off a career in Europe that saw him turn out for the Red Devils, Villarreal, Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan

On the international front, he would establish himself as a key part of Uruguay’s potent frontline alongside Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani, a journey which may not have played out the same, had he not netted a goal in a losing effort for Independiente.

How Forlan sealed his Manchester United move

When Independiente took on Boca Juniors at La Bombonera in December 2001, the visitors were very much the support act on a day when Boca were saying goodbye to a coaching legend, but for Forlan, it was a game that changed his life.

“This was the day Manchester United seriously put me on their radar,” Forlan explains to FourFourTwo. “A club scout, along with Martin Ferguson, travelled to Buenos Aires to watch me play at La Bombonera.

“The stadium was packed because it was Carlos Bianchi’s farewell as head coach,” he continues.

“I remember the fans chanting for him to stay, because his legacy at Boca Juniors had been extraordinary, crowned by that victory a year earlier against Real Madrid [in the Intercontinental Cup].”

With La Bombonera at fever pitch, the match lived up to the occasion, with attacking football on top and plenty of goals scored.

“It was an open game, with chances at both ends, and Boca Juniors eventually won 5–3,” Forlan adds, before turning to his own contribution that day.

“However, I scored a good goal with a powerful left-footed finish that confirmed the expectations of those who were watching me.”

And although Independiente would end up on the losing side as Boca delighted their fans with a 5-3 victory, Forlan would soon learn just how important his goal in would prove to be.

“I didn’t know it until a bit later, but that match was one of the ones that gave me the chance to make the leap from Argentina to the Premier League,” he adds.

A month later, Forlan was a plane to England and after a quick detour to Middlesbrough, would be signed up at Manchester United, where he would make 98 appearances and net 17 goals over the next three seasons.

"I was held in one of the roughest prisons in Singapore for 101 days. There were no beds or proper toilets. I was in cells with rapists and murderers. I was punched and beaten up every day. My nose was broken twice. I needed stitches for my eyes, my armpits and my chin. They tried to rape me.

“After two weeks, one guy tried to help me out. He said, ‘You have to fight back, or it will never stop.’ I was never a fighter before, but for the next 10 days I beat the s**t out of anyone who crossed me. I was so angry. Eventually, they began to leave me be. The worst thing was, I hadn’t even committed a crime.”

It may sound like the storyline to an unlikely Shawshank Redemption sequel, but it was a terrifying reality for Lutz Pfannenstiel. They’d form a remarkable anecdote for anybody to recount, but for Pfannenstiel, the experience is just a small part of an incredible life story. It’s a tale that includes him lying dead on the pitch for three minutes, being pelted with stones by angry mobs, comas, post-apartheid Johannesburg, business collapses, fast cars, faster women, court cases and trance music.

Oh, and did we mention the football? Pfannenstiel played quite a lot of it – in all, more than 400 games at 25 different clubs. In fact, the German goalkeeper became the first man on the planet to have plied his trade professionally across the six different FIFA continents – from Armenia to Albania, Bavaria to Brazil, New Zealand and Namibia to Norway and Nottingham. Not to mention a suitably bonkers spell with the Crazy Gang of Wimbledon.

“I’ve never stopped anywhere long enough to buy a house,” he told FFT. “But at some point I may buy a tour bus.” Apt for one of the most rock ’n’ roll football adventures ever told.

“HELLO, C**TS”

It may seem like Pfannenstiel decided to throw darts blindfolded into a world map for his career path, but it was never planned that way. Born in Bavaria in 1973, he was a talented young stopper who dreamed of keeping goal at the Maracana one day. Developed by his hometown club, Bad Kotzting, he won caps for Germany’s junior sides. Bayern Munich offered Pfannenstiel a contract aged 18, but he had other ideas. “I was obsessed with playing and didn’t fancy sitting on the bench,” he said. “Then a scout asked me if I wanted to sign for Penang. They offered me $5,000 and a car, which was decent. I thought I’d get some experience out there and then return to Europe.”

In Malaysia, he played in front of up to 40,000 fans, and at night doubled as a techno DJ on the Kuala Lumpur club scene. “I was a s**tty DJ, but I had the top records from Germany three months ahead of everyone else,” he laughed. “I’d just jump around like a lunatic.

“I liked new languages, religions and traditions – even if I was just a boy. But the football was average, and in 1994 Wimbledon came in for me. I would have gone anywhere in England. It’s a special football country for me.”

Joe Kinnear and Terry Burton had heard about the youngster via a scout, but if Penang had been an eye-opener, nothing could prepare him for the Crazy Gang. “It was a big surprise,” he said. “I went to training in Roehampton Park and imagined that England would have high-quality facilities. But we were in a park with two shacks, and two old ladies dishing out baked beans every morning! I signed a week-to-week deal anyway, lived in Kilburn, played in the reserves and made enough to just survive.”

Inevitably, he became victim to some Dons madness. “Gary Blissett and Mick Harford became good friends,” he said. “They took me out drinking once and I nearly died, so I didn’t drink again after that! I didn’t speak good English either, and the lads became my teachers. All they ever said was “f**king hell” and “stupid c**t”. I sounded like a gangster because I copied them. “Once we went for a meal and two girls were looking over at me. Gary told me that English girls loved polite foreigners, so to go over and say, “Hello, I’m Lutz from Germany, you little c**ts.” I said, “What does it mean?” They told me it meant “darling”.

"So I went over and said, “Hello, c**ts!” The girls nearly choked on their cake. But they realised I’d been tricked and told Gary off. “Another time I bought some nice shoes, but the dressing room was very dirty so I put them on the bench. The boys didn’t like that and when I got back in, they’d nailed my shoes to the bench. I went home barefoot. The shoes are probably still there now.”

Pfannenstiel didn’t make it into the first team at Wimbledon, but after a blinding display against Nottingham Forest’s reserves, found himself at the City Ground. “I thought I had a chance of ousting Mark Crossley, but the coach didn’t fancy me, so I went out on loan to South Africa,” he said.

He moved to Johannesburg-based Orlando Pirates, right after the end of apartheid and with the country still a political tinderbox. “It was very tense,” he remembered. “People were vicious to each other. Black and white were in different corners. It was very difficult, because the whole team was black and they really disliked me. But once they realised I was European and liberal, it got better. I enjoyed playing and the crowds were amazing.”

Pfannenstiel defied advice not to go out in the city’s lethal townships. “I was in a hotel in Hillbrow, the most criminal part of the city,” he said. “They told me, ‘Don’t leave or you’ll get shot.’ But after a week I was bored and thought, ‘Screw it.’ People knew me from the team and I ended up being OK. That gave me a nose for danger.” Come the end of the season, he was bound for very different climes: Finland. “I played for TPV and Haka, and it was nice, though very cold,” he said. “Finnish people are also difficult to get to know, until they get drunk, at which point they start telling you stuff you don’t want to hear. The language is also impossible – I can count to three and say a couple of swear words, that’s about it.”

With the Finns unable to meet his financial demands, Pfannenstiel ended up playing with Wacker Burghausen in the German third tier, but found himself no longer feeling at home. In 2000, an offer came in from Geylang United in Singapore. It was a move that would change his life forever.

Geylang were one of the biggest clubs in Singapore and Pfannenstiel was thrust straight into the first XI, and with it local superstardom. As well as being picked up to model for Armani Exchange, he started doing media work, analysing Premier League games for Singaporean TV and ESPN.

“I’d gone from zero to 100 in a few weeks,” he recalled. “I was playing in front of lots of fans and living like some kind of royalty. They party until they drop in Singapore. I was going mad with the cars and the girls – living it large. It was a huge high, but then everything came crashing down.”

JAILED FOR WINNING

Pfannenstiel’s nightmare began when he was approached by an Indian man at a petrol station. The man, recognising Pfannenstiel, asked the goalkeeper how he thought Geylang would do in their next game. “I said, ‘We’re in good shape, we’re going to win!’” the German replied. “It was an everyday conversation.” Two weeks later, the same man approached him while he was eating at a restaurant with friends. They spoke again about the coming weekend’s game. “I said, ‘We’re going to murder them!’ and that was that,” he recalled. A third meeting in a shopping centre also took place, where Pfannenstiel – accompanied by his girlfriend – told the same man that he believed his team would triumph once more. “I never saw the guy again,” he said.

Corruption was rife in the Singaporean football scene at the time, though, and a widespread clampdown was taking place. One Sunday, as he was watching TV with Australian footballer Mirko Jurilj, his peace was rudely disturbed. “The doorbell went and my friend opened the door,” he recalled. “A fist knocked him to the floor. It was four guys and they smashed up my whole house. They were corruption police – a rough unit. It was like something from a film. I said, ‘Guys, what are you looking for?’ They replied, ‘Money and betting slips.’ I said, ‘My money is in the bank, and I don’t bet.’ I even joked, ‘You’ve forgotten to break my lamp – maybe there’s a million pounds in it!’ So they smashed that, too. They found nothing.”

The laughter soon stopped. The pair were arrested, held for 48 hours with no lawyer and tortured, Pfannenstiel claimed. “I was being interrogated like a hardened criminal,” he said. “I was slapped, put naked into a cold cell, they tried to break my fingers. They asked me the same s**t and I just denied it. “Then the Indian guy appeared. I confirmed I’d met him and I signed a statement. The policeman said, ‘You’re going to prison.’ I said, ‘Listen up, mother f**ker, if you jail me for this, you must be a world champion. I’ve done nothing.’”

Released from custody, he carried on playing for Geylang – keeping seven clean sheets in the season’s final eight games. By that point, Pfannenstiel thought the scandal had blown over, but after the last match of the season, was told to report back to the police. He was handcuffed and told he was being charged with making a ‘verbal corrupt agreement’.

“This crime doesn’t even exist,” said Pfannenstiel. “The bookie said that I’d agreed to share his bonus if we won games. It was my word against his. But how could I be corrupt by trying to win a game, anyway? I always try to win!”

At trial, numerous witnesses spoke in his favour, while the prosecution just had the bookmaker. Yet Pfannenstiel was found guilty, the judge concluding that he had deliberately played better than usual in the games discussed. “It was even proven in court that no money changed hands,” he said. But he was sent away to the country’s fearsome Queenstown Remand Prison.

“When you’re fighting someone who has been given the death penalty, they don’t have much to lose,” he said. “I stepped over my shadow and learned how to fight. People were dying in there. It’s the worst place on the planet.”

“I WAS DEAD”

Pfannenstiel was finally released after passing a lie detector test and headed home. His ordeal was over. He’d lost 16kg of weight and was in a mentally fragile state. “I had the biggest party ever when I got out,” he said. “But I was carrying around a prison mentality. Every time someone looked at me, I felt like knocking them out. I threatened this guy at a beer festival. I had to get myself in check. I scared people.”

He moved to Bradford with his English girlfriend. “I liked Yorkshire,” he said. “I had a week-to-week contract with Huddersfield, and Lou Macari and Joe Jordan helped me a lot. I never told them about prison, but they knew.

“I trained with Bradford Park Avenue and a guy called Trevor Storton, who’d played for Liverpool, helped turn my life around. He got me thinking straight.” Not feeling quite ready for English football again, however, Pfannenstiel accepted another trial – more than 11,000 miles away. “I had a friend in the south of New Zealand, in Dunedin,” he said.

“All I wanted was a chance to do my studies in sports and tourism management quietly, and play a little football. So I flew 48 hours straight for the trial. Manchester to London, London to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Auckland, and Auckland to Dunedin. I slept for two hours, then went to the club. “At the trial, they hit shots at me for 40 minutes and I was on f**king fire. The chairman was open-mouthed and I said to him, ‘You decide what to pay me.’ I slept for 24 hours, then the next day they made me the best-paid player in the club’s history, as well as one of the best in the league.”

Pfannenstiel would play in New Zealand’s league for five months a year for the next five years, while spending the rest of the time out on loan. But there was more drama to come. During a spell back in non-league with Bradford Park Avenue, he was involved in a nasty collision with Harrogate Town’s Clayton Donaldson. His lung collapsed and his heart stopped beating for three minutes.

“In England, it takes a nuclear war to stop a game, but they stopped it after that challenge!” he said. “I was dead. I had no pulse. The physio brought me back to life three times. I was in a coma for a few hours and the doctor thought I might be mentally handicapped. “But then I woke up. Everything was a blur. I thought I was still playing, and I started shouting at the nurses, ‘Get me the f**k out of here, we’re winning 2-1!’ “The nurse told me that the game had stopped. I was fuming. I tried to move, but couldn’t. I thought I was paralysed, but was tied down. I told them, ‘Cut me off this bloody board’, then got up and walked home. But I couldn’t breathe, so I got driven back to the hospital.”

BIGGER THAN THE BIBLE

Ten days later after defying death, Pfannenstiel played again. Inevitably, he was soon back on tour. He played with Baerum in Norway (“peaceful”), for Calgary Mustangs (“they went bust while I was there”), Vancouver Whitecaps (“professional, and a lovely city”), in Albania with Vllaznia Shkoder, where away fans pelted him with rocks and fireworks (“they’re passionate”), and for Armenia’s Bentonit Ijevan. He also returned to New Zealand with Otago United, where he took home a penguin and kept it in his bathtub.

But it was a call from his agent that finally helped him achieve a personal dream. “He said to me, ‘Lutz, you’ve played on five different continents, how do you fancy making it six and going to Brazil with Atletico Ibirama?’” Pfannenstiel recalled. “It took me back to my childhood dream. The next thing I knew it was sunshine, beautiful people and football as a religion.”

He also finally got to don his gloves at the Maracana. “I’d been searching for something all my life, and it felt like that was it,” he said. “I smiled for the whole 90 minutes. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel restless.”

Spells at Floy and Manglerud Star in Norway, plus Namibian side Ramblers, brought Pfannenstiel’s playing career to an end. “I’d been the goalkeeping coach of Cuba,” he said. “Then I was a sports director in Norway, coached Ramblers and was assistant coach of Namibia.”

During the 2010 World Cup, he appeared alongside Oliver Kahn as a pundit on German TV, before becoming director of international relations and scouting for Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga. “It’s easy for me to scout, because I know people all over the world!” he laughed. “My phone book is bigger than the Bible. I’m the ultimate example of football’s globalisation. When I did well in weaker leagues, my ambitions meant I tried to better myself by taking new opportunities. And sometimes, like in England, I wasn’t quite good enough to make it, so I moved on. Circumstances just keep me moving.”

You get the impression that once he’d started globe-trotting, however, there was no stopping him – towards the end, his itinerant lifestyle became a USP and something he cashed in on, writing a book about his adventures.

Pfannenstiel learned some major life lessons along the way. Travel gave him a lot. “I have more air miles than any other person in the world, and I should be in the book of records for packing suitcases,” he said, before revealing an ambition to tick off the last remaining continent and play a charity match in Antarctica. Plenty of penguins there. Not so many bathtubs.

This article first appeared in the August 2011 edition of FourFourTwo magazine

Michail Antonio must have thought that international football was just never going to happen for him before he finally got his first cap for Jamaica at the age of 31.

The forward had the opportunity to represent the Caribbean nation nearly a decade earlier, but let it slip through his grasp.

By the time they came calling again, he had a realistic shot at making it into the England squad and was called up multiple times, only for injury to rule him out each time.

'I went to three England camps, then did my hamstring and never got called up again'

Antonio finally made his international bow in 2021 and has since gone on to accumulate 28 caps for Jamaica.

And while the forward is proud to have played his part, it would be entirely fair for him to wonder about what might have been had it not been for those repeated bouts of bad luck.

Antonio told FourFourTwo: "I was in three England squads and got called up for two others, but got injured for the other two, so I wasn’t able to go.

"I always wanted to play for Jamaica – every year from when I was born until I was 14, my mum took me to Jamaica so that I knew the culture.

"[Jamaica] scouted me at Sheffield Wednesday and said, 'We want you to come'.

"But they came to my next game against Leeds and I had an absolute stinker - I smelled out the entire pitch!

So they didn’t call me up for the next international – they were calling up players in League Two, and I’d been in the Championship for two years.

I’d been doing well enough – they saw me in a bad game, so I understand that they might think I’m not good...but it was one game. That annoyed me.

"Then they didn’t try to call me back up until Nottingham Forest, although I didn’t know about that call-up.

"At West Ham, I went to three England camps, then did my hamstring and missed the Euros, then never got called up again.

"Had that injury not happened, I definitely would have played a few games – how many I’m not sure, with the quality England had.

"But I got called up by Jamaica and I don’t regret it, I enjoyed every moment."

Leeds United will start the 2026/27 season on the up following last year’s successful return to the Premier League.

The club failed to establish themselves back in the top flight following their previous promotion in 2020, as their return from a 16-year Premier League exile ended after just three seasons, but supporters will now be hoping that they are back among the big boys of English football for the long haul.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Leeds were often one of the Premier League’s most exciting sides, their high-water mark being the run to the Champions League semi-finals in 2001, before the house of cards built by Peter Ridsdale came crashing down.

Lucas Radebe on Leeds’ 2004 relegation

Just three years on from their defeat to Valencia in the last-four of Europe’s biggest club competition, Leeds found themselves relegated following a turgid campaign which saw a squad, still packed with stars, fail to beat the drop.

Leeds United legend Lucas Radebe was at the club throughout this rise and fall, with injuries meaning the South African was only able to feature 14 times in the 2003/04 campaign, a season which still weighs heavy on him.

“That was very tough to take, especially as we had competed in the UEFA Cup during the 2002-03 season,” Radebe tells FourFourTwo as he recalls the rapid nature of the club’s decline.

“The next year, we saw the decline in our players and standard of game,” he continues. “It was saddening because we were trying hard, but it felt like everything was against us.”

The club's financial issues were beginning to hit home after chairman Peter Ridsdale’s admission that the club had ‘lived the dream’ and bankrolled a series of spending sprees on the assumption that the club would be regular participants in the Champions League.

“We were being dragged down to the relegation zone and due to mismanagement were losing the quality that had pushed us up the Premier League,” he continues.

For Radebe, who joined the club from South African side Kaizer Chiefs in 1994 and established himself as one of the fans’ all-time favourites over the next decade, relegation really hit home when he looked to these supporters.

“When we got relegated, we saw on the supporters’ faces what it meant to them. That was tough, very sad,” he recalls, before paying tribute to the unwavering loyalty of the Elland Road faithful.

“But the most important thing was that the fans never lost hope of a return.

“But for Leeds supporters it has been a rollercoaster ride, and it was a difficult time for the whole club until we finally made it back into the Premier League 16 years later, in 2020.”

When Tony Cascarino called time on his 12-year spell in English football to join Marseille in 1994, his career had already taken plenty of twists and turns.

The Republic of Ireland striker was 31 years old when he made the move to France, and as he joined Marseille in a turbulent time in the club’s history, few backed him to make a sizeable impact.

Instead, Cascarino’s two-season spell would reinvigorate his career, seeing him play some of the best of his career and leave a lasting impression among the Marseille fans.

Cascarino on leaving Chelsea for France

Cascarino was a free agent when he chose to leave Chelsea following an injury-hit spell at Stamford Bridge which had seen him net just eight goals in two years.

His fortunes would soon change, as he netted 31 goals as Marseille swept to the Ligue 2 title in the 1994/95 season, only for the club to be denied promotion due to an ongoing investigation into financial irregularities and match-fixing scandals.

“If I said it was difficult that would be an understatement,” Cascarino recalls to FourFourTwo when asked about the challenge of adapting to life at Marseille.

“But it was also the most beautiful thing. Marseille had won the Champions League in 1993 but were relegated a year later in a match-fixing scandal, and that gave me a window to sign for them.

“By the grace of God, I got an opportunity to go to such a big club that I never thought I could have played for.”

Cascarino would make the most of this opportunity, ensuring he was in the best possible condition for his new side.

“I was in great shape there – six to eight pounds lighter than I ever was in England,” he continues. “People even told me I looked ill when they saw me. My cheekbones were like cyclists in the Tour de France.”

This newfound fitness would quickly pay dividends as he made an immediate impact for his new side, as he would net 30 goals the following season when the club were finally able to be promoted, before he secured another move.

“I did amazingly at Marseille, but was even better at Nancy because it was playing for a smaller club in the top division. My goalscoring record was so good that I was even awarded the city’s Medaille d’Or.

“I’ve always said the biggest thing that I achieved during my career was to turn things around at 31, after suffering a lot of injuries at Chelsea, which let me have those glorious years in France and play until I was 38.”

During David Moyes’ second stint as West Ham boss, the Scot delivered the most successful period in the club’s modern-day history.

That culminated in the Hammers winning the Europa Conference League in 2023, during a run of three consecutive European campaigns.

But despite delivering silverware and memories that the club’s fans will cherish forever, he would be gone at the end of the following season, as the noise around his pragmatic style of play became too loud to overcome.

Michail Antonio on David Moyes at West Ham

Former West Ham striker Michail Antonio played some of his best football under Moyes, scoring 55 goals in 182 appearances under the former Manchester United boss, believing that the Scot quickly understood the soul of the club.

“He just knew the culture of the club and how to get the boys going,” Antonio tells FourFourTwo. “We didn’t play the best football, but we got results.”

Antonio does, however, acknowledge that this approach would sometimes come at the expense of winning over the fans.

“Obviously the fans were frustrated by the style of play,” he admits. “But we were winning and managed to achieve things with it.”

Moyes’ first spell saw him parachuted in to beat the drop in November 2017, but he would not be handed a permanent deal at the end of that season, despite meeting this objective.

“That’s why I was surprised he didn’t get the job permanently after his first spell, because he kept us up. Then the second time, the fans did get annoyed with the style of play and wanted us to play better.”

Moyes’ second stint saw him arrive in December 2019, with the club in 17th place and it would last for five years before the club looked to change direction.

While many pundits questioned the move, Antonio admits that the Hammers’ dressing room also believed letting Moyes go was a risk

“Yeah, because of what he was achieving,” the Jamaica international adds. “We kept getting into Europe and doing well.

“But in the last year, we were getting close to relegation, so you thought, ‘Even though we’re doing well in Europe, we might need to find a new philosophy.’”

Michail Antonio’s autobiography 'Humans Not Robots', published by HarperCollins, is available now

Cristiano Ronaldo’s time at Al Nassr has made him the first person in history to become a billionaire thanks to their football career – but even his wealth isn’t enough to get him into the list of the 50 richest people in the sport.

And Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds can forget about it, too – while he’s valued at around £300m, you’ll need a net worth of at least £2.6bn to make our list, restricted to people who own at least 25 per cent of a club, or otherwise have an active role.

Numbers are based on publicly available figures. Where possible, we’ve used Forbes valuations as of early December.

Despite hours of painstaking research, inevitably there may be some omissions, given the sheer number of clubs in world football. This, though, is one of the most extensive football rich lists created for some time.

50. JOHN TEXTOR - LYON/BOTAFOGO £2.6BN

Rarely do investors create as much noise as John Textor managed in 2025. The Missouri native had owned more a stake of more than 40 per cent of Crystal Palace since 2021, but sold his shares to compatriot Woody Johnson after the Eagles’ FA Cup victory.

The win meant Palace qualified for the Europa League – a boon for any investor – and New York Jets owner Johnson gladly swooped in for a £190m purchase. Textor, who made his fortune through a string of tech and media ventures, made a cool £100m profit, yet he parted with his portion reluctantly, as Palace tried in vain to save their Europa League place. UEFA rules bar multiple teams from a single multi-club ownership structure taking part in the same competition – Palace argued they weren’t part of such a structure, but Textor’s Eagle Football Group holds a controlling interest in Brazilians Botafogo, RWDM Brussels of Belgium and significantly French side Lyon, who’d qualified for the Europa League after finishing sixth in Ligue 1.

If things weren’t already complicated enough, Lyon were also battling to retain their place in France’s top flight, after the body that oversees the accounts of French professional football clubs ruled that they should be relegated because of the poor state of their finances.

Textor bought Lyon from long-time owner Jean-Michel Aulas in 2022, then invested in the squad after they sat bottom of the table early in his first full season in charge. In October 2024, Eagle Football Group announced debts of £422m. Lyon fans protested against Textor last summer but eventually the club won an appeal against relegation, selling Rayan Cherki, Said Benrahma and Georges Mikautadze to boost their finances, as well as releasing Alexandre Lacazette and Nemanja Matic.

Textor’s club purchases were angled towards a networked approach, with scouting, transfers and commercial strategies aligned across four nations. It was appearing to bear fruit thanks to Palace’s triumph and Botafogo claiming domestic and Copa Libertadores success in 2024, but Lyon fans aren’t the only ones who have been sceptical.

Botafogo fans turned on him in 2025 over poor performances and the sale of stars, including Igor Jesus to Nottingham Forest in a cut-price deal. Given that Palace supporters aren’t huge fans of him either these days, with the sale of his shares coming too late to avoid their demotion to the Conference League, Textor has quickly found out that club ownership isn’t the best way to make yourself popular.

49. JOHN FISHER - SAN JOSE £2.9BN

WHO? Fisher inherited part of his parents’ Gap retail empire. He’s no stranger to sports, having invested in baseball’s San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics – the latter he’s controversially moving to Las Vegas.

RECORD As well as a small stake in Celtic, Fisher bought the San Jose Earthquakes in 2007, helping them return to MLS, but has plans to sell.

48. RENZO ROSSO & FAMILY - VICENZA £2.9BN

WHO? Rosso founded fashion label Diesel in the late 1970s and now heads his Only The Brave Group, an umbrella organisation including a range of luxury designer labels.

RECORD He entered football in 1996, buying his local Italian side Bassano Virtus. In 2018, he rescued bankrupt Vicenza Calcio and merged the clubs.

=46. BEHDAD EGHBALI & JOSE E. FELICIANO - CHELSEA £2.9BN EACH

WHO? Eghbali and Feliciano made their fortunes in investment banking, before co-founding private equity giant Clearlake Capital in 2006.

RECORD Clearlake own a 61.5 per cent stake in Chelsea and Strasbourg, with Todd Boehly, Mark Walter and Hansjorg Wyss owning the rest.

45. GAIL MILLER & FAMILY - REAL SALT LAKE £3.6BN

WHO? Larry H. Miller began with a single car dealership in 1979 and created a conglomerate, also buying NBA team Utah Jazz. Wife Gail took over after his death in 2009.

RECORD Gail added MLS side Real Salt Lake and NWSL’s Utah Royals, plus their stadium, to the family’s portfolio in April 2025 for £450m.

44. FLORENTINO PEREZ - REAL MADRID £3.6BN

WHO? It’s hard to imagine the modern football landscape without the Real Madrid president. An engineer by trade, Perez built his fortune through ACS, a construction company he transformed into one of the world’s most powerful infrastructure, telecommunications and services groups. The corporate authority, wealth and influence that he garnered in that role led to the career shift that has come to define him.

RECORD After a first failed bid for the Real Madrid presidency in 1995, Perez finally won the role in 2000, pledging to sign superstar Luis Figo from arch rivals Barcelona if he won the election. Such a ludicrous notion was initially laughed at, yet Perez was a man of his word and pulled off one of the most jaw-dropping deals in football history.

Figo’s arrival kickstarted the Galacticos era, with Perez aiming to sign the world’s biggest superstars. In came Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, David Beckham, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and countless others in the years that followed. Across his two spells as president – he stepped down in 2006 after criticism over a poor period of results, but was re-elected in 2009 – Perez has reshaped Real Madrid from a traditional giant into a modern superclub that consistently delivers. Seven of Los Blancos’ record 15 European Cups have been won under his stewardship, while no club comes close in terms of marketing and revenue.

43. EVANGELOS MARINAKIS - NOTTINGHAM FOREST/OLYMPIACOS £3.9BN

Whether remonstrating with Nuno Espirito Santo on the pitch, or his club barring Gary Neville from using the City Ground commentary box, things tend to be eventful when Marinakis is around. He’s not short of passion.

Born into a prominent Greek shipping family, Marinakis built on his father’s foundations by growing Capital Maritime & Trading Corp into a global empire and becoming one of the most influential figures in international trade. He has added media and energy ventures to his portfolio, securing his status among Greece’s most powerful businessmen.

His first foray into football came in 2010, when he bought Olympiacos. The juggernauts have since re-established domestic dominance, won Greece’s first European trophy at club level with the 2024 Conference League, and have regularly reached the group stage of the Champions League. He has invested heavily in infrastructure, expanded the club’s commercial reach and pushed for modernisation across Greek football.

Yet his tenure has not been without friction. Marinakis is known for his fiery temperament – sudden managerial changes, public criticism of refereeing standards and other rows have become part of his shtick in Greek football, and it’s a temperament that English football fans have also come to know well.

In 2017, he brought his combative energy to the Midlands, completing a takeover of Nottingham Forest. His mission was clear – revive a sleeping giant. After years of instability, Forest suddenly had real financial backing and an owner willing to act decisively. The early years were turbulent – frequent managerial turnover and inconsistent recruitment slowed progress – but the pivot came with the appointment of Steve Cooper. Backed by Marinakis’s willingness to invest, Forest surged to promotion in 2022, returning to the Premier League after a 23-year exile. Survival at the top level has proved challenging. He has spent aggressively to keep Forest competitive, signing huge rafts of players in single windows. Some have flopped, while others have soared. His relationship with managers remains combustible – particularly Nuno, who masterminded Forest’s run to Europe last term before being sacked just a few games into the new season. Successor Ange Postecoglou didn’t last long either.

What can’t be questioned is Marinakis’s ambition. Forest’s commercial profile has grown, matchday revenue improved and long-stagnant infrastructure projects have moved forward under his direction.

42. JOE MANSUETO - CHICAGO FIRE £4BN

WHO? The Chicago Fire owner made billions telling investors how much things are worth – his Morningstar Inc provides recommendations to the asset management industry.

RECORD On-pitch results have been lacklustre, but Mansueto’s tenure at the Fire has brought a return to the city’s 61,000-seater Soldier Field stadium and a new training ground.

41. SALINAS FAMILY - MAZATLAN £4BN

WHO? Mexican Ricardo Salinas Pliego turned interests in telecomms, retail, media and financial services into the sprawling Grupo Salinas empire.

RECORD His company took on Liga MX side Mazatlan in 2020, but reports say he could sell his stake in them and Club Puebla, potentially funding a 2030 presidential campaign.

40. ROCCO COMMISSO - FIORENTINA £4BN

WHO? Italian-born Commisso moved to the States with his family aged 12 and worked in the financial sector before founding Mediacom, the fifth largest cable TV company in the US.

RECORD He first bought the New York Cosmos in 2017, then Fiorentina two years later, but La Viola have been rock bottom of Serie A this season.

39. JOHN W. HENRY - LIVERPOOL £4BN

WHO? Henry made his money in investment management and has since built a sporting empire, notably ending the Boston Red Sox’s 86-year wait for a World Series title.

RECORD His Fenway Sports Group bought Liverpool in 2010, and have delivered two Premier League titles and a Champions League to Anfield.

38. DIETMAR HOPP - HOFFENHEIM £4BN

If you tuned in to the Bundesliga over the 2019-20 season, there’s a good chance you will have seen Dietmar Hopp’s face staring back your way through sniper’s cross hairs.

That was the year fan protests over Hopp’s involvement in German football reached their peak, with games across several weekends plagued by threats and abusive chanting on the terraces. Hopp, the owner of TSG Hoffenheim, had rapidly become one of the most hated figures in German football.

After graduating from university in the 1960s, Hopp worked as a software developer at IBM. In 1972, he and four associates founded the SAP software company, which eventually became the world’s third-largest IT group and remains the most valuable company in Germany today. He retired in 2003, but retains around 5.5 per cent in shares and is one of Germany’s richest figures.

When Hopp bought his hometown side Hoffenheim in 1990, they were an eighth-tier club based in a small village. But thanks to his huge investment, they catapulted up the leagues, reaching the 2. Bundesliga in 2007 and the top tier just 12 months later. Hopp built two stadiums, a state-of-the-art training facility and is believed to have spent around £300m of his personal fortune on players, staff and facilities. His status as generous benefactor, while envied by rival supporters, was without question.

Until 2015, that is, when Hopp applied for an exemption from Germany’s 50+1 rule, which stipulates that 50 per cent of the voting shares in football clubs, plus one share, remain in the hands of their members, rather than investors and private companies. Exemptions are made for investors who can show they have supported a club “substantially and uninterruptedly” for 20 years, as Hopp believed he had. When this exception was granted, the abuse began.

To many ultras across Germany, Hopp came to represent everything rotten about the modern game – a billionaire who wanted to do away with tradition and seize power of a collective entity. Each and every time the 50+1 rule saw a new challenge, Hopp’s face finds itself back in the cross hairs.

He announced his decision to annul the exemption in 2023 and has since taken a back-seat role at the club, but football fans don’t forget in a hurry.

37. MIKHEIL LOMTADZE - WYCOMBE £5BN

WHO? The CEO of Kazakh “super app” Kaspi, Lomtadze sees football through the lens of data and bought 90 per cent of Wycombe in 2024, but is reportedly yet to attend a game.

RECORD The noises at Wycombe have been around long-term success and sustainability, but a slump from League One’s automatic promotion race will have stung last term.

36. RYBOLOVLEV FAMILY - MONACO £5BN

WHO? Dmitry Rybolovlev is a rare breed – a Russian oligarch who has avoided western sanctions following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he distances himself from the regime.

RECORD Since becoming Monaco’s majority owner in 2011, they have gone from Ligue 2 to the French title and Champions League semi-finals.

35. LEWIS FAMILY - SPURS £5BN

WHO? The ultimate power behind Spurs, the Lewis family are majority owners of ENIC, an investment group that is the club’s majority owner.

RECORD The asset-first ownership model: build an impressive stadium, grow revenues and let the football catch up. Trophyless years may have irked fans, but it hasn’t all been bad.

34. JUAN CARLOS ESCOTET - DEPORTIVO £5BN

WHO? The Madrid-born founder of the Venezuelan financial instutition Banesco, plus majority shareholder of Abanca, a major Spanish bank.

RECORD Abanca bought Deportivo La Coruna in 2020, with Escotet now their president. The struggling club’s debts have been paid off, and they have risen back to the second tier.

33. JIM KAVANAUGH - ST LOUIS CITY £6BN

WHO? A tech founder with a love for European football, Kavanaugh spent some of his World Wide Technology riches to bring MLS to St Louis.

RECORD The team were a winning machine in their debut MLS season. They became the first rookie club to top their conference, but suffered a humbling early play-off elimination.

32. NASSEF SAWIRIS - ASTON VILLA £6BN

The Aston Villa that Nassef Sawiris walked into in July 2018 was a lot different to how the club looks now. They were licking their wounds after defeat to Fulham in the Championship play-off final, which left them staring at a third straight second-tier season.

With only one year of Premier League parachute payments left, Villa were at a fork in the road. Fail to clamber back up to the top table for a third successive season and they risked going the same way as other fallen giants, dealing with the fallout of a long-term exile. The pressure was on for Sawiris and co-owner Wes Edens to hit the ground running. It was a gamble. Fast-forward to 2026 and that risk appears to have paid off, the good times returning via an exciting side that made the Champions League quarter-finals last term.

Perhaps Sawiris’ judgement should never have been doubted. The youngest son of Egyptian business giant Onsi Sawiris, Nassef is a part of one of the country’s richest dynasties thanks to the success of the Orascom group, which reaches across several industries. The Villa owner cut his teeth working with Orascom’s construction arm, helping the business grow beyond Egypt to become an international player.

Sawiris’ nose for opportunity led to Villa, joining forces with US billionaire financier Wes Edens to form V Sports and buy the club from previous owner Tony Xia when Villa faced significant cash flow issues. The group also now has a stake in Portuguese Primeira Liga club Vitoria Guimaraes.

The co-owners’ first big decision at Villa Park was to sack manager Steve Bruce following a run of three wins in 11 matches to start the new campaign, turning instead to Dean Smith. That appointment would prove an inspired move, with the hometown hero leading the Villans on a 10-match winning run to surge into the play-offs, where they beat Frank Lampard’s Derby to return to the Premier League.

That eye for managerial change has been a theme over Sawiris’ spell at the club, with Unai Emery’s arrival in October 2022, as the replacement for Steven Gerrard, transforming Villa into a regular qualifier for European competition. The yearly need to sell players in order to stay on the right side of PSR limits has complicated things, but there’s a real sense that, if rules allowed it, even more of Sawiris’ money would have been poured into helping the team climb up the Premier League table.

31. RINAT AKHMETOV - SHAKHTAR DONETSK £6BN

WHO? Ukraine’s richest man, he founded a business that supplied fuel for steel production and grew his wealth through investment group System Capital Management.

RECORD Shakhtar have been a force domestically since Akhmetov took over as president in 1996 and won the Europa League in 2009.

30. DENISE YORK & FAMILY - LEEDS/RANGERS £6BN

WHO? American sports aristocracy as owners of San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Penguins’ 1991 NHL championship team, the family’s wealth came from mall real estate.

RECORD It took two seasons for the Yorks’ 49ers Enterprises to get Leeds into the Premier League again, while they’ve had a rocky start to life with Rangers, just ask Russell Martin...

29. PAVEL TYKAC - SLAVIA PRAGUE £7BN

WHO? A hard-nosed investor with a formidable reputation in the Czech Republic, Tykac grew his wealth as a specialist in the energy market.

RECORD A lifelong Slavia Prague fan, he bought the club from Chinese ownership in 2023 and delivered a title last term, but results in Europe have been underwhelming.

28. DAN FRIEDKIN - EVERTON/ROMA £7BN

WHO? There’s a case to be made that Friedkin is the world’s coolest club owner. After taking charge of the family business, The Friedkin Group, which primarily distributes Toyotas across North America, he used his enormous bank balance to explore his own passions. He moved into film, buying the production company behind the Oscar-winning Parasite. The son of a wealthy pilot and stuntman, Friedkin has produced films himself and won an award for best speciality stunt after landing a Spitfire on a beach for Dunkirk.

RECORD Friedkin splashed £532m to buy Roma in 2020, hiring Jose Mourinho to lead the club to 2022 Conference League glory, and added Everton to his portfolio in December 2024. After years of frustration under Farhad Moshiri, Toffees fans are now hopeful for steady progress.

27. TODD BOEHLY - CHELSEA £7BN

It’s hard to believe that as recently as 2022, hardly any football fans had heard of Todd Boehly, such has been his impact leading the consortium that bought Chelsea in May that year.

Not that the American was alien to all sports fans. At the time of his arrival in London, Boehly already part-owned the LA Dodgers baseball team and women’s basketball outfit the LA Sparks. You don’t build that kind of portfolio without a whole lot of cash.

Boehly made that money in finance. After rising in banking and investment firms, he founded Eldridge Industries in 2015 – a private holding company that invests in multiple areas, including big tech, insurance and real estate.

Under the stewardship of Boehly and his ownership group, the Dodgers have won three World Series. There, he built a reputation for taking long-term control of players’ contracts by offering lengthy deals on high wages. While considered a risk by some, the move does limit the chances a valuable player can leave for free during their prime.

After the headline-smashing Chelsea purchase, in collaboration with Behdad Eghbali and Jose E. Feliciano at Clearlake Capital, Boehly repeated his old MLB trick by installing himself as chairman and interim sporting director.

His lack of a footballing background quickly saw him given meme status by Premier League fans, particularly thanks to some questionable early decisions. Fresh into his new role, Boehly went on a £250m spending spree, swiftly sacked Champions League winner Thomas Tuchel and called for a Premier League All-Star game. Next manager Graham Potter lasted just seven months.

With Boehly still chairman but no longer sporting director as of January 2023, the Blues gradually became more settled. The club’s ownership group also bought Strasbourg – the French outfit have risen to the point they returned to Europe this season for the first time in six years, while Chelsea have steadily progressed at a more high-profile level.

Italian gaffer Enzo Maresca was given a lot more time to work with one of the youngest squads in Europe, moulding them into an exciting unit built around the mercurial talents of Cole Palmer, and lifting the Conference League and Club World Cup last year.

It’s been proof that if you’re willing to throw enough money at a situation, eventually something sticks. People laughed at Boehly when he arrived in London. They’re not laughing now.

26 - MICHAL STRNAD - VIKTORIA PLZEN £8BN

WHO? Owner of Czechoslovak Group (CSG), a sprawling industrial-defence conglomerate originally built by his father, producing armoured vehicles, ammunition, radars and more.

RECORD Last year, Strnad moved into sports by becoming majority owner of Viktoria Plzen, with plans to expand youth development and ensure long-term economic stability.

25. AVRAM & JOEL GLAZER - MANCHESTER UNITED £8BN

WHO? American Malcolm Glazer built an empire through finance and real estate, before buying NFL side Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1995.

RECORD Glazer’s 2005 Man United takeover took out huge loans against the club. Sons Avram and Joel are still joint chairmen, but sold a 27.7 per cent stake to Jim Ratcliffe in 2024.

24. DANIEL KRETINSKY - WEST HAM/SPARTA £8BN

WHO? Kretinsky’s J&T investment group bought Sparta Prague in 2004, and he now owns 40 per cent of the club personally. He acquired 27 per cent of West Ham in 2021.

RECORD Conference League victory in 2023 had the Hammers dreaming, but unrest has been rife this season, though not focused on Kretinsky.

23. ARTHUR BLANK - ATLANTA UNITED £8BN

WHO? The Atlanta United owner’s smart retail moves made him billions as the co-owner of US DIY giant Home Depot. Blank also owns the Atlanta Falcons NFL franchise.

RECORD Atlanta United took MLS by storm after joining in 2017, winning the title in 2018 and the US Open Cup a year later, but things have slowed.

22 EDWARD S. ROGERS III - TORONTO FC £9BN

WHO? Canadian boardroom royalty, Rogers runs Rogers Communications, and is chairman of the Rogers Bank, Toronto Blue Jays and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

RECORD Toronto FC’s fortunes have fluctuated from the highs of winning the MLS Cup in 2017 to missing the past five play-off campaigns.

21. ANDERS HOLCH POVLSEN - FC MIDTJYLLAND £10BN

WHO? Dane Povlsen took over his family’s fashion house Bestseller at 28, while holding stakes in ASOS and Zalando, and owning 220,000 acres of the Scottish Highlands.

RECORD In 2023, Povlsen bought a majority stake in Midtjylland from Brentford owner Matthew Benham. The club won the title a year later.

20. ROBERT KRAFT - NE REVOLUTION £10BN

WHO? After hitting it big in the paper and packaging world, Kraft diversified into entertainment, real estate and private equity, notably multiple Super Bowl winners New England Patriots.

RECORD He founded MLS side New England Revolution in 1996. They finally lifted the Supporters’ Shield in 2021, setting a points record.

19. HASLAM FAMILY - COLUMBUS CREW £11BN

WHO? James Haslam started a petrol station empire in 1958. Son Jimmy now owns MLS’s Columbus Crew, NFL’s Cleveland Browns and a stake in NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.

RECORD After purchasing the Crew in 2019, Haslam scrapped plans to move the team to Texas. They won the MLS Cup in 2020 and 2023.

18. SHAHID KHAN - FULHAM £11BN

Big moustache, bigger pockets. If ever there was a walking, talking advert for the American dream, then it’s Fulham’s billionaire owner Shahid Khan.

Born in the Pakistani city of Lahore in 1950, Khan emigrated to the United States as a 16-year-old with just $500 in his pocket. He put himself through college washing dishes for $1.20 an hour, ultimately emerging with a degree in industrial engineering and bagging himself a director job at automotive manufacturing company Flex-N-Gate.

In 1978, he started his own business, Bumper Works, which made parts for customised pickup trucks, thanks to a $50,000 loan from the Small Business Administration. It was so successful, he returned to Flex-N-Gate after buying out his former employer and taking control of the firm. In just a few years, Khan transformed the company into one of the biggest automotive part suppliers in North America, becoming Toyota’s sole provider along the way.

Today, Flex-N-Gate boasts over 25,000 employees and 70 manufacturing plants across the US, China, Argentina, Spain, France, Germany, Mexico and Canada. A lover of sports from a young age, Khan became the first ethnic-minority owner of an NFL franchise in 2012, with the $770m purchase of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Eighteen months later, he paid north of £150m to Mohamed Al Fayed for Premier League side Fulham.

His tenure hasn’t been without its bumps, with the Cottagers relegated in his first season at the helm, ending a 13-year stay in England’s top flight. They almost went down again before coming back up via the play-offs in 2017-18. Two further relegations and promotions were to come, with Khan’s son Tony – installed as sporting director, despite little prior experience within the game and also splitting his time with his All Elite Wrestling interests – coming under particular fire from fans.

The West Londoners’ Premier League return for the 2022-23 season preceded an era of subsequent calm, however. Under Portuguese gaffer Marco Silva, who has performed miracles despite occasional frustrations in the transfer market, the club has remained well clear of relegation danger.

Shahid, in the meantime, has set about transforming Craven Cottage, commencing with a renovation of the Riverside Stand in 2019. Now complete, the stand boasts an extra 3,000 seats, luxury hospitality, a hotel, restaurants, bars and even a rooftop pool.

Jibes about Fulham being the club of choice for the champagne-guzzling upper-middle class are at an all-time high, but anyone who’s experienced a match from its sumptuous leather seats will tell you Khan has created something extraordinary on the banks of the River Thames.

17. JIM RATCLIFFE - MANCHESTER UNITED £13BN

Few modern superclubs can boast an owner who genuinely counts himself a supporter. In minority shareholder and overseer of football operations Jim Ratcliffe, Manchester United can.

Raised in a council house in Greater Manchester, a young Ratcliffe was a Red Devils fanatic from an early age. Yet few would have predicted his rise to one of football’s most prominent positions.

Ratcliffe took a circuitous route to his self-made fortune. After graduating with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Birmingham in 1974, he was reportedly fired from BP for having eczema. Undeterred, he joined Esso and studied for a masters at London Business School, before spending much of the 1990s working for a US private equity firm. Everything changed in 1998, when he launched INEOS.

The company hoovered up run-down petrochemicals plants across Europe, streamlined them and turned them into money-making machines. INEOS rapidly grew from a single Antwerp site into a global chemicals and materials group with tens of billions in annual sales.

Ratcliffe’s first foray into the sports world came in 2017, with the purchase of Swiss Super League club Lausanne. He added Ligue 1’s Nice in 2019, the same year he bought cycling’s Team Sky – the latter overseen by marginal-gains disciple Dave Brailsford, who would become a collaborator of Ratcliffe’s across multiple projects.

Sailing and F1 investments followed, yet it was his move into Premier League football that caused the biggest splash. When the Glazers announced they were looking for investment in Manchester United, Ratcliffe purchased a 27.7 per cent stake in the club, on the condition that he and his team would assume control of football operations.

Fans initially rejoiced at his arrival, as Ratcliffe overhauled a much-criticised executive line-up and promised to shift the club’s focus from commercial growth to winning silverware.

Yet it’s been far from plain sailing. Executive and managerial missteps – including Dan Ashworth’s brief tenure as sporting director and a U-turn over manager Erik ten Hag’s sacking in the wake of the shock FA Cup win in 2024 – plus more than 400 staff redundancies, have drawn ire from the fanbase.

There’s been the promise of a new 100,000-seater stadium, which Ratcliffe has dubbed “the Wembley of the North”, and the billionaire remains committed, but turning around a listing ship of such magnitude is his toughest challenge yet.

16. JOHANN RUPERT - STELLENBOSCH £14BN

WHO? Rupert ranks as South Africa’s richest man and serves as chairman for luxury goods company Richemont – with brands including Cartier – and investment company Remgro.

RECORD As owner of hometown club Stellenbosch, steady growth is the order of the day. They soon earned top-flight status and have finished third each of the last two seasons.

15. TAYLOR FAMILY - ST LOUIS CITY £14BN

WHO? The Taylor family are known for masterminding the worldwide boom of rental car giant Enterprise. They’ve applied their family values to MLS expansion side St Louis City.

RECORD After establishing the club in 2019, St Louis topped the Western Conference in their maiden 2023 campaign. Not too shoddy!

14. PHILIP ANSCHUTZ - LA GALAXY £15BN

WHO? “Without Phil Anschutz, there’s no MLS.” Those were the words of the league’s commissioner Don Garber in 2006. Even today, few would disagree. Born in 1939 in rural Kansas, Anschutz made his fortune after buying out his father’s drilling company, striking oil in Wyoming and selling a stake in the field to Mobil in 1982 for around $500m. He then diversified into transport, real estate and just about every other lucrative avenue one might expect.

RECORD Recognising the potential of football in his homeland ahead of the 1994 World Cup, Anschutz was one of the founders of MLS, owning a number of teams at various stages due to the league’s financial issues. It’s his stewardship of LA Galaxy, whom he purchased in 1998, that he’s best associated with, the club winning six MLS Cups on his watch.

13. FAIQ BOLKIAH - RATCHABURI £15BN

If you asked most people to name the world’s richest footballer, they’d get the answer wrong. It’s not Cristiano Ronaldo, nor is it Lionel Messi.

If you include former players, some might say Mathieu Flamini, but the former Arsenal midfielder was forced to deny that he’s now worth £26bn, after the environmentally conscious former player co-founded a biochemicals company in 2008. “This sum does not match up with the valuation of our company – in fact it’s the total value of the market we want to attack,” Flamini insisted. “There was a misunderstanding, as if we had given only one restaurant the value of the entire catering market.”

The world’s richest footballer actually plays for Ratchaburi FC in Thailand’s top flight, but Faiq Bolkiah didn’t rise from humble beginnings. Rather, he was born into unimaginable wealth as a member of Brunei’s royal family.

The nephew of the Southeast Asian nation’s Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, Faiq was born in LA in 1998, then moved to England and was educated at Berkshire’s prestigious Bradfield College. He joined Southampton’s academy aged 11, and had spells at Chelsea and Leicester.

It was while playing for the Foxes’ age category sides that Bolkiah made his international debut. Despite being scouted by the USA, owing to his dual citizenship, Bolkiah ultimately opted to play for his family’s nation. At the age of 18, he played the full 90 minutes of a Suzuki Cup qualifier with Timor-Leste. The fact he was captain on his debut, still a teenager, had absolutely nothing to do with his family’s status, we’re sure.

Bolkiah also played for Leicester in the UEFA Youth League, but moved on to Portuguese side Maritimo in 2020. A right-footed left winger who enjoys cutting inside and shooting from range, Bolkiah failed to play a first-team game for Maritimo, despite making the bench for a Primeira Liga clash against Lisbon juggernauts Sporting in February 2021. Come December that year, he joined Thai League 1 outfit Chonburi.

The first Bruneian to sign for a Thai club, Bolkiah finally became a regular starter with Chonburi, staying for two seasons and scoring his first goals in senior football. He moved to Ratchaburi in 2023, and has remained there since.

At the age of 27, Bolkiah surely won’t be thinking about post-playing pursuits just yet, although FFT can’t imagine he’ll feel the need to jump aboard the punditry circuit in order to make a few extra bob after hanging up his boots.

12. STAN KROENKE - ARSENAL £16BN

WHO? After he married Walmart heiress Ann Walton, Kroenke was taken under his father-in-law’s wing and launched a real estate empire, mainly focused on shopping malls.

RECORD He acquired full control of Arsenal in 2011. Despite consistent cup success, failure to land Premier League glory has frustrated fans.

11. PINAULT FAMILY - RENNES £16BN

WHO? The family own some of the best-known luxury brands in the world, such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, and have also branched out into the wine and culture sectors.

RECORD Since 1998, the Pinault era at Rennes has been about steady growth, rewarded with a Coupe de France triumph against PSG in 2019.

10. AMIN H. NASSER - AL QADSIAH £17BN

WHO? As club backers go, Nasser is in the big leagues as president and CEO of Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer. He was the face of their 2023 takeover of Saudis Al Qadsiah.

RECORD The team immediately won the Saudi First Division in 2024, and signed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Nacho for their top-flight debut.

9. DAVID TEPPER - CHARLOTTE FC £18BN

WHO? Investment banker Tepper left Goldman Sachs in 1992 to found hedge fund Appaloosa and is owner of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.

RECORD In 2019, he paid roughly £240m to bring MLS to Charlotte by launching a new team. They debuted in the 2022 season and draw some of the league’s top attendances.

8. SHEIKH MANSOUR - MANCHESTER CITY £23BN

Thanks to the investment of Emirati royal Sheikh Mansour, there’s a whole generation of Manchester City fans too young to remember a time before their relentless modern success.

It’s almost hard to imagine that, as recently as 2002, City were in the second tier, reliant on the goals of Paul Dickov and Shaun Goater to mount promotion pushes. Even as recently as 2008-09 they finished 10th – a distant 40 points behind rivals Manchester United, still the dominant force in English football. But everything was about to change.

The latter season marked the arrival of Mansour, who paid around £200m to purchase the club outright from Thai businessman Thaksin Shinawatra. If fans weren’t already excited by reports of their new impresario’s bank balance, the deadline day signing of Brazilian star Robinho soon sent them into overdrive. That was merely a taste of things to come, as City – dubbed the “noisy neighbours” by Red Devils gaffer Alex Ferguson – spent vast sums hoovering up some of the most coveted talent in world football over successive windows.

City’s 35-year wait for silverware ended in May 2011, as Roberto Mancini’s side sealed FA Cup glory. Twelve months later, they had a first top-flight title in 44 years, courtesy of Sergio Aguero’s iconic stoppage-time winner against QPR on the final day of the season.

The silverware has kept flowing, as successive managers and superstars have turned City into England’s most feared outfit. While that was already the case before Pep Guardiola’s 2016 arrival, the winning machine has since gone into overdrive. He has delivered six Premier League titles, two FA Cups, four League Cups and a long-coveted Champions League success in 2023 – the latter part of an historic treble.

Mansour’s ambition hasn’t stopped in Manchester. In 2013 he founded City Football Group (CFG), a global multi-club setup, with City as the flagship. He has acquired and launched clubs across the world. Notable members include Girona, Palermo and New York City, establishing a network sharing resources, scouting and commercial know-how.

Meanwhile, Mansour’s vast wealth has revamped every aspect of those clubs, with City boasting world-class academy, training and hospitality facilities – the former delivering a conveyor belt of starlets the envy of world football. In short, arguably no football club owner has delivered so much, so emphatically, to a single fanbase, in so little time.

7. IDAN OFER - FAMALICAO £25BN

WHO? A shipping, mining and energy magnate, he owns Quantum Pacific Group, which runs one of the largest private shipping fleets in the world.

RECORD Ofer bought an 85 per cent stake in Portuguese side Famalicao, who won promotion to the top flight in 2019, and a 33 per cent share of Atletico Madrid, though the club are currently being taken over again.

=5. MARK MATESCHITZ & CHALERM YOOVIDHYA - RED BULL CLUBS £33BN EACH

WHO? Austrian Mateschitz and Thai businessman Yoovidhya inherited their Red Bull stakes, respectively holding 49 and 51 per cent.

RECORD Red Bull have had success through Leipzig’s ascent in Germany and Salzburg’s Austrian dominance, plus hold a minority stake in Leeds.

4. HARTONO FAMILY - COMO £38BN

WHO? Among Indonesia’s most powerful families, the Hartonos made their vast wealth from tobacco, then moved into a host of other sectors.

RECORD A Serie D outfit at the time of their 2019 takeover, Como have been catapulted into Serie A with Cesc Fabregas in the dugout and Hollywood stars battling for tickets.

3. ARNAULT FAMILY - PARIS FC £143BN

WHO? The Arnaults are the French business dynasty, owning luxury goods company LVMH. Its brands include Louis Vuitton and Dior.

RECORD It took a matter of months for the Arnaults to end Paris FC’s 46 years out of the top flight in May. Now the club’s aim is to establish themselves as a genuine force.

2. AL THANI FAMILY - PSG £253BN

WHO? Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is the Emir of Qatar – in 2004, he founded Qatar Sports Investments and has ploughed the Gulf nation’s petrodollars into global sport.

RECORD The 2011 purchase of PSG transformed them into a superclub. By 2025 they’d secured 36 domestic trophies and the Champions League.

1. MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN & FAMILY - NEWCASTLE/PIF CLUBS £1.2TN

So loathed by the Newcastle faithful had owner Mike Ashley become after 14 years of inertia, fans would likely have been happy to see him replaced by one of the cast of Geordie Shore.

Instead, when the retail magnate did finally sell up in 2021, they were taken over by people worth over a trillion quid – that’s 12 zeros, for the record. The club are now owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia and their royals, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, the figurehead. The PIF also owns four clubs in the Saudi Pro League – reigning champions Al Ittihad, last year’s Asian Champions League Elite winners Al Ahli, Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr, plus Al Hilal, who had Neymar on their books for a period and beat Manchester City to reach the last eight of last year’s Club World Cup.

PIF’s vast wealth, aided by the nation’s huge oil reserves, prompted Newcastle’s long-suffering fans to quickly dub Bin Salman a hero – some even seeing fit to don traditional Arabic robes and head scarves to games in the aftermath.

The acquisition was the first major step in Saudi Arabia’s aggressive sports and culture investment push over the past four years, to boost the nation’s international profile. Everything from heavyweight boxing bouts and F1 to comedy festivals have recently been staged in Saudi Arabia, which has also won hosting rights to the 2034 World Cup. Critics have been quick to label the Saudis’ actions as sportswashing – a PR smokescreen to distract from human rights abuses in the country and its deeply conservative values.

Back on Tyneside, PIF’s arrival has rapidly transformed Newcastle. Just like Nassef Sawiris’ first move at Aston Villa, much-maligned manager Steve Bruce was quickly dispensed with – in came Eddie Howe, and with him a host of new signings who were capable of delivering an exciting brand of football.

It has transformed the Magpies from relegation candidates to Champions League regulars, even if Premier League profit and sustainability regulations have made it difficult for them to rise all the way up to title contention just yet, like Manchester City quickly did after Sheikh Mansour’s takeover in 2008. Last March though, Newcastle won the League Cup to finally end 56 trophyless years – on Tyneside, absolutely nobody was still pining for Mike Ashley.