Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i FourFourTwo UK

X @JamesAndrew_ E james.andrew@futurenet.com Ousmane Dembele has enjoyed highs and lows already in his career, but becoming only the sixth Frenchman to win the Ballon d’Or would undoubtedly be the crowning moment. After helping Paris Saint-Germain to become the undisputed kings of Europe during the 2024-25 campaign – Dembele was the jewel in their crown, and the Ballon d’Or is now rightly judged on a seasonal basis – the forward is understandably the odds-on favourite for the gong. Journalist, author and pundit Guillem Balague sits down with Dembele in this issue for an exclusive chat about his career, the past 12 months and what winning the Ballon d’Or would mean to him. If Dembele is the King of Europe, then the Queen is now unquestionably Chloe Kelly. Yet again it…

01 Which notable figure inexplicably joined Chelsea’s players for the trophy ceremony after the Blues’ Club World Cup Final victory against PSG? 02 Former Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag is coaching which European outfit during 2025-26? 03 Currently on four, Mo Salah is tied for the most Premier League golden boots with which other player? 04 Which goalkeeper recorded 165 Scottish Premiership clean sheets, before hanging up his gloves in 2023? 05 Middlesbrough signed Brazilian ace Juninho for the second time in 1999, from which European side? 06 This summer, which Lioness was the first in Women’s Euros history to score, assist and complete 100 per cent of her passes in a match? 07 Which club who currently play their football in League One are known by the nickname…

FLAMENGO 0 FLUMINENSE 2 Campeonato Carioca, 1997 “My Flamengo debut was so special because it was against Fluminense, a classic rivalry, and making my debut at the Maracana was really thrilling. Unfortunately, we lost, but I saved a penalty and delivered a performance to remember – the newspapers the next day said Flamengo had found its goalkeeper for many years to come. Debuting at 17, for a club with 40 million fans, was far from ordinary. Flamengo weren’t in a good period back then, but they had signed Clemer, the best goalkeeper in Brazil, which meant I was his back-up. From that point on, though, I became the undisputed starter.” VASCO DA GAMA 1 FLAMENGO 3 Campeonato Carioca, 2001 “We were the kings of the Copa Carioca, aiming for our…

20 PORTO 2004 During the past 30 seasons, no club from outside the current top five leagues has won the Champions League… except Porto in 2004. The Portuguese side’s journey to glory remains the Champions League era’s greatest underdog story, bar none. Led by a suave, impudent former translator named Jose Mourinho (you may well have heard of him), the Primeira Liga minnows stunned the European elite by winning the Champions League, merely a year after defeating Celtic in the 2003 UEFA Cup Final in Seville. The soon-to-be Special One arrived at the club halfway through the 2001-02 season, at the age of just 38, signing a two-and-a-half-year deal. By the time that contract expired, he had claimed every trophy available to him. He did it by demanding complete and…

Being on The Mall for the Lionesses’ parade felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – even if by now, such celebrations are starting to become a regular occurrence. Three years after a similar party in Trafalgar Square, another moment had arrived that was so special it brought many fans to tears, myself included. After Euro 2022, around 7,000 people gathered in central London – this time it was 65,000, with more than 16 million watching on TV as England defeated Spain in Basel two days earlier. It was the perfect response to those people adamantly against women’s football, who insist that ‘no-one watches’. I travelled to The Mall from the West Country – arriving at Paddington, all I could see was Lionesses fans, many wearing shirts with player names on the…

In recent years, ‘The New Jamie Vardy’ has been a label thrown at many players plucked from non-league obscurity and unleashed on unsuspecting EFL defenders. Given that Vardy went from Northern Premier League outfit Stocksbridge Park Steels to Premier League champion with Leicester and England international in just six years, nobody has come close to replicating that rise yet. Jake Tabor would love to be non-league football’s next big thing. The 22-year-old striker recently signed for League Two Swindon after terrifying ninth-tier defences, banging in 127 goals from just 91 appearances in Combined Counties Premier Division North, where he represented Amersham Town. That form saw him earn a leap up five levels this summer, when he made the move to join Ian Holloway’s Robins. “The first few days, my phone…

The puzzled expression on Phil Moss’ face was being replicated all over the globe. He and several thousand other people had pitched together to buy a football club, but upon hearing which side their combined kitty had been put towards, any illusions of grandeur were quickly punctured. Instead, they were left asking, ‘Who the hell are Ebbsfleet United?’ Moss was part of a consortium of fellow football fans who had pledged £35 to be part of MyFootballClub, an innovative idea to allow ordinary people to own a team. But while talk of taking over the likes of Nottingham Forest and Barnsley was fanciful, they didn’t expect to need to research the club they were investing in. “ANYONE LOOKING TO DO ANYTHING SIMILAR IN FUTURE NEEDS TO BE SURE IT’S BEST…

The Costa Rican creator on clinching Eredivisie glory under Steve McClaren, Fulham frustration and leading his nation to a World Cup quarter-final… You played for seven clubs across six different countries and captained your nation at two World Cups. What moments stand out from your career? What I appreciate most is that I left my mark at all of those clubs. Maybe the only exception, sadly, was Santos in Brazil, but I feel that was more due to personal reasons. As for the national team, I started playing in 2005 without ever imagining I’d become the captain. It’s something that I’m very proud of. You left Costa Rica in 2006 to join Gent in Belgium. Was it easy to adapt? It wasn’t easy at the beginning. I played very few…

LIONESSES’ PRIDE BASEL, SWITZERLAND For the first time in history, a senior England team won silverware on foreign soil in late July. Lionesses captain Leah Williamson was first to lift the Euros trophy, then Lucy Bronze had a go as well. Like a 2025 Bert Trautmann, Bronze played all of the Euros with a broken leg. Ouch… Pic Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty THE BIG SMOKE STOCKPORT, ENGLAND Ah, the first home game of the season, the sun is always shining… Well, actually it was bucketing down at Edgeley Park, but one Stockport fan wasn’t the least bit bothered, donning a top hat, lighting a cigarette and ambling along outside the main stand. The EFL – glamour from day one. Pic Carl Recine/Getty COMMUNITY JINX LONDON, ENGLAND Winning in the Community Shield has been a…

A new season is now underway, but as a fan of the Lionesses, I don’t think I will ever tire of shouting about England being back-to-back champions of Europe. The team gave us incredible memories this summer, and FFT wanted to know what it was like for me to present the coverage for Fox Sports in the US. The Lionesses began the tournament under huge pressure as defending champions, and to suffer defeat to France in their opening group stage fixture was just the beginning of the most unscripted chaos and brilliance that only sport can provide. Being part of the broadcast team that brought that all to life for a US audience was real fun. Americans are passionate sports fans and also huge supporters of women’s football. Covering the…

@Ketchell YES What makes me confident that an independent regulator will make a positive difference is that Premier League CEO Richard Masters and directors of leading clubs opposed it. Too much focus is on cash flow at the top of the game rather than the chasms growing throughout the pyramid beneath it. For the past two Premier League seasons, the three promoted clubs have mustered anaemic efforts to stay in the league. In 2020-21, parachute payments from the Premier League to five recently relegated clubs totalled £233m – three times as much as the other 19 Championship sides received in total. That only increases the pressure to overspend, prompting the rest of the EFL to do the same. It’s not worth the risk – ask fans of Bury, Macclesfield, Southend,…

Just two seasons on from returning to his homeland, Masour Ousmane Dembele looks poised to be crowned as the winner of this year’s Ballon d’Or – France’s sixth and, in a way, least likely recipient of football’s most prestigious individual award. Should he receive the 69th edition of the honour when it is presented at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris on September 22 – and, despite Lamine Yamal reaching remarkable heights as a teenager, it’s difficult to find anyone in the know that suggests he won’t – Dembele will follow in the footsteps of luminaries such as Raymond Kopa (1958), Michel Platini (1983, 1984 and 1985), Jean-Pierre Papin (1991), Zinedine Zidane (1998) and Karim Benzema (2022). It will be just reward for a 2024-25 campaign that saw Dembele play…

Tehran, Kabul, Lahore and Mumbai. At this moment, FourFourTwo is further east than all four of them, as we wander around the perimeter of Kairat Almaty’s Central Stadium, ahead of the club’s Champions League qualifying tie against Olimpija Ljubljana. We are in Kazakhstan’s largest city, just 200 miles from the Chinese border, with the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains looming large over us, the beginning of highlands that sweep all the way south and across to the mighty Himalayas. No UEFA fixture will be staged further east this season, and only two more eastern clubs have hosted a game in the entire history of major European competition – fellow Kazakhs Irtysh Pavlodar, who haven’t qualified since 2018, and Russians Sibir Novosibirsk, who had a lone foray into the Europa League’s preliminary rounds…

Nike Lyberth-Berthelsen, the general secretary of the Greenland Football Association (GBU), gazes lovingly at the new 4G astroturf surface at the Nuuk Stadium for the umpteenth time, a proud grin upon his face. The novelty value still hasn’t worn off for him, nor for the scores of children who rushon to the pitch for a quick kickaround every time there’s a break between matches in the Greenlandic Football Championship (Angutit Inersimasut GM, or simply GM for short). This is the first year the championship is being played on astro, after decades of games on an unforgiving dust and gravel surface that is remembered with little fondness. In the 1960s, helicopters used to land next to the pitch, throwing up a whirlwind of stones and bringing enforced delays to matches. “You’d…

XI BEST: Javier Sanchez Broto, Nicky Devlin, Craig Halkett, Oscar Rubio, Jon Guthrie, Jamie McAllister, Keaghan Jacobs, Scott Pittman, Stuart Lovell, David Fernandez, David Bingham. WORST: Ludovic Roy, Johnny Brown, Simon Mensing, Greg Strong, Darren Cole, Moses Duckrell, Hugo Faria, Attila Kriston, Spas Georgiev, Rob Ogleby, Kurtis Guthrie. PLAYER B: Silky Spaniard David Fernandez. So good he moved to Celtic for £1 million, only to come back on loan and help fire us to our first (and still only) major trophy – the 2004 League Cup! W: Moses Duckrell is now very successful in football social media with presenting and comedy. Funnily enough, that sums up his Livingston career. “A very funny man, but an awful footballer,” one of his team-mates said to me at a Player of the Year…

The former West Brom frontman on makeshift footballs in war-torn Burundi, his Old Trafford winner and how he fell out of love with English football… What do you remember about your early life in Burundi, where there was a civil war taking place? I wasn’t aware of it, so my surroundings felt normal to me. As a kid, I remember collecting plastic bags to make a football because we couldn’t afford one. My dad passed away when I was four and it was only later I learned it was due to the war. You travelled to the UK alone aged 10 to join your mother and siblings in Birmingham. What was that like? It was tough. When I arrived, nobody could get hold of my mum. I had to go…

Speaking to footballers, especially high-profile ones, can sometimes be difficult. Wary of revealing too much, some of them say very little at all. That isn’t the case with Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez, who barely pauses for breath during a lengthy conversation with FourFourTwo, enthusiastically answering readers’ questions. For all of Mexico’s football pedigree, few players ever get the chance to represent a global powerhouse like Manchester United. What made Hernandez’s story even more remarkable was that he went there straight from his boyhood club, Chivas de Guadalajara. Within a year, he’d scored at the World Cup, plundered 20 goals in all competitions during his first season at Old Trafford, won the Premier League title, and started in a Champions League final. His electric pace and sharp, sometimes improvisational, finishing stood out.…

As the ball trickles off the edge of the playing surface, FourFourTwo’s heart rate suddenly increases. Rolling towards us, the perfectly round sphere is absolutely begging to be kicked back towards the group of Cambridge United players who are performing shooting drills a matter of yards away. There’s no chance we’re missing our opportunity. Stepping forward, we confidently stride on to the ball and sidefoot it back into play with all the grace of a rusty pair of shears. Jerky and stiff. But it does not matter. The pass is straight and skids across the floor back into the throng of players. They don’t acknowledge the gesture, although it’s of little significance because FFT considers that our first challenge of the day has successfully been completed. We’re at the U’s…

You had such incredible success as Wycombe owner. Why did you leave? I really loved owning Wycombe. We did some tremendous things in terms of upgrading it on the pitch – it was five of the best years of the club’s history during our ownership. For the first time in 135 years, it went to the second tier of English football. We turned around the economics of the club so that it was operating at a sustainable level, and we also put in the infrastructure improvements that I thought were necessary to change the fan experience. Had you always planned your exit? I thought we would stick with Wycombe forever. I had a little illness that I guess is somewhat expected at my age. I met a guy I liked,…

A veteran of more than 400 games in the Football League and nine England caps, Geoff Thomas endured one of the biggest hardships anyone could ever experience when he was given just three months to live in 2003. Diagnosed with leukaemia, he beat the odds thanks to a stem cell transplant and has since raised millions of pounds for charity. Cure Leukaemia has been the beneficiary, with the former Crystal Palace, Wolves and Crewe midfielder completing all 21 stages of the Tour de France no fewer than seven times. This summer, the 20th anniversary of his first attempt, he achieved it at age 60. “Back in 2005, I was just six months out of remission from my battle with leukaemia – and this time, I wanted to celebrate what Cure…

The Angel City midfielder talks about life in LA, making the switch to her childhood club and how COVID almost scuppered her Lioness dreams… You joined current club Angel City in 2024. How have you found LA so far? Life over here is amazing. The weather has been something I said would be different to Manchester, it’s taken some getting used to. When it’s sunny out, everything is better, even when you’re having a bad day! I was excited to come over. I’d never considered America much to be honest. I’d been at Manchester United and felt I needed a change. I’d watched the NWSL and seen Casey Stoney come over and be successful. The travel is tough, that’s new for me, but it’s a very exciting league. It’s certainly…

Following more than a quarter of a century together in shirt-fronting harmony, May 2021 saw the iconic partnership between Inter and the world-famous tyre manufacturer Pirelli finish in an emotional farewell, of sorts. Although the announcement was not one of a total departure – Pirelli branding would still be hanging around San Siro as Inter’s “Global Tyre Partner” – the news drew the curtain on one of the longest football shirt sponsorship deals in history. First appearing on Nerazzurri shirts for the 1995-96 season, the Pirelli name was front and centre for a glut of major honours across more than two decades. Club legend Javier Zanetti would play all 858 of his matches for Inter in Pirelli-sponsored shirts from 1995 to 2014 and the greatest season in the club’s history,…