Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i Australian FourFourTwo

You wanna talk quality? Take a look at our cover. And these are just SOME of the stars who will play (Rodriguez excepted) in this month's El Clasico. That's quality...even before you mention Ronaldo and the rest. When Messi, Bale, Suarez and Rodriguez talk to you (or their nearest and dearest in Suarez's case), you listen. So we did. Messi's just downright normal. Bale's equal parts overawed and overjoyed to be over there – and Rodriguez is ready for anything... as soon as he's fit again. But they all spill secrets in a feature no football fan of any persuaion can afford to miss. We also listened when Australia's Messi – or perhaps Massi? (but, you know, no pressure, mate...) – Massimo Luongo told us how Australia won the Asian…

I thought I had made it as a player when I went to Greece. I was 24 and playing professionally in Europe. I thought that would be the start of my long European adventure. I was happiest during the 2007/8 season at Adelaide United. The atmosphere in and around the team was amazing. The club owners would put on media BBQs every Thursday after training and it created a real buzz. It helped that we had a great bunch of lads together at the time and were on an amazing run towards the Asian Champions League Final. The day football broke my heart was probably at the end of my final contract with Perth Glory. As much as I thought I was mentally prepared knowing that I was not going…

“Can I have silence, everyone?” barks a stereotypically agitated Spanish director at this chattiest of Madrid television studios. He’s telling, not asking. “We’ve got a dog on set.” In an instant, James Rodriguez looks over his left shoulder as Sandy, a three-year-old brown and white bulldog, enters the room behind his owner. Barely able to contain his excitement, Real Madrid’s latest Galactico zooms over to the 35cm-long cluster of trotting skin folds, doleful expressions and the occasional sneeze. “Isn’t he cute?!” coos James, kneeling down to give Sandy a stroke, caring not a jot about the director. “How old is he? You know, I could do this all day!” Minutes later, the studio’s two biggest attractions are in front of the camera and riffing off each other. At one point,…

PSV Eindhoven 1987/88 Built on tight defensive tactics and intelligent mastery of away goals, Guus Hiddink’s PSV had a young, blond sweeper named Ronald Koeman. They squeezed past Bordeaux in the quarters and Real Madrid in the semis to win the Champions League; two decades later away goals (and Andres Iniesta) cost Hiddink at Chelsea. AC Milan 1989/90 Arrigo Sacchi’s 1990 European Cup-winning team included a wealth of famous names: Baresi, Maldini, Rijkaard, Van Basten... but they had Stefano Borgonovo to thank for a semi-final extra-time away goal against Bayern Munich that sent them through to the final on their way to a fourth European crown. Barcelona 1991/92 Mention the words ‘Kaiserslautern’ or ‘Jose Mari Bakero’ to any Barcelona supporter and watch them go weak at the knees. Bakero’s 90th-minute…

DID YOU KNOW? Sixteen Poole Town fans are in line to pocket $15,000 if Austin scores for England – they bet $300 on the striker making a mark at international level at odds of 50/1 when he moved to Swindon “In non-league you train on a Tuesday and Thursday night, and play a game on a Saturday. That’s not enough. “I went from Poole Town to training at Bournemouth. For six weeks, five days a week, I trained through pre-season. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been able to sign for Swindon a few weeks later. It got me to the fitness level of a professional. When I went back to playing non-league, I was four or five steps ahead of everyone else. It was a massive help.…

It’s time. Football season is upon you. But you have a decision to make. One that can make or break your game. One that will separate you from a mediocre performance and a superstar performance. But you walk into that local sports store, and there are just too many options. You spot it up on the shelf, and pick it up. It feels incredible, like nothing you’ve ever felt or seen before in your life. You wonder what it’s about, if it is that good, and most importantly; will it make or break you? Well, it will make you if it’s the new Puma evoPOWER 1.2... Puma have been in the boot market for a long time now. Accustomed to producing high quality performance football products, Puma have gone out…

PLAYING OFF THE SHOULDER OF FOOTBALL 1 Sniffer dog no match for Mrs Ness’ nose When Jamie Ness’ Labrador, Alfie, began to act lethargically in 2012, it was the Stoke midfielder’s girlfriend, Heather, who took swift action. Investigations revealed that the couple’s cooker was leaking lethal carbon monoxide. A gas safety inspector hurrahed: “Well done to the dog and well done to the girl.” 2 Wazza wants hot dogs In the summer of 2010, Wayne and Coleen Rooney spent £10,000 on underfloor heating for their £4.5m mansion. Why? Because the couple didn’t want their French Mastiff, Chow Chow and two Bichon Frises to have cold paws, so they installed the heating system in a special ‘doggie block’. “Coleen insisted on it,” said a ‘source’. “But Wayne’s a softie with dogs…

It’s a bitterly cold winter’s afternoon in Madrid. Punctuated by the occasional wisp of cloud, a clear blue sky kisses the Spanish capital’s tree-lined eastern suburbs in a dim glow that is yet to fully melt the morning’s sharp frost. A glacial stillness hangs in the chilly air. Everywhere, that is, except for the steamed-up windows of the Las Mercedes gym in Rejas – a conglomeration of newly built offices, shops and upmarket apartments a runway’s length from Madrid airport. It’s 1pm and a keen group of middle-aged fitness freaks are being cajoled through a punishing spin class. Condensation gathers on the glass panels, the gym’s hot, sweaty air juxtaposed with the nippy outside world. Next door, the action is just as frenetic as FourFourTwo passes a hip-hop dance group…

In our quarter-final against China, our gameplan worked perfectly. The first half, we knew they’re fit and a good, structured side. We went out for that game knowing that we were fitter than every other team in the tournament, so we knew that they wouldn’t last. The first half we were trying to score and create chances, but the logic was to tire them out. Keep the ball, move them side to side, they’re going to keep their shape but they’re going to move around a lot. By the time the second half came round we knew we could get on the other side of them and exploit them a little bit because they’re tired. And to be fair that happened, it happened in most games to be honest. Tim…

STOP THE PRESS: GABON FANS TRASH MIXED ZONE Journalists looking to go about their business after the tournament’s opening game between Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of the Congo got more than they had bargained for. The ‘mixed zone’, in which players are interviewed on their way out of the stadium, was part-destroyed by a group of rampaging Gabon fans, attempting to enter for their match with Burkina Faso. The supporters could not fit into the narrow stairway next door and clattered through the flimsy hoardings separating media from the masses. It led to some hasty scampering away as everything came crashing down, a dearth of post-match interviews and, for a short while, unbridled chaos before order was restored. A sign of things to come? BAT INVADES PRESS CONFERENCE, OBVIOUSLY…

PERFORMANCE WHERE PROS REVEAL THE SECRETS OF THEIR GAME Chelsea’s Diego Costa may not have David Beckham’s trendy barnet or Paolo Maldini’s chiselled good looks, but he’s got a face built for success. The Spanish frontman has what experts call a high facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR) and that, according to research, is a sure-fire way of decoding a player’s potential for hitting the target – and opponents. “This method predicts a surprising degree of aggressive behaviour in athletes,” explains Keith Welker from the University of Colorado Boulder. Welker and his team examined the FHWR – the distance between the cheekbones divided by the distance between the mid-brow and the upper lip – of 1,000 players at the 2010 World Cup. The study revealed that midfielders with higher FWHRs were more…

DID YOU KNOW? Downing’s appearance for England against Scotland in November 2014 was his first for the national side since 26 May, 2012, when he played against Norway in Roy Hodgson’s first game in charge 1 Add to your arsenal Arm yourself with two deadly feet “When I was at Middlesbrough, one of our coaches would say, ‘You’re just going to use your right foot for the next 10 minutes.’ This forced me to improve my weaker foot. If you rely on using your favoured foot, it’s easier for the defender to mark you – he can shut the line off and show you inside, where you’ll run into more bodies. You’re harder to stop when you can shift the ball both ways and use either foot. Get over the…

78% Manchester City’s win percentage with Yaya in the team He played one game for Arsenal on trial in 2003, a friendly against Barnet; instead of waiting for the paperwork, he joined Metallurg Donetsk HOW TO UPSET YAYA Trip him 5% Push him 5% Insult him 5% Pull his shirt 5% Give him a substandard birthday cake 80% MAY 13 Shares a birthday with Buckethead from Guns N’ Roses, Romelu Lukaku, Stevie Wonder and Robert Pattinson. Not in the same year, obviously BE THE BALL Yaya loved football so much that he slept with a ball in his bed when he was a kid OASIS Noel Gallagher attempted to call his son Carlos Yaya Gallagher but his girlfriend refused $26 000 Value of the wine stolen from a Luxembourg sommelier…

FACT FILE Full name Roy Maurice Keane Date of birth 10/8/1971 Height 5ft 10in Position Midfielder Place of birth Cork Clubs played for 1989-90 Cobh Ramblers 29 games (2 goals); 1990-93 Nottingham Forest 156 (34); 1993-05 Manchester United 459 (51); 2005-06 Celtic 12 (1) International career 1991-2005 Republic of Ireland 67 (9) Managerial career 2006-08 Sunderland; 2009-11 Ipswich Town; 2013-present Republic of Ireland (assistant); 2014-present Aston Villa (assistant) Playing honours Premier League 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003; FA Cup 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004; Champions League 1999; Intercontinental Cup 1999; SPL 2006; Scottish League Cup 2006 Individual honours PFA Players’ Player of the Year 2000; Football Writers’ Player of the Year 2000 Managerial honours Championship 2007 Roy Keane strolls into a suite at a swish London hotel to meet…

SOFIA BALBI The truth is, his personality hasn’t changed since the first time I met him when I was 12 and he was 15. The only difference is that he’s now on the TV. He’s exactly the same. Perhaps he’s now a little bit more shy than before, but really he’s not changed. It’s for this reason that I love him. PAOLO SUAREZ I’m six years older than Luis, and when I was playing street football with my friends, he wanted to play too, without caring about being younger. To begin with, my friends would go easy on him, since he was so young. But as soon as he’d started dribbling past everyone, they weren’t so nice! DIEGO FORLAN I first played against him in a warm-up game when he…

CURE FOR THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEP Sports scientists have fitted sleep-inducing wallpaper to the bedrooms at Manchester City’s training complex. The hypnotic walls – patterned with light green, ever-decreasing circles – create a more relaxed state of mind. UNITED TO HELP HEARTS Around 100 of Manchester United’s academy players are having their hearts monitored by the newest imaging technology. They will be tracked for a year as part of a project to define healthy exercise quantities and improve heart-screening protocols for players. JUST SHAKE HANDS INSTEAD Players who injure themselves during goal celebrations miss an average of five weeks. Ligament tears from knee-slides, along with rib and clavicle fractures, were among the injuries noted in a study by Turkish specialists. PLAYING WITH A WEAKENED SIDE? Players are more likely…

EXPERT VIEW JAMES MILNER “Mental preparation starts two days before a game. Be ready for anything.” 48 HOURS BEFORE GAME DAY THE MENTAL GAME STARTS HERE Two days before the match: plenty of time to catch up on X-Factor, right? Wrong. One of our mentors – the Manchester City and England midfielder, James Milner – catches FFT laying around ahead of a gym session. “Mental preparation starts two days before a game,” he says. “Start thinking about where you’re going to be playing and who you’re playing. Get pictures in your head of what might occur during the game – then if they do, you’ll be ready.” X-Factor off, game face on. BUILD A BODY TO PERFORM Tony Strudwick, head of athletic training at Manchester United, greets us in the…