Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2015 i FourFourTwo UK

We’re almost at the end of an era. With Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard now playing in the MLS, it could be argued that only Wayne Rooney and John Terry remain from the clutch of club legends and star names that came to define the Premier League in the noughties. It’s an unusual position for the world’s richest league, with marquee players having been lost to retirement or recruitment. The likes of Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba and Paul Scholes have gone, while potential successors Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale moved onto La Liga’s big two. It’s no surprise, then, that Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea contributed to a record transfer spend this summer. English football needed some stardust. And it didn’t take long for Anthony Martial to oblige. His…

What happens if you mix a successful film, the largest digital entertainment platform and the world’s most popular sport, then take the result to the most soap opera-obsessed country there is? The answer is Mexican TV show Club de Cuervos, the first Netflix original series in Spanish. Adapting football to the small screen hasn’t produced the greatest of results, barring some honourable exceptions (by which we mean Renford Rejects, obviously), but this promises to be different. It’s about the death of Salvador Iglesias, president of fictional Mexican first division side Los Cuervos de Nuevo Toledo, and the ensuing power struggle between his offspring: party-loving rogue Chava and control freak Isabel. So, how to succeed where others have failed? “Our idea was to focus on telling the story of a family…

AWAY KIT 2009-10 “This was the first of the corporate catastrophes. Based on the Waitrose colours, it’s not a bad kit in itself, but due to the strip’s similarities to our home colours, it was used about as often as Abou Diaby’s matchday tracksuit. It was dusty come the end of the season.” STYLE RATING AWAY KIT 2015-16 “Purple, pink, ‘African violet’ – whatever colour you call it, this is ghastly in most people’s eyes. The array of reviews that I’ve heard so far range from ‘what the hell is that?’ to ‘complete load of s**t’. Don’t expect drastic sales on this one. Still, only eight months to go I guess.” STYLE RATING…

1 Which League One club used to play their home games at Gay Meadow? 2 Complete the name: Marco Wulfort _____ van Ginkel. Is it Maximus, Julius or Cornelius? 3 What Premier League ‘first’ does former Everton midfielder Robert Warzycha hold? 4 Which team have reached the most Scottish League Cup finals (three) without winning any? 5 Alfredo Di Stefano famously played football for three international sides: Argentina, Spain and Colombia. How many World Cups did he appear in? 6 Three players appeared in every minute of the 2014-15 Premier League. Who? 7 Joe Cole was sent off on his Liverpool debut against Arsenal in August 2010 – who else saw red? 8 Which two teams appeared in the first FA Cup final held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff?…

Q: Who holds Derby’s appearance record? NE: Kevin Hector. My dad wouldn’t forgive me if I got that wrong. CC: Bloody hell, tough start! Kevin... someone – I’m sure I read that in the programme last season. Kevin Hector? 1-1 Q: How many league goals did Darren Bent score last season? NE: A lot – he scored nearly every time he played. Double figures, I reckon. I’ll go for 10. CC: Quite a few! I’ll say nine. No, eight. No, nine. That’s it, final answer. 2-1 Fan Q: In what year did Derby win their second First Division title? NE: I’ve no excuse here – it was the year I was born! 1974-75. CC: It was in the ’70s, right? Was it ’74-75? That sounds about right. Final answer. 3-2…

31 RIO FERDINAND West Ham • Bournemouth • Leeds • Man United • QPR £52.8M 41 DARREN BENT Ipswich • Charlton • Spurs • Sunderland • Aston Villa • Fulham • Brighton • Derby £47.6M 42 RAHEEM STERLING QPR • Liverpool • Man City £46.3M 53 ANDY CARROLL Newcastle • Preston • Liverpool • West Ham £43.6M 54 PETER CROUCH Spurs • Dulwich Hamlet • IFK Hassleholm • QPR • Portsmouth • Aston Villa • Norwich • Southampton • Liverpool • Portsmouth • Spurs • Stoke £43.1M…

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Others, someone should point out to Malvolio from William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, are so steadfast in their refusal to defer from their chosen path that they become great through sheer force of will. An unshakeable desire to prove the doubters wrong consumes them. It’s this latter category to which Chelsea new boy Pedro Eliezer Rodriguez Ledesma belongs. The 28-year-old wasn’t always a regular at Barcelona and circled the drain at Camp Nou on three occasions, yet endured to win 20 major honours in seven first-team seasons. Pedro’s isn’t the story of Lionel Messi or Andres Iniesta. He wasn’t identified from an early age because of an extraordinary talent, nor was he nurtured through La Masia by…

Pace to burn De Bruyne is quicker than you think, a devastating attribute that helped him to rack up 20 Bundesliga assists last season – eight more than any other player in the division. He’s particularly effective on the counter-attack: against Hamburg last November, for example, he picked up the ball deep in his own half before zooming past Valon Behrami and sliding a perfect ball inside two defenders to tee up Aaron Hunt. In January’s 4-1 demolition of Bayern Munich, he led the charge to expose Jerome Boateng and square for Bas Dost’s early opener, before twice scoring on the break himself. Impeccable vision This ability was clear from his Manchester City debut against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, when, five minutes into the second half of a tight…

In late 1993, Arsenal ran a competition for the Junior Gunners to design the club’s new mascot. I loved art and design, so I thought it seemed like a great idea. Like most 11-year-old boys at the time, I was really into Jurassic Park – that film and Arsenal were my two favourite things in the world – so I quickly came up with the name Gunnersaurus Rex and thought it sounded really cool. I sat down and sketched out this really nice, friendly-looking dinosaur, kind of in the style of [American children’s TV sensation] Barney. It was a one-take job; I started to draw it and it just came to me. I wrote a little description below the drawings, explaining things like the belly needing to weigh the same…

CYRIL THE PSYCHO Break your arm? Swansea’s Cyril the Swan would more likely knock your head off, as he did to Millwall’s Zampa the Lion in 2001, dropkicking it into the stands and telling his rival: “Don’t f**k with the Swans”. No mascot has a rap sheet like the long-necked loon, who has also pelted fellow mascots with pork pies at a charity event, served a two-match suspension for a touchline scuffle with Norwich backroom staff in 1999 and received a £1,000 fine for a solo pitch invasion that same year. Naturally, Cyril attended the Welsh FA hearing in full costume. All 9ft of it. KICK-OFF DELAYED BY BREAKDANCING BADGER In a very modern wind-up, Fulham mascot Billy the Badger once killed Avram Grant with kindness, giving the then-Chelsea boss…

Is EPPP working? Three years isn’t long when you’re implementing something new across 92 clubs, so there’s work to be done, but significant progress has been made and clubs deserve huge credit. Facilities have been enhanced, coaching provision and development increased. Sports science is now an integral part of player development. Can you give us an example of how sports science is being used? Southampton, Norwich, Stoke and Reading took part in a bio-banded tournament recently, a first for us and for world football. Teams were made up of boys aged 12-14. Studies show that sports teams disproportionately recruit players born in the first three months of the school year. For this tournament, players were chosen based on the percentage of their adult stature, not when they were born. How…

15 Goals from outside the box in two Bundesliga seasons for Hamburg & Leverkusen 5 The next-most in that time was only five, by Leverkusen team-mate Son Heung-min 10 Assists last term, the most of any player at Leverkusen (level with Karim Bellarabi) 2 Games missed in all competitions since signing for the club in 2014 Stats provided by Russia On the same weekend that Mordovia Saransk drew 1,200 fans for a top-flight match, 4,000 police officers were deployed for Spartak Moscow’s derby against CSKA Uruguay Next in football’s catalogue of innovative time-wasting: throwing yourself off a stretcher, as pioneered by Juventud’s Matias Alonso in a Copa Sudamericana game…

Why all the fuss? When the topic of Spanish derbies is raised, El Clasico quickly comes to mind. Head to Andalucia instead, where Sevilla meet city neighbours Real Betis, and you’ll see plenty of passion, an incredible match atmosphere and, sadly, the odd bit of violence, too. Reasons for aggro Much of the antagonism in El Derbi Sevillano surrounds the clubs’ creation. Founded as one team in 1905, Sevilla and Betis became two after a boardroom disagreement. Tensions have been high ever since. Sevilla hold the better derby record, as well as lifting more trophies. Maddest moments In 1999, a brawl with Betis fans got four Sevilla players arrested and one supporter a broken jaw. Three years on, a security guard was attacked with a crutch, and in 2007 a…

Why should I -are? They’re called The Strongest. The Strongest. …and? You want more? Fine: they’re the oldest club in Liga de Futbol Profesional Boliviano, or the Bolivian first division to you and… well, you. They also play in two different stadia: either Estadio Rafael Mendoza, which they own, or the much bigger Estadio Hernando Siles in La Paz (right). Have they won anything? Oh, just 11 league titles since 1977, making 21 appearances in the Copa Libertadores. Remember their 1930 season? Well, no, obviously. Anyway, they went unbeaten without conceding a goal. So what should I say in the pub? The Strongest were the first Bolivian team to win three consecutive championship titles and be nominated as the ‘Tri-Campeones’ of Bolivian football. Anything more ex-iting? They’re probably the only…

SEEK OUT SUNNY D Canadian research has highlighted the need for sportsmen to maintain their vitamin D levels during winter. The nutrient boosts recovery and increases aerobic capacity, muscle growth, force and power production. Natural sources include oily fish, eggs and cheddar cheese. SATELLITE DISC Australian scientists are using GPS measurements on 19 A-League players across a season to predict soft tissue injuries, noting increased injury risk from a sharp rise in training or matchplay intensity. The data may help coaches fine-tune preparation for fixture congestion. 4.5 MILES That’s how far the average assistant referee covers during a match. Studies found that a lino typically clocks up around 7km over 90 minutes, with more than 100 sprints and around 600-700m running sideways. DARE TO DO A DIET DIARY Footballers should…

“Arturo Vidal is doing a press-up using a ball, which is great for single limb strength,” says Rayan. “If you’re trying to hand off an opponent, you want explosiveness in your pecs and your triceps, and this is a perfect way of achieving it. It is also beneficial in training to get a football in the mix. To build size, try three sets of eight to 12 repetitions. To increase power, attempt two to five repetititons at a higher speed.” “Lionel Messi is doing hurdles; this is a great way to improve your vertical jump height and your dribbling acceleration,” says Rayan Wilson, senior performance consultant for Back2Action.co.uk. “You can do it with anything at home: just put a dining chair in the garden if you like and jump over…

4-2-3-1 FORMATION X GOALKEEPER Tried to make up for lack of height and ability by constantly barking instructions at his defenders, which they ignored because it was putting them off. Fluffed his first goal-kick; didn’t take any more after that. RIGHT-BACK One of their best players, despite being about 46. Wore supports on both knees. First in the shower, then shot off without going to the pub. The rest of the team can’t recall how they know him (and don’t really care). CENTRE-BACK Crap Cannavaro copycat. Short, no slouch and better in the air than his partner, but easily pushed off the ball. Used to play up front, according to their lino. Wears a headband. CENTRE-BACK Tall, overweight, loved the aerial challenges – but still lost most of them. ery…

1 Look at how they play “The most important thing is to look at the shape and tactics of the opposition before the individuals. Do they like to play from the back or do they play more directly, looking to hit the channels early?” 2 Keep it simple “You don’t need a book or a sermon. You want key points – strengths and weaknesses in both defence and attack. That way you can put it across to your players in a way that they can understand and implement.” 3 Don’t forget the dead-balls “If they’ve got someone who is really good at whipping in free-kicks, tell your full-backs and defending midfielders to stay on their feet around your own penalty area. If he’s equally good at taking corners, try to…

When Marcos Evangelista de Morais lifted the World Cup from upon a wobbly podium at Yokohama Stadium in the summer of 2002, you can be sure one of the poorest regions of Sao Paulo was on his mind. After all, he made sure the whole world saw the words ‘100% Jardim Irene’ scrawled across his sweat-soaked match shirt as a mark of respect to the troubled district he called home during his youth. Today, that piece of football history hangs on the wall of a refined mansion of Alphaville, one of the plushest and most serene neighbourhoods in Brazil. But, 13 years after his big moment in Japan, Cafu’s mind is still with the underprivileged. “My foundation is what really drives me today,” he tells FFT as we make ourselves…

99 Goals for Barça in 321 games, after playing eight minutes in his first two seasons in the first-team squad PEDRITO A sea lion at Loro Parque zoo in Tenerife is named after him BROMANCE Xavi once said “I am in love with Pedro” PEDRO’S BIGGEST REGRETS Turning down a Wigan loan in 2008 10% Challenging Luis Enrique to a moustache-growing contest 90% PETROL His father works at a fuelling station in Tenerife NET GAINS He has a section of the Wembley netting into which he scored in the Champions League final in 2011 20 Trophies won at Barcelona LIVES OF BRYAN The name of his son and Canadian warbler and Blues fan Adams £320,000 What his old club San Isidro got from the Chelsea move, securing their future ONE-WORD…

Das Reboot Raphael Honigstein (Yellow Jersey, £18.99) Ten years after crashing out of their Euro 2004 group, Germany became World Cup winners. In an engrossing read, Honigstein interviews Klinsmann, Thomas Muller & Co. to find out how they transformed a nation’s fortunes. Best quote “For the opening credits you can have Berti Vogts driving his campervan outside San Diego.” Arsene Wenger John Cross (Simon & Schuster, £20) After a decade following Arsenal, the Daily Mirror’s chief football writer lifts the lid on the Frenchman’s 19 years in North London, from humble beginnings to the Invincibles and ending the nine-season trophy drought in 2014. It’s at its best when discussing his transfer dealings. Best quote “Van Persie leaving was devastating; the lowest point. Then his goals won Manchester United the title.”…

Ian Barham looks concerned. He rings Mad Al. No answer. Steadying his nerves with a pre-match pint, minutes before eighth-tier Harlow Town host Romford, he tries again. “Mad Al works to his own time,” chuckles one nearby wag. “He might not show up at all.” Moments later, to Ian’s relief, Mad Al arrives, hoiking his precious cargo over the turnstile to Harlow fans’ cheers. Mad Al, you see, is carrying a Second World War air raid siren, without which no Hawks home game would be complete. It’s this matchday soundtrack that has tempted FourFourTwo to deepest, darkest Essex on an unusually sunny early-season Saturday. Put simply: we had to hear this din for ourselves. “Mad Al started it all off,” says Ian, who doubles as the Harlow supporters’ club secretary.…

Hi Paul. The haircut you sport on the front of your excellent new book reminds us of Cecil the lion, or the cowardly big cat from The Wizard of Oz , God rest his eternal soul. What do you think should happen to that dentist rotter who shot Cecil? Hi mate. That wasn’t on, was it? It’s not something you should be doing for fun. It was naughty. I’d like to see him chased around and shot up the backside from 30 yards. That’d teach him. See how he likes it. Your hair was majestic back then. Not ironically majestic – actually majestic, like Cowardly’s mane… I don’t look back with embarrassment. A lot of people on Twitter call it naff, but I thought it was good…

GIVE YOUTH A CHANCE When Pedro’s £21m arrival at Chelsea was confirmed, my first thought was: ‘Why do teams have academies if they aren’t going to use them to get players into the first team?’ Isn’t that the whole point, after all? For example, Patrick Bamford was in the Chelsea academy. Last summer, Jose Mourinho complained they didn’t have a striker, but instead of looking to young talent they signed Diego Costa, Loic Remy and 36-year-old Didier Drogba, and then sent Bamford out on loan to Middlesborough. This summer, he was sent to Crystal Palace. Bamford has scored goals aplenty during every loan deal. Why do teams do this? Why do the FA let them? And why do clubs make the effort to get young players up to Premier League…

Sergio Busquets A carbon copy of Pep Guardiola the player, the rangy defensive midfielder is a mainstay for both club and country and – yes – is the most important cog in the Barcelona machine after Lionel Messi. Without the 27-year-old anchoring, the 2014-15 treble-winners’ possession obsession would be little more than a sideshow. Gai Assulin With a €20m release clause attached when was just 16, the Israeli midfielder was tipped for greatness, but a move to Manchester City in 2009 failed to produce a single first-team outing. Now at Mallorca, the 24-year-old is something of a second-division journeyman but, if you’re being (very) optimistic, has age on his side. Thiago Just 16 when he began to help Barcelona B to the third-tier title, the midfielder followed Guardiola to Bayern…

Diego Forlan Manchester United’s £6.9m signing was cruelly nicknamed ‘Diego Forlorn’ by the press after only 17 goals in 98 games, many of which were spent peppering Row Z. Sold to Villarreal, he scored 25 in his first season to share Europe’s golden boot. In 2008-09 he won the award outright after netting 32 for Atletico Madrid. Jerome Boateng Boateng’s hopes of succeeding at Man City weren’t helped when he aggravated a knee injury by colliding with a drinks trolley on a plane, before spending much of the 2010-11 season at right-back. His desire to play more centrally saw him join Bayern after one season. He’s since won the Champions League and the World Cup. Nemanja Matic The Serbian made only three appearances in his first spell at Stamford Bridge…

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers may have gone on a wild spending spree over the summer of 2014 – but it wasn’t Dejan Lovren’s debut that sparked the biggest Kop debate on the first day of last season. Instead, a gurning, 6ft liver bird called Mighty Red appeared on the pitch shortly before kick-off – the first time ever that a man in an animal suit had been let loose on the Anfield turf. Many of the children at the game seemed delighted, while elsewhere, tweets abounded about “disgrace to tradition”. But how do these things happen? And when it comes to a new mascot, how do you go from a seed of an idea to the finished product? Mighty was dreamed up by the club in 2012 for school, hospital…

How did you become a mascot? KATE There was an advert in the matchday programme, appealing for a female mascot. I’d done a bit of promotional work at a local radio station, dressed as a teddy bear, so I got in touch. That was 14 years ago. LEE We met six or seven months after Kate got the role, then a year later the guy doing Pete the Eagle retired so they needed someone to step in. I just said: ‘Why not?’ Can you earn decent money? L We don’t get paid – it’s a voluntary role. But the joy you get out of it is fantastic. I get to share the pitch with players I love, but also see the faces of the kids – and adults! The dads…

Hakan Calhanoglu Hamburg, Bayer Leverkusen Free-kick goals 11 Games played 68 Andrea Pirlo Juventus Free-kick goals 11 Games played 82 Cristiano Ronaldo Real Madrid Free-kick goals 9 Games played 101 Francesco Lodi Catania, Genoa, Parma Free-kick goals 7 Games played 84 Lionel Messi Barcelona Free-kick goals 7 Games played 103 Miralem Pjanic Roma Free-kick goals 7 Games played 98 Daniel Wass Evian, Celta Vigo Free-kick goals 7 Games played 106 Zlatan Ibrahimovic Paris Saint-Germain Free-kick goals 6 Games played 92 *Most free-kick goals in Europe’s top five leagues since August 2012 (Calhanoglu’s Bundesliga debut was in August 2013)…

FC Timisoara Ready? In 2000, Politehnica Timisoara moved 350 miles to Bucharest as owner Claudio Zambon sought new fans (instead the team sank through the divisions). AEK Bucharest spotted a void and zipped west to Timisoara, playing at the same ground, in the same kit. Zambon sued and when the new Timisoara went bust, a team from nearby Recas moved in to become ACS Poli Timisoara. Confusing. Wellington Phoenix The New Zealand Knights were once the A-League’s Kiwi representative, but after a financial meltdown they moved from Auckland to Wellington, where fans voted on a new name. The 250 suggestions included Capital Punishment, the Ninja Knights, Upthejafa and the superb Wellington Boots. An opportunity missed. Almere City Created in the ’70s and ’80s, Almere is the Dutch Milton Keynes, and…

“Saving low shots, close to your body, is all about positioning and how quickly you can get down to the ball. Work on drills that force you to move your feet at speed and spring up for the next shot. Goalkeepers hate knuckleball free-kicks where the ball moves in the air. It’s almost impossible to calculate where it’s going. Stay light on your feet so you can make quick adjustments. A lot of coaches focus on side-stepping, but I don’t believe in that. The most important thing is getting from A to B quickly. Working hard in the gym will also help. You need to be explosive, strong and flexible, with a solid core. Finally, remember to push the ball away from goal and not back into the danger area,…

MONDAY DAY OFF 9am Get up. The day after a game I’ll treat myself to a well-earned lie in. 11am Head out with a few of the girls for brunch to refuel and relax. We’ll have a coffee, smoked salmon and egg, toast and a bagel. I’ll rehydrate and keep the weight off my legs. 1pm I’ll watch Made In Chelsea and Geordie Shore at home while using a foam roller for 20 to 30 minutes. I work on every muscle, making sure that I don’t feel stiff or have any knots in my quads and hamstrings. 10.30pm Time for bed, as I have to be up at 7am the following day. TUESDAY BACK TO TRAINING 8.30am Arrive at the training ground for breakfast. There’s cereal, toast, fruit and yoghurt…

GK TIM HOWARD My goalkeeper? It’s got to be me, of course! I need to win some games – and I’d love to play in this side. I know all of the defenders’ games very well so with this team I don’t think I can lose. RB TONY HIBBERT A right-back needs to be tough and no-nonsense. That’s Tony – he’s as likely to fight you as smile at you. He plays the ball into good areas and wins his battles. You know what you’re going to get. CB PHIL JAGIELKA Jags is first on my team-sheet. He’s my security blanket. I’ve played with him for what seems like forever – we know what the other’s thinking. We laugh on the pitch and we curse each other, too. CB RIO…

“I WANTED A RED ONE!” Passion, offensive chants, plastic inflatables – the Superclasico between bourgeois River Plate and working class Boca Juniors is a derby like no other. In September’s clash at the Monumental, Los Millonarios’ fans ‘welcomed’ Boca – and their prodigal son, Carlos Tevez – with typically colourful fervour. Shame they lost 1-0... PANTS. PULLED. DOWN. We’ve all been there. The opposition’s centre-forward beats you for pace and there’s no catching him as he launches a promising counter. What do you do? Well, if you’re West Brom defender Craig Dawson, you grab Port Vale’s on-loan striker Uche Ikpeazu’s shorts and hold on for dear life. It worked, too, as the Capital One Cup second round tie finished goalless, the Baggies going through on penalties. You can let go…

Win an Oscar or see Grimsby in the Premier League? I know it’s selfish but winning an Oscar would be f**king brilliant! I’ll be a Grimsby fan regardless of what league we’re in. This Is England director Shane Meadows or Grimsby manager Paul Hurst? This is horrible – it’s like asking someone to choose their favourite kid! Managers are replaceable, aren’t they? Although if Hursty’s reading this, I do love him! But Shane Meadows changed my life. Co-star Stephen Graham or the Mighty Mariner mascot? Mighty Mariner! I’ll always remember the time they had a big fluffy microphone by the pitch and he squatted over it and stroked it, pretending it was his knob. I think he got bollocked for that. England’s penalty defeat at Italia 90 or…

£131,200,000 Rosario Central • Benfica • Real Madrid • Man United • PSG ANGEL DI MARIA £123,900,000 ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC Malmo • Ajax • Juventus • Inter • Barcelona • Milan • PSG £97,200,000 JAMES RODRIGUEZ Envigado • Banfield • Porto • Monaco • Real Madrid £93,300,000 NICOLAS ANELKA PSG • Arsenal • Real Madrid • PSG • Liverpool • Man City • Fenerbahce • Bolton • Chelsea • Shanghai Shenhua • Juventus • West Brom • Mumbai City £87,400,000 HERNAN CRESPO River Plate • Parma • Lazio • Inter • Chelsea • Milan • Inter • Genoa • Parma 6 JUAN SEBASTIAN VERON Estudiantes • Boca • Sampdoria • Parma • Lazio • Man United • Chelsea • Inter • Estudiantes • Brandsen • Estudiantes £85M 7 LUIS SUAREZ Nacional…

REAL PLAYERS Dave Edwards @_DaveEdwards My little boy Jack found my swapped Cyprus shirt and made me put it on to recreate last week’s @FAWales game! Brek Shea @BrekShea Coming Soon #PhoenixShea #LeftFootStudio Robert Earnshaw @RobertEarnshaw Boyz 2 Men it was my pleasure to meet you and give one of my shirts to legends and music royalty. @WhitecapsFC Yeovil Town @YTFC Thank you @BarnetFC who left their dressing room like this tonight. Even mopped the floor. #YTFC THE FAKES Kevin Keegan @GalacticKeegan I phoned Bobby Charlton when he equalled Rooney’s goal tally. “It’s the other way round,” he said. “Don’t be so modest,” I insisted. YOU @FOURFOURTWO Mark Wall @mark_wall After a thoroughly good read, what better way to use @FourFourTwo mag than as my daughter’s school book cover! Mike…

Kevin De Bruyne is a man of many skills but few words. Ask him why he made only three league appearances for Chelsea and his reply is: “I don’t know.” Ask him, as a German reporter did back in April, whether Jose Mourinho ever explained to him why he wasn’t playing at Stamford Bridge and the Belgian says: “Mourinho decides. Mourinho doesn’t explain.” Which is a pity, really, because if there’s one career that needs a bit of explaining, it’s De Bruyne’s. In three and a half years, during which he has won neither a league title nor a European trophy, his value on the transfer market has risen almost eightfold, from £7 million in 2012 to £55 million this August. Two years ago, he wasn’t deemed good enough to…

There’s something slightly fishy about people who support two football teams. It seems to go against fandom’s unwritten code, lurking somewhere behind switching allegiances or wearing a half-and-half scarf on the master list of etiquette breaches. The exception, if there can be one, is when an individual has a ‘big’ and a ‘little’ club: the Arsenal nut who also bowls up to see Bromley every other week; the priced-out Manchester United man who occasionally wanders down to Macclesfield Town. Without a conflict of interest, such behaviour can be tolerated. However, when your big team and your little team end up in the same division thanks to an extraordinary twist of fate, things can get complicated. And on an August Bank Holiday Monday way out west, a huge number of this…

It seems tame by today’s standards, but the first generation of football mascots were simply distinctive fans – most of them eccentric old blokes occasionally allowed to lurk near the pitch. Foremost among them was Ken Baily, a balding civil servant from Bournemouth who achieved fame by following the Cherries and England in his distinctive John Bull outfit of top hat, tails and a Union Jack waistcoat. Elsewhere, Lenny Campbell became the most recognisable man on the Kop thanks to his all-red suit. A former Butlins redcoat known as Dr Fun, he was always accompanied by his personal mini-me: a terrifying ventriloquist’s dummy called Liverpool Charlie. Carlisle had George Baxter – yet another top-hatted gent, this one carrying his stuffed fox, Olga, naturally – while Peterborough had Mr Posh (simply…

How did you become so good at free-kicks? Did you practise them when you were younger? Yeah, I practised a lot as a kid, and in youth football my coaches recognised that I had a good technique. When I was at Karlsruher, my development picked up and I took over the set-piece responsibilities. That’s where this whole ‘free-kick king’ thing started. But I can assure you that there’s a lot of work behind it! So what does all this specific free-kick training involve? There are exercises I have to do: 20 from the left, 20 from the right, every other day. We can’t do it every day as the goalkeepers sometimes don’t have the energy for it, but whenever the goalkeepers are up for it we practise them. The 30-yard…

Lazio spent the 2003-04 season trying to return to the heady, Scudetto-winning days of 2000. Some stars had left, but the likes of Jaap Stam, Dejan Stankovic and Claudio Lopez remained to juggle Serie A and Champions League commitments. Then there was cultured midfielder Fabio Liverani, who demonstrated his side’s credentials by scoring a sensational chipped winner against Ancona at a key stage of the season. “That match came between two important league games against Juventus and Inter,” recalls Liverani, perhaps best known on British shores for failing to coach Leyton Orient to League One safety last season. “We had won the match with Juventus and had to keep going. Ancona were bottom of the league, but it was a really difficult match. We missed some chances.” The 39-year-old continues:…

Maybe Mirel Radoi was behind on his algebra. Maybe he never finished that essay on To Kill A Mockingbird . Whatever the reason, the Steaua Bucharest coach has been handed football’s strangest touchline ban, told to sit his high-school exams if he wants to talk to his players. It must have come as something of a surprise to club legend Radoi, given he’s 34, earned 67 Romania caps and was put in charge of the country’s biggest club this summer. But the man once voted history’s 21st-greatest Romanian – yes, higher than Ilie Nastase – doesn’t have his coaching qualifications, and officially giving assistant Massimo Pedrazzini the title of manager didn’t work. The Romanian FA couldn’t ban Radoi from the touchline but did suspend mid-game communication with…

MASTERCLASS Willian Hard-working Chelsea winger The Blues’ indefatigable Brazilian tells you how to impress your manager in attack and defence. PRO TIPS Steph Houghton Manchester City and England captain The defender details the work that’s required off the pitch in order to excel for club and country on it. FITNESS Rayan Wilson Performance consultant Modify your mundane gym workouts with assistance from Wilson – plus Leo Messi, David Silva, Arturo Vidal... NUTRITION Matt Lovell Nutrition advisor to Premier League clubs Pies are back on the menu! Spurs and Manchester City’s go-to guy picks the pastries to provide the fuel you need.…

“Getting the better of a difficult opponent like this is all about anticipation and working well with your team-mates. Firstly, you should try to stop his service. You’ll need to talk and Marcel Desailly World Cup-winning central defender work together to figure out how the opposition is getting the ball to him. If that doesn’t work, you have to be clever, especially if he’s big and strong like Drogba. This sounds strange, but don’t be too eager to get the ball off of him. If you try to engage in a physical contest with this type of player, you are putting your team at risk because you will probably lose. How tight you get depends on the kind of ball being played into the striker. If the opposition play a…

Muscle-building Chicken & Mushroom  (Per serving) Calories 303 Protein 37g Carbs 22.8g Fat 4.9g Ingredients 3 chicken breasts, 1 small onion, 1 garlic clove, 1 sweet potato, 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp plain flour, 1 egg (beaten), 500g ready-made shortcrust pastry, 150g button mushrooms, 115g celery, 50g carrots, 10g butter, 300ml skimmed milk, 200ml chicken stock, plus some grated nutmeg, chopped fresh parsley, white pepper and salt Cooking method • Preheat oven to 200C. • Fry chicken, mushrooms and vegetables until the chicken is golden brown. Remove and set aside. • Fry onion and garlic in the same pan for 2-3 mins. Remove and set aside. • Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour and cook (3 mins) to form a paste. Mix milk and stock in a…

8.5 The number of hours Houghton sleeps on a typical day 28 The average number of litres of water Houghton drinks during a week 9.9 The average number of kilometres Houghton covers during a match 32.5 The average number of kilometres Houghton runs during a week 42 The average number of high speed runs Houghton makes during a match Steph Houghton wears the official Manchester City training apparel available now on nike.com…