Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i FourFourTwo UK

With just a matter of days to go until the start of the Euros, the excitement is really starting to build. The club season is in the rear-view mirror and the focus is now fully on the next few weeks in Germany. There’s plenty to get excited about as we look forward to a summer of goals, great games… and inevitably getting soaked in beer. If it’s goals you’re interested in, then the tournament’s greatest ever goalscorer, Cristiano Ronaldo, is featured in this issue as he prepares for his record sixth career Euros – will it be his last major tournament? The second-highest scorer in European Championship history, Michel Platini, talks us through Euro 84, when he scored a ridiculous nine goals in five games and helped France triumph for…

“AFTER BEATING ENGLAND, BIG JACK SAID ‘DON’T DO THAT TO ME AGAIN!’ HE WAS MORE KNACKERED THAN US” Newcastle 1-4 Fulham October 16, 1982 Division Two “At Fulham, we’d just been promoted from the Third Division under Malcolm Macdonald and this was the first time he’d gone back to Newcastle, who had Kevin Keegan in their team. It felt like there was a lot riding on this for us. It was rare for Fulham to be shown on Match of the Day in that period and, for me, I’d never been on television before. I could tell that ‘Supermac’ was pretty nervous, too. Even he was surprised by the final score and how well we played that afternoon. We battered them 4-1 at St James’ Park – mine and Gordon…

“WINNING ANOTHER EUROS THIS SUMMER WOULD REOPEN THE MESSI CONVERSATION” “The dream was beautiful, as long as it lasted,” wrote Cristiano Ronaldo to his Instagram followers on December 11, 2022. “Unfortunately, that dream ended yesterday.” Above was a picture of Portugal’s captain and record appearance-maker trudging off the field at Qatar’s Al Thumama Stadium, after his country’s 1-0 defeat to Morocco in the World Cup quarter-finals. Aged 37, the crestfallen forward was referring solely to his dream of lifting a World Cup as a player, yet those reading could be forgiven for thinking he actually meant his status as a Portugal player. It had been a rough month. On the eve of his record-equalling fifth finals appearance, CR7 had agreed to the termination of his Manchester United contract following a…

After becoming Albania’s head coach at the start of 2023, Sylvinho wasn’t about to take it easy. The Brazilian watched no fewer than 240 matches, even waking early on Saturdays to observe games from South Korea in the search for his dream right-winger, all to draw up a longlist of 70 players for his first squad, before whittling the number down to 23. More than a year on, it’s safe to say that it was all worth it. This month, the former Arsenal and Barcelona full-back leads the Albanians in their second European Championship, having surprisingly topped their qualifying group ahead of Poland and Czech Republic. They’ve been drawn into a horror group with Italy, Spain and Croatia, and many expect Sylvinho’s men to be on the first flight back…

When the 1984 European Championship came around in France, my home country, I’d been playing in Italy with Juventus for two years. I was nearly 29 years old, I’d matured a lot, and I was captain of the French national team. With all of my experience, my mission was to protect the rest of the team and take them to the summit of European football. I was convinced we had the qualities to prevail. I wasn’t a maths teacher, slapping them on the wrist with a ruler, but I had to make them understand that they were good players and should believe in themselves. Alain Giresse, Patrick Battiston, Jean Tigana, Maxime Bossis – they were all great players, even if they’d shown their qualities only in French football until then.…

XI BEST: David Seaman, Adam Drury, Ronnie Edwards, Ryan Bennett, George Boyd [right], Lee Tomlin, Grant McCann, Simon Davies, David Farrell, Ivan Toney, Dwight Gayle. WORST: Scott Cooksey, Seth Nana Ofori-Twumasi, Micky Bodley, Phil Chapple, Matthew Briggs, Darren Caskey, Exodus Geohaghon, Jae Martin, Luke James, Joe Gormley, Trevor Benjamin. PLAYER B: George Boyd was a bargain from Stevenage who went to the very top. He was known as ‘The White Pele’ for a reason. W: Having been prolific in the Conference with Dover, Ricky Miller joined Peterborough with – unbeknown to us – a six-game ban for biting. He never scored and instead of running the ball into the corner when we were 2-1 up in injury time at Charlton, he shot wide from 40 yards. They scored with the…

Paul Lambert was born in Scotland but made in Germany. A Scottish Cup winner with St Mirren in his tender teenage years, he became a standout for Motherwell – but few could’ve predicted what would follow. In 1996, Lambert caught the eye of Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund and stunned his Fir Park team-mates with a secretive transfer, linking up with stars such as Matthias Sammer and Andreas Moller. It culminated in the midfielder shackling Zinedine Zidane as Dortmund beat Juventus in the 1997 Champions League Final, and his bond with appreciative supporters remains as strong as ever. Then, forced back to Glasgow to care for his ill son, Lambert helped Celtic to smash Rangers’ domestic dominance and represented Scotland at the World Cup. A deep thinker, Lambert took his philosophy…

When Edgar Ie commenced his career in the Barcelona first team, he didn’t imagine that a decade later he would be in Romania, fielding accusations that he’d sent his twin brother to play matches in his place. The 30-year-old lined up with Andres Iniesta & Co for Barça in 2014 and earned one cap for Portugal three years later, but switched to Guinea-Bissau after a career journey that has taken him to the east of Europe via Belenenses, Lille and Feyenoord. Ie joined Dinamo Bucharest from Turks Istanbul Basaksehir in February, then things got very weird: reports circulated that the man playing for Dinamo was twin Edelino, who’d spent almost the whole of his career in Portugal, recently turning out for lower league club Resende. Rumours were said to have…

The ball hits the net, and bearded defensive midfielder Nika Kvekveskiri hesitates for a split-second, almost unwilling to believe the enormity of what he’s just done. The sight of his crazed, jubilant team-mates rushing towards him confirms that, yes, his successful penalty – a perfectly placed right-foot shot that rolls, slow motion-like – is indeed the clincher. Yes, Nika, this really is happening. Yes, Nika, you have just qualified Georgia for a first major tournament. It’s March 26, 2024, a date to be circled forever more in Georgian history books. The nerveless Kvekveskiri’s spot-kick has secured a 4-2 penalty shootout win for Georgia over Greece, in the play-off final for Euro 2024. As some of the 44,000 delirious supporters packed into the Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena in Tbilisi clamber over…

As Euro 96 approached, the pressure was building on Alan Shearer. For 21 long months, spanning 12 appearances, he’d failed to find the net for England. The 25-year-old’s league form had remained relentless – in 1995-96, he surpassed 30 league goals for Blackburn for the third successive season. Continental competition had proved a tad trickier: two goals in eight games, as the Lancastrians surprisingly lost to Trelleborg in the UEFA Cup in 1994, then crashed out in the Champions League group stage a year later. Making only one appearance at Euro 92, mere months after his international debut, he’d been unable to help England reach the 1994 World Cup due to a cruciate ligament injury that ruled him out of several crucial qualifiers. Going into Euro 96, his Three Lions…

What would it mean to you to feature for Scotland at Euro 2024? It would mean everything to me. I was so close to going to the last Euros, just dropping out of the last squad before the tournament, and that feeling sticks with you. I want to put that right. It also feels like a ‘proper’ tournament, with supporters able to go again. You know Germany will be good hosts. Scotland face them on day one – you must’ve had a few ticket requests… By then I’ll have had 40 to 50 people asking me about tickets, and I don’t blame them. But I know I’ll have my small, core group there who have been with me through it all: my parents, my aunts, my partner and now our…

On the morning of May 3, 2002, Northern Echo readers awoke to a unique headline: “Monkey is Mayor!” In one of the greatest shocks in political history, Hartlepool United’s mascot, H’Angus the Monkey, had beaten a dozen candidates to win the North East town’s first mayoral election. The 7ft chimpanzee in full kit had campaigned on one simple simian pledge: to give every schoolchild in Hartlepool a banana. Now he had a chauffeur and was in charge of an annual budget of £103 million. Twelve years later, when his career in politics had come to an end, H’Angus confessed that he had once vomited in the toilet of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a trip to Rome. But to explain how things got to this stage, we must go…

The diminutive striker recalls downing England at Wembley, winning Euro 96 and reminiscing with Gareth Southgate You were always prolific, even in your early career – as you weren’t the biggest or most physical striker, what was your secret? Every year I tried to develop and improve every aspect of my goalscoring, studying my team-mates, watching how they executed various techniques, practising shooting with my right foot, my left foot, my head. I think that’s the reason for my success as a striker. What was special about the Kaiserslautern team you joined in 1989, winning first the DFB-Pokal and then the Bundesliga there? When I arrived at Kaiserslautern, our target was to avoid relegation. That first season was tough. We came under a lot of criticism and rightly so, as…

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME RUN RACCOON RUN PHILADELPHIA, USA There was no shortage of drama during Philadelphia Union versus New York City – a raccoon raced across the pitch, evading people armed with rubbish bins as the fans cheered. Finally, the blokes successfully binned it. Boooooo! Photo Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto/Shutterstock “SAME AGAIN NEXT YEAR, LADS?” MANCHESTER, ENGLAND There’s a tradition these days – having played rope-a-dope with their rivals for months, lulling them into thinking they might win the Premier League, the Manchester City squad gather at the Etihad Stadium in May and lift the trophy. See you in 2025… Photo Alex Livesey – Danehouse/Getty Images “SOMEONE KEEP AN EYE ON THE TROPHY!” MADRID, SPAIN When Real Madrid had a parade around the city in 2011, Sergio Ramos dropped the Copa del Rey and…

01 Who scored Greece’s winner in the final of the 2004 European Championship? 02 At which tournament did Ally McCoist, Teddy Sheringham and Patrik Berger all score goals at the Euros? 03 Who captained the Wales side at their first ever Euros in 2016? 04 Italy were controversially knocked out of Euro 2004 at the expense of which two nations, who drew 2-2 with each other to ensure the Azzurri’s group-stage exit? 05 Excluding the pan-European Euro 2020, which country has hosted the European Championship the most times? 06 Austria and Switzerland hosted which edition of the tournament? 07 Against which team did Mario Balotelli (right) famously celebrate a Euros goal by removing his shirt? 08 Which city hosted both the opening ceremony and fixture of Euro 2020? 09 Which…

JOSE MOURINHO MARK WHITE CONTENT EDITOR @markwhlte England manager, Jose Mourinho, scuffing the sacred Wembley turf with a knee-slide: three fingers raised to represent the number of lions on the shirt. It is the final destination. Fasten your seatbelt, in case of turbulence. By now, his Cary Grant charisma has weathered; he is no longer the elite genius of the 2000s, the suave Magneto to Pep’s Professor X. Mourinho is mortal, spat out by Tottenham and Roma, chiselled from chasing refs in car parks. But this is international football’s office, where Roberto Martinez is Cristiano Ronaldo’s line manager. You’d better believe Jose is still capable of special moments. International football is still immune to xG and inverted full-backs. Pure bastardry wins out – and in the court of knockout football,…

“EVERY TIME YOU THINK THINGS AREN’T GOING WELL, HE SHUTS PEOPLE’S MOUTHS IN BIG GAMES” As Kylian Mbappe arrowed a volley into the bottom corner of the net at the Lusail Stadium, an entire planet gasped. The most dramatic moment of the greatest World Cup final of all time came not from Lionel Messi, but the man who ended up on the losing side. With his second goal in two minutes, astonishingly levelling a game that looked done and dusted, Mbappe had sealed his status as a World Cup legend. A 2018 champion at just 19, his toe-to-toe battle with the best player in history in Qatar will forever endure. A battle for the World Cup, Golden Boot and Ballon d’Or, all on one night. Like the match itself, the…

30 ROBBIE SAVAGE A pantomime villain as a player, Savage has continued that combative but comical style as a pundit. As well as running Macclesfield FC, he’s spent most of the past few years bickering with Chris Sutton on BT/TNT, plus BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in 606. If you like petty point-scoring, they’re the duo for you. HE SAID “At times, I’ll be honest with you, I was world-class” – a modest assessment from Sav, to the BT panel’s bemusement… 29 SLAVEN BILIC The widely renowned guitar player/football manager has been a popular figure on ITV during major tournaments, able to regale tales from his time as Croatia boss – Steve McClaren must be glad of the reminder. MOST NOTABLE MOMENT Dancing on top of a table after a Euro…

Until recently, leading Sheffield Wednesday to Champions League glory was Nathan Owolabi’s biggest achievement on Football Manager. Then the popular simulation game landed the 23-year-old a full-time role with professional club Bromley. “It’s a great feeling,” he tells FFT. “To be able to tell people this is an actual thing? It’s like a dream come true.” In February this year, Owolabi was announced as the winner of ‘The Everyday Tactician’ competition, a campaign offering one FM 2024 aficionado the chance to be part of Bromley’s backroom staff as they chased National League promotion. Previously, the closest thing Owolabi could have called ‘real-world’ football experience was a couple of coaching badges and working as a tour guide at Wembley Stadium, but racking up close to 7,000 hours of game time on…

Confusion is not a word any organisation wants associated with it, but that label has attached itself to the Kernow Football Alliance. Annoyingly for all involved in Cornwall (to give the county its English name), it’s no fault of their own. The Kernow FA came into being in 2016 as the brainchild of Andrew Bragg, known as the Godfather of Cornish football, and Jason Heaton, a Pontefract-born Leeds fan who’d long decided that Duchy life was for him. Bragg’s son Josh was playing in Sweden’s third tier with a team-mate who represented Sapmi – native Laplanders whose territory covers parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Josh learned about Sapmi’s membership to the Confederation of Independent Football Associations (CONIFA), a body set up to represent teams based on ethnic,…