The General Football Thread

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Carlo Ancelotti sentenced to one year in prison over tax offence

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6320182/2025/07/09/carlo-ancelotti-tax-real-madrid/?campaign=14162257

Brazil head coach Carlo Ancelotti has been sentenced to one year in prison and fined €386,361 by a Madrid court for failing to pay tax on his image rights revenues in the 2014 financial year.

Ancelotti, who left Real Madrid at the end of the side’s 2024-25 La Liga season to take charge of Brazil, has been acquitted by Section 30 of Madrid’s provincial court of a similar offence related to the 2015 tax year.

The Italian head coach managed Real Madrid from 2013 to 2015 and again between 2021 and 2025.

The court were unable to prove Ancelotti had stayed long enough in Spain in 2015 to incur tax liabilities, as he moved to London in May that year after being sacked by Madrid.

It is rare for Spain to enforce jail sentences of under two years for non-violent and first-time offenders.

Ancelotti, 65, was charged in 2020 after being accused of failing to pay around €1.62million ($1.24m; £915,000 at current rates), with €386,361 from 2014 and €675,718 from 2015.

The Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office had been seeking a prison sentence of four years and nine months, as well as a fine of €3.2m.

The charges related to earnings from Ancelotti’s image rights during his first stint as Madrid head coach in 2014 and 2015, with the allegation that the Italian had failed to include the relevant income in his tax returns, despite declaring himself as a tax resident in Spain and listing his residence as Madrid.

The case was heard in the 30th Criminal Court of the Provincial Court of Madrid on April 2 and 3. It was clarified on the first day of proceedings that Ancelotti had since paid his €1.5m debt to the Spanish tax authorities in 2021. Ancelotti had decided to testify in court after saying he would not attempt to strike a deal with the prosecution.

Catch Up On The Story

Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti appears in court over alleged tax fraud

Ancelotti was charged in 2020 and Spanish prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of four years and nine months and a fine of €3.2m.

Ancelotti’s defence was that it had been Madrid’s obligation to make the correct withholding for the tax authorities when it came to income from his image rights. He told the court on day one that he “never” intended to defraud.

Ancelotti said he negotiated directly with Madrid a contract of €6m net annually over three years. “I negotiate in net (salary) because I am not an expert,” he added.

“I thought it was quite normal because at that time all the players and the previous coach (Jose Mourinho) had (done the same). For coaches, (image rights) don’t mean the same as they do for players because they don’t sell shirts.

“I have never given importance to image rights. I only cared about collecting a net six (salary of €6m net annually).”

After Ancelotti’s testimony and questioning on day one, the second day in court saw five tax experts — three called by the prosecution, one by the defence and one from the tax office — appear as witnesses and be questioned by lawyers from both sides.

Ancelotti first coached Madrid for two seasons between 2013 and 2015.

After spells at Bayern Munich, Napoli and Everton, he returned to the Spanish side in June 2021. Across his two periods with Madrid, Ancelotti won two La Liga titles, two Copas del Rey and three Champions Leagues.

[ahmedou 188]

19 hours ago, Vesper said:

Carlo Ancelotti sentenced to one year in prison 

Haram Ball

[Vesper 30,079]

Lamine Yamal to be investigated over dwarfism row

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cn5kpd4y2yvo

 

Spain's Ministry of Social Rights has asked the country's prosecutor's office to investigate Barcelona winger Lamine Yamal after he reportedly hired people with dwarfism to perform at his 18th birthday party.

Lamine Yamal hosted a party on Sunday at a rented property in Olivella, a small town 50 kilometres north west of Barcelona, with guests including YouTubers, influencers, and several Barcelona team-mates.

It is alleged Lamine Yamal hired a group of entertainers with dwarfism, something the Association of People with Achondroplasia and other Skeletal Dysplasias in Spain (ADEE) described as "unacceptable in the 21st century".

When contacted by BBC Sport, the Directorate General for People with Disabilities - part of the Ministry of Social Rights, ConsumerAffairs, and 2030 Agenda - said: "ADEE has filed a legal complaint.

"Therefore, this Directorate General has asked the Prosecutor's Office to investigate to determine whether the law and, therefore, the rights of people with disabilities have been violated."

The ADEE said it "publicly denounces the hiring of people with dwarfism as part of the entertainment," and said it would take legal action as it "perpetuates stereotypes, fuels discrimination, and undermines the image and rights" of people with disabilities.

In a statement it said: "These actions violate not only current legislation but also the fundamental ethical values of a society that seeks to be egalitarian and respectful.

"The general law on the rights of persons with disabilities expressly prohibits the following practices: 'Shows or recreational activities in which people with disabilities or other circumstances are used to provoke mockery, ridicule, or derision from the public in a manner contrary to the respect due to human dignity are prohibited'."

However, Spanish radio station RAC1, external broadcast an interview with someone claiming to be one of the entertainers present at the party who defended Lamine Yamal.

"No-one disrespected us, we worked in peace," said the artist, who asked to remain anonymous.

"I don't understand why there's so much hype. We're normal people, who do what we want, in an absolutely legal way.

"We work as entertainers. Why can't we do it? Because of our physical condition?

"We know what our limit is and we will never exceed it: we are not fairground monkeys."

The performer said it lasted one hour, and afterwards the entertainers joined in with the party.

"We dance, we distribute drinks, we do magic... there are many types of shows. Everyone had a great time."

When approached for comment by BBC Sport, a Barcelona spokesperson said the club was "not in a position to comment on an act that falls strictly within the private sphere", but added their position would be reassessed once "concrete information" has been ascertained.

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ERIK TEN HAG LOST BAYER LEVERKUSEN 5 - 1 TO U20 FLAMENGO

 

 

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Analysis

Why are all the strikers massive again?

Detailing the reasons for and ramifications of the jumbo-sized centre-forward trend

https://scoutedftbl.com/why-all-the-strikers-massive-again/

 

The evolution of the 21st-century striker is documented, unsurprisingly, in books about tactics.

In The Mixer, Michael Cox writes that the old-school Premier League archetype of the centre-forward, “a tall, strong number-9 who remained in the penalty box and thrived on crosses”, eventually gave way to technical, hybrid strikers like Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tévez, Robin van Persie, Harry Kane, and even false nines like Roberto Firmino, who represented the antithesis to centre-forward orthodoxy.

Similarly, in Inverting the Pyramid, Jonathan Wilson describes how pure ”poachers” in the mould of Filippo Inzaghi and young Michael Owen were replaced by strikers who’d combine multiple traditional centre-forward archetypes in one. “The best modern forwards,” Wilson writes, “have at least an element of universality and – crucially – they have to be able to function within the system.” The age of the goal-hanging big striker was over; the time of the nine-and-a-half had come.

Today, the picture looks rather different. Most of the Premier League clubs challenging for titles and for Champions League qualification all possess, or are targeting, big, physical strikers. At the time of writing, Manchester City have Erling Haaland; Arsenal have bagged Viktor Gyökeres; Hugo Ekitiké is in Liverpool, signing a contract; Newcastle United are just about holding onto Alexander Isak; Liam Delap is settling in at Chelsea. What’s more, almost all the hyped young striker talents on the market are physical unicorns. Benjamin Šeško, Nick Woltemade, Samu Aghehowa, Emanuel Emegha, Tolu Arokodare, and Promise David are all 6’4” and above, and combine their height and strength with great mobility, if not blistering pace.

Most of these strikers aren’t known for their technical refinement in possession, either. Though their passing and link up play remains raw at best, buying clubs seem unperturbed. While it won’t much bother David Moyes, Everton’s new 6’5” signing Thierno Barry is a prime example: he possesses great physicality, off-ball intelligence, and dribbling, but completed just 8.1 passes p90 last season, and his first touch and weight of pass remain very inconsistent.

So what’s going on here? Why are big, physical strikers who spend most of their time stretching backlines and attacking the box en vogue again, decades after they were phased out?

The answer may lie in tactical trends over the past five years and emerging patterns in player development. Using stats, stills, and conversations with a few experts, I set out to investigate.d out more

The new centre-forward ‘meta’

As Jake discussed in his introduction to the Power Forward archetype, the game’s physicality has grown over the past six years. With every passing season, the fastest players get faster, while all players are tasked with more ‘High-Intensity Actions’. As a result, Jake notes, big clubs target physical profiles to fill the No.9 spot.

Tiago Estêvão, currently Famalicão’s Head of Recruitment and Performance Analysis and formerly a Technical Scout at AC Milan, believes this is a case of tactical environments and player skillsets shaping each other. “It’s a self-fulfilling system,” Tiago told me, “where with the ‘athletification’ of football, even at top-level, elite teams, you have big teams prioritising physical characteristics for their No.9s. You want tall, fast guys in the Haaland/Šeško mould of fast and tall, strong freaks.” He cites Manchester City’s signing of Haaland as the key turning point for this change in striker profiles at big clubs.

Others working in recruitment at the top level echo this opinion. “If you look at the Premier League,” a scout at a Premier League club, who wished to stay anonymous, told me, “it's pretty remarkable how homogeneous body types are across the pitch now. We've figured out that actually football does have a real physical ideal across positions in general, but strikers are your most important player so you in a way need them to be ‘perfect’ if you want to be competitive”.

Fans of basketball may notice a familiar pattern. When the pace-and-space era of the NBA and the rise of the three-pointer pushed traditional ‘bigs’ to the periphery, new generations of ‘bigs’ who developed their three-point-shooting, ball-handling, and passing skills emerged. Now, ‘small-ball’ experiments are outnumbered by double-big lineups in the playoffs. It’s intuitive to guess that the striker position in football is going through something similar. What’s better than a 5’9” striker who can link up play and facilitate final-third passing? A 6’3” striker who can link up play and facilitate final-third passing.

But here’s where the story gets more interesting: strikers aren’t just bigger in 2025, they also play the game rather differently.  For starters, strikers in the Big Five Leagues complete fewer passes now than at the beginning of the decade.

Plus, shots and touches in the box represent a larger proportion of strikers’ overall involvements today, with their ‘Shot Happiness’ and ‘Penalty-Area Proximity’ – to pilfer ideas from Jake –  increasing as the 2020s have progressed.

These trends aren’t limited to younger physical strikers, or among strikers leading the line at smaller clubs, either. When you look at the season-by-season passing numbers of established strikers at top clubs who’ve often been used as lone strikers, the vast majority of them complete fewer passes every year. The exceptions here are Alexander Isak, whose teams scaling in quality and style have increased his volume, and Harry Kane, whose numbers went up last season after years of decline. Nevertheless, the pattern is clear: every year, strikers at big clubs become less involved in link-up play.

Does this represent a return of the old-school striker that Cox referred to: big, strong strikers who stay in the box? Let’s dig into the tactical context.

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Man-marking, match-ups, and pinning

Surely the return of tall, physical strikers with great box presence has signalled the resurgence of crosses and long balls, of pumping it at the big guy’s head? Well, no, not really. Over the past five seasons, teams’ ratios of crosses to total passes in the Big Five Leagues have wavered slightly, with a small downward trend, while their ratios of long balls to total passes have fallen to a small extent. But as we’ll discuss later, teams are certainly playing more direct, just not through the air.

Plus, less of the game takes place in the air now, in general. In the 2020-21 season, the average Big Five League side contested 31.32 aerial duels per game; in 2024-25, they contested 27.15.

The answers lie in what teams do out of possession. I spoke with The Athletic’s Jon Mackenzie on this. “One of the biggest tactical evolutions of the last half-decades,” Jon says, “has come out of possession. Where man-marking had all but died out by around the early 2010s, we saw a resurgence of man-to-man ideas as the decade wore on because teams out-of-possession were increasingly less happy to allow the opposition to possess the ball without pressure.”

This in turn informs how teams attempt to pry open defences. “As this man-orientation became more prevalent,” he continues, “possession teams were incentivised to progress the ball through different means than simply short passing, one of which was playing direct. Because teams were pressing high and leaving their defenders one-on-one against forwards, bringing in strikers who could compete in duels had obvious upsides. So through time, we started seeing striker profiles evolving in that direction.”

Twitter’s resident striker expert, @sthsthburner, known as just ‘Seth’ or ‘Burner’, also notes the influence of out-of-possession trends. “An increase in man-to-man marking,” Burner says, “means hoofing it to a strong outlet or a channel runner is often the easiest or the best route, better still if they're a one-on-one or carrying threat to boot.”

Clearly, the proliferation of man-marking intuitively leads to strikers’ involvements in a game revolving around matchups and one-on-ones. However, interestingly enough, the numbers suggest that strikers don’t contest more one-on-one ‘duels’ on the ball. Strikers contest fewer aerial duels every passing season, while their one-on-one dribbling numbers fell noticeably hard last season. Teams aren’t pumping it to the big man up top more, or letting the striker ‘cook’ against centre-backs off the dribble.

Look at Robert Lewandowski’s positioning here when Bayern Munich aggressively press Barcelona’s build-up man-to-man.

Playing on the shoulder of the last defender, even slightly offside, Lewandowski pins back Bayern’s backline, creating either an option in behind if Barça decide to go direct, or space between Bayern’s midfield and backline if Barça attempt to play through the press. He’ll occasionally drop back and drag a defender with him when playing a one-touch layoff pass or heading the ball into space…

…but positioning himself on the last line very much remains the default, and Barça’s midfielders and wingers receive between the lines more, rather than their striker.

Haaland, who completed just 8.4 passes p90 last season, represents an extreme in how physically-gifted strikers are tasked with stretching backlines and occupying defenders to help their teams score, even in a high-possession system. In addition to positioning himself on the last line, he consistently sticks to the far-side of the play and vacates space, occupying defenders due to his physical and goalscoring threat. He doesn’t offer himself as an option, but still facilitates passing play around him.

Clearly, pinning back defenders becomes increasingly important in a new tactical environment, and people within the game recognise it, too. “The key for us with [our striker],” the anonymous Premier League scout says, “is his ability to be an outlet for us and his ability and willingness to make the runs that stretch the backline. His ability to drop in and play is respectable enough that you have to track him, but that makes that spin and run more potent.”

Recent trends in possession may also emphasise the value of pinning backlines and creating space. As Burner notes, the resurgence of prolific No.10s and touchline wingers necessitates strikers pinning backlines, creating targets for through-balls, and creating space for cut-backs. A mix of man-marking, the return of creative No.10s and touchline wingers, and the rise of goalscoring No.10s, he says, means there’s “more value in an outlet up top pinning the backline for them to arrive late to the box or even creating central spaces for cutbacks and hitting those cutbacks themselves.” In the age of front fives in possession and big, rich sides stacking attacking quality together, the guys up top prosper with more specific roles.

In this tactical environment, physical profiles are also especially well-suited to turning possession into goals. When a striker like Haaland attacks from the far-side of the ball, matchups become all the more crucial. With opponents setting up tight, compact blocks when the ball reaches the defensive third, teams tend to attack around defences rather than through them, as Liam Tharme noted for The Athletic - they progress the ball with diagonal passes out wide and then back inside to create shots. A striker on the wrong side of the defender manoeuvring his way towards the ball has to make the best use of his physical prowess and/or his off-ball guile. Haaland’s goal against Arsenal in City’s 1-5 loss provides an example: he outmuscles and outjumps William Saliba, which is no small feat.

This is Billy Carpenter’s ‘Ethan Pinnock test’. When a new generation of physically, mentally, and technically-gifted centre-backs form the spine of low-blocks and mid-blocks, “physical battles become paramount”. Strikers are tasked with creating mismatches, with strength, jumping, speed, and off-ball tricks, en route to attacking the back post.

Plus, the growing prominence of transitions is playing a key role, too. This season, in comparison to 2020-21, teams get on the ball slightly less in the middle third and progress up the pitch more quickly, especially in the attacking third. These differences may not be large but they represent the acceleration of a trend that’s been underway since the mid-2010s.

Naturally, a side hitting the opposition on the counter-attack requires a fast or aerially-dominant outlet to pump the ball to. “You can be a more traditional target man who the ball sticks to or more one who stretches the play,” the anonymous scout says, “but ultimately if you are looking to be breaking in transition, you can't be coming too deep and looking to get involved. Physicality helps here because I want my striker affecting the back line with his physical skills, making things difficult for them.”

Lastly, as Tiago noted in our conversation, two other early-2010s trends continue to shape the physicality of centre-forward profiles: pressing demands, and the increasing reliance on set-pieces to create shots. Strikers win the ball themselves less often now than at the beginning of the decade – doing so 0.96 times p90 on average, a slight decrease from 1.1 in 2020-21 – due to many high presses retreating into midfield blocks, but strikers are still tasked with intense off-ball work to usher opposition build-ups out wide.

Tactical systems on the pitch reveal one side of the story. What happens in academies and coaching set-ups, unbeknownst to outsiders, adds further nuance.

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Specialists and player development

Take a look through the names of all the hyped-up young strikers linked with big moves this summer, then look up their height. You'll find most, if not all, are 6'1" or above. Meanwhile, slightly undersized strikers - even the 5'10" Loïs Openda - rarely find their way to the headlines.

The anonymous scout notes that improvements in player development are allowing young, physically gifted strikers level-up their technical skillsets - meaning technicality is no longer the domain of the diminutive. “Essentially I think it's because we are just getting better at developing well-rounded footballers,” he says. “In the past players who were both technically gifted and physically gifted were unicorns. I think we've just begun to understand how to develop more of them”. He also adds that smaller, technical strikers are moved “to the periphery”.

Meanwhile, Tiago asserts that emerging striker profiles at the highest level are a result of tactical trends allowing unique physical profiles to progress further than they otherwise would - which then gives them a platform for technical improvement. “You have these guys who,” Tiago says, “years back, wouldn't ever reach a top team cause they'd only fit relegation football, reach a top team and do so early. And then presumably that increases your chances of technical development under elite coaches and conditions.” Many strikers nearing two metres tall may not turn into Harry Kane, but they can at the very least stop being liabilities with the ball. Šeško perhaps represents one such example.

Consequently, in a game previously defined by the increasing prominence of ‘generalists’, specialist strikers who thrive because of their divinely-ordained physical skillsets get a major head start. “Basketball used to have the concept of a ‘tweener’,” the unnamed scout says, “someone who wasn't a 4 or a 5, and it was a real negative term and that's how I feel about centre-forwards. If you’re a striker who doesn't always perform as a nine and we see you do alright out wide and no one is super sure what you are, then in my mind you are 100% a winger.”

Many of us have broad ideas about the history of football tactics. Some consider it a linear story of ‘development’ - from archaic kick-and-rush football to sophisticated press-and-possess tactics. Others think tactics move in circles; the 2-3-5 formation becomes dominant, is slowly replaced by formations with more defenders like the 5-3-2, which in turn is supplanted by top sides forming the 2-3-5 shape in possession. The famed pyramid is inverted and then re-inverted to fit new contexts. It’s easy to consider these top-level striker trends as similar.

But, crucially, the current dominant profile is inextricably linked to the tactical undercurrents that created the conditions for it, and must be viewed in its own terms. Even if strikers like Haaland and Barry don’t pass the ball much, their participation in their teams’ possession sequences, creating space for their teammates with carefully-considered positioning and physical engagement, is fundamental. Even if these strikers don’t create shots for themselves at the end of every possession, they certainly help their teammates pry open defences, in transition or against a settled block. To return to Wilson’s description of ‘the best modern forwards’, the new crop of strikers may not show the same ‘universality’, but certainly ‘function within the system’.

Although big strikers are the dominant force, it’s not all over for the little guy. They continue to flourish in front twos alongside a bigger striker, with Lautaro Martinez and Julian Alvarez key examples. Additionally, as Jon observed, big sides this pre-season and in the Club World Cup are experimenting with situational front-twos, thus pinning and occupying backlines in new ways.

Every tactical trend has a counter. As the pyramid slowly re-inverts, positional requirements will change with it, and the undersized striker might just become an undervalued commodity again soon. As someone who’s 5’7” on a good day, I know which profile I’m rooting for.

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Nominative determinism in football

Arsenal Wenger, James Trafford and the players and managers destined for clubs… because of their names

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6524643/2025/08/04/football-names-clubs-managers-arsenal-wenger/

 

Nominative determinism, i.e. the theory that people gravitate towards jobs or activities that reflect their name, is a thing.

Researchers once found that people called Dennis or Denise were more likely to gravitate towards dentistry (this is genuine).

It’s not a universal truth. Someone called Louise Baker isn’t necessarily destined to wear chef whites for a living. Likewise, Tony Dull doesn’t have to become an accountant.

But when Wolves signed David Moller Wolfe last week and James Trafford decided to join Manchester City, they became the latest quirks in football’s history of throwing up ironically placed players.

Trafford will not only return to the city that houses the shopping mall the Trafford Centre or the Trafford Park area, but also, of course, Old Trafford, i.e. the home of City’s greatest rivals. It’s a bit like someone called James Park being in goal for Sunderland.

He becomes the second goalkeeper in Manchester whose surname shares the name with a park in the city. Heaton Park, which recently hosted about 300,000 people across five glorious Oasis homecoming gigs, was named after Manchester United goalkeeper Tom Heaton in honour of his contribution to the club since he signed in 2021 (three appearances and counting). This is not true; the Heaton Hall estate dates back centuries, but hopefully you believed that for a second.

 

Tom Heaton, not the inspiration for Heaton Park (Octavio Passos/Getty Images)

Of course, Manchester United do have a young player named after them — Kobbie Mainoo. Or at least, to those fans who use Man U as a pejorative when referring to the club.

The most shocking example of a rival’s home in a player’s surname, though, has to be the man we know as Barcelona legend Gerard Pique, or to give him his full name, Gerard Pique Bernabeu. The Bernabeu, of course, is the name of rivals Real Madrid’s home ground.

However, the Bernabeu name is certainly no source of shame for Pique; his grandfather Amador Bernabeu was formerly a vice-president at Barcelona. Still, it’s pretty ironic that one of Real Madrid’s ultimate hate figures shares a name with the club’s home.

Sometimes you see the name of a club and think it must be fate. That was certainly Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein’s take when, in 1989, he met some chap called Arsene Wenger for the first time.

Wenger, then Monaco manager, attended an Arsenal match at their old Highbury ground, and Dein took him to a friend’s house for dinner.

“I thought, ‘This guy’s something special, he’s a bit different’,” Dein later recalled to the BBC. “Just then it was like a flash of lightning, I sort of saw in the sky: ‘Arsene for Arsenal: it’s destiny; one day he will be our manager’.”

Three Premier League titles and seven FA Cups later, Dein’s destiny worked out alright. Good job that he wasn’t called Dave Wenger.

Perhaps the most blatant case of managerial nominative determinism is Wolfgang Wolf managing Wolfsburg.

It was only his second career job (after Stuttgarter Kickers), and he lifted Wolfsburg to what was then the club’s highest-ever finish of sixth in 1999, lasting five years before he was kicked out of the pack.

You might think Molineux was the next logical destination for Wolf, which sadly never happened. Wolves had already signed a namesake in 1994, though, in the form of Dutch defender John de Wolf. This wasn’t due to a flash of lightning that then Wolves manager Graham Taylor saw in the sky; Taylor had been impressed by De Wolf when seeing him play for the Netherlands against England.

“I wrote a book in 1994 and said hopefully one day I’d play in England… the book came out in December and that was the month I joined Wolves,” De Wolf later told The Athletic. “Also, the name of the club — my name! It just fitted.”

De Wolf was an instant cult hero. “De Wolf man” was a regular chant at Molineux when the burly defender with a lengthy golden mane would saunter up the field to take long throws.

He’s now been followed up by Wolves signing AZ Alkmaar’s Norwegian left-back David Moller Wolfe for €11.5m (£10m).

Wolfe told Wolves.co.uk: “Personally, I think it’s pretty cool to have that surname and then to play for Wolverhampton.

“Me and my brothers have actually joked a little bit about it a couple of years ago, and now it is turning into a reality. I think it was meant to be.”

There was only one club that recently retired midfield Salva Sevilla was supposed to play for, but sadly he only ever made the B team for the Spanish club. Surprisingly, he would go on to make his name at Sevilla’s big rivals Real Betis. Ditto former Tottenham Hotspur defender Mike England, who managed Wales for eight years in the 1980s.

Mat Sadler, though, did get it right when he played for Walsall, i.e. the Saddlers, not once but twice during his playing days, and is now the club’s manager.

 

Mat Sadler, the manager of the Saddlers (Morgan Harlow/Getty Images)

Graham Potter served ‘the Potters’ with distinction during his playing days when he featured for Stoke City for three years. Christian Fuchs joined the right English club when he moved to Leicester City in 2015; Fuchs in German means fox.

It’s not just club names that elicit destiny for players; positions do too.

What other position on the field would former Belgian player Mark De Man play other than defence? It just had to be true.

In fact, De Man played all across the back line, as a full-back or a centre-back and was even known to pop into defensive midfield, playing for Anderlecht in Belgium and with Roda JC in the Dutch Eredivisie, all the while shadowing his opponents extremely closely. Opposition players knew exactly who was arriving when their team-mates shouted; “De Man on!”

In a less obvious but still fitting outcome, one-time Premier League player John Utaka simply had to play as an attacker, which he did pretty successfully for Portsmouth in the late 2000s, providing the cross that led to Portsmouth’s winning goal in the 2008 FA Cup final.

Some names are curious given their styles of play, like beanpole 6ft 7in striker Peter Crouch, or legendary Italian defender Claudio Gentile, a player famed for being an aggressive nutcase rather than a serene ball-player.

Names don’t always forge a path of fate in football; Gareth Barry never played for Barry Town, while Isaac Success only played for Watford in England. But when it happens, it’s pretty satisfying.