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During the 1980s, the French national team exhibited an elegant, skilful, and attacking style of play. Similar to their South American counterparts the team earned the nickname of the "Brazilians of Europe". They flourished under their coach Michel Hidalgo, and were led by the immensely gifted playmaker and captain Michel Platini, who, alongside Jean Tigana, Alain Giresse, and the tough...

Paul John Gascoigne (born 27 May 1967, Dunston, Gateshead, England), commonly referred to as Gazza, joined Newcastle United as an apprentice in 1983. His talent as a youngster was recognised by manager Jack Charlton who handed him his full first team debut in 1985. He spent three more years at St James' Park where he won the PFA Young Player...

Colour plays a vitally important role in the world in which we live. Colour can sway thinking, change actions and cause reactions. It can irritate or soothe your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite. In theory, the Primary Colours are the root of every other hue imaginable. The primary pigments used in the manufacture of paint come from the pure source element...

In support of the Football Supporters’ Federation’s ‘Away Fans Matter’ campaign and inspired by a line from Herman Melville’s evocative 1851 masterpiece, Moby Dick, this design romantically portrays the unconditional devotion of the dedicated Away Fan, as a restless, driven adventurer. The design presents a beautiful visual analogy for the extreme lengths that the Away Fan goes to; the incredibly...

George Best hailed from humble beginnings in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Born 22 May 1946, he was blessed with a prodigious talent. He was discovered in 1961, at the age of 15, by Manchester United scout Bob Bishop, whose telegram to United manager Matt Busby famously read: ’I think I've found you a genius’. His local club had rejected him for...

Sheffield resides in a natural amphitheatre created by seven hills and the confluence of five rivers. It is widely considered one of the greenest cities in Europe containing 150 woodlands and public parks. With an estimated two million trees, it has more trees per person than any other city in Europe.  In contrast, it is home to the largest listed...

Roberto Baggio was born into a family of 8 brothers on February 18, 1967, in Caldogno near Vicenza in the north east of Italy, where his playing career began. Baggio played most of his professional career in pain, only hitting full fitness for a handful of games a season. Yet for much of that time, he was considered one of the most extraordinary and...

Founded in 1909, Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e.V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund , or BVB, is a football club based in the city of Dortmund, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany. The football team is part of a membership-based sports club with over 100,000 members. They are one of the most successful clubs in German football, having won...

When the Brazilian national football team (Seleção Brasileira) participated in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, they maintained their record of being the only team to have entered every World Cup Finals. The finals, held in Spain, promised beautiful football, iconic stars, unforgettable matches and moments of high drama. The most gifted collection of footballers at the tournament, without doubt, were...

Zbigniew "Zibì" Kazimierz Boniek, born 3 March 1956 in Bydgoszcz, is widely regarded as the best player Poland has ever produced, and is one of the greatest Eastern European players ever.  He started his career with his hometown club Zawisza, before moving to one of the Poland's great clubs, Widzew Łódź, winning two Polish and scoring 50 league goals in...

“Like chess, like music, football is circumscribed in time, yet creates its own temporality within set time limits; or, if you prefer, it owes its abstractedness to a capacity for constantly remodelling the present, or truly inventing it. “One evening, we started to muse over the correspondence between music and football. I was not talking about Vindaloo, or why Seven...

Born 26 February 1973, in Kristiansund, Norway, Ole Gunnar Solskjær spent most of his career playing in England with Manchester United. Scoring 126 goals in 366 games during an incredible period of success for the north west giants, the prolific striker was, and still remains, a firm favourite with the Old Trafford faithful.  Before his arrival at United, Solskjær played for the...

‘The Double Helix’ presents the hereditary relationship between these two great and pivotal clubs, a base pair in the very DNA of football.The intertwining double-stranded structure represents the connection between Sheffield FC, the first and oldest club in the world and Real Madrid CF, the greatest club of the 20th century.In 2004, FIFA acknowledged their contributions to the game awarding...

The legendary and iconic Roberto Rivelino, born 1946 in Sao Paolo, featured in three World Cups for Brazil, including their third and most celebrated success in Mexico in 1970. Lining up alongside the likes of Pele, Carlos Alberto, Gérson, Tostao and Jairzinho, he played a key role in what is widely acknowledged as being the greatest football squad of all...

Pablo Aimar, nicknamed The Clown (‘El Payaso’) with a 'tear-like' birthmark on his left cheek, made a name for himself at Buenos Aires' River Plate, playing in the #10 shirt. He was considered to be one of the best and most talented young players in Argentina and the 'heir apparent' to Diego Maradona. Indeed, Diego himself stated that Aimar was...

Hidetoshi Nakata was born on 22nd January 1977, Yamanashi in Japan. He started his football journey with Hokushin Boys Football Club’s youth side in 1986. Nakata went on to become the most popular footballer in Japan and arguably the most popular Asian footballer of all time. He played in the top flight of two European leagues, the Italian Serie A...

The Hexagon (l' Hexagone) is an epithet of France, owing to the shape of its European mainland. The FIFA World Cup was contested in France in 1998 and 'Le football hexagonal' triumphed when the French national team won the World Cup on home soil. The team's World Cup success was seen as ultimate proof that integration had worked in France....

Franz Anton Beckenbauer was born 11 September 1945 in Munich, amid the ruins of post-war Germany. He joined the youth team at Bayern Munich when he was 14, and three years later gave up his job as a trainee insurance salesman to become a professional footballer. He was nicknamed 'Der Kaiser' ('The Emperor') because of his elegant style, his leadership...

Paul McGrath was born in Ealing, London, UK (1959). At the age of four weeks old he was given up for adoption. Enduring a tough childhood, he grew up behind closed doors in a number of Church run orphanages in 1960s Dublin. His first professional football club was St Patricks Athletic, Ireland, where he drew the attention of several English...

David Alfonso Arellano Moraga, born in Santiago, Chile on July 29, 1902, was a Chilean international football player, considered the father of modern day professional football in Chile. His professional debut came at 17 years of age for Chilean football club Magallanes in 1919. Due to internal institutional tensions at the club a group of young players led by David...