Football prints

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...

Are you into the finer nuances of football, or just a man with few ambitions? Blizzard editor, Jonathan Wilson, claims he never said it, Guardian podcast listeners disagree. What do we think? We don't really care, but Goals are Overrated just seems to sum things up perfectly. The beauty is most definitely in the struggle.  As a tribute, we pay homage to the...

Legendary Sardinian playmaker Gianfranco Zola, OBE, was born 5 July 1966 in Oliena. He is currently the manager of English Championship club Watford. Zola spent the first decade of his playing career playing in Italy, most notably with Napoli and Parma, before moving to English Premier League side Chelsea. At Napoli, the young and talented Zola was lucky enough to...

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...

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...

The son of a slaughterhouse worker, prolific striker Gabriel Omar Batistuta was born on 1 February 1969 in Avellaneda in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina.Nicknamed 'Batigol' as well as 'El Ángel Gabriel' (Spanish for Angel Gabriel), Batistuta played most of his club football with Italian side Fiorentina, in the beautiful, historic city of Florence - home of the Renaissance....

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...

Football is one of the most popular sports in the world and is often regarded as the most ‘globalized' profession. Although football is still relatively small in the biggest entertainment market of all; the USA, it is the most important component of this sector in the rest of the world. Football clubs like Manchester United, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Inter Milan...

Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona (born 24 May 1966) is a French actor and former footballer who began his professional football career with Auxerre in 1983. It has been commented that, at nine, Cantona was already playing like a fifteen-year-old. Though he possessed unquestionable creative ability he was also a volatile character and soon became involved in a catalogue of disciplinary...

The first emblem of the England football team was worn in the world’s very first international match against Scotland, in Glasgow in 1872. It consisted of three lions within a shield, in a similar stance to that of the English Coat of Arms. These lions were navy blue and the only distinguishable features were red eyes and mouths.  In 1949,...

Emilio Butragueño Santos (born 22 July 1963 in Madrid) is a former Spanish footballer. He joined Real Madrid's youth system in 1981. During this period, Butragueño acquired the nickname 'El Buitre' (The Vulture), a play on his surname. He was given his senior debut by Alfredo Di Stéfano on 5 February 1984. Prior to his first team debut, there was...

Duncan Ferguson, better known as 'Big Dunc', is a tough (and troubled) ex-Scotland international footballer. Known for his aggressive and highly-competitive style of play, the 6ft4" former striker plied his trade at Glasgow Rangers, Dundee United, Newcastle United, and most notably, Everton FC. In 1995, during the first of his two spells at Everton, he found himself imprisoned at HMP...

Without doubt, Diego Maradona, is the greatest player the world has ever witnessed. The Argentina legend is inextricably linked with the colour blue, the sky blue (Albiceleste) of Argentina and the sea blue (Azzurri) of Napoli, derived from the blue waters of the Gulf of Naples. On 30 June 1984, Diego signed for Napoli from Barcelona, for a (then) world...

Inherent within Diego Armando Maradona’s nickname of El Pibe de Oro (golden boy/kid) is a sense of mischief impossible to translate verbatim. The pibe is a classic anti-establishment rogue, street smart and full of guile. Diego was born 30th October 1960, in Villa Fiorito, an impoverished district of Buenos Aires. By the time he was 10 he was already a...

In conversation with David Winner in Issue One of The Blizzard, the great Dutchman describes arguably the greatest goal he ever scored: Holland v Argentina, World Cup quarter final, Marseille, 5 July 1998, in the 90th minute."I love good football, nice football but it has to mean something. It has to bring me somewhere. And that’s what happened with this...

Born in Amsterdam on 10th May 1969, Dennis Bergkamp, nicknamed 'The Iceman', is a former Dutch international footballer. At club level he played for Ajax, Internazionale, and Arsenal. He is widely regarded as one of the English Premier League's all-time greatest players. He has also finished third in the FIFA World Player of the Year award twice.Bergkamp was a renowned...

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...

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...

Claudio Caniggia was born 9 January 1967 in Henderson, Buenos Aires. He played 50 times for his country and was a key player in both of their 1990 and 1994 World Cup campaigns. Over a 20 year period he controversially played for both Buenos Aires giants and fiercest of rivals - River Plate and Boca Juniors. He also went on...

Scottish giants Celtic are a world-famous club based in the Parkhead area of Glasgow. . Established in 1887, they played their first official game on 28 May, 1888 against Glasgow rivals, Rangers. Their home ground Celtic Park (Parkhead), has been their permanent residence since 1892, and is the biggest football stadium in Scotland with a capacity of just over 60,000....

In 1905, a group of Italian immigrants who lived and worked in the port of a south-eastern barrio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, decided to found a football club. They agreed to honour their poor riverside neighbourhood named ‘La Boca’ (the mouth of the river). Today, the club has grown into arguably the biggest in South America - Club Athletico Boca...

Bruce David Grobbelaar, was born 6 October 1957 in Durban, South Africa. He was goalkeeper for a number of clubs in South Africa, Rhodesia and Canada before making the number one spot his own at Liverpool during their dominant period throughout the 1980s. Grobbelaar played 627 times for Liverpool, being a trusted servant to three of Liverpool's greatest managers; Bob...

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...

Marcelo Alberto Bielsa Caldera was born in Rosario, Argentina on July 21, 1955. Nicknamed El Loco, Bielsa has managed domestic football clubs in Argentina, Mexico and Spain and also the national teams of both Argentina and Chile. Considered an eccentric with idiosyncratic ideas, he has developed a very clear and precise vision of how football should be played; sporting a...

Battle of Santiago (Chile v Italy 1962). The 1962 FIFA World Cup Chile was marred by violence. The infamous first-round match between host Chile and Italy (2–0) is known as the Battle of Santiago. It is probably the most violent game in the history of the World Cup. The match saw repeated, deliberate attempts from players on both sides to...

Franco Baresi (born 8 May 1960 in Travagliato, Italy) and Paolo Maldini (born 26 June 1968 in Milan, Italy) are AC Milan legends, and widely renowned as two of game’s greatest ever defenders. Both players spent their entire professional careers at Milan, many of them together. Baresi put in 20 years from 1977 to 1997 playing 719 times, whilst Maldini...

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...

Born in Flero, Italy, on 19th May 1979, Andre Pirlo, nicknamed l'architetto (‘the architect’), is a living legend of Italian football. One of the most iconic and cultured playmakers of recent generations, he has enjoyed a football renaissance in the twilight of his career. Having served as an integral part of AC Milan’s midfield for over decade, he began to feel that he was becoming...

Athletic Club defender Andoni Goikoetxea Olaskoaga (born 23 May 1956 in Alonsotegi, Biscay) produced one of the worst tackles in the game’s history when he broke the ankle of a young Maradona. He is known as the Butcher of Bilbao and was given a 16-match ban for the incident. It was by no means an accident on the Butchers part as...

Alexander Chapman Ferguson, Kt, CBE, popularly known as Sir Alex or Fergie, was born 31 December 1941 in Govan, Glasgow. From humble origins as an apprentice toolmaker, he went on to become the most successful manager in English football history. Having presided over a phenomenal and seemingly cascading period of success at Manchester United, Sir Alex announced his retirement at the end of...