“When he was CEO at Motherwell, Pat Nevin had three future Premier League managers in his team: Owen Coyle, Billy Davies and Roberto Martínez,” tweets Stephen Kelly. “What is the greatest number of future Premier League managers in one dressing-room?”
Let’s start in an unlikely place: Genoa. The Sampdoria squad of 1985-86 had four future Premier League managers in Trevor Francis, Graeme Souness, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Mancini. Crystal Palace had the same number at the start of the 1994-95 season: Gareth Southgate, Iain Dowie, Chris Coleman – and Ray Wilkins, who left the club to become QPR manager in November 1994.
The Liverpool squad that won a treble in 1983-84 had five men who would later become Premier League managers: Souness again, Kenny Dalglish, Phil Neal, Phil Thompson and Sammy Lee. Thompson was technically caretaker manager while Gerard Houllier recovered from heart surgery in 2001-02, but he took charge of more games than Roy Hodgson so we’re including him.
Ruud Gullit’s Chelsea squad of 1997-98 included six future managers, one of them Gullit’s successor. Gianluca Vialli became Chelsea manager when Gullit was sacked in February 1998; the other future bosses were Gustavo Poyet, Mark Hughes, Roberto Di Matteo, Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke.
Andrew Abel offers Manchester United’s Double-winning squad of 1993-94, which included six permanent managers and one caretaker of the future: Hughes, Steve Bruce, Roy Keane, Paul Ince, Bryan Robson, Mike Phelan and Ryan Giggs.
Top-class players are more likely to become managers, so it’s no surprise that the best answer we’ve received involves an international team. “The England squad at the 1982 World Cup had seven permanent and two caretaker managers in waiting,” tweets Mike Slattery. “Steve Coppell, Kevin Keegan, Trevor Francis, Glenn Hoddle, Bryan Robson, Ray Wilkins, Phil Neal, Trevor Brooking (caretaker), Graham Rix (caretaker). That looks like the most in a tournament squad.”
We think there were eight permanent managers – Ray Clemence co-managed Spurs with Doug Livermore in 1992-93 – and three caretakers because of the aforementioned Phil Thompson. And if you’re not into the whole 1992 thing, the squad also included Terry Butcher, who managed Coventry from November 1990 t0 January 1992.
That means exactly half of England’s 22-man squad went on to manage in the English top flight. And a couple of others, Viv Anderson and Terry McDermott, were valued assistants to Robson and Keegan respectively.
Shoutout to the shootout veterans
“Which player has taken part in the most penalty shootouts (club and country)?” tweets Dan Almond.
You’ll never guess the answer. “Every time I research an answer about player stats, a little voice whispers in my ear that the answer might be Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, and that I might be very underwhelmed,” says Jack Hayward. “I bring this up because I think the answer to this one might be, at the time of writing, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
“Messi holds the record for being in the most penalty shootouts at any men’s international tournament, having competed in six of them at the Copa América between 2011 and 2024. He is also one of only three men, along with Roberto Baggio and Luka Modric, to have been part of three penalty shootouts at the World Cup.
“Somewhat unbelievably, he wasn’t involved in a club shootout until January 2022, when Paris Saint-Germain played Nice in the Coupe de France. Ronaldo, meanwhile, holds the record – jointly with Fabian Schar – for stepping up in the most European Championship shootouts, with four over a 20-year period. He converted in all of them and Portugal won three.
“The first of Ronaldo’s eight club shootouts occurred in the 2005 FA Cup Final against Arsenal – Manchester United lost, but that was on Paul Scholes. Ronaldo missed against Chelsea in the 2008 Champions League final, but converted as United won the League Cup against Spurs the following year.
“Two of Ronaldo’s matches at Real Madrid came down to penalties: a loss to Bayern Munich in the 2012 Champions League semi-final, in which Ronaldo missed, and the win over crosstown rivals Atlético in the 2016 Champions League final. He scored that night. He never took part in a shootout at Juventus, but has done so twice since joining Al Nassr. That puts the two greatest players of their generation at 13 penalty shootout appearances apiece, and I’ll be impressed if anyone else can find a better example.”
They even have identical records: 11 scored, two missed. Awwww.
If you include penalty shootouts after league games – Japan, USA and Yugoslavia are among the countries that have settled drawn matches that way – then Messi and Ronaldo drop down the list. Arnaud Kenigsberg, founder of the excellent footballdatabase.eu, reckons Preki and Mark Chung took part in 28 MLS shootouts between 1996 and 2003. The format was slightly different, though: a player started 35 yards from goal, just the keeper to beat, with five seconds to score.
Continental, world and Olympic champions
“Has a men’s or women’s national team ever been world champions, continental champions and Olympic champions at the same time,” asks George Jones.
You’ll never guess the answer. “The USA women’s national team, between 3 July 2000 and 27 September 2000, when they were holders of the World Cup, the Olympic football tournament and the Concacaf Gold Cup simultaneously,” writes Dirk Maas. “They repeated this feat between 5 July 2015 and 18 August 2016.”
Carl O’Reilly has more on the ones that got away. “The closest in the men’s game is Italy in 1936,” he writes. “They won the World Cup in 1934, the Central European International Cup in 1935 and the Olympics in 1936. But this was prior to the full European Championship, which was first held in 1960.
“Germany’s women’s team also came close: they held two titles in 2016 but were beaten in the World Cup semi-final a year earlier. Uruguay famously got to host and win the 1930 World Cup, because they were the reigning Olympic champions. However, in the 1929 Copa América, they only finished third.”
And finally, as Pete Tomlin points out, Argentina’s men’s team will complete the set if they win gold at the Olympics.
Knowledge archive
“Having endured a goalless first half, Aberdeen fans were treated to six second-half goals against Dumbarton without reply. What is the largest margin of victory after a goalless first half?” asks Scott Milne.
We had this question in 2020; well, sort of. Here’s what we said back then.
“Brighton beat Walsall 7-0 in 1976, having been goalless at half-time,” notes Roger Kay. “Peter Ward got four and Ian ‘Spider’ Mellor three. It was a little ironic as we’d been royally whupped by Walsall 6-0 only two years previously.” Radu Ogrezeanu-Ghica can see Brighton’s performance and raise it: he highlights Borussia Dortmund’s 11-1 Bundesliga shellacking of Arminia Bielefeld in 1982. It was 1-1 at half-time before Dortmund edged to victory with 10 unanswered goals in the second half.
Can you help?
“There were two bizarre incidents in the Norwegian top flight last weekend. Firstly, Sarpsborg’s head of medical, Joao Ferreira, was sent off against Brann, allegedly for time-wasting and arguing with the referee. Are there other instances where physios or other staff members have been dismissed? Secondly, the game between Rosenborg and Lillestrøm was abandoned when fans threw tennis balls and fish cakes on to the pitch in a protest against VAR. Apart from a pig’s head, what other peculiar items have been thrown on to a football pitch?” wonders Håvard Johansen.
“I remember years ago looking at (but not actually buying) a book in a shop. It was a novel set in a future where football had been completely banned because of hooliganism, but the stadiums remained and gangs of ultras still got together in them to fight each other. The cover showed a skeleton in a football kit. Does anyone have any idea what this book was?” asks Chris Matterface.
@TheKnowledge_GU Billy Meredith is the oldest ever player for both Manchester Uniter and Manchester City.
Are there any rivals whose records are shared by the same player?
— Don Berno 🏴 (@ConnahsCronc) July 30, 2024
“Lugano are playing their home matches in European competition this year at the Stockholm Arena in Thun. The nearly eight-hour train ride there and back costs 223 francs and a bit (around £195) with the least changes. Not counting teams that must play outside their home country, and at the current rate of inflation, is this the most expensive ‘home-away’ day in European history?” wonders Jack Hayward.
“In the last 60 years the Dutch league has only been won by teams that play in red and white: Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV, AZ and Steve McClaren’s Twente (red with a bit of white). Since the Eredivisie was founded in 1956 only DWS (blue and black) and DOS (yellow, though their successor club Utrecht is red, naturally) have broken ranks. Does anyone know why? Are there any other countries with a similar colour dominance?” wonders Matthew Cumiskey.
“My son and I were watching the sports news yesterday and one of the graphics showed each team’s first six and whether they were playing at home (H) or away (A). We were hoping to see a hilarious HAHAHA pattern but couldn’t find one. Has a team ever had a full HAHAHAHAHA season?” wonders Gary Buss.