“With the interim appointment of Freddie Ljungberg as Arsenal manager, the Gunners now have a former professional underwear model in charge,” begins Sam Rowe. “Are there any other managers who have once been models, past or present, excluding players modelling their team’s kit?”
Let’s start by giving you a bit of context on how and why Ljungberg came to be an underpants model. If you can remember back as far as 2006, you may recall seeing pictures of Ljungberg gazing out of huge billboards in just his smalls after signing a deal with Calvin Klein. The story goes that he only landed the contract because David Beckham was reluctant to compromise his image in the UK. Initially Ljungberg had no such reservations and was paired with the Russian model Natalia Vodianova for a global campaign but he soon grew weary of seeing his own flesh everywhere. “It’s weird to see yourself on billboards and I don’t really enjoy it now,” he said in 2007, when he hung up his briefs.
He’s far from the only future manager to have posed in their undies for cash. Here’s Tom Aldous: “Ljungberg’s old teammate and current Montreal Impact manager Thierry Henry has done some modelling for Nike, Puma and Reebok. Also there was this campaign from Dolce and Gabbana and the Italian national team in 2006. Of the five chaps in the photo, four of them became managers while Andrea Pirlo is now an international playboy. The quartet and their teams managed are: Gianluca Zambrotta (Chiasso and Delhi Dynamos), Manuele Blasi (Hamrun Spartans), Gennaro Gattuso (Milan, Palermo, Pisa, OFI Crete) and Fabio Cannavaro (Guangzhou Evergrande, Al-Nassr, Tianjin Quanjian, China). D&G actually reprised this campaign in 2010 but to date none of the players who featured in it have gone on to management.
From the same campaign involving Italy players in 2006, Justin Lim points us in the direction of this well-oiled image including Gattuso, Zambrotta and Cannavaro.
Eduardo Enrique Villanueva Mansilla writes: “Juan Carlos Oblitas, a left winger that played in two World Cups and then became manager of Sporting Cristal and Peru’s national team (missing out on qualification to France 98 by one point), was one of many football players modelling for Glostora, a male hair gel. From web and print archivists ArkivPeru, one of the many magazine ads for that product.”
And we’ve saved the best till last. Here’s Neil Connolly alerting us to an absolutely belting set of pictures from the 1990s. It’s Mick McCarthy, seen with Shay Given, posing for Penneys. “Catch the style!” We’ve also unearthed McCarthy wearing the mother of all busy T-shirts in a Penneys ad before USA 94. You could buy matching Bermuda shorts too, though Mick was probably wise not to pose in them.
Quickfire sackings of derby rivals
“With Mauricio Pochettino and Unai Emery relieved of their duties within 10 days of each other, is this the quickest sacking of both managers on either side of a derby rivalry?” asks Sean DeLoughry.
“It’s not even the quickest this year,” writes Ciaran Campbell. “Paul Heckingbottom was sacked on 4 November as Hibs manager, four days after Hearts got rid of Craig Levein. The derby on 22 September was touted as a death-match with the loser being sacked. It was absolutely dreadful, as you can imagine. Hearts have just hired Daniel Stendel, following the tried and true strategy of hiring ex-Barnsley managers. Hopefully he does as well as Heckingbottom did for us …”
“The subject was covered in an earlier contribution of mine on the
aftermath of the Lisbon derby, Benfica-Sporting, in December 2000,” adds Rui Pereira. “The time gap was much shorter than 10 days. In fact, managers José Mourinho (Benfica) and Augusto Inácio (Sporting) left their respective clubs on the same day, two days after their teams played against each other.”
Trading away-day thrashings
“Stockport County beat Torquay United 5-1, away at Plainmoor,” tweets Jamie Summers. “Earlier in the season, Torquay won the corresponding fixture away at Edgeley Park 4-0. When was the last time two sides won their away games in their league by four goals each?”
Tom Aldous is back with another answer: “This is one for the perennial knowledge favourite, Norwich losing 7-1 at home to Colchester in the 2009-10 season before winning the corresponding fixture away 5-0. In between they nabbed Colchester’s manager Paul Lambert.”
Chris Grant has another: “In the 1969-70 season, West Ham lost 4-0 at home to Manchester City, but won 5-1 at Maine Road. That was the game that marked Jimmy Greaves’s debut for the Irons, and saw Ronnie Boyce score from the halfway line.”
More men with Vans
Last week we tried to name all the Vans who have played in the Premier League. Obviously, we missed a few.
We can now add … Patrick van Aanholt (as offered by Bolek Matuszewski); Ulrich van Gobbel (Chris Fowler); Rajiv van la Parra, Mike van der Hoorn and Marco van Ginkel (Kristof Künssler-McIlwain); Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Robin van der Laan (Artie Prendergast-Smith).
Knowledge archive
Last week (25 January 2006), Mark Ireland wanted to know if any managers had been given the boot during the interval. We stumbled upon the case of Toni Schumacher’s mid-game axing by FC Cologne in 1999, but Ken Fountayne has told us that there’s more.
Don Mackay, formerly the manager of Coventry and Blackburn, was two years into his spell in charge of Fulham when he was forced out of the club - during a match away at Leyton Orient in 1994. A common misconception is that then-chairman Jimmy Hill stormed into the dressing room and sacked Mackay, although the Scot has since revealed exactly what happened. “He [Hill] didn’t have the bottle to sack me, so he sent his vice-chairman around instead.”
Can you help?
We’d particularly like your Christmas-themed questions for next week’s festive special, please. Email them, plus any other answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.
Did Antonio Di Natale (Anthony of Christmas) actually score that much at Christmas?
— Kenn Rushworth (@14Autumns) December 10, 2019
I’m assuming he did because he scored a lot, it’s the only Christmas question they came to mind.
What is the most number of Christmassy names in the same game? Noel Whelan, Santa Cruz, etc
— Scott Walden (@ScottyWalden) December 10, 2019
players’ names featured in the 12 days of christmas?
— kai (@kaiacus) December 11, 2019
Any chance of getting a Christmas 11 together? I’ll start with Arsenal/Spain’s Santi Cazorla and Ireland/Fortuna Koln’s Noel Campbell. (No idea what Santi means but it sounds too good to leave out)
— Kevin Dennehy (@KevinDennehyRN) December 10, 2019
