“Thinking about Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, which footballers – aside from Eric Cantona – have won successive top-tier league titles with two different clubs from the same country?” tweets @AFC_Gooner10.
Arsenal face Manchester City at the Emirates, with the chance to open up a six-point lead – with a game in hand – at the top. If they do win the Premier League title, it will be partly down to the decision to sell Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus to Arsenal in the summer. And what’s interesting about this question is not so much how often it has happened, but how often great or very good players were able to join a rival without anyone throwing a pig’s head.
Not that such transfers are entirely without rancour. One of the most famous examples, as mentioned in the question, was Eric Cantona’s move from Leeds to Manchester United in November 1992. While Cantona’s role in Leeds’ title-winning campaign is overplayed – he was a sub most of the time – he was the catalyst for United’s early dominance of the Premier League.
Another Frenchman, N’Golo Kanté, won the title with Leicester in 2015-16 and Chelsea in 2016-17. Mark Schwarzer, by then a backup goalkeeper, beat Kanté to the punch. In training, anyway. Technically he won the league with Chelsea in 2014-15 and Leicester in 2015-16, though he didn’t play in either campaign. All his appearances for Leicester came during the second half of the 2014-15 season, after he moved on a free from Chelsea.
While those transfers were relatively amicable, the same couldn’t be said of Johan Cruyff’s move from Ajax to Feyenoord. He won the double with Ajax in 1982-83, at the age of 36, but then left after a dispute over wages and much else besides. He didn’t just leave, he turned up at their big rivals. At first it didn’t go well: Feyenoord were plugged 8-2 by Ajax in September, but recovered to win the title and enhance the Cruyff legend.
Cruyff was on the other side of the fence when Michael Laudrup, fed up with being the odd foreign player out in a squad that also included Romario, Hristo Stoichkov and Ronald Koeman, left the champions Barcelona to join Real Madrid in the summer of 1994. Madrid won the title in his first season, ending Barcelona’s run of four in a row. Not only that, they avenged a 5-0 defeat in January 1994 by beating Barcelona 5-0 a year later. Laudrup, on the winning side in both games, said simply: “I won 10-0.”
Ivica Olić did it with NK Zagreb (2001-02) and, after a controversional transfer to their city rivals that apparently included driving in the trunk to soften the negotiations, Dinamo Zagreb (2002-03). His team-mate Dalibor Poldrugač as well.
— ShakenMartinelli (@ShakenMartinel1) February 1, 2023
Andrea Pirlo, then aged 32, was released by Milan after winning the title in 2010-11. He joined Juventus and won Serie A in each of the next four seasons. Patrick Vieira and Zlatan Ibrahimovic were champions with Juventus in 2005-06 and Inter in 2006-07, though Juve’s title was rescinded because of the Calciopoli scandal. A decade or so earlier, Roberto Baggio was the league with Juventus in 1994-95 and Milan in 1995-96.
Kylian Mbappé (Monaco 2015-16, Paris Saint-Germain 2016-17) is another giant of the game who has won consecutive titles with different teams. We doubt even August Starek would describe himself as a giant, modern or otherwise, but this is a cracking find from Jim Hearson:
In fact, I could only find one such player - but yes, the Bavarians were still involved.
— Jim Hearson (@JimHearson) February 1, 2023
Austrian midfielder August Starek won the Bundesliga with FC Nurnberg in 1967-68, before Bayern swooped in to help him retain it the following year.
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Flávio Conceição (Deportivo 1999-2000, Real Madrid 2000-01) is another lesser-known player on the list. And finally, Joran has written in with the even rarer example of a manager who won consecutive titles with different clubs in the same country: the current Monaco coach Philippe Clément, who lifted the Belgian Pro League with Genk in 2018-19 and Club Brugge in 2019-20 (and, for that matter, 2020-21).
Hat-tricks of golden boots
“Giorgos Giakoumakis was (joint) top goalscorer in the Scottish Premiership last season. The season before that he achieved the same feat in the Eredivisie. All-time great Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was top goalscorer in the Bundesliga and then, right at the end of his career, in the Swiss Super League. Has anyone ever done it in three or more countries?” asks Steve Guy.
Of course he has. Cristiano Ronaldo won the Premier League golden boot with Manchester United in 2007-08, the Pichichi trophy with Real Madrid in 2010-11, 2013-14 and 2014-15, and was the Capocannoniere with Juventus in 2020-21. He’ll probably make it four in Saudi Arabia, if not this season then next.
Romario has also completed this particular hat-trick. He was the leading scorer in the Netherlands (1988-89, 1989-90, 1990-91), Spain (1993-94) and Brazil (it’s complicated as there are around a million different competitions, but he was the league’s top scorer in 2001 and 2005, when he was nearly 40). He then spent a year with Miami FC in 2006, when he was unsurprisingly the deadliest striker in his league, but that was in the second tier United Soccer League, rather than MLS.
Elusive genius Alfredo Di Stéfano was the top man in Argentina (River Plate, 1947), Colombia (Millionarios 1951, 1952) and Spain (Real Madrid, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959), as was Luis Suárez in the Netherlands (2009-10), England (2013-14) and Spain (2015-16).
Ruud van Nistelrooy followed a similar flight path to Suárez. He was top scorer in the Netherlands in 1998-99 and 1999-2000, England in 2002-03 and Spain in 2006-07.
Robert Lewandowski may well join the list this season, having done the business in Poland (2009-10) and Germany (seven times in nine seasons between 2013 and 2022). We’re sure there are a few others who have won in three different countries, but we can’t find anybody who has managed it in four. If you have the answer, you know what to do.
Perthshire panic
A couple of weeks ago we looked at fans who had travelled to the wrong countries for matches. The original question was about teams who had done so – and, while it doesn’t count as a different country, this yarn is too good not to tell.
“In 1971-72, St Johnstone were playing in the Uefa Cup,” writes Steve Haldane. “The Hungarian team they were drawn against, Vasas FC, booked their hotel in Johnstone near Glasgow. It was only when they asked the hotel reception where the football ground was that they discovered St Johnstone were actually based in Perth.” According to the official St Johnstone site, the story is even more bizarre:
Mistakenly, Vasas thought that Saints played in Johnstone, Renfrewshire. They looked at the map of Scotland and thought, bingo, right next to Glasgow Airport. The Hungarian party duly boarded the bus organised by the club but, by the time it reached Dunblane, they began to worry as they felt they should have arrived by now.
One of the visiting party asked the driver how long it would be until they reached their destination and, when the driver answered that Perth was another 45 minutes away, the visitors were horrified and thought they were being kidnapped! After all they had thought they were going to Johnstone and now were told that Perth was the destination. Uproar abounded.
The poor bus driver had to explain that Saints didn’t play in Johnstone but in Perth and that the directors were waiting to welcome the Hungarians to the Fair City. Still not entirely convinced, the Vasas party agreed to continue their journey and were only placated when the Saints hierarchy explained there was no kidnap attempt and that Perth, and St Johnstone, were perfectly friendly.
1971 | St Johnstone win the 1st leg of their 2nd round UEFA cup tie against Vasas of Budapest with goals from John Connolly and Jim Pearson. 12,000 watch the game at Muirton Park. pic.twitter.com/16AfbnijjI
— Saints On This Day (@SaintsOTD) October 20, 2022
Knowledge archive
“Have there been any high-profile players who have scored with obscure parts of their body on purpose (e.g. buttocks, shoulder, groin)?” asked Gareth Ellis-Thomas back in the day.
In 2002 Andy Cole scored a last-minute equaliser at St Mary’s for Blackburn with his nipple, before milking it with his celebration. Ever the showman, Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli shouldered one in against Norwich back in 2012.
In 1994, Bryan Robson scored Manchester United’s fourth goal in a 4-1 FA Cup semi-final replay victory over Oldham by bundling the ball over the line with … well, take a look for yourselves.
Can you help?
“Jermaine Pennant played for Liverpool in the 2007 Champions League final, but was never capped by England. Are there any other players who have appeared in a Champions League final (post-1992) but not played for their (senior) national team?” asks Giles Leigh.
Has a caretaker manager ever saved a PL club from relegation?
— Jonnie Dance (@hardtogethits) February 14, 2023
“João Cancelo could win the league this season with both Manchester City and Bayern Munich. Would he be the first player to win two top-flight title medals in the same season?” muses Nick Skillicorn.
Last Sunday’s NFL game saw the second biggest age gap between head coaches in Super Bowl history. What’s the biggest age gap between managers going up against each other in a professional game of association football?
— agatiefan (@AgaTieFan) February 14, 2023
“The phenomenon of keepers desperately going up for a corner in the final moments of a game is one of the most exciting things about football. But when did it start? Were amateur-era keepers doing this? Or did Peter Schmeichel invent it at Euro 96?” wonders Damian Kerr.
Tottenham’s biggest win and biggest loss (so far) this season both came against Leicester. Is this a common occurrence; two such results coming in league fixtures against the sane opposition? If so, what are the biggest extremes?
— Will Sharp (@shillwarp) February 14, 2023
Mail us your questions or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.
