Seven Shades of... Cristiano Ronaldo

With Cristiano Ronaldo adding the FIFA World Player of the Year award to the billions of other prizes he's won lately, we thought we'd try and link the disturbingly orange Portuguese winger to the first winner of FIFA's ultimate accolade, Lothar Matthaeus. Impossible? Not on this website...

Cristiano Ronaldo
Currently the best player on the planet according to FIFA (and when have we ever doubted their judgement), the former Sporting Lisbon star has already achieved so much in the first 23 years of his life. He's played at two European Championships and one World Cup, won the Club World Cup with Manchester United and scored on average a goal every three games for Portugal. Not only that, but he can do fancy step-overs too - he's that good. One of the more obscure honours to be found on his CV is that he was the scorer of Man United's 1,000th Premier League goal back in 2005. Scorer of the 500th was

Andy Cole
Sorry - ANDREW Cole, a Premier League winner with United when Cristiano Ronaldo was only eleven years old. Cole will forever be remembered as the hotshot striker who helped Newcastle United scale new heights in the early 90's before moving onto Man U and Blackburn. Before and after that peak time in his career, you might have found Andy (sorry) at any number of other clubs including Burnley, Arsenal and Bristol City, but life on the road for the Nottingham-born striker appears to be at an end now since he announced his retirement in November 2008. Strangely enough for someone who was the Premier League's top scorer in 1994, Cole only ever scored once for England, a record he shares with

Rodney Marsh
whose only England goal came in a 3-0 Home International match in Cardiff in May 1972. That was the year when Marsh was at the peak of his goal scoring capabilities, having banged in 106 goals in 211 games for QPR. There was no doubt that Marsh's goals helped the Loftus Road club rise from the old Third Division to the First during the time he was there, but by 1972 he was hot property. Snapped up by Manchester City (the Kaka of his day, if you will), Marsh couldn't replicate his QPR goal ratio and thereafter left for the Tampa Bay Rowdies with whom he played in two separate spells. Another former Rowdie is

Sam Allardyce
who left for Tampa after a promising start to his career at Bolton and Sunderland. Having played for nine different clubs in nineteen years by 1991, he got his first taste of management while still a player at Limerick in the Republic of Ireland. A switch in roles proved to be a shrewd move as he helped the club to a League of Ireland title in 1992, but this didn't stop him moving to Preston the following season to work on the coaching staff before eventually becoming full-time manager at Blackpool in 1994, Notts County in 1997 and Bolton in 1999. Big Sam developed a reputation for achieving success wherever he managed, but this came to an end following a brief, disappointing spell as head of Newcastle United where he followed

Glenn Roeder
in the hot seat. Roeder, like Marsh, had some success while playing at Queens Park Rangers (where he captained the side in the 1982 FA Cup Final), but in a managerial sense things haven't always been so good. When at Watford, Newcastle United and Norwich City, he was able to stave off the threat of relegation and push the team up the table before a return to bad form saw them plummet back down the table and he was fired. With Gillingham, Burnley and West Ham, he did away with the need for a recovery period and went straight for one long plummet down the table before being fired. No matter - as a player he can look back on happier days with QPR and Newcastle, the latter of which he also captained after

Kevin Keegan
had held the position prior to his retirement from football in 1984. 'King Kev' was a football legend long before he ever set foot on Tyneside, thanks in no small part to the UEFA Cup and European Cup wins he'd had with Liverpool and the European Footballer of the Year awards he picked up in 1978 and 1979 while with Hamburg. A true embodiment of all that was good about English football back then, he never did enjoy major success while playing for the national team in a ten-year international career. The closest he got was when England reached the last twelve of the 1982 World Cup, a competition he largely missed through injury. His only appearance was in his team's last game against Spain on July 5th 1982, six days after England's penultimate match against West Germany which Keegan watched from the bench just like

Lothar Matthaeus
who was doing likewise for the opposing team. As Keegan's international career was ending, however, Matthaeus found his was just beginning and it would go on to feature more honours than most players could even dream of. A European Championship winner in 1980 and a World Cup winner in 1990, Matthaeus also reached the heights in his club career too. He won the Bundesliga seven times between 1985 and 2000 with Bayern Munich, Serie A once with Inter and the UEFA Cup twice (once for each team). To top all that off, the legendary German midfielder even won the inaugural FIFA World Player of the Year award in 1991 - an honour only bestowed upon twelve other people... the latest of which, you'll remember, is Cristiano Ronaldo.

And there you have it - The Seven Shades of Cristiano Ronaldo via Glenn Roeder and Rodney Marsh, to name but two. A journey worth embarking upon, we hope you'll agree.

Seven Shades of... David James

Damn, it's been too long. Our old favourite 'Seven Shades of...' is back once again and for those of you who weren't around prior to October 2007 when we did this last time around, let us explain.

The premise here is to link two disparate souls from football's illustrious past or present over seven spurious steps. Two people who seemingly couldn't ever be connected but are brought together in this best of all possible worlds courtesy of your old friends here at Some People Are On The Pitch.

It's a service we undertake willingly and completely for your pleasure alone, and with that heartening thought in mind, let's start today's 'Seven Shades' with...

David James

Despite his youthful and ever-changing looks, David James is the elder statesman of the English goalkeeping world at a really-quite-old-for-a-footballer 38 years of age. Now at his sixth league club, his career began way back in 1989 (see, we told you he was old) at the then Third Division Watford.

He stayed their for three years and was a huge hit, even winning the club's Player of the Year award in 1990/91, all of which goes to show that if you start your career at The Hornets, you're probably destined for genuine greatness. The same can be said of

Pat Jennings

The mercurial Northern Ireland goalkeeper who at one time held the record for the most international appearances by any player (119). His last appearance for his country came in the searing heat of Guadalajara during the 1986 World Cup where Northern Ireland lost 3-0 to Brazil - a far cry from his first appearance which occurred back in April 1964 in Swansea.

That was in a British Championship match against Wales which Jennings' side won 3-2. Among the men wearing green shirts that day was another little-known player making his debut who was to make a small name for himself in years to come. His name was

George Best

A man that can be summed up in numerous words such as 'legend' and 'icon' although others such as 'inebriated' and 'womaniser' also apply with considerable relevance. Best played at every conceivable level during his career from the giddy heights of Manchester United to the less glamorous depths of Bournemouth, stopping off at clubs like the LA Aztecs and San Jose Earthquakes in between.

Named by many to be the greatest footballer that ever lived (although ranked only 19th by FIFA in their list of all-time great living footballers in 2004), he's even had an airport in Belfast named after him. It's an honour given to precious few, although

Matt Le Tissier

may find something similar coming his way one day, if he's very lucky. 'Le God', as he was known to many, was the archetypal luxury player, oozing skill and quality from every pore but supposedly lazy in any aspect of his game other than scoring goals. Overlooked for a place in the England team, Terry Venables obviously thought he was dispensable, but to Southampton fans he was just irreplaceable.

Winner of the BBC Match of the Day 'Goal of the Season' competition in 1994/95 and scorer of the last ever goal at The Dell in 2001, Le Tissier is the second highest-scoring Southampton player of all time behind

Mick Channon
who, in his favour, had two spells at the club between 1966 and 1977 and later between 1979 and 1982. His goalscoring rate was second to none with The Saints, almost managing two goals in every three games. Sandwiched in between these two spells with Southampton was a two-year run at Manchester City where he even scored one in every three games there.

While at Man City, Channon played alongside well known names such as Peter Barnes, Colin Bell and Asa Hartford, honing his 'windmill' goal celebration with every passing week. It was also seen many a time when he played for England where he became the 15th highest-scoring player ever, level with his old Southampton team-mate

Kevin Keegan
who, having cemented himself as a Liverpool legend, promptly tried his luck over at Hamburg where he became the European Footballer of the Year twice and won the Bundesliga with his teammates in 1979. In 1980, he just missed out on picking up a European Cup winner's medal when Hamburg lost in the Final 1-0 to Nottingham Forest.

Rather than stay on at Hamburg where he'd have undoubtedly shared top billing with some new fancy-dan arrival by the name of Franz Beckenbauer, Keegan opted for a much more alluring future at Southampton where Lawrie McMenemy wanted him to play alongside stars such as Alan Ball, Mick Channon and

Charlie George
among others. George was the hero of the 1971 Arsenal FA Cup-winning side where he scored the goal which sank Liverpool in the Final that year. One of the key members of the team which won the Double that year, he moved onto Derby in 1975 where he once memorably scored a hat-trick against Real Madrid in a European Cup tie.

His career would see him travel the world to numerous places such as the USA, Hong Kong and even Bournemouth, but by 1983 it was all over. This once great player was left with only memories of the 87 career goals he'd scored on the one hand and the finger he'd once lost in a lawnmower accident on the other. Or not, as the case may be.

All of which brings us full circle with a link from Charlie George to the first name on our list, David James. To play in goal, it's essential at the very least to have all ten fingers, but to be a great player perhaps all you need is a name made up of two first names. Here endeth the lesson.

How not to gain the respect of your wife...

So there I was with Mrs. O the other night, watching Sky Sports News, when up popped a caption on the screen. It showed a list of potential future candidates for the Newcastle United manager's job and the best odds you could get from bookmakers on each one getting it.

"Who would you bet on out of those, then?" said Mrs. O.

"Well let's see" I said.

(At this point I adopted the posture of a man who knew what he was talking about, and was only too keen to pass judgement for his wife who, being a New Zealander, was more akin to the oval ball game.)

"Top of the list, we have Mark Hughes, the favourite. Yes, it's a possibility that he might take the job. He's gone a bit stale at Blackburn after all. There's also Harry Redknapp, but he's ruled himself out anyway so that's not going to happen. Terry Venables? No, a bit long in the tooth now. Alan Shearer? Maybe, but he seems quite happy doing his punditry on Match of the Day. Martin Jol? Interesting... worth a long shot. Jose Mourinho? I doubt it. I mean where would you rather live - Portugal or Newcastle? Exactly. And finally, Kevin Keegan. Er, no."

"Why not?" she said.

"Because they tried him once before and he won nothing" I replied.

"Oh" she said.

You can imagine my surprise, and indeed hers, when the same channel broke the news that Kevin Keegan had been named Newcastle boss last night. She walked in through the door having arrived home from work, gawped open-mouthed at the TV and said "Didn't you say...?"

"Yes, I know" I interrupted, "I know. Just don't ask..."