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Exploring an individual in football every Thursday. Hosted by Simon Kuper, a Financial Times columnist, and Mehreen Khan, Economics Editor of The Times, the podcast covers people such as Mbappé, Messi, Rapinoe and Abramovich. Simon Kuper, described by Time Magazine as "one of the world's leading writers on soccer," has been to the last nine World Cups and owns Europe's largest football library. Mehreen Khan started her career in sports journalism – and now she's back. Blending socio-politica ...
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Jude Bellingham: Born in England, made in Europe
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Jude Bellingham could go down as the best English player to never play in the Premier League, but how did he go from a shy and polite young boy from Stourbridge, to an integral part of Real Madrid's push for the Champions League title this season? This episode describes the careful and precise decisions of Jude Bellingham's career so far that have …
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Carlo Ancelotti: The Godfather of the Champions League
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Carlo Ancelotti, son of poor Italian farmers, could be about to win a record fifth Champions League with Real Madrid. That’s pretty good for a guy whose managerial career started with him refusing to sign Roberto Baggio. This episode describes how the nicest man in football learned how to handle the egomaniacs around him, give players the power, an…
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Mohammed bin Salman: The most powerful man in football?
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Mohammed bin Salman may be the most influential person in global football, even though he doesn’t seem to like the game. In 2021, the Saudi millennial crown prince became the ultimate owner of Newcastle United, when the Premier League club was bought by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The country’s de facto leader is also pumping billions int…
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The Leadership Secrets of Jürgen Klopp
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Jürgen Klopp resigns as Liverpool manager this month after a nine-year love affair with the club and city, where he became practically a benign cult leader. Above and beyond the Champions League and English title that he won with his “Heavy metal football”, he offered a model of leadership so lacking in our time. The most charismatic manager in foo…
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Hakan Şükür is Turkey’s greatest ever footballer, highest goalscorer, and still the man who holds the record for scoring the fastest goal in a World Cup after just 11 seconds in 2002. But for the last nine years, he’s been living in self-imposed exile in the US, moonlighting as an Uber driver, and having his legacy wiped from the records of Turkish…
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Who is Liverpool's new manager Arne Slot?
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Who is Arne Slot? Simon Kuper, who grew up in the Netherlands and remains a Dutch football obsessive, reveals all about the new Liverpool manager. Join Heroes & Humans for our first ever emergency episode to hear about the new Klopp mini-me. The Dutchman from a family of schoolteachers is Klopp without the charisma and the teeth visible from outer …
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From innovator to "specialist in failure," this riveting episode charts Arsène Wenger's steep fall at Arsenal. His pioneering vision had remade English football, introducing new tactics, diets, and a cosmopolitan ethos that redefined excellence. The unbeaten "Invincibles" season cemented his legend, but also marked the start of a tragic decline. As…
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From his humble beginnings in an Alsatian village to his revolutionary tenure at Arsenal from 1996 to 2004, Wenger's journey is a testament to his innovative spirit and enduring influence on English football. Exploring Arsène Wenger's meteoric rise at Arsenal, this first episode of a two-part series delves into the origins and golden years of one o…
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Mohamed Salah is the greatest player to emerge from a football-mad part of the world that has rarely produced elite talent on the level of the clinical, curly-haired winger: the Arab world. Born in a humble town in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, Salah is an icon in Africa and the Middle East and ranks among the greatest Muslim athle…
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Born in the Catalan village of Santpedor, Pep's early life was steeped in the resurgence of Catalan identity post-Franco. His childhood, marked by the isolation & cultural defiance of his village, was a prelude to a career that would challenge and redefine football norms. At 14, Pep left the village for the Masia, Barcelona's famed academy, embeddi…
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Roman Abramovich: Should Chelsea fans still love him?
1:02:57
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Roman Abramovich's story unfolds with the complexity of a man who came from Russia to reshape Premier League football. Starting life in a nondescript communist town, orphaned and adopted within an anti-Semitic Soviet Union, Abramovich's acute sensitivity to others' desires propelled him from selling rubber ducks to amassing a fortune amid the chaos…
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Kylian Mbappé: Made in Paris (and bound for Madrid)
1:03:48
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Tracing Kylian Mbappé’s path from the suburbs of Paris to the pinnacle of global football. With two decades of living in Paris, Simon brings an insider's perspective to Mbappé's early life, highlighting the city's rich football culture that has nurtured talents like Pogba, Kanté, and Mahrez. The Paris region is the biggest talent pool in global foo…
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Simon Kuper and Mehreen Khan take the heroes of football and show you the human behind them. Uncovering the very strange journeys some of them have made to the place where we got to see them, their life stories, and the societies that gave birth to them, we get to know these football people through a new lens. The two hosts love football in very di…
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