OUR TEAM OF EXPERTS

From Buenos Aires to Barcelona, meet our men in the know

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  James Maw, Online Features Editor

  A successful product of FourFourTwo's fabled youth academy (i.e. he was good at making the teas when he was here on work experience, so we took him on full time), James has been a member of the FFT.com team since June 2008. He has also previously written for Sport magazine.
  His career highlights to date have included beating Chris Kamara at table football and discussing the wonder of Jaffa Cakes with Ledley King.

  • Fergie Time: A pictorial guide to Sir Alex's various watch-tapping techniques
  • Eden Hazard and the ballboy: Maybe two wrongs just make two wrongs
  • Redknapp's kick up the Rs: What Harry will do at Loftus Road
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  Jamie Sanderson – The Talentspotter

  Jamie Sanderson is a Football Writer who specialises in youth football. Founder and editor of Young Guns, the dedicated talent hunting Gooner refuses to let club biases stand in the way of acknowledging a potential star. Separator of wheat from chaff, Jamie is convinced he was the first to discover Jack Wilshere and will fight anybody who says otherwise. No really, he will.

  • Can rough diamond Kaby make the grade at Chelsea?
  • Is new boy Carl Jenkinson exactly what Arsenal need?
  • Young Everton midfielder one of Europe's 'top talents'
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  Jason Davis – The Real American Football

  A Yank in all connotations of the word, Jason writes entirely too many words that somehow occasionally make sense at his blog Match Fit USA, where he covers the American game in earnest. Never one to overwork his fingers, he also babbles about various topics on the aptly-named American Soccer Show, a weekly podcast.

  Spending more time thinking about football (and not the American kind) than most believe healthy, he unfortunately has yet to found a way to support himself doing it. Nevertheless, he soldiers on, waving an over-sized version of Old Glory wherever he goes, hoping for an American World Cup victory before he's too old to realize it happened, and dreaming of the day a washed-up Yank heads to England to finish out his career rather than the other way around.

  • Why play-offs are the best way to decide a champion
  • No, Henry doesn't mean it's NASL 2.0
  • One goal to change it all
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  Joe Brewin – Up the Football League We Go

  A development in the ever-growing FFT academy, Joe spends most of his time dodging tax as a student at the University of Brighton. When not aggravating the English tax-payers and telling the world Anthony Knockaert is better than sliced bread he can be seen ground-hopping across the Championship following his beloved Leicester City. Follow him on Twitter.

  • Does Moyes have the mettle to follow Fergie? A psychologist speaks
  • Redknapp: from Champions League to Championship
  • Watford loans add up to borrowed time for English football
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  Joel Richards – Argie Bargy

  After four years in Spain, Joel Richards decided to swap the tapas of Madrid for the steaks of Buenos Aires. A freelance sports writer and producer, he follows the fortunes of emerging wunderkids, former Albiceleste stars and Diego Maradona, while trying to avoid conversations involving the Mexico 86 quarter-finals or a group of small islands in the South Atlantic.

  • Goalkeeping blunders & the Paraguayan Roberto Carlos
  • Independiente in Red Hell
  • Viva Bichi Fuertes, the oldest gunslinger in town
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  Every week, ESPN football commentator Jon Champion will preview the weekend’s football action

  • City set for period of domination, is this the end of Kenny Dalglish?
  • City must prove they have ditched old habit of letting glory slip through their fingers
  • Forget Torres, Drogba is the man to fire Chelsea to a cup final win
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  Jon Cotterill - The Noise from Brazil

  Jon Cotterill lives in São Paulo and is the English football commentator for Globo TV’s coverage of the Campeonato Brasileiro. As well as the live games, he works on the weekly magazine show FootBrazil. Jon also runs his own site on Brazilian football called Pitaco do Gringo (The Gringo's Opinion). Follow him on Twitter Pitacodogringo

  • Why Brazil are worried about facing Scotland
  • Could Chelsea target Neymar be Brazil's answer to Man Utd legend George Best?
  • Are Flamengo the wrong club in the right place for Ronaldinho?
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  Jonathan Fadugba – United States of Africa

  Jonathan Fadugba is a world football enthusiast with a particular fondness for African football. Creator and editor of Just Football, he remains convinced that, but for the magic of Baggio, Nigeria would have won the 1994 World Cup. French football analyst for Football Radar and a contributor to When Saturday Comes and various other publications, he finds talking about himself in the third person slightly awkward. Follow him on Twitter at @JustFootball and @JFfutebol

  • PSG's reluctant hero Thiago Silva earns applause but eyes the door
  • Nancy boys get violent
  • Ivory Coast vs Senegal pick of the bunch as Africa prepares to dance again
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  Jonathan Wilson

  Jonathan Wilson writes regularly for the Guardian, Independent, Independent on Sunday, FourFourTwo and anybody else who waves money in his direction. He has written several books including Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football and the award-winning tactical history Inverting the Pyramid.

  • Euro 2012 preview: Sweden
  • Tossed coins, tear gas and Three Lions: the fascinating history of the Euros
  • Euro 2012 preview: Croatia
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  Kris Heneage

  Commenting on Kris Heneage's love for the game, his Dad once told him "You'd watch the Nagasaki Warriors against The Raggy Arse Rovers if it was on TV." Based up north near Newcastle, Kristan is predominantly a fan of both English and Italian football. However he also enjoys writing about MLS, and even contributes a monthly piece with Luke Rodgers of the New York Redbulls. To read more of his work (and hear him speak) you can visit his website www.krisheneage.tumblr.com or get in touch via Twitter @KHeneage.

  • NASL commissioner explains his blueprint for US football
  • Newcastle failing because Tiote’s passing statistics don’t Cheik out
  • Young Ben awakens sleeping giant with rejuvenating regime
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  Ever since he finally accepted he wasn’t good enough to play football, Liam has been writing about it. He contributes to FourFourTwo.com and Goal.com UK, as well as running his own blog. He has also shamelessly jumped on the Twitter bandwagon.

  • Redknapp should think long and hard before taking management's biggest gamble
  • Rejuvenated Cole could yet be the man to fill Capello's Rooney-shaped hole
  • Warnock's Traore rant - though extraordinary - was just the tonic
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  Crazy World of Football

  • How Will They Line Up? Liverpool v Chelsea
  • Marouane Fellaini in a chef's hat
  • Name the footballing big-heads
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  Louis Massarella is FourFourTwo magazine's Commissioning Editor.

  • Judgement Day, 1994: The four-way relegation battle
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  After banging in the goals for Shrewsbury, Crewe, Port Vale, Yeovil and Notts County, Luke Rodgers moved to New York Red Bulls in January 2011.

  • Conference semifinals, financial transparency and winter breaks
  • Dressing-room disagreements, ring-nosed fans and career dreams
  • Earthquakes, hurricanes and 'Platelet Rich Plasma'
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  Mark Booth is a writer for hire and a regular freelancer for Champions Magazine, also of this parish. His blog can be found - read, even - here.

  • Heroes & Villains: Loyalty, levellers, lunacy and livestock
  • Heroes & Villains: Torres restored, Spurs find saviour, McLeish's Villa pointless
  • Heroes & Villains: Tevez's swerving drive, Young's tumble & Kean's cluster of losers
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  Mark Gilbey – Never Mind the Bolsheviks

  Mark Gilbey was expelled from school in Peterborough when he was 18, and was promptly exiled to Ukraine by his parents to live at the top of a tower block in Kyiv with a former general of the Red Army.
  Since 2001 he’s visited 52 countries and one breakaway republic, and has called Budapest, Chisinau, a tent in the Gobi Desert and, less exotically, Hull, home. Mark has written for newspapers and magazines in Eastern Europe and the UK.

  • What's in a badge? Symbolism behind the crests of clubs in the former Soviet Union
  • Football in the City of the Dead: The truth behind the first match of the Siege of Leningrad
  • The miracle of Middlesbrough: When McClaren’s comeback kings overcame Steaua
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  Michael Cox (Zonal Marking)

  Michael Cox runs ZonalMarking.net, a website about formations, tactics, and anything else deemed geeky enough for inclusion.

  • How Beckham ended his career at PSG
  • McManaman and Wembley: A golden partnership
  • Meet the third force in German football
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  Michel Salgado

  Michel Salgado is a former Celta Vigo, Real Madrid and Spain legend, with almost 350 La Liga appearances and more than 50 international caps. A confirmed Anglophile, he now plays for Blackburn Rovers and writes a monthly column in FourFourTwo .

  • Exclusive: Salgado on Suarez, Evra, Terry, Capello and racism
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  Mohamed Moallim – Half-time Oranje

  The world of Dutch football entered Mo's psyche after being mesmerised by Louis van Gaal’s Ajax in the mid-90s. From then on it became a love affair, often ending in heartbreak with penalties. Mo regularly contributes to other websites talking solely on all things Voetbal and pretty much nothing else. Like many, he can be contacted via Twitter.

  • The worst comeback ever? PSV's Pieters sent off, cuts up arm smashing window
  • Without respect, no football
  • Ajax-PSV: a philosophical rivalry that dominates the Dutch mindset
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  Nick Govier - Stats Zone

  Nick Govier is the editor of Footballistically.co.uk., which is well worth a follow on Twitter. He's on there too, albeit with less of a football focus.

  • Premier Analysis: Spurs snuff Reading, Villa's successful switch, hope for Southampton, the new Berbatov
  • Premier Analysis: One-Man United, Tight Arsenal, One-Course Toon and East beats West
  • Premier Analysis: City's experiment, Torres takes effect & why Spurs want Dembele
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  Nick Moore

  Nick Moore started his journalistic career working for his boyhood heroes, Liverpool FC, on their programme from 1999 and 2001. It's been mainly downhill for both Nick and Liverpool since – he briefly edited a pamphlet about youth hosteling – but he occasionally manages to contribute to Q, Army and various newspapers.
  He's a regular feature writer for FourFourTwo and has been doing Ask A Silly Question for four years, once making national news when Peter Crouch confessed that he regularly dreamt about being a dwarf.
  He combines journalism with drumming for cult psychedelic Welsh rock heroes Howl Griff.

  • An awful penalty, a severed finger and a pierced penis: football's harshest yellow and red cards
  • "You've no idea what you're doing, Parkinson!" FFT at Bradford, this time last year...
  • Why Euro 2012 will rock
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  Owain Jones

  Owain Jones is a journalist for hire. See OwainJones.net or follow him on Twitter.

  • Pass masters Swansea quietly confident back in the big time
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  Paul Hansford – The Dirt From Down Under

  Paul Hansford was the launch editor of the Australian FourFourTwo and now works as a freelance sports and travel writer.
  Having also worked for 90 Minutes and Shoot! when he had more hair, his footballing adventures include caravanning with Jonathan Pearce, swiping Alan Shearer's England sock at a photoshoot, giving Michael Owen his first interview and being mistaken for a German pro while working on a pre-season training feature (Player: "Is he the German guy? He's not very good, is he...?").
  Paul is particularly proud of his contribution to the Tottenham Hotspur Opus - a book he will never be able to afford - and is still in disbelief at how many Socceroos turn up for shoots with 'unfurnished basements'.

  • Brisbane's miraculous Grand Final comeback could signal brighter future
  • The A-League Final: The five big questions
  • Grand Final a triumph for comeback coaches
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  Paul Simpson – Professor Champions League

  Paul Simpson has edited Champions, the official UEFA Champions League magazine, since its launch in 2004. Before that, he launched FourFourTwo as editor in 1994, wrote the acclaimed Rough Guide To Elvis and formulated the influential HR theory that everyone in your office has an equivalent character in Dad's Army.
  He supports Nuneaton Borough and Jimmy Bloomfield's Leicester City.

  • The last temptation of Andrea Pirlo
  • Reinvention, rejuvenation & lucky underpants: The Champions League is back
  • Fascinating final clash of styles which echoes down the ages
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  Paul Wilkes is a freelance writer specialising in Spanish football and editor of LaLigaUK.com.

  • Who are Real Sociedad, and why are they fourth?
  • Pedro Morales: The delicate hidden gem of Málaga (via Zagreb)
  • Atlético Madrid must get creative if they are to close the gap on Spain's big two
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  Paul Winslow is on Twitter at @winslowjourno. He doesn't say much at the moment but will if you follow him.

  • It's Big and it's Wednesday...
  • Heart is where the home is for an Anglo in Oz
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  Richard Whittle – Serie Aaaaargh!

  Despite the name, Richard Whittle is so at home in Italy that some call him Riccardo Rossi. He has lived and worked in Italy for the last 15 years as a football journalist and works as Italian soccer commentator for the English-speaking world covering Serie A, Champions League, Europa League and Italian Cup matches as well as Italy internationals. With Paul Visca, Richard concocts the regular Calcio & Coffee podcast.

  • Milan survive Tuscan terror to secure third place finish
  • Berlusconi barbs, not third place failure, may send Allegri packing from Milan
  • Juventus celebrate title, but coach Conte already planning major rebuild
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  Rob Carey – The Draw Specialist

  Behind Alan Shearer, Rob is hoping to become England’s second most famous son of a sheet metal worker. He spent most of his childhood worshipping Kenny Dalglish, running around muddy pitches, collecting Panini football stickers, and drawing the weekend’s football highlights in stickmen form.
  Today he can be found in California worshipping the sun, hobbling through an over-30s’ match, collecting injuries, and drawing the weekend’s football highlights in stickmen form. He certainly wouldn’t say no to anyone offering him enormous sums of money to turn his blog One Pound The Large Flag into a book.

  • Premier Sketch: Alarm clocks, atheism & top drawer saves
  • Prem sketch: Shocks as Torres scores for Chelsea and Arsenal concede
  • Premier sketch: Russian belters, barn doors & Roy's resurgence
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  Rupert Fryer (on Twitter: @Rupert_Fryer) is the co-founder and editor of SouthAmericanFootball.co.uk.

  • Humility and teamwork help Ronaldinho's Atletico Mineiro lead the way in Brazil