Unlikely team-mates
Professional football is a small world, and it’s always interesting to observe teams lining up in the tunnel pre-match and trying to work out how friendly opposition players know each other from the game.
Some connections are obvious, from either club or international level, but others are much tougher to decipher. In this slideshow, we pick out 15 sets of players you never knew were team-mates.
Eden Hazard and Patrick Kluivert AND Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Lille)
A trident of unlikeliness here: former Ajax and Barcelona striker Kluivert was once a colleague of Hazard at Lille in 2007-08, and the current Chelsea attacker later became team-mates with Arsenal sharp-shooter Aubameyang in the north of France.
Hazard began his senior career in that aforementioned campaign, making four league appearances for Les Dogues as a fresh-faced teenager; the 31-year-old Kluivert played nine more games in Ligue 1, but neither man was a regular starter in Claude Puel’s team.
The Dutchman retired at the end of the season, but Hazard remained at the club for four more years. He was joined by Aubameyang in 2009-10, the Gabon international playing 24 times for Lille during a loan spell from Milan.
Rivaldo and Casemiro (Sao Paulo)
Rivaldo only hung up his boots at the age of 41 in 2014, but his return to Brazil with Sao Paulo three years earlier marked the beginning of his autumn stage. The World Cup winner scored five goals in 30 games in the 2011 season, as the Tricolor finished sixth in the league and reached the knockout stage of the Copa Sudamericana.
Casemiro (pictured above fouling Neymar) was in his second season as a professional when Rivaldo rocked up at the Estadio do Morumbi. The future Real Madrid midfielder played 40 times in all competitions, before earning a move to La Liga at the end of the 2012 campaign.
Edgar Davids and Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace)
Davids’ subsequent employment at Barnet makes it easy to forget just how bizarre his short stay at Selhurst Park was. Signed by George Burley in summer 2010, the former Ajax, Barcelona and Juventus midfielder made only six league appearances for Palace – most of which came at left-back – before pulling the plug on his pay-as-you-play deal.
Zaha was embarking on his first full season in 2010-11 and would go on to play 44 times in all competitions. In the unlikely couple's first game together, a Carling Cup defeat on penalties at Portsmouth, guess who got sent off? That's right: naughty little Wilf.
Brian Deane and Michel Preud'homme (Benfica)
There’s one person we have to thank for this tremendous link-up: Graeme Souness. After lasting just four months as Torino boss in 1997, the Scot arrived at Benfica and embarked on a British-themed recruitment drive: as well as striker Deane, Steve Harkness, Gary Charles, Dean Saunders, Michael Thomas and Mark Pembridge also joined Souey in Lisbon.
Deane struck a respectable seven goals in 18 league matches for Benfica, but he returned to England just nine months after moving to Portugal at the start of 1998. Goalkeeper Preud'homme was at the veteran stage of his career when he made Deane’s acquaintance, with the Belgian going on to hang up his gloves at the age of 40 in 1999.
Brad Friedel and Gheorge Hagi (Galatasaray)
Friedel spent most of his career in the Premier League, playing 624 times for Liverpool, Blackburn, Aston Villa and Tottenham between 1997 and 2015.
The former goalkeeper’s first stint on this side of the Atlantic came in Turkey, where he made 37 appearances for Galatasaray in 1995-96. Romanian legend Hagi was among his colleagues in Istanbul, the attacking midfielder rounding off his career with four Super Lig titles, two Turkish Cups and a UEFA Cup.
Thierry Henry and John Arne Riise (Monaco)
Henry and Riise were opponents during their time in the Premier League, the former starring for Arsenal and the latter plying his trade for Liverpool (and, after Henry’s departure from north London, Fulham). The duo played in three games on the same side, though, representing Monaco in the 1998/99 season.
Riise arrived in Henry’s fifth and final professional season at the Stade Louis II, when the principality club finished fourth in France’s Division 1 in 1998-99. The striker left for Juventus midway through that season, while Riise stayed put until 2001.
Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane (Leicester)
There is a famous picture from Leicester’s play-off semi-final second leg against Watford in 2012-13, in which Vardy and Kane can be spotted perched on the Foxes’ bench before the game. Neither striker was selected by Nigel Pearson that day, with David Nugent and Chris Wood deployed up top in their stead.
Kane only scored twice in his 15 appearances in the East Midlands, before returning to Tottenham for the start of the 2013-14 campaign. Vardy is still at Leicester today and must now be considered one of the club’s greatest ever players after his exploits in their title-winning campaign of 2015-16.
Riyad Mahrez and Benjamin Mendy (Le Havre)
Mahrez was desperate to become a team-mate of Mendy’s in January, but his proposed switch to Manchester City ultimately fell through as Leicester dug in their heels. It would have been the second time the Algerian and the Frenchman had been colleagues, with the two left-footers having previously played together at Le Havre.
Mahrez moved to the Normandy-based outfit in 2010, initially playing for the club’s reserve side before later establishing himself in the first team. Mendy, meanwhile, joined the Ciel et Marine as a 13-year-old in 2007, before spending two seasons in the senior squad between 2011 and 2013.
Diego Maradona and Davor Suker/Diego Simeone (Sevilla)
Maradona was nearing the end of his career when he embarked on a single-season stint at Sevilla in 1992-93, whereas compatriot Simeone was just starting out in his.
The current Atletico Madrid manager arrived in La Liga as a 22-year-old and soon found himself in the same dressing room as Argentina’s 1986 World Cup hero, with Maradona arriving at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan following his return from a 15-month ban for failing a drugs test. Suker was also part of the same Sevilla side, the Croatian scoring 13 of his 91 goals for the club in 1992-93.
David Beckham and David Moyes (Preston)
Moyes made more league appearances for Preston than any other club during his 19-year playing career, turning out for North End 143 times between 1993 and 1999. He was joined at Deepdale by a young David Beckham in 1994-95, the future England captain scoring twice in five Third Division encounters – including one goal direct from a corner – during a loan spell from Manchester United.
Beckham went on to play four Premier League games for United later in that season, before establishing himself in the first team in 1995-96. Moyes was handed the managerial reins at Preston in 1998 and occupied the hot seat for four years, before being appointed Everton boss in March 2002.
Mauricio Pochettino and Ronaldinho (PSG)
If Pochettino and the PSG managerial job doesn’t sound like the most natural fit, it’s worth remembering the Argentine has previous at the Parc des Princes. The former defender spent two-and-a-half years of his playing career in the French capital, making 95 appearances between January 2001 and summer 2003.
Pochettino was joined at the club by Ronaldinho – who was embarking on his first move to Europe – a few months after his arrival. The Brazilian’s stellar performances in 2001-02 and 2002-03 earned him a move to Barcelona; the rest, as they say, is history.
Josh King and Marco Reus (Borussia Monchengladbach)
The Premier League’s most English-sounding foreigner once shared a dressing room with Reus, who spent three years at Borussia Monchengladbach before his 2012 switch to Borussia Dortmund. His final campaign with the Foals brought 21 goals in all competitions, which is 21 more than King managed during his brief stay at Borussia-Park.
In fairness to the Bournemouth forward, he only ever played six times for Gladbach during a curious loan move from Manchester United in 2011-12.
Ronaldo and Eidur Gudjohnsen (PSV)
Ronaldo’s goalscoring figures were consistently impressive throughout his career, but it was at PSV where he made a name for himself as a prodigiously talented striker. The Brazilian found the net 54 times in 57 outings across two seasons in Eindhoven, a tally which had some of Europe’s biggest clubs queuing up for his signature.
Ronaldo ended up at Barcelona, whom Gudjohnsen also represented later in his career. The pair were briefly team-mates at PSV in 1995-96, but the Icelander only played 15 matches in the Netherlands before returning to his homeland with KR Reykjavik.
Ossie Ardiles and David Seaman (QPR)
Ardiles and Seaman are synonymous with rival north London clubs, the former spending a decade at Tottenham and the latter serving as Arsenal’s goalkeeper for 13 years. The duo once played together elsewhere in the capital, however, hooking up for a brief period at QPR in 1988-89.
Ardiles, who went on to enjoy a remarkably peripatetic career as a manager, initially joined Blackburn in 1988 following his departure from Spurs, before pitching up at Loftus Road for an eight-game spell a few months later. Seaman’s employment in west London spanned four years, with the future England international joining Arsenal in 1990.
Hristo Stoichkov and Ryan Nelsen (D.C. United)
Long before Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry and Steven Gerrard moved to the United States, Stoichkov joined MLS side Chicago Fire in 2000. The former Barcelona playmaker was then snapped up by D.C. United three years later, where he was part of the same team as future Blackburn, Tottenham and QPR centre-back Nelsen.
The Bulgarian forward scored six goals in 24 outings for the capital club, whom he represented for just a single campaign in 2003. Nelsen had already been at United for two years and stayed for another couple after Stoichkov’s exit, before signing for Blackburn in 2005.
