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 football—those teeth visible from outer space, that laugh, that way with words—won't be forgotten. In this episode, we tell Klopp’s story, from his...

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 football history. Turkey’s ruling AKP party has branded him a “terrorist”, and even saying his name on TV can get you the sack, as one commentator...

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 space. He’s even practically German (well, ten minutes’ drive from the border). We have other comparisons: Slot’s playing career as the slowest...

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 richer clubs co-opted Wenger's methods, his stubborn penny-pinching while Arsenal's debt piled up from their new Emirates stadium ended up...

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 of the Premier League's most unforgettable managers. Starting in Duttlenheim, where Wenger grew up in the post-WWII era, his early experiences in a...

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 athletes of the modern era. The 31 year-old’s breakthrough in European football may never have happened were it not for the tragic breakdown of law...

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, embedding himself in a milieu far removed from his humble beginnings. It was here, in the fertile grounds of Barça, that Pep's footballing philosophy...

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 of post-Soviet privatisation.  His acquisition of Chelsea FC in 2003 marked a pivotal moment, introducing unprecedented investment into the sport,...

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 football, ahead of Buenos Aires. To understand the essence of Mbappé, it is necessary to understand the role of Parisian banlieues and artificial...

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 different ways. Is the World Cup just for football tourists trying to pretend they love football just as much as we do? That’s what Mehreen says,...