Japhet Tanganga is hugely popular with his Millwall teammates, just wait for the chorus to kick in! 😆
Heartening to see the Tottenham loanee, waylaid by injuries in recent seasons, smiling like that. 🤍
With the sad news of the passing of Sir BOBBY CHARLTON at the age of 86, here is our essay on the Manchester United and England legend. From Men in Blazers' "Gods of Soccer". ❤️❤️❤️
❝BOBBY CHARLTON'S story begins in tragedy. In 1958, just two years into his senior career at Manchester United, Charlton and the team were on their way back from a European Cup game in Belgrade. Halfway home, they stopped in Munich to refuel. It was early February in Germany and the ground was covered in melting gray slush. During takeoff, the plane began to skid down the runway, and it became clear that the plane wasn’t going to be able to accelerate enough to lift into the air. Tragically, it was also too late to slow down. The team said their prayers as the plane veered off the runway and crashed into a nearby house, splitting in half and depositing passengers every which way. When Charlton’s teammate, Harry Gregg, dragged him out of the fiery wreckage by the seat of his pants, he assumed that Charlton was dead. Astonishingly, two minutes later, there was Charlton—the shy 20-year-old kid from the mining town of Ashington, Northumberland—standing on the edge of the blaze, surveying the wreckage.
That Charlton lived to play 22 more years is a miracle. That he managed to accomplish what he did in that time is a miracle on top of that. The numbers speak for themselves: 17 years and 758 games played for Manchester United, 249 goals, one European Cup, three League titles, one FA Cup, 106 caps for England, one World Cup championship in 1966 (the first and only in English history), one Ballon d’Or, one side of the stadium named in his honor at Old Trafford, one knighthood. When you add all this up, you get one of the most impactful careers in English football.
Yet perhaps the most indicative number of all is just two. Two yellow cards in the entirety of Bobby Charlton’s 24-year career. That’s almost unheard of. Wayne Rooney, the man who eventually broke Charlton’s goalscoring records for both England and Man United, logged 145.
Out of the ashes of the Munich Air Disaster rose one of the best teams the English game had ever seen, flanked by George Best on the right and Bobby Charlton on the left. Best was the rascal; Charlton, the gentleman. Best, unscathed by Munich—he was only 11 at the time of the accident—restored a sense of mirthful youth and optimism to the club. Charlton did not have Best’s natural talent or his sense of revelry. But what he brought back with him from Munich was arguably more remarkable.
Watch Charlton’s goal against Mexico in the group stage of the 1966 World Cup. It is a powerful, commanding strike, hit from 30 yards out with almost no spin on the ball. Deft, clean, precise. Everyone else is running around getting their feet dirty. Charlton, with his dinner jacket combover—the envy of pipe-smoking, prematurely balding men across the continent—is playing an elegant, refined sport.
Deeply saddened to hear that Sir Bobby Charlton has died. A truly wonderful footballer and genuinely lovely man. A World Cup winner, @ManUtd great and, for me, England’s greatest ever player. He may no longer be with us but he’ll have footballing immortality. RIP Sir Bobby. 🙌🏻
I don’t care that it’s an NFL Sunday. This is headline material any day of the year! Way to go @seppkuss!!
One of the best teammates in the entire peloton earns one for himself.
Epic.
On this day, in 2009, a 17-year old Federico Macheda scored this dramatic late winner for Manchester United on his Premier League debut.
The turn. 👌
The finish. 🔥