Les Ferdinand
| Les Ferdinand | ||
|
||
| Personnel | ||
|---|---|---|
| Surname | Leslie Ferdinand | |
| birthday | December 8, 1966 | |
| place of birth | Acton , London , England | |
| size | 180 cm | |
| position | striker | |
| Juniors | ||
| Years | station | |
| 1985-1986 | FC Hayes | |
| Men's | ||
| Years | station | Games (goals) 1 |
| 1986-1987 | FC Hayes | 33 (19) |
| 1987-1995 | Queens Park Rangers | 163 (80) |
| 1986-1987 | → Brentford FC (loan) | 3 (0) |
| 1989 | → Beşiktaş Istanbul (loan) | 24 (14) |
| 1995-1997 | Newcastle United | 68 (41) |
| 1997-2003 | Tottenham Hotspur | 118 (33) |
| 2003 | West Ham United | 14 (2) |
| 2003-2004 | Leicester City | 29 (12) |
| 2004-2005 | Bolton Wanderers | 12 (1) |
| 2005 | Reading FC | 12 (1) |
| 2005-2006 | Watford FC | 0 (0) |
| National team | ||
| Years | selection | Games (goals) |
| 1998 | England B | 1 (1) |
| 1993-1998 | England | 17 (5) |
| Stations as a trainer | ||
| Years | station | |
| 2008-2014 | Tottenham Hotspur (Assistant) | |
| 2015 | Queens Park Rangers (Interim) | |
| 1 Only league games are given. | ||
Leslie "Les" Ferdinand , MBE (born December 8, 1966 in Acton , London ) is a former English football player . As a strong and technically adept center forward , "Sir Les" was particularly known for his headball strength, which he had - although relatively small at 1.80 meters - thanks to his pronounced bounce. The striker, Turkish cup winner 1989, English footballer of the year 1996 and league cup winner 1999 scored 184 league goals in almost two decades and completed 17 international matches for the English national team . He is also a cousin of Anton and Rio Ferdinand , who both also have careers as professional footballers.
Professional career
In the club
Queens Park Rangers (1987-1995)
In March 1987, the 20-year-old Les Ferdinand moved from FC Hayes from the Isthmian League to the Queens Park Rangers in the top English division, which was then still called the Football League First Division . About a month later he made his league debut by substitution against Coventry City ; the game ended with a tough 4-1 defeat. After another use against Sheffield Wednesday , which was lost even more clearly with 1: 7, he could not recommend himself for the first team in the following two years at "QPR". Instead, the club initially borrowed from the end of March 1988 to the end of the 1987/88 season to third division club Brentford and in the 1988/89 season to the Turkish club Beşiktaş Istanbul . In Istanbul he demonstrated scoring qualities for the first time in his professional career, scored 14 goals in 24 league games and also won the Turkish Cup .
Regardless of this, his prospects were initially unchanged even after his return to London and the change of coach from Trevor Francis to Don Howe in the 1989/90 season. Ferdinand only played nine competitive games, in which he scored his first two goals for QPR against Chelsea (4-2). The breakthrough came in the middle of the 1990/91 season. When he represented the injured Roy Wegerle on February 2, 1991 against Luton Town , he made two goals for a 2-1 win, which, after Wegerle's return, ousted his strike partner Mark Falco from the regular formation. Although he had to pause for a long time during the subsequent 1991/92 season under the new coach Gerry Francis due to a broken cheekbone, he remained the club's most accurate shooter with ten league goals and was now the new "striker" of QPR after the sale of Wegerle.
When the Premier League went into its first season as the English top division in 1992 , Ferdinand was now one of the best strikers in the country and became England's senior international during the season . He was one of the most feared opponents with his speed and above all because of the strength of his headers, which he particularly benefited in set pieces. With 20 league matches he led his club not only to fifth place in the league, but was behind Teddy Sheringham from Tottenham Hotspur 's second top scorer. In the following two seasons up to the summer of 1995 Ferdinand was able to continue playing at a consistently high level and after 16 championship goals in the 1993/94 season he was again the third top scorer in the league a year later with 24 league goals - his club also continued to rank in the top half of the table . The speculation about an upcoming club change increased and for a transfer fee of six million pounds Ferdinand hired at Newcastle United - from then on QPR could not compensate for the loss and was relegated to the second division a year later.
Newcastle United (1995-1997)
In Newcastle, Ferdinand had no difficulty getting used to it and from the start he led the attacking formation of Kevin Keegan's team. With his all-round qualities and 29 competitive goals - including a new club record with scoring goals in eight consecutive games - he ensured that the offensive game of the "Magpies" received a new quality. In the end, Newcastle won the runner-up and Ferdinand's colleagues from the PFA players' union voted him England's Footballer of the Year . In the summer of 1996, Alan Shearer, the center forward who was a regular in the English national team, came to Newcastle and immediately took over the symbolic jersey with the “number 9” from Ferdinand. Although Shearer himself now claimed the leadership role on the offensive, Ferdinand fit in well in his new role as "junior partner" and contributed 16 of the 41 joint league goals with Shearer. He also scored goals in all four UEFA Cup games in which he was used. On the other hand, there were also minor injury breaks and in the summer of 1997 the new coach Kenny Dalglish gave him the clearance for a change, which in view of Ferdinand's overall successful time in Newcastle fueled rumors of increasing financial difficulties.
Tottenham Hotspur (1997-2003)
In 1997 Ferdinand moved again to Tottenham Hotspur for six million pounds, where he met Gerry Francis again, who had already coached him with the Queens Park Rangers. Together with the newly signed David Ginola , he seemed to build on past successes at the beginning of the 1997/98 season with goalscoring until an injury in September 1997 from the game against Leicester City threw him back decisively and his physically oriented style of play throughout Season suffered. It was not until May 1998 that he found himself in good shape again alongside Jürgen Klinsmann and was jointly responsible for ensuring that the decisive victories in the battle for relegation were achieved. Little changed in the injury problems in the two subsequent seasons up to the summer of 2000. As in the previous year, he only scored five league goals in the 1998/99 season, which increased his self-confidence and his high physical presence in the actions on the Feld went missing and rumors arose about an early termination of the contract. Regardless, he won the league cup in March 1999 after a 1-0 final win against Leicester City at the side of Norwegian Steffen Iversen , but the new hopes were disappointed from then on. The 1999/2000 season was marked by planned comeback attempts and setbacks in training. In the end, the statistics recorded only two goals with five nominations in the starting line-up and in the person of the Ukrainian Serhij Rebrow , who was signed by coach George Graham , new top-class competition came to Ferdinand's position for the "Spurs".
But instead of fighting with Rebrow for a place in the team, the two strikers formed a good duo in the 2000/01 season and Ferdinand showed his best performance for Tottenham with ten league goals. This was promptly "rewarded" with a new two-year contract and also under Graham's successor Glenn Hoddle he drove in the subsequent 2001/02 season at the side of returnees Teddy Sheringham and supported by midfielders like Gustavo Poyet 15 competitive goals - including on 15. December 2001 against Fulham the 10,000 goal in the history of the Premier League. After these two good years, Ferdinand's commitment to Tottenham ended only about six months later. Injury problems had caught up with him again and in addition to the seeded Sheringham, the "newcomer" Robbie Keane was also consistently preferred to him. So he hired in January 2003 at the league rivals and relegation candidates West Ham United .
Career finale: From West Ham United to Watford FC (2003-2006)
The "Hammers" he accorded under the direction of Glenn Roeder , although at times well with the young Jermain Defoe , was the descent but ultimately did not prevent and moved to just a few months free transfer on to Leicester City . As the oldest debutant in the club's history at the time, he immediately impressed in Leicester with a header in the first game and scored twelve league goals. On the other hand, permanent knee problems were problematic, especially in the second half of the season, as a result of which he rarely completed training sessions between games. In the end he was relegated again from the top English league, so that - although very popular with the fans - he left the "foxes" after only one year.
Again free transfer it went in July 2004 in the direction of Bolton Wanderers . There he did not get beyond the status of a supplementary player, was in only one of twelve league games in the starting line-up and was hired in January 2005 at Reading FC in the second division. But even there - as before in Bolton - he was granted only one championship goal in the 2004/05 season. The last stop in the 2005/06 season was Watford FC, also active in the second division . Ferdinand stayed there without a single minute of action and ended his active career a few months before his 40th birthday.
English national team
Ferdinand made his debut for the English senior team against San Marino (6-0) in February 1993 and scored the last goal. After missing the qualification for the World Cup finals in 1994 in the USA , he was under coach Terry Venables in the English squad of the Euro 1996 in his own country . There he was only a substitute behind the seeded Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham and - although just recently awarded England's Footballer of the Year - he did not even come on as a substitute. Two years later he took part in the 1998 World Cup in France under the successor to Venables, Glenn Hoddle , but he was unable to play a game there either. On the side of Shearer, the young Michael Owen had increasingly played himself in the foreground and Ferdinand was only considered the "fourth choice" behind Shearer, Owen and Sheringham. His 17th international match against Belgium (0-0) in the run-up to the World Cup was Ferdinand's last appearance for the "Three Lions", where he scored a total of five times. In addition, he completed a single game for the English B selection against Russia in 1998.
After the active career
After the end of his active career, Ferdinand began to appear increasingly in the British media as a football expert. He was a frequent guest at BBC Sport and since the beginning of the 2007/08 season he has been active regularly for Setanta Sports in the context of Premier League reporting. At his side was mostly Steve McManaman , with whom Ferdinand had played in the English national team. In the football business itself he took part again from November 2008 when he was offered a job as a "striker coach" at Tottenham Hotspur .
Together with John Barnes and Luther Blissett , he also set up the Team48 Motorsport motorsport team , which supports young racing drivers of African and Caribbean origin and in 2008 sent two drivers to the British Touring Car Championship for the first time . His charitable activities include, above all, his support for the cancer research company Cancer Research UK and representative appearances for the sports aid organizations Soccer Aid and Sport Relief .
Title / Awards
- Turkish Cup (1): 1989
- English League Cup (1): 1999
- England's Footballer of the Year (1): 1996 (Player's Choice)
social commitment
Ferdinand is an ambassador for Show Racism the Red Card .
literature
- Macey, Gordon: Queen's Park Rangers - The Complete Record . Breedon Books, 2009, ISBN 978-1-85983-714-6 , pp. 216-217 .
Web links
- Hall of Fame page for Les Ferdinand in the Queens Park Rangers
- Les Ferdinand in the database of soccerbase.com (English)
- Les Ferdinand as England international
References and footnotes
- ^ "England - International Results B-Team - Details" (RSSSF)
- ↑ Instead of Acton, Paddington, located in the City of Westminster district of London, is occasionally mentioned as the birthplace in the print media .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1995-96 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-09-180854-9 , pp. 71 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1996-97 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1996, ISBN 978-1-85291-571-1 , pp. 84 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1997-98 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1997, ISBN 978-1-85291-581-0 , pp. 92 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1998-99 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1998, ISBN 978-1-85291-588-9 , pp. 98 f .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1999-2000 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1999, ISBN 978-1-85291-607-7 , pp. 100 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 2000-2001 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2000, ISBN 978-1-85291-626-8 , pp. 106 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 2001-2002 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-946531-34-9 , pp. 100 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2002/2003 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2002, ISBN 978-1-85291-648-0 , pp. 137 .
- ↑ a b Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2003/2004 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-85291-651-0 , pp. 142 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2004/2005 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2004, ISBN 978-1-85291-660-2 , pp. 136 .
- ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2005/2006 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2005, ISBN 978-1-85291-662-6 , pp. 137 .
- ↑ Show Racism the Red Card-Les Ferdinand expresses his opinion on recent Sepp Blatter Racism Controversy ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ferdinand, Les |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ferdinand, Leslie |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English soccer player |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 8, 1966 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Acton , London |