People & Stories
The human side of the game — profiles, comebacks, rivalries and the people behind the players. Data-driven narratives built to be read long after the result.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Jock Stein and the Lisbon Lions
The first manager to lead a British club to the European Cup, Jock Stein built a Celtic side of local players who conquered the continent with fearless, attacking football.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Jerry Sloan: the heart of the Jazz
One of the longest-serving coaches in the history of team sport, Jerry Sloan built the Utah Jazz in his own tough, disciplined image and made the pick-and-roll a thing of ruthless beauty.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Don Nelson: the innovator
A relentless experimenter who never won a title, Don Nelson changed how basketball is played, pioneering small, fast, positionless ideas that the modern game would eventually make its own.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Béla Guttmann: the wandering master
A restless coach who never stayed anywhere for long, Béla Guttmann survived the darkest chapter of the twentieth century, revolutionised attacking football and left behind one of the sport's most famous legends.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Valeriy Lobanovskyi: football as a science
Long before data ruled the game, Valeriy Lobanovskyi treated football as a system to be measured and optimised, building relentless Dynamo Kyiv sides that anticipated the modern era by decades.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Pat Riley: from Showtime to a culture of winning
Across four decades as coach and executive, Pat Riley won championships in every era he touched, building a reputation for intensity, style and an uncompromising standard he called simply the culture.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Helenio Herrera: the architect of catenaccio
One of football's first superstar coaches, Helenio Herrera perfected the defensive system known as catenaccio and turned Inter Milan into the dominant force in European football.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Dean Smith: the teacher of North Carolina
A college coaching giant who valued team, education and principle above personal glory, Dean Smith shaped generations of players — Michael Jordan among them — and quietly changed the sport and the world around it.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Rinus Michels: the father of Total Football
The coach who turned a radical idea into a footballing revolution, Rinus Michels built Total Football at Ajax and the Netherlands and reshaped how the modern game is played.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Phil Jackson: the Zen Master of eleven titles
The most successful coach in NBA history, Phil Jackson won a record eleven championships by blending a shared offensive system with an unusual gift for managing minds and egos.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Chuck Daly: from the Bad Boys to the Dream Team
A master of managing strong personalities, Chuck Daly guided Detroit's fearsome Bad Boys to back-to-back titles and then coached the greatest team ever assembled to Olympic gold.
- Unsung Heroes4 Sept 2026
Brian Clough: the outsider who conquered Europe
Outspoken, unconventional and gloriously stubborn, Brian Clough took provincial English clubs to heights their size should never have allowed, twice winning the European Cup against all odds.
- Unsung Heroes26 Aug 2026
Red Auerbach: the architect of a dynasty
He lit a cigar when the win was certain and built the greatest dynasty in NBA history from the bench and the front office — a mastermind whose boldest moves were about people, not plays.
- Unsung Heroes26 Aug 2026
Herbert Chapman: the man who modernised football
A manager from the 1920s and 30s dreamed up ideas so far ahead of his time — from tactics to floodlights to shirt numbers — that we still live inside them today.
- Unsung Heroes26 Aug 2026
Tex Winter: the architect behind two dynasties
He wasn't the head coach and he never wore the crown, but the old assistant with a system in his head shaped the offences that carried Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant to eleven titles.
- Unsung Heroes26 Aug 2026
Arrigo Sacchi: the shoe salesman who reinvented football
He never played the game professionally, and critics said that disqualified him. Then his AC Milan tore up Italian caution and changed how the whole world thinks about defending.
- Unsung Heroes26 Aug 2026
The napkin that signed Messi: the scout who bet on a tiny kid
Before the eight Ballons d'Or there was a 13-year-old with a growth disorder, a doubtful boardroom, and a Barcelona official who guaranteed a contract on the only paper he had — a napkin.