“Marquinhos won his 40th trophy in club football when Paris Saint-Germain beat Aston Villa in the Super Cup,” notes Paul Gage. “Has any player won more?”
The short answer is no: here’s Pete Tomlin with the breakdown. “I calculate that Marquinhos has actually won 41 trophies – one Copa Libertadores, 11 Ligue 1 titles, eight Coupes de France, six Coupes de la Ligue, 10 Trophées des Champions, two Champions Leagues, two Super Cups and one Intercontinental Cup.” Not a bad haul. “This puts him at No 1 in the list of club trophies won by a player. Just behind is Lionel Messi with 40 (10 La Ligas, 7 Copas Del Rey, 7 Supercopas de España, four Champions Leagues, three Super Cups, three Club World Cups, two Ligue 1 titles, one Trophées des Champions, one MLS Cup, one Supporters Shield and one Leagues Cup).
“Third on the list is the Egyptian midfielder Hossam Ashour with 39 (13 Egyptian League titles, four Egypt Cups, 10 Super Cups, six CAF Champions Leagues, one CAF Confederations Cup and five CAF Super Cups). Clear in fourth place is Dani Alves (one Copa do Nordeste, five Copas del Rey, five Supercopas de España, two Uefa Cups, four Super Cups, six La Liga titles, three Champions Leagues, three Club World Cups, one Serie A title, one Coppa Italia, two Ligue 1 titles, one Coupe de France, one Coupe de la Ligue, one Trophées des Champions and one Campeonato Paulista).”
Barcelona, Fifa and the Royal Spanish Football Federation credit Messi with winning the 2005 Supercopa de España, which would place him equal with Marquinhos, but he did not feature in the squad for either game so we’re not having that. If you have a player who can surpass that, drop us a line.
Oh brother(s)
“Three of Kevin Lisbie’s sons are playing professionally; in the Championship (Kyrell, Millwall), in League One (Kyreece, Reading) and League Two (Kaion, Colchester United),” wrote Stuart Willsher last week. “Have we ever had four brothers playing in all four top English divisions?”
Our thoughts immediately turned to the five Shankly brothers, Bill, Bob, Jimmy, Alec and John. All played professionally across Scotland and England but only including tiers one, three and four in England. Thankfully, Mike O’Dea and Michael Haughey were on hand with a better example. “As many will email in about, the five Clarke brothers of Willenhall – Frank, Allan, Derek, Kelvin and Wayne – all played league football but they were never spread across all four divisions,” Michael writes.
“Between 1975 and 1978 there were four Clarke brothers at league clubs. Kelvin in the third with Walsall, Derek in the second with Oxford and Orient, Frank in the second with Carlisle and Allan in the top flight with Leeds. Wayne made his First Division debut with Wolves in the final game of the 1977-78 season, so briefly there were five Clarke brothers playing in the league. That summer Frank and Kelvin retired, also Derek would play only one more game, while on loan at Carlisle. Allan joined Fourth Division Barnsley as player-manager. This was the only time one of the Clarke brothers played fourth-tier football. He promptly got Barnsley promoted at the first attempt.”
So the Clarke brothers played across the top four tiers in England if you allow for Allan covering tiers one and four, but they definitely didn’t cover all four in one season, missing out narrowly in 1978.
Caught in no-man’s land (part two)
It seems we have a new winner in regards to the question last month about the furthest up the field a keeper had been sent off, so kudos to Luke Levy, who got back in touch. “You mentioned Adrián’s incident in 2015 that got him red-carded outside the opponent’s box,” he writes, “but I can’t believe you’ve forgotten Oliver Kahn’s insane exploits in March 2001. With Bayern Munich trailing Hansa Rostock 3-2, Kahn went up for the corner and, using all his tenacity, explosiveness and wit, leapt above the rest to double-fist punch the ball into the opponent’s net. That was within the opponents’ six-yard box, with Kahn given a second yellow. I would like to see any other exploit in taking an early bath that beats that.”
“Midnite are the 26-27 shirt sponsors for three Championship sides; Middlesbrough, Sheffield United and Wolves,” Peter Skilton notes. “This means they will be the sponsors of at least one of the teams in 24% of Championship fixtures this season. Is this a record, and which brand has sponsored the most different teams in a single league?”
Dirk Maas comes in clutch with the answer here. “In 1987, Coca-Cola made a sponsorship deal with multiple Campeonato Brasileiro Série A teams. In 1990, 16 out of 20 teams were sponsored by Coca-Cola. Only Corinthians (Kalunga), Flamengo (Lubrax), Náutico (Banorte) and Portuguesa (Hudson) did not have Coca-Cola as shirt sponsor. Caixa almost matched Coca Cola’s feat in 2017: 14 out of 20 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A teams were sponsored by them.”
Knowledge archive
On 31 March 2012, towards the end of Stockport’s heroic 3-1 win at Kettering, a substitution took place with Daniel Lucas Rowe being replaced by Daniel Martin Rowe,” Alex Dixon wrote in 2012. “Both are known as Danny Rowe – is the first substitution involving two players with the same name?”
No, but luckily Henrik Hansen is on hand to elaborate and help us to flesh out this answer. “In the 1995-96 Danish Superliga season, FC Copenhagen had two players in their squad named Morten Nielsen,” he reveals. “One of them was usually referred to as Morten B Nielsen (short for Morten Bøhme Nielsen) to avoid confusion. On one occasion, an away game on 31 March at Vejle, the two players were substituted with Morten Nielsen replacing Morten B Nielsen after 73 minutes of play.”
Can you help?
“Slavia Prague and Fenerbahçe have played each other in the Conference League, Europa League and have been drawn to play each other in this season’s UCL league stage,” Önder Susam begins. “Has this happened before? Can it be bettered by teams who have also played each other in Intertoto Cup or Cup Winners’ Cup?”
“I read a few days ago that the Dutch outfit NEC Nijmegen have played six times in the Netherlands cup final and that they have lost all those (1972-73, 1982-83, 1993-94, 1999-2000, 2023-24, 2025-26),” Bogdan Kotarlic notes. “I have an impression that there must be an even worse team for losing cup finals, either in domestic or international cups. Am I right?”
“On Saturday, Clyde were winning 3-0 at The Spartans after an hour when Logan Dunachie was sent off. Twenty-eight minutes later, the score was 3-3. What is the biggest turnaround in a game following a red card/most quantitative blame that can be thrown at a player for getting sent off?” asks Jamie Wills.
“Chesterfield’s goalkeepers have saved the last five penalties they’ve faced (Zach Hemming with two and Ryan Boot with three.) Are they remotely close to a record?” wonders Stuart Basson.