Alex Connor

Football Journalist

What do I offer?

Enthusiastic and insightful football journalist with a strong passion for engaging storytelling and impactful reporting. With experience at various companies, I bring an extensive background in crafting compelling reports, articles, and features across digital and print platforms.

Standout Digital Work

Goalkeeper.com •

Rafael Cabral interview: Brazil to Berkshire, and beyond

Rafael Cabral has enjoyed an illustrious playing career, spanning over 20 years, seeing the goalkeeper feature at the highest levels in Brazil, Italy, England, and the United States. Since January 2025, Rafael has been with MLS side Real Salt Lake. In September, the Claret and Cobalt announced that his contract had been extended to 2027, with an option to take it until 2028.
The 35-year-old is relishing his time in America. “Playing in the MLS was always...
Goalkeeper.com •

Maths Elfvendal and Michael Gspurning: How To Effectively Structure A Goalkeeper Pre-Season

Pre-season is a much less documented part of the football calendar. Welcome back videos will often be posted on the club’s social media, portraying a jovial ‘back-to-school’ atmosphere as everyone returns from their sun-soaked holidays. Hefty concentration is placed upon fitness as players recover from their well-deserved breaks, but what does the rest of the pre-season process involve for goalkeepers?

Michael Gspurning is Union Berlin’s Head of Goalkeeping and Goalkeeper Coach, playing an inst...
Glory •

EE Disability FA Cup

This match was one of six finals taking place at the EE Disability FA Cup across 28th and 29th June 2025 at St. George’s Park. It's the ninth edition of this event, hosting finals for the following formats: Amputee, Blind, Cerebral Palsy, Deaf, Partially Sighted and Powerchair football.
With EE confirmed as the official title partner for the next four years, this ensures that impairment-specific football has a national FA competition with a stable future. 
The 2025 edition of this remarkable eve...
Goalkeeper.com •

Frederik Gössling: Inside RB Leipzig's GK Department

Hunger to succeed and the ambition to develop: these are the motives that embody Frederik Gössling’s working life and RB Leipzig’s monumental progression. Founded in 2009, Leipzig’s meteoric rise into Europe’s elite has included four promotions in seven years to reach the Bundesliga, two DFB-Pokal trophies and a Champions League semi-final. Gössling has been at the heart of this glorious journey.

Gössling has operated as the club’s goalkeeper coach for ten years. In October 2024, his contract i...
Goalkeeper.com •

Sam Walker: The 'academic' GK backing Bradford's charge

“I didn’t want to stand still.” This is the mantra that Sam Walker has adopted in his football career and everyday mentality. Walker is a goalkeeper who constantly seeks improvement. An intense focus upon development has overseen a brilliant career on the pitch and has extended into his endeavours off it.

The Bradford City goalkeeper is ambitious and hungry. He possesses a BA degree in Business Management and Administration and is on course to finish his Global Sport Football Directorship Diplo...
Goalkeeper.com •

Dean Thornton: Ramsdale, Russell Martin, Reflection, & More

Dean Thornton has worked across the football pyramid as a goalkeeper coach, previously at Queens Park Rangers, Milton Keynes Dons, Swindon Town and Swansea City, and currently at Southampton. “17 years later and I’m still coaching,” he says, speaking exclusively to Goalkeeper.com. “I started this journey so young. I made the right decision to go down this route.”

Thornton’s fantastic coaching journey stemmed from a lower profile playing career. As a young...
Goalkeeper.com •

Darryl Flahavan: From Facing Ronaldo To Beating Slot's Reds

Since he first laid eyes on a football, Darryl Flahavan has been surrounded by various waves of goalkeeping brilliance that have shaped a tremendous playing and coaching career. His older brother Aaron was a professional goalkeeper at Portsmouth and paved the way for Darryl’s introduction to football. “When I was nine, I watched my brother at the Portsmouth Academy and School of Excellence,” he says, speaking exclusively to Goalkeeper.com.

“I would stand on the side of the pitch, catching balls...
Goalkeeper.com •

Andy Quy: Coaching Raya, MLS Franchises, & Promotion Hopes

Andy Quy’s coaching career has shifted him across the Football League in England and offered him the opportunity to flourish in America. But, wherever he has worked, there has been an unwavering common denominator in his mentality. “I love developing players and winning games,” he says, speaking to Goalkeeper.com. “It’s all about the project of the job and the club.”

Quy’s playing days started as a schoolboy on a Youth Training Scheme at Tottenham Hotspur. He then secured a pro contract at Derb...
Goalkeeper.com •

James Hollman: Creator Of ProDeflect, Coaching In The Championship And Premier League

James Hollman’s coaching philosophy is based on collaboration and a thirst for knowledge. “You’ve got to be flexible in terms of relationships and how you teach,” he says, speaking to Goalkeeper.com. “Integration with the team is crucial.”

Hollman’s receptiveness, adaptability, and professionalism have laid the foundations for a distinguished coaching career that has spanned over 20 years and still has significant mileage. It has shifted the 46-year-old across the football pyramid and he’s made...
Goalkeeper.com •

How Neuro-Fitness Technology Could Help Goalkeepers

Train Your Brain. Transform Your Game. The rhetoric splashed across i-BrainTech, a neuro-fitness data company that looks towards a future where brain training is placed upon the same transformative pedestal as physical exercise.

How do they aim to achieve this? i-Brain says it has created a “new era of training” in the form of a video game, controlled by the innate power of the mind and visualisation. This ground-breaking neuro-training game enhances footballers’ performance on the pitch, aids...
Football Paradise •

Irresistible: Thank You, Eden Hazard

Football lacks entertainers. The wonderful ability of an individual to captivate and tantalise stadiums with an uncoachable skill, distinguishing them from everyone else, is fading. Eden Hazard’s retirement is a poignant reminder of a player who achieved this unreachable feat.

While Hazard’s dream move to Real Madrid in 2019 materialised into disaster, his legacy extends beyond the realm of numbers and statistics. Hazard brought something different. The low centre of gravity, close control, inc
Breaking The Lines •

Jude Bellingham’s Ascension into Real Madrid’s Kingdom

The world is at his feet. Jude Bellingham is just 20 years old and has already amassed over 180 senior appearances, establishing himself as one of the globe’s most mesmeric and daunting talents. Bellingham’s journey began at his boyhood club Birmingham City, but it was at Borussia Dortmund where his development skyrocketed at an incomprehensible level. A tremendous three seasons with Die Schwarzgelben earned the Englishman an £88.5m move to Real Madrid earlier this summer.

In his short time on
Breaking The Lines •

Rodri: The Unsung Hero of City’s Unassailable Dominance

Dani Carvajal’s impudent panenka clinched the UEFA Nations League. It was Spain’s first international title in 11 years and yet another landmark for Rodri. The midfielder completed a gruelling 120 minutes in his last encounter of a record-breaking season before he coolly dispatched his spot-kick to afford La Furia Roja the fateful victory.

Alongside this, he is also the unwavering metronome of Pep Guardiola’s blue-blooded juggernaut. The former Atletico Madrid man played a starring role within
Football Paradise •

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia: Naples’ Immortalised Son

Napoli’s first Serie A title in over three decades was won in spectacular fashion, with the Partenopei dominating rivals all over the pitch. One player, the Georgian Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, has managed to grab headlines for his dazzling attacking contributions. He looks at home on a football pitch, writes Alex Connor, blissfully playing the game at his pace.

Depart at the Napoli Piazza Cavour station, and make your way down the Via Foria, which merges onto the Corso Amedeo di Savoia to the Via T
Football Bloody Hell •

Gianfranco Zola: The technician who married artistry and experimental genius

Zola was the footballer who married artistry and experimental genius. He possessed a stupidly brilliant technique and ability, whilst oozing a dazzling flair.

Thanks to his inherent gift and his marvellous odyssey across Italy, English football became blessed with a new, exciting, and irresistibly talented profile of an attacker.

Nicknamed the ‘magic box’, Zola’s catalogue of goals is ridiculous and the happiness he’s bought is everlasting. The story of a player who endeared himself to the hea
Football Bloody Hell •

Petr Čech: the uplifting renaissance from the brink

Sammy Davis, Jr, the famous American singer, actor, dancer and comedian, who before his glitzy entrance into Hollywood stardom, was drafted into military service during World War Two. The African-American was relentlessly abused in the army. White Southern soldiers targeted Davis, who received a torrent of racist abuse. Upon return to his nation, he became an overnight sensation in 1951, thanks to his intoxicating stage presence and unique singing talent. Less than 7 years earlier, life seemed c
Football Bloody Hell •

Cesc Fàbregas: the embodiment of the beautiful game

Rodolf Borrel, coach of FC Barcelona Alevin, the club’s under-11s side, recalled the time he first witnessed Cesc Fàbregas.

Borrel would frequently make the trip up through northern Catalonia along the C-31 and C-32 via Badalona and Vilassar de Mar to CE Mataró, in an attempt to recruit Spain’s most raw talent.

Borrel was under the impression that this was the first time he had come across the Spanish prodigy, but Mataró coach, Senor Blai, admitted that they hid Fàbregas in the dressing room t
Football Paradise •

Marcus Rashford is Back to His Devastating and Effervescent Best

“In this mood and this spirit, I think he is unstoppable.”

Erik ten Hag eulogised over the growing influence of Marcus Rashford, who picked up the ball in his own half at the City Ground in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final. Nine seconds later the net was rippling. The winger weaved in between the desperate attempts of Remo Freuler and Joe Worrall to halt his relentless running, before he executed a classy finish with his weaker left foot past a helpless Wayne Hennessey. It was anot
Football Bloody Hell •

Francisco Franco: his unrelenting grip on El Clásico

13 June 1943. The second leg of the Copa del Generalisimo semi-final between Barcelona and Real Madrid. The Catalans had dispatched Los Blancos with a seemingly unassailable 3-0 victory at Les Corts in the first leg.

But, unbeknownst to the crowd of 15,000 at the Estadio Chamartín, they were about to witness a piece of unprecedented history that still stands tall today – the heaviest and most emphatic defeat in El Clásico memory.

The home side raced into an 8-0 lead before half-time and eventu
Football Bloody Hell •

Didier Drogba: the inevitable marksman and political messiah

A striker who had an intense and unbridled love for his homeland. After spending the majority of his youth in Europe, Didier Drogba had a passport for both France and Ivory Coast, but described the idea of playing for his birth country as an “undeniable pull.” So when his nation was on its knees, he conjured up an eloquent and powerful message of change, and most importantly, peace, that poetically resonated with Ivorian society.

October 2005. Ivory Coast had just dispatched Sudan with a comfor
Football Bloody Hell •

Eric Cantona: The untameable and magisterial playmaker

Paul Ince remembered when Eric Cantona entered the fray at the Manchester United training ground in 1992.

He endeared himself into Premier League culture with his impudent vision, ball control and touch to direct a trophy-laden period of domination whilst at Old Trafford.

The centre-forward also imprinted an unforgettable personality upon his illustrious six-year stint in England, nearly robbed himself and his adoring fans of this journey when he announced his retirement in 1991.

Cantona grew
Football Bloody Hell •

Mario Balotelli: The enigmatic and eccentric wunderkind who fought a battle beyond football

The anti-immigration and racist rhetoric of small groups within the right wing had rippled into football stadiums. In Italy, politics and football had been at an agonising and confrontational crossroads for years, and Balotelli’s citizenship ignited another painful reminder of this ongoing issue.

Although Salvini highlighted that he condemned racism, his sarcastic referral to Balotelli’s lack of ‘innocence’ can be latched onto and projects an extremely dangerous message that racism is unimporta
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