Soccer Family Ties

You could go on for days with interesting family ties in soccer. Here, I've put together a few soccer family tidbits that I thought were interesting, some well-known and others somewhat obscure.




Tim Cahill's (Everton) brother Chris Cahill plays internationally for Samoa.

Sergio Aguero is the father of Diego Maradona's grandchild.

Giovani dos Santos' Brazilian father played with America and Monterrey in Mexico. His brother Jonathan plays with FC Barcelona's youth team and his other brother Eder is currently on Club America's 1st Division team.

Canadian-born brothers Julian and Jonathan de Guzman have taken different paths with Julian playing for Canada and Jonathan making himself available for selection with the Netherlands.

Samuel Eto'o has two lesser-known brothers playing professionally. David is currently with CF Reus Deportiu in the Fourth Division in Spain and his younger brother Etienne is with Real Mallorca in Spain.

Short-lived 2008 Toronto FC player Olivier Tebily is a cousin of Didier Drogba.

There are three Toure brothers. Kolo (Arsenal), Yaya (Barcelona), and the as of now, lesser-known Ibrahim who is now with Al-Ittihad in Syria after spending last season with ASEC Mimosas, the famous Ivorian, African club.

The Laudrup family in Denmark has quite the soccer pedigree. Finn represented Denmark 20 times, his sons Brian and Michael were staples for Denmark in the 90's and now two of his grandchildren (Michael's sons) are in the Danish youth national team system.

This is fairly well known to many, but Frank Lampard is related to Harry and Jamie Redknapp.

Luka Modrić is Mark Viduka's cousin.

France's Steve Mandanda has a brother, Parfait, who plays internationally for Congo DR.

Arnór and Eidur Guðjohnsen of Iceland are the only father and son to play for their country during the same game. Arnór was 34 and Eidur was 17 when it happened.

Alecko Eskandarian's (Chivas USA) father Andranik played internationally for Iran in the mid 70's.

Another brother divide, Christian Vieri chose to play for Italy while Max played with Australia.

Johan Cruyff's niece married Ruud Gullit.

Hamburger SV manager Martin Jol's brother Dick is a referee who has been assigned to Euro and Champions League games.

Portsmouth's Kanu has a younger brother, Christopher, who spent some time with Ajax but is now in Nigeria with Eagle Cement. Their stepbrother, Anderson "Anders" Gabolalmo Kanu, plays with Oghab FC in Tehran, Iran.

Miroslav Klose's father Josef played with Poland's National Team.

Vasili Frolov, a recent goalkeeper for FC Dynamo Moscow and 2nd division FC Zelenograd, is the grandson of the legendary Lev Yashin.

Gerard Piqué is the grandson of former FC Barcelona vice-president, Amador Bernabeu, not to be confused with Santiago Bernabeu whom the Real Madrid stadium is named after.

Taylor Twellman's (New England Revolution) father Tim was capped by the US national team one time in 1982.

Former US national team player Roy Wegerle has a brother Steve who was capped by South Africa and was named player of the year in South Africa in 74.

Guillermo Barros Schelotto (Columbus Crew) has a twin brother, Gustavo, who spent time with Boca Juniors, Villarreal, and the Puerto Rico Islanders.

Aleksandr Hleb's (Barcelona) brother Vyacheslav played with Hamburg, Grasshopper Zurich, and FC MTZ-RIPO in Belarus which is owned by the same person as Scottish Premier League side Hearts.

Former Liverpool and West Ham player, Rigobert Song, who is currently with Trabzonspor in Turkey, is the uncle of Arsenal's Alexandre Song.

Gabriel (DF, Barcelona) and David (FW, Genoa) Milito are brothers who, when in Argentina early in their career, directly played against each other for main rivals, Independiente and Racing Club.


{Originally posted 9/08, updated and added to on 5/5/09}