She Kicks a Beat: Tinni the Good-Time Goalie (Tinja-Riikka Korpela)

Finland’s captain and record-holding goalkeeper joined Everton from Valerenga this summer, after more than a decade away from Oulu – the home, she points out, of the Air Guitar World Championships, though she has never been. Chris Brookes takes her through a career at Bayern Munich, FC Honka, Kolbotn, LSK and the Tyreso side that reached a Champions League final with Marta, Vero Boquete and Christen Press in it, using music as the thread. She is one of the last people alive never to have set up iTunes, keeps her tapes and CDs at home, and leans on Finnish power-heavy bands before games while defending an unembarrassed love of Britney Spears and, above all, Robbie Williams – whose ‘Love My Life’ she sang for her first-ever initiation, at 33.