Rangers’ Ianis Hagi Next in Line for Bumpy Ride in Football’s Junior League

Romania’s Gheorghe Hagi celebrates scoring against Switzerland during the 1994 World Cup and Ianis Hagi after his goal for Rangers against Hibernian at Ibrox. (Getty Images and PA)
Romania’s Gheorghe Hagi celebrates scoring against Switzerland during the 1994 World Cup and Ianis Hagi after his goal for Rangers against Hibernian at Ibrox. (Getty Images and PA)
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Rangers’ Ianis Hagi Next in Line for Bumpy Ride in Football’s Junior League

Romania’s Gheorghe Hagi celebrates scoring against Switzerland during the 1994 World Cup and Ianis Hagi after his goal for Rangers against Hibernian at Ibrox. (Getty Images and PA)
Romania’s Gheorghe Hagi celebrates scoring against Switzerland during the 1994 World Cup and Ianis Hagi after his goal for Rangers against Hibernian at Ibrox. (Getty Images and PA)

My father was a lawyer and, in my childhood imagination and so far as I can ascertain also in fact, quite a good one. From time to time, as I blundered towards adulthood with no obvious idea what to do when I got there, he would encourage me towards the law, a vocation he always found intellectually stimulating and also, serendipitously, financially rewarding. In this endeavor, alas, he had no success. Why, I reasoned, would I voluntarily enter a profession in which I would be doomed to be forever compared unfavorably with an overachieving parent? With this same logic in mind, I have meticulously avoided closing off journalism as a potential career path for my own children.

In many professions when a familiar surname rises towards the top it is put down, often accurately, to nepotism. But if watching people surf to success on the shoulders of mum and dad can be dispiriting, in sport my experience is that second-generation achievement elicits a much more uplifting response.

Ianis Hagi’s debut goal for Rangers last week was a case in point, a sweet strike in several ways. It was a moment that brought back memories of his father, of the summer of 1994 when Gheorghe Hagi illuminated a World Cup that was in turns magnificent and mundane, and also admiration that this 21-year-old footballer has not been hobbled by the weight of the four letters that during matches he literally carries on his shoulders.

Ianis’s rise has not been unassisted, coming as he did through his father’s football academy in Romania before making his league debut in 2014, as a mere 16-year-old, for a Viitorul Constanta team coached at the time by his father. “I am well aware how hard I will have to work to get to the top,” he said at the time. “I am so proud of my father but I have to make my own way in life.”

It is worth remembering that Hagi Jr. also scored a late winner on his debut for Genk, the club he joined from Viitorul last summer and that within six months were happy to let him leave again. It remains to be seen whether his own way in life will be more Paolo Maldini than Stefan Beckenbauer. This after all is a path that has been trodden my many, often without great success.

Stanley Matthews’ son, also Stanley, was to become a more than decent tennis player, winning the Wimbledon boys’ title in 1962, but only after feeling forced out of football. “I stopped playing when I was 12,” he told the Guardian in 2007. “I was fairly good but whoever I played, they kicked the shit out of me. I came with a name and the mentality was: ‘We’re going to get Stanley Matthews’ son.’ Sure, being Dad’s son opened some doors but it also made things harder. Unfortunately that’s how it is.”

There will always be curiosity over the child of a once great player and their first challenge is to establish themselves as something other than a freakshow exhibit. In 2001 Diego Maradona’s son, also Diego, was called up to Italy’s under-17s and played a friendly against the senior team. “As a Neapolitan it gives me shivers to see a Maradona on the pitch,” said Fabio Cannavaro to the throng of journalists who had come to a vaguely glorified training session to see the prodigy, “but if that was my son I wouldn’t want him getting all this attention.” Maradona Jr. was 14 at the time, a child among young men. “I wouldn’t change my surname for anything in the world, because it fills me with pride,” little Diego said. “God willing, one day I’ll be out there with the senior squad.” Little Diego is now 33 and it seems God was not willing.

A decade later crowds gathered at a field in Curitiba, Brazil, after word leaked that Pelé’s 10-year-old grandson Gabriel was playing there with his club, Paraná. He and his elder brother, Octavio, soon joined São Paulo’s youth system, their parentage enough to get them a place without the inconvenience of a trial. “Just being Pelé’s grandson won’t be enough to make me a professional footballer,” said Gabriel. “It doesn’t work like that. We have to work, too. Of course his name helps but we want to become professionals on our own merit.” Neither, it turned out, had great merit.

Pelé’s sons Joshua and Edinho both played for Santos, their father’s old club; the former left football at 18 without a senior appearance but Edinho did play in goal for the first team and now works for their academy. He has benefited and also suffered from his association with Brazil’s greatest ever player: in 2017 he was appointed manager of Tricordiano, a small team from Três Corações, midway between São Paulo and Belo Horizonte. “Edinho is a big marketing tool for us,” their commercial manager said. “It could make us more well-known because of that name and we’ve got Pelé as honorary chairman now, too.” The benefit did not last long. Edinho was sacked after two games.

The concept of Edinho the marketing tool is a strange one to grasp. It seems clear to me that the child of a great player can engender a pleasant if temporary nostalgic glow but not that they are, in and of themselves and regardless of their achievements, even remotely interesting. Gabriel and Octavio both reported that during their childhoods in the Xaxim neighborhood of Curitiba they were often asked for their autographs, the juvenile scrawls of people notable at that stage of their lives only for the portion of their DNA that they share with someone else.

Some people clearly believe that being the offspring of a famous footballer is on its own enough to make someone appealing. In 1944 an anonymous sailor, serving on a motor torpedo boat, had a letter published in several newspapers. “I am 26, the son of a famous and well-known footballer,” it read. “I am a lonely, handsome sailor, almost a teetotaller. Please can you find me pen pals, with a view to matrimony. Photos will be welcomed.” It is sadly impossible to ascertain how many people were enticed by this pitch.

Ianis Hagi’s journey is one I will admire but never covet, though of course it is the only reality he will ever know. Paul Dalglish, Kenny’s son and itinerant striker, was once asked if his surname had proved a help or a hindrance. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I haven’t had any other name.”

The Guardian Sport



‘Rested’ Pacquiao Relishing Boxing Comeback at 46 

Manny Pacquiao speaks prior to his WBC welterweight fight versus Mario Barrios at The NOVO at LA Live on June 3, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
Manny Pacquiao speaks prior to his WBC welterweight fight versus Mario Barrios at The NOVO at LA Live on June 3, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
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‘Rested’ Pacquiao Relishing Boxing Comeback at 46 

Manny Pacquiao speaks prior to his WBC welterweight fight versus Mario Barrios at The NOVO at LA Live on June 3, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
Manny Pacquiao speaks prior to his WBC welterweight fight versus Mario Barrios at The NOVO at LA Live on June 3, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images/AFP)

Manny Pacquiao on Tuesday shrugged off concerns about his decision to return to boxing at the age of 46 as he prepares for next month's world welterweight title comeback against Mario Barrios.

The charismatic Filipino boxing icon stunned the sports world last month after announcing he would take on World Boxing Council (WBC) champion Barrios on July 19 in Las Vegas, four years after his last fight ended in a disappointing defeat.

Pacquiao, who won 12 world titles in eight different weight classes during a glittering professional career that began in 1995, told reporters on Tuesday that the glamour of championship boxing had prompted his return.

"I'm returning because I miss my boxing," Pacquiao said at a press conference in Los Angeles. "Especially these situations -- being interviewed, press conference, training camp, everything like that.

"I missed that. But it has been good for me -- I've rested my body for four years. And now I come back."

Pacquiao said that he had been left devastated following his decision to retire in the wake of his loss to Yordenis Ugas in 2021.

"I always thought, even when I hung up my gloves, 'I can still fight, I can still feel my body, I can still work hard,'" Pacquiao said.

"That moment when I announced hanging up my gloves four years ago -- I was so sad. I was crying, I cannot stop the tears coming out my eyes."

Pacquiao, though, revealed that working out at his home in the Philippines persuaded him he still had the fitness and strength to fight.

"I realized when I'm playing basketball, training at the gym my house -- I have complete sport facilities in my house -- that I still have that passion. I still have that speed and power," he said.

- 'Low-risk' comeback -

Some in boxing have expressed concerns about whether Pacquiao's comeback against Barrios, who is 16 years his junior, represents a risk to the Filipino's safety.

Addressing those concerns, Pacquiao noted that his family and loved ones were firmly behind his comeback.

"I'm thankful for them for their concern," Pacquiao told AFP. "But the people who really concern me, is my family. My family saw how I move, saw how I train, saw my body condition. They support me because they can see the old Pacquiao style."

Pacquiao, who has reunited with veteran trainer Freddie Roach for next month's fight, is able to challenge immediately for a title due to a WBC rule that allows former champions to request a title fight when coming out of retirement.

WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman told AFP on Tuesday that Pacquiao had been cleared to return to the ring by the Nevada Athletic Commission after undergoing medical exams, describing the fighter's comeback as "low risk".

"Manny Pacquiao is at no higher risk than any fighter going into the ring," Sulaiman said. "Manny has rested his body for four years. He's not a drinker. He's not a drug user. He's a family man that has taken care of himself. So of the different aspects of dangers, he's at the lowest risk."

Pacquiao's opponent, Barrios, said he would set aside the Filipino's status as one of the most beloved fighters of his era.

"There's nothing but good things to say about him outside the ring," Barrios said of Pacquiao. "He's a hard guy to dislike. But at the end of the day, you know it's kill or be killed.

"And I know if at any point he has me hurt, you know he's going to get me out of there. So I just have to go in there and make sure that my hand is raised at the end of the fight."