In both countries: the UK's pre-eminent sporting University, Loughborough, also has a very good aeronautical engineering programme, for exampls.
I'd also be careful of using the word "football", it means different things in different countries.
I do absolutely agree however about getting the student matched culturally to the institution. In the UK, for example, an academically brilliant student with two left hands will do well starting his career at Imperial, whilst somebody with a much more practical than academic bent may be better at Hertfordshire or Kingston - in between institutions like Glasgow or Brunel tend to demand a reasonable balance. All four on the other hand, I'd class as "good" for this industry, even if some are rather higher in the league tables than others.
G