Football is the most popular team sport in the world. He gathers at the TV screens, in bars and at stadiums a huge number of people who support their favorite teams and enjoy a beautiful game. Moreover, in the history of this sport there are many interesting points that are worth paying attention to. In this article you will find 30 interesting facts about football. Some of them are associated with teams, others with football players, there are those who talk about referees, coaches and other people associated with this sport. Interesting facts about football will allow you to look at this sport from an angle from which you have never looked at it.
"Ole!"
Interesting facts about football should start with the most basic information. Everyone knows the chant "Ole ole ole!" "She is the most widespread and universal among all. But how did she come about? It turns out she was shouted out before bullfight in Spain - at bullfights and dance festivals. But she does not carry a specific meaning - this is just a modified word" Allah ", which pronounced by the Arabs who captured Spain in the eighth century.
Iglesias
Everyone knows the singer Julio Iglesias - he was one of the most popular performers of his time. However, what have the interesting facts about football? The fact is that in his youth, Julio was a football player - he trained at the football academy of one of the strongest clubs in the world of Real Madrid. Iglesias played as a goalkeeper, but at the age of twenty he was in a car accident, because of which he had to say goodbye to his career as a football player. But precisely because of this, Julio found himself as a musician - most of his body was paralyzed, only his hands worked, so he learned to play the guitar so as not to die from boredom.
Goal for a paratrooper
What other interesting facts about football exist? For example, in one match in Brazil there was a curious incident - a group of paratroopers accidentally landed on the soccer field where the match was held, and one of them fell on the goalkeeper, who because of this could not take possession of the ball, and he rolled into the net. However, the referee refused to cancel this goal, substantiating his decision by the fact that higher forces intervened in the course of the match, which should not be argued with.
Ban
Where most likely they will not hear and read interesting facts about football? Most likely, this will be typical for countries such as Afghanistan and Greenland - after all, in these and four other countries, this sport is officially banned. And in the US state of Utah, you can play it only if the football field is located at a considerable distance from the church.
English fans
Sometimes interesting facts about football and soccer players, as well as about the fans make you think about what impact this game has on others. Indeed, everyone knows that the most crazy fans are the English fans who can do real horrors after the match. However, you can hardly imagine the full extent - it turns out that the damage that football fans do to English cities is 40 million pounds a year.
The most cruel match
In the most interesting facts about football, you can include the case in one English match, where the referee had to remove all players to the last from both sides. Moreover, cruelty went so far that after the match one of the players and the side referee were hospitalized.
Longest match
These are not all the interesting facts about English football - in the British Isles, in general, various funny cases often happened. For example, in 1981 the longest match was held there - two teams found out which of them was stronger within 65 hours.
Fog
There are interesting facts about football for children, and there are those that are suitable only for adult eyes and ears. For example, the story of the cruelest match. It can not be categorized as “Interesting facts about football and soccer players for children.” However, most stories are quite harmless - for example, this one. On one foggy day, two Scottish teams met, but the weather conditions worsened so much that the referee did not immediately notice that the bench was empty. Only after some time, he realized that instead of 22 people on the field was already thirty.
Police club
In Brazil, for some time good results showed a football club consisting of policemen. However, it was dissolved quite quickly - the reason was that all the police colleagues came to the stands to watch the match, and criminal chaos dominated the city for an hour and a half.
Team or family?
An interesting match was held in Poland - in one team were journalists and reporters, and in the other - the sons of one person. Guys between the ages of 15 and 28 lost, but won the audience’s great love.
Bachelors versus Married
Another interesting fact from Brazil - an experiment was conducted there, during which it was checked who plays better: single or married. However, the experiment failed when, after a married penalty was scored at the gate, the wives ran out onto the field and attacked the judge, conferring a victory on their husbands.
Skeleton
And in Italy, once during a football match, an archaeological find was discovered. One of the players tried to hit the ball, but did not hit and dug the ground, injuring his leg. It turned out that in that place lay a skeleton, which was of great historical value. The player was awarded a cash prize and an archaeological award.
Goal scorer
The Brazilian defender Pinheiro is the record holder for his own goals. In one season, he managed to score up to ten own goals. And even when he was transferred from defense to attack, he still managed to once send the ball into his own net.
Noise record
In 2005, at the English League Cup match, Liverpool fans secured their place in the Guinness Book of Records. When their team scored a goal, they made a noise of 130 decibels.
The fastest own goal
The Italian defender Mazzia is a record holder who would gladly give up his record. He scored the fastest goal in history, sending the ball into the net of his goal at 38 seconds.
Red card yourself
Referees often show red cards to players, but two cases are known in the history of football when they showed it to themselves. Andy Wayne removed himself to avoid conflict with the goalkeeper of one of the teams, and Melvin Sylvester - because he hit the player pushing him.
Two parallel matches
In 1959, a funny thing happened in Germany - football and handball matches were scheduled for the same time. No one refused the game, so four teams and two goals were on the field at the same time.
Saturday Games
In Israel, Saturday is a holy day, but the players would like to play on Saturdays, and the fans would like to watch these games. The government has already asked for permissions to such games 36 times, but all the time the requests were rejected. At the moment, the government is considering another such request.
No victories
The national team of Botswana is also an anti-record holder. This national team has not won a single match in its 28 years of existence.
Removal for points
Grosso's Italian goalkeeper was removed when he advised the referee to wear glasses. But, as it turned out, this was not an insult - Grosso actually owned an optics store, and the arbiter had vision problems. As a result, the disqualification was canceled, and the judge got points in the Grosso store.
Match Referees
The match of football referees in Italy was a unique event, which ended unsuccessfully. The match went quite fine until one team scored a controversial goal. And then a brawl took place, because each of the players was a professional referee and proved his innocence.
Salvation from the crowd
The most brutal football match has been described above, in which all 22 players have been removed. However, this is not the only case - in Spain there was also a match in which all the players had to leave the field, but not because of cruelty, but because they were all unhappy with the refereeing and surrounded the referee with not very good intentions.
Joy too long
An interesting goal was scored in Greece. First, one team from the game scored against another - the whole team rejoiced as Greeks as children, running up to the bench so that everyone could take part in the celebration. The referee repeatedly called on players to return to the field, but they ignored him. Then he had no choice but to give a whistle. The enemy team freely passed through the empty half of the field and scored a return goal.
Socker
Interestingly, in America, football is called a soker, while the word "football" means American football. Interesting facts do not end there - it turns out that the term "soker" was coined not by the Americans, but by the British. Then there were many similar games with the ball, so football was called association football, and in short it was called soccer.
Bullfighting football
In one of the matches in Spain, the home team at the very beginning of the match was inferior to the away team with a score of 0: 2. Suddenly, angry bulls appeared on the field, from which both the players and the referees rushed in all directions. They were followed by fans. As a result, when everything calmed down, it became clear that one of the fans of the home team released the bulls prepared for bullfighting to save their beloved players from the shame of a devastating defeat.
Better not live without football
In Yugoslavia, a very unusual case occurred - the train driver traveling to Belgrade miraculously was able to stop the train so as not to move the man on the rails. He turned out to be a football fan, who was late for the match in Belgrade and did his best to get there.
Football leads to war
In 1969, the national team of Honduras lost the national team of El Salvador. It would seem that it’s okay, everyone will ever lose. But not in this case, because the result of the match caused a six-day armed conflict between the two countries.
The greatest goalkeeper
Lev Yashin went down in the history of football as one of the greatest goalkeepers of the whole world. However, few people know that at the very beginning of his career he also acted as a goalkeeper in hockey. In 1954, they wanted to call 25-year-old Yashin to the USSR national hockey team, but he refused, deciding to focus exclusively on football.
The author of all goals
In football, it often happens that all the goals in a match are scored by one team - not only against the opponent’s goal, but also into their own. However, Chris Nicholl holds a unique record. In 1976, his team tied 2: 2, and it was Nicholl who became the author of all four goals, both in the gates of others, and in his own.
Fifteen minutes of applause
In 1939, the Vienna Rapid in the final of the combined championship of Germany and Austria lost to Frankfurt. And when there were fifteen minutes left before the whistle, the Austrians managed to score three decisive goals, giving their club a victory in the tournament. Since then, the last fifteen minutes of each match at the Vienna stadium has been accompanied by rhythmic applause.