25 Kickass and Interesting Facts About Football/Soccer

1. The Korean soccer player, Ahn Jung-hwan, who scored and knocked Italy out of the 2002 World Cup, immediately lost his contract with his Italian club Perugia for ‘ruining Italian soccer.’
2. German soccer player Mesut Ozil donated his €300,000 World Cup victory bonus to pay for surgeries for 23 children in Brazil.
3. The word “soccer” was first used in England before the USA adopted it.
4. The fastest red card in football/soccer history was 2 seconds. Lee Todd was sent off for foul language after he exclaimed “Fuck me that was loud” after the starting whistle.
5. The North Korean World Cup soccer fans are actually hand-picked by the North Korean government. The fans are also made up of Chinese volunteers since North Koreans are not allowed to travel.
6. A Greek soccer player, Giorgos Katidis, was given a life ban for giving the Nazi salute after his winning goal during a league game.
7. Hitler grew to hate soccer because it couldn’t be fixed to ensure German victory over non-Germans. – Source
8. In 1967, the two factions involved in the Nigerian Civil War agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire so they could watch Pelé play an exhibition game in Lagos.
9. Greenland can’t join FIFA because not enough grass grows there for a soccer field.
10. In 1998, during a soccer match in Congo, a lightning bolt struck the pitch and killed all 11 members of one team. The other team was left unscathed.
11. In 1985, English soccer hooligans killed 39 people and caused 600 injuries, causing all English teams to be banned from international competition for 5 years.
12. FC Barcelona, one of the biggest soccer teams in the world, has a “reverse sponsorship” agreement with UNICEF. The team wears the organization’s logo on their shirt while donating 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million) each year.
13. Norway is the only national football team in the world that has never lost to Brazil. (2 wins and 2 draws).
14. Football evolved out of mob football, a game played between whole villages, with the goal being to get the ball into the center of the other village. Any means could be used to move the ball, as long as it did not lead to manslaughter or murder.
15. Harald Bohr (brother of Niels Bohr) was a mathematician and a football player. His popularity as a footballer was such that when he defended his doctoral thesis the audience was reported as having more football fans than mathematicians.
16. Drogheda United FC, a small Irish football team, has a logo based on, and in gratitude to, the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans secretly smuggled food into Drogheda during the Great Famine
17. Colombian football player, Andres Escobar, who scored an ‘own goal’ in a 1994 World Cup match against USA was subsequently murdered as the scapegoat for the team’s upset. One of the gunmen shouted “goal!” every time he fired a shot.
18. Hosting the 2006 World Cup caused Germany to experience baby boom. Nine months after the football competition, birthrate in Germany was up to 30% higher compared to the same period in the year before that.
19. During Christmas of 1914 (during WW1), a truce was held between Germany and UK. They decorated their shelters, exchanged gifts across no man’s land and played a game of football between themselves.
20. At the age of 4, American world cup soccer star Abby Wambach, during her first youth soccer league was transferred from the girls’ team to the boys’ team after she scored 27 seven goals in just three games.
21. During an association football match played on 31 October 2002 between two teams in Antananarivo, Madagascar, one team scored 149 own goals protesting a controversial referee decision in previous game.
22. Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho first gained media attention when he was just 13 after his team won a game 23-0. He scored every single goal in the game.
23. The Barclay’s Premier league is actually part of the English Football system of about 5000 teams all of which, theoretically through promotion and relegation, could ascend to the top of the football pyramid.
24. Eternal flame at Arc de Triomphe in Paris has only been extinguished once. This was done by drunken Mexican football fans, who urinated in it after the final of 1998 World Cup, when France defeated Brazil.
25. All “football” sports are so called not because the players have to kick the ball, but because they were played on foot by the peasantry, rather than on horseback, like all “proper” aristocrat sports.

Source : http://risingwithanewera.blogspot.com/2017/02/25-kickass-and-interesting-facts-about.html