Stats – Weird and Wonderful (1-10)
I bloody love a good random football fact. It’s what at least half of my brain space is taken up with on a daily basis. And so for this post I figured I would try to research and discover some of the most unusual facts, stats and stories from the footballing world.
Despite my best efforts to factcheck all these nuggets of information, I cannot guarantee their validity 100%, however if you want to correct me, why not send me a nicely worded tweet. And should you decide to share any of these with your friends down at the pub… remember nobody likes a know-it-all, as I’ve been told many times before.
Enjoy!
1. In 2002, Madagascan champions AS Adema won a game 149-0, despite barely kicking the ball. Their opponents had taken issue with a refereeing decision, causing them to protest by scoring 149 own goals.
2. Speaking of own goals, Richard Dunne holds the Premier League record for own goals, scoring 10 in the wrong end during his near 20 year career.
3. Prior to the arrival of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Aston Villa had been more dominant than the red devils in terms of major honours. The Manchester side has just 15 major trophies to their name, whilst Villa had amassed 18.
4. Zlatan Ibrahimović has never won the Champions League, despite playing for Ajax, Barcelona, Inter, Juventus, Milan and Manchester United, all of whom have won the trophy on many occasions.
5. Zlatan joins the likes of Ronaldo, Buffon, Bergkamp, Totti, Baggio, Cannavaro, Nedved, Van Nistelrooy, Cantona, Chiellini, George Weah, Thuram, Viera, Owen and Ballack who have never lifted the ‘big-eared’ trophy.
6. Gary Lineker was never shown a yellow or red card throughout his entire career. Meanwhile, players such as Raul, Giggs, Lahm and Damien Duff were never sent-off, despite their massive and lengthy careers.
7. Speaking of Lineker, he has been working with the crisp brand, Walkers, for 26 years, and appeared in around 150 adverts for the company. After recently signing on for another 3 years as their ambassador, we can expect even more in the future.
8. Mark Hughes once played for both Bayern Munich and Wales in the same day. After playing a Euro ’88 qualifier, he flew over to Germany where he managed to get involved in the 2nd half for the German club.
9. In 1998, an entire football team in the Democratic Republic of Congo were killed by a lightning blast, while their opposition remained largely unharmed by the storm, causing many fans to claim witchcraft was responsible.
10. On a lighter note, in 2017 Maryhill FC’s Gavin Stokes scored what is believed to be the fastest ever goal, just a mere 2.1 seconds into the game. Talk about a head start for the Glasgow side.
If you have any weird or wonderful football stats you want to share with the world (or the 2 readers of this blog), get in touch @NextGoalWinBlog on Twitter, or @NextGoalWin on Instagram.