Stats – Weird and Wonderful (11-20)

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. Mario Balotelli has registered only 1 Premier League assist, the pass to set-up Aguero’s league clincher against QPR.

2. The great Dennis Bergkamp had it written into his contract that he was not required to fly to any away games, due to a well-documented case of Aerophobia.

3. In 1986, Alvin Martin scored a hattrick against Newcastle for the Hammers, with each goal being scored against a different keeper. His third was against Peter Beardsley.

4. In 1992, Denmark had failed to qualify for the European Championships, however they were awarded a place after the disqualification of Yugoslavia, and they went on to win the whole tournament.

5. Dundee United have a 100% win record against Barcelona. The Scottish side have played 4 and won 4 against the legendary side, with 2 victories at the Camp Nou.

6. Former Liverpool Blackpool and Stoke midfielder Charlie Adam is 10 months younger than some guy called… Cristiano Ronaldo… never heard of him.

7. Luka Modric and Mark Viduka are distant cousins, with the latter having Croatian roots through his father.

8. As AC Milan were founded by a group of English expatriates, they decided to keep the English spelling of the city’s name… Milan not Milano.

9. Former Arsenal and Barcelona midfielder Alex Song, has a total of 27 siblings, 17 sisters and 10 brothers.

10. Finally, Phil Jones is 16 days younger than Neymar.

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.