Stats – Weird And Wonderful (51-60)
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. John Obi Mikel’s birth name is John Michael Nchekwube Obinna, with Michael instead of Mikel. The name Mikel was an error when the Nigerian FA submitted a squad list in 2003. He decided to stick to the name, although he prefers Mikel John Obi, and officially changed his name to this in 2016.
2. Upon joining Sunderland for £4million in 1999, Swedish midfielder Stefan Schwarz had a clause inserted into his contract that if he travelled to space, the contract would be void and instantly terminated.
3. In 1980, then teenager Clive Allen became the most expensive teenager in football, joining Arsenal for £1.25million, however he failed to play a single competitive game.
4. In the 2020-2021 Premier League season, Zack Steffen became the first American to become a Premier League winner.
5. Similarly, in 2011-2012, Mario Balotelli became the first Italian to achieve the same feat.
6. In English football, a ‘perfect hat-trick’ refers to scoring a goal with the right foot, left foot and header, whereas, in Germany and Austria, it would refer to scoring 3 goals in a row in one half without another player scoring between.
7. In 2014-2015, Leicester City spent 140 days at the bottom of the league table, longer than any team in history to have done this and not get relegated. They more than made up for it the following year.
8. Christian Benteke (77) has 4 more goals in English football than Eric Cantona (73).
9. Romelu Lukaku’s move to Chelsea made him the most expensive player in terms of total money spent in football history, with a total of £285.5million having been spent on him in his career.
10. Harry Maguire’s headed goal in their 4-2 victory away at Leeds United was the first time the club had scored from a corner in over a year. They had taken 138 corners to get this goal. This would mean over the past year, they have a conversion rate of 0.72% from corner kicks.
If you have any weird or wonderful football stats you want to share with the world, get in touch @NextGoalWinBlog on Twitter, or @NextGoalWin on Instagram.