Random Football Facts

Facts you never knew about modern Football

Whilst you’re playing in your London Football league, you may find a few of these facts about those playing professional football quite interesting…

• Dario Conca (No, we hadn’t heard of him either) earns more than Messi & Ronaldo! He plies his trade in China with Guangzhou, and earns €10.6 million. This is higher than the €10.5 million Lionel Messi receives and the €10 million that Cristiano Ronaldo earns. However, top of the high earners list is Samuel Eto’o who earns a staggering €20 million at Russian club Anzhi.

• An English Manager has never won the Premier League.

• The first winner of Europe’s Football Player of the Year was England’s Sir Stanley Matthews. His nicknames were “The Wizard of the Dribble” and “The Magician.” He played in England’s top division until he was fifty years old!

• Ryan Giggs is the only player to score in every Premier League season. (he hasn’t scored this year ……… yet)

• The first televised football match featured Arsenal vs. Arsenal Reserves.

• The Championship is the 5^th most Lucrative league in Europe. Behind the Premier League, Spanish, German & Italian.

• In 1954 Turkey knocked out Spain during a World Cup qualifier by drawing straws. Blindfolded Italian Luigi Franco Gemma picked the straws to decide the winner.

• The Albanian national team stopped in England while on their way to Iceland. They arrived at Heathrow and thought “duty free” shopping meant that everything was literally free. They were asked to leave England immediately.

•  Ireland was the only team in Euro 2012 that didn’t have any players from their country’s leagues. England was the only team whose entire squad was filled with players entirely from its own local leagues.

• In 1994, Oleg Salenko of Russia scored 5 goals versus Cameroon to set the World Cup record for highest number of goals scored by a single player in a game.

• The first goal in the history of the Premier League was scored by Brian Deane for Sheffield United.

• With the exception of 1896 and 1932, men’s football has competed in every summer Olympics. Women’s football was added in 1996.

• Five a side football first participated in the Paralympics in 1986. Recently, Brazil won a gold metal in the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

There has only ever been one golden premier league trophy awarded. Does anyone know why?

30% of the teams in the Premier League are London Based – Are you playing in a 5 a side London league? If not, join a team and you can try something like this…