If it is asked which sport is the most popular, most played and had most followers around the world, we will answer football without questioning. Football is a sport that has international leagues in which many countries participate together with their national teams and sweeping billions of people who follow these leagues. Played by more than 250 million people from more than 200 countries around the world, football is a game based on two teams of 11 players trying to score each other's goals. Information about football is mostly spread and known in the form of football games and the general rules of the games, more common information about the players. Little-known interesting information is waiting to be discovered around the corner. We wanted to close the shortcoming in this interesting information section. Here are some interesting facts about football that you should know!
#1. Sheffield F.C is the oldest professional football club in the world and it was founded in 1857. The club is currently playing in the Northern Premier League Division One South East.
#2. The majority of footballs are manufactured in Pakistan. Sialkot in Pakistan is famous for making the balls for FIFA World Cup since 1982. And some of the best balls are manufactured by hand-stitching in Pakistan. Adidas balls are for example made here and other high-quality balls.
#3. The first official international football match took place at Hamilton Crescent where Scotland played against England. It took place on 30 November 1872. and a total of 114 games have been played between the two national teams since then.
#4. The largest football stadium is located in North Korea. The Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang is the biggest stadium in the world with a capacity of up to 150,000 people. Some sources claim that the stadium only has a capacity of 114,000, which would still rank as the #1 largest stadium.
However, the highest attendance ever recorded was at the Maracanã Stadium in 1950 where 199,854 people saw Uruguay vs Brazil. The current attendance is set to 78,838.
#5. Kazuyoshi Miura is the oldest professional player. The Japanese football player and icon also known as Kazu is currently the oldest professional football player of all times. He is 53 years old (1963 birth) and broke the previous record that was held by Sir Stanley Mathews at age 50. Kazuyoshi Miura is playing in the Japanese league at Yokohama FC
#6. Pele is the youngest player to earn the gold of the World Cup in 1958 at the age of only 17 years 249 days. On the other hand, the oldest one is former Italian goalkeeper Dino Zoff, who was 40 years and 133 days old as lifting the trophy in 1982 Spain.
#7. There is one among cool facts about football is that the only Premier League player whose last name is made up by roman numerals is Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic with V for 5, I for 1, D for 500 and C for 100. His gladiatorial name is very suitable for his playing style.
#8. During the season of 2009–2010, Barcelona’s Pedro became the first player who scored in 6 different official club competitions including La Liga, the Supercopa de España, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup, and the FIFA Club World Cup. This record was broken by Chelsea’s Spanish striker Fernando Torres who scored in 7 ones in the 2012–2013 season, namely the Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, FIFA Club World Cup, FA Community Shield, FA Cup, and League Cup.
#9. The record for the number of matches in which a player has scored in a row in the premier league was 10, held by Ruud Van Nistelrooy of Manchester united. It was broken in 2015 by Jamie Vardy, who went on to score in 11 consecutive games, and the 11th game was against Manchester united. One of their own's record broken, against them!
#10. The word football does not mean playing with the feet, it means the game is played on the feet and not on horseback. There's a game named horseball that is played on horseback where a ball is handled and points are scored by shooting it through a hoop with a diameter of 1m.
#11. After the Olympics did not permit professional footballers to participate in the games, FIFA established the World Cup. The first World Cup was held in 1930 in Uraguay; 13 teams competed and Uruguay won.
#12. The first live coverage of football match was shown on television in 1937. İt was a practice match Arsenal played at Highbury stadium.
#13. The largest Football tournament saw no less than 5,098 teams. They competed in 1999 for the second Bangkok League Seven-a-Side Competition. Over 35,000 players participated.
#14. Worldwide, there are 27 professional football clubs that take a Beatles song as their nickname - Villarreal in Spain being the most famous (the Yellow Submarines).
#15. You cannot score an own goal from an indirect free kick. To explain this, let us take the case where a defender gets fouled while he's trying to clear the ball. The free kick given is way too far from the opposition's goal that it has to be passed around. The one who takes the free kick cannot put the ball into his own net. In case he does, the goal will be cancelled and the opposition will be given a corner.
#16. The decision to hold the first ever World Cup in Uruguay did not go down very well with Europe. This resulted in European countries like Sweden, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Hungary, Italy and Germany boycotting the tournament. Only Yugoslavia, Romania, Belgium and France played that year.
#17. The season 2003-04 marked a special occasion as Arsenal won the Premier League without losing a single game. 38 games, 0 lost . Like a boss. In the season before, when Arsenal's title hopes were ended by Leeds United, the manager told the newspapers that he believed that his squad could go on to win the league unbeaten. What a way to answer all those who laughed at him!
#18. ASEC Abidjan of Cot d'Ivoire was unbeaten for 108 matches between 1989 and 1994. This is the longest unbeatable serie.
#19. European teams participate in all of the world cup finals except 1930 and 1950. İn those years Uruguay-Argentina and Uruguay-Brazil matches occured in the finals respectively.
#20. Ryan Boyko, a research assistant in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, studied 5,000 English Premier League games from 1992 to 2006, to discern any officiating bias and the influence of home crowds. The data was published in the Journal of Sports Sciences and suggested that for every additional 10,000 people attending, home team advantage increased by 0.1 goals.
A 2006 study by The Times found that in the English Premiership, a home team can be expected to score 37.29% more goals than the away team
The World Cup victories of Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934), England (1966), Germany (1974), Argentina (1978) and France (1998) are all in part attributed to the fact that the World Cup was held in the winner's country.
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