Cerebralcrap

There’s nothing like a little bit of trivia to test your knowledge of the sport of soccer. You may say that soccer is your favorite sport, but how much do you really know? Following are some facts and tidbits that you may or may not know about soccer.

· Soccer originated generally in its present form in Britain.
· The world’s oldest club formed in 1857 is Sheffield FC
· Soccer is the most played and most watched sport on Earth
· Soccer is called football in practically every country except America, who call ‘Grid Iron’ football and football soccer.
· Famous soccer rivalries include the Old Firm (Scotland), Manchester derby, London derbies, Milan derby, Real vs Barcelona, and many more.
· Some famous soccer players: Pele, Maradonna, Charlton, Eusebio, Cruyff, Dalglish, Ronaldo, Beckham, Mattheus.

Those are some basic bits of soccer trivia and facts. How much did you know? Well, here are so more soccer facts to test your knowledge:

· The sport of Association Football (often referred to as soccer or simply football) is the most popular team sport in the world, in both number of spectators and number of active participants.
· The largest attendance for a soccer match ever was 199,854 people - Brazil v. Uruguay in the World Cup at the Maracana Municipal Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, July 1950.
· In the largest soccer tournament ever, no less than 5,098 teams competed in 1999 for the second Bangkok League Seven-a-Side Competition. Over 35,000 players involved!
· The most goals scored by one player in a single soccer match was 16
- Stephan Stanis (France) playing for Racing Club de Lens in December 1942.
· Based on video evidence, one of the fastest ever scored was in 2.8 seconds by Ricardo Olivera (Uruguay) in December 1998.
· The international governing body of soccer is the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), based in Zurich, Switzerland.
· Diego Maradona was only 16 when he made his soccer debut for Argentina.
· Soccer goalies didn’t have to wear different coloured shirts from their teammates until 1913.
· Eusebio scored 46 goals in the European Cup for Benfica.
· Chris Woods once went 1196 minutes without conceding a goal while at Rangers, from between November 26 1986 and January 31 1987.
· Ryan Giggs’ dad was a professional Rugby League player.
· In 1973, the entire Galilee team spent the night in jail for kicking their opponents during an Israeli League game.

Have you had enough soccer trivia and facts? These are only a few of the interesting soccer facts that are floating around out there.

Anne Clarke writes numerous articles for websites on gardening, parenting, fashion, sports, and home decor. Her background includes teaching and gardening. For more of her articles on soccer, please visit Soccer Products and Info.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anne_Clarke

1. Dr. Carlos Bilardo was the manager of Argentina in the 1986 World Cup when they went on to lift the trophy for the second time.
2. Jairzinho scored in all six games of the 1970 World Cup for Brazil which they went on to win in stunning style.
3. Bulgaria secured their first in a World Cup after16 matches and 5 World Cups.
4. Andres Escobar of Columbia was shot dead after scoring an own goal in a match in the 1994 World Cup.
5. Geoff Hurst of England is the only player till date to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final (1966).

• Brazil’s quarterfinal clash with Czechoslovakia in Bordeaux in 1938 degenerated into violence, with two Brazilians and one Czech sent off.
• France became the first host to lose a match when Italy beat them 3-1 in the quarter finals.
• Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini sent a telegram to coach Vittorio Pozzo before the final saying, “Win or Die!” Luckily Italy won and Pozzo became the first coach to win the trophy twice following the 1934 success. Giuseppe Meazza and Giovanni Ferrari became the first players to win consecutive medals.
• There was no World Cup for 12 years because of World War - 2. The Jules Rimet Trophy survived the hostilities, hidden under the the bed of an official of the Italian Football Association.

For the first ever world cup there were no qualifying rounds - participation was by invitation only.
Because of recession and the long voyage to Uruguay by ship, lots of european teams declined to take part.

There still seems to be a difference of opinion on a statistical point of footballing interest - While FIFA and a number of other sources give America’s Bertram Patenaude the honour of having scored the first World cup hat trick (17 July, 1930) against Paraguay, others say, it was Guillermo Stabile of Argentina two days later against Mexico.

Before World Cup 1991, Salvatore Schillaci had played only one international match. But in Italy’s first game, he came on as substitute against Austria and scored.

Alf Ramsey - Manager of England in 1966 - rushed out on the field immediately after the final whistle after his team beat Argentina in the quarter final. But not in celebration, instead to prevent his players from swapping shirts with Argentinians. Ramsey said - “We don’t swap shirts with animals!”

The first goal of the 1934 World Cup was scored by Belli of Argentina after just three minutes of their match against Sweden in Bologna.

The first African Nation to compete in the World Cup was Egypt. Fawzi scored both their goals in their 2-4 defeat by Hungary in Naples.

The first World Cup tie to go into extra time was between Austria and France when they drew 1-1. Austria’s so called Wunderteam under coach Hugo Meisl, finally emerged winners at 3-2 though they later went down to Italy 0-1 in the semi - finals.

In the final between Italy and Czechs both captians were goal keepers - Giampiero Combi for Italy and Frantisek Planick for the Czechs.

In the 1934 World Cup, for the first time qualifying rounds were conducted. From the initial entry of 32 Nations, 16 reached the Finals which were conducted on a knock out basis. Brazil & Argentina travelled 10000 miles to Italy only to be beaten in the first round.

Unlike in 1930, when all the games were played in one centre, Montevideo, 8 venues were used in Italy - Rome, Naples, Milan, Turin, Florence, Bologna, Geneo and Trieste.

It was decided that extra time would be played in the finals in the case of a draw at the end of 90 minutes. If there was still no result then a replay would take place.

In the opening match of 1934, Angelo Schiavo became the first European Player to score a World Cup hat-trick as host Italy beat USA 7-1.

On June 16, 1938, Italy who are leading 1-0 against Brazil, are awarded a penalty an hour into the match. And it is usually Giuseppe Meazza who takes the kicks. There is a problem this time, however. The elastic on his shorts has snapped and they are almost falling off. Meazza is determined to take the shot. With his left hand he holds them up, with the right he places the ball on the spot and gives the Brazilian goalkeeper no chance. And of course Italy win the game and defend their title in the next match.

Raimondo Orsi, who scored a freak goal in 1938 to help Italy equalise the Czech’s earlier strike, was requested by the paparazzi to duplicate his effort of the previous day. Orsi agreed and made 20 attempts but could not get it right, leaving the photographers unhappy.

In 1930, Uruguay won the decision to host the first World Cup because they offered to pay the expenses of the competing countries.

A crowd of just 300 watched Peru losing 1 - 3 to Romania in Montevideo. It is the smallest recorded crowd ever at all World cups.

Argentine Guillermo Stabile was the first player to score a hat-trick in the 6 - 3 win over Mexico in 1930. He was awarded 5 penalties but missed three.

The first player to miss from the spot was Fernando Paternoster of Argentina.

The first to score from a penalty was Manuel Rocquetas Rosas of Mexico against Belgium

Four groups of four teams were the playing format used in the 1954 World Cup and FIFA decided for the first time to seed the top two in each group.They were never to meet, therefore each country only played two matches in the group.

Scotland’s first World Cup game ended with 1-0 defeat by Australia in Group 3.

Hungary registered the highest goals total in a World Cup match when they beat South Korea 9-0 in Zurich. They also demolished West Germany 8-3. West Germany saved their strongest team for the play off against Turkey. The plan obviously worked as they won 7-2.