Oddball - The Weirdest Soccer Stories Ever
Soccer is full of memorable stories of heroic wins, impossible moves, and crushing defeats. Every soccer fan has a small collection of unforgettable moments in mind.
Maradona's goal of the century, Roberto Baggio shooting the stars during the penalties in 1994; the list is endless. However, this article isn't about those moments. Soccer is life, and as such, it's also riddled with bizarre, inexplicable moments, which usually go unsung.
Time for Everything
As we know it, soccer has been around since the 19th century as a codified sport, although its origins lie in the medieval period. It means that, as a sport, it has gone through a lot already; from backyard fun, informative soccer betting guide handbooks, is a world-class sport and so much more. Matches on battlefields, Nazis versus prisoners, Diana Ross kicking penalties in a World Cup, we have seen it all. Or have we? Check below some outcomes no sportsbook could ever guess.
Sausage Affairs
If friendship meant gold for Judas, this greedy Romanian player decided to go for something he didn't need to put in a bank. Marius Cioara, a defender from the UT Arad, accepted a bribe of 15 solid kilograms of the finest pork sausage around.
UT Arad was then a second-division team, and it was playing against a fourth-division team, Regal Horia. The backlash was such that the sausage-lover had to flee the country. Germany, perhaps?
The Mist
A friendly match between Arsenal and Dynamo Moscow in 1945 should have been postponed because of a thick, heavy fog. Yet, it wasn't, and what ensued was one of the most absurd matches in history.
No one could see anyone, including the referees, so the game gained surreal rules, with each side playing its own game. The Russian squad eventually made a substitution, except that no player left the field. The Gunners weren't saints either, and a sent-off player came back as if nothing had happened. What a game.
A Match on Groundhog's Day
In England, the Isles of Scilly Football League is the smallest football league ever, with only two teams. You might think it means a short season for them. Yet, the Woolpack Wanderers and the Garrison Gunners must face each other every week, 17 times during the season. Every single year.
Home-Office
If you think that the 7x1 between Brazil and Germany was bad, you'll be left speechless by this. The Madagascan teams AS Adema and Stade Olympique de L'Emyrne ended (drum roll) 149-0. However, AS Adema has shaken the net a single time; they're all their own goals. Home-office? Not quite.
The SOE had a goal nullified in another match a week before, resulting in defeat. So, the team decided to protest in the next match by repeatedly scoring own goals. The stunt resulted in a three-year suspension to the team's coach, and the other four players were ruled out for the rest of that season.
Conclusion
All those stories go to show how unpredictable soccer matches can be. There wouldn't be space for all oddities here. In fact, a complete list of them would probably be as long as the list of glories.