50 Football Facts That Sound Completely Made Up (But Are Actually True)
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These are some of the most unbelievable facts in football history, from impossible scorelines to bizarre records and coincidences. All ten are real.
1. A football match finished 149–0 — and every goal was an own goal
In 2002, Madagascan side AS Adema beat SO l'Emyrne 149–0.
The losing team deliberately scored 149 own goals in protest against a refereeing decision from an earlier match. The opposition barely had to do anything.
2. A goalkeeper scored more Premier League goals than some famous strikers
Brad Friedel, Tim Howard, Peter Schmeichel, Asmir Begović and Paul Robinson all scored Premier League goals.
Even more remarkably, Begović scored against Southampton in 2013 after just 13 seconds, with a clearance from his own penalty area.
3. Lionel Messi scored 91 goals in one calendar year
In 2012, Messi scored 91 competitive goals for Barcelona and Argentina.
That's more than a goal every four days across the entire calendar year. He broke Gerd Müller's previous record of 85.
4. A player won the Champions League with three different clubs
Clarence Seedorf is the only player to have won the Champions League with three different clubs:
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Ajax — 1995
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Real Madrid — 1998
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AC Milan — 2003 and 2007
Four European titles across three clubs, in three different footballing environments.
5. A goalkeeper went 1,311 minutes without conceding
Edwin van der Sar went 1,311 consecutive Premier League minutes without conceding a goal for Manchester United during the 2008–09 season.
That's the equivalent of more than 14½ complete matches without letting in a goal.
6. A player was sent off after just two seconds — for reacting to a whistle
In October 2000, Lee Todd was playing in an English Sunday league match when the referee blew his whistle extremely loudly near him.
Todd swore in surprise and was immediately shown a red card.
He lasted just two seconds. His team still won 11–2.
7. Liverpool won the Champions League after being 3–0 down at half-time
In the 2005 Champions League final, AC Milan led Liverpool 3–0 at half-time.
Liverpool then scored three goals in approximately six minutes, equalised at 3–3 and eventually won on penalties.
They went from being completely outplayed to European champions in the same evening.
8. A goalkeeper scored a last-minute winning header to help Liverpool qualify for the Champions League
In May 2021, Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson went forward for a corner against West Brom.
He scored a 95th-minute header, winning the match 2–1.
It was Liverpool's first competitive goal by a goalkeeper and the first headed goal by a goalkeeper in Premier League history. Liverpool eventually finished third.
9. A team scored 36 goals in a single Scottish Cup match in 1885
Arbroath defeated Bon Accord 36–0 in September 1885.
Even more remarkably, another Scottish Cup match played that same day saw Dundee Harp defeat Aberdeen Rovers 35–0.
Two teams scored a combined 71 goals in two competitive matches on the same afternoon.
10. A goalkeeper scored from more than 90 metres away
Asmir Begović's 2013 goal against Southampton was measured at 91.9 metres by Guinness World Records.
He wasn't even trying to score. He was clearing the ball, which caught the wind and bounced over Southampton goalkeeper Artur Boruc.
At the time, it earned him the Guinness record for the longest football goal.
11. A footballer played for both teams in the same World Cup match
In the 1930 World Cup, Romanian player Alfred Eisenbeisser was reportedly hospitalised after suffering from pneumonia during the tournament.
But there's an even stranger World Cup story: Luis Monti played in two World Cup finals for two different countries — Argentina in 1930 and Italy in 1934.
He lost the first final and won the second, making him the only man to have played in World Cup finals for two different nations.
12. A player won the Premier League without starting a single league match
In the 2015–16 season, Leicester City's Mark Schwarzer became a Premier League champion without making a single league appearance that season.
Even more remarkably, he'd been part of Chelsea's title-winning squad the previous season, also without making a league appearance.
He was associated with back-to-back title-winning squads at two different clubs without playing a league minute in either campaign.
13. A World Cup match had three yellow cards shown to the same player
At the 2006 World Cup, English referee Graham Poll booked Croatia's Josip Šimunić three times against Australia.
He received yellow cards in the 61st, 90th and 93rd minutes.
Poll somehow forgot to send him off after the second booking and only produced the red card following the third.
14. A Premier League club signed a player because of a fake phone call
In 1996, Southampton signed Ali Dia after someone claiming to be George Weah recommended him to manager Graeme Souness.
The caller claimed Dia was Weah's cousin and an accomplished international footballer.
Dia actually made his Premier League debut against Leeds, but was substituted after around 20 minutes on the pitch.
The recommendation was a hoax. The precise identity of the caller remains disputed.
15. North Korea knocked Italy out of the World Cup in Middlesbrough
In 1966, North Korea defeated Italy 1–0 at Ayresome Park, the former home of Middlesbrough FC.
Pak Doo-ik scored the winner, eliminating one of football's biggest nations and sending North Korea into the quarter-finals.
The local Middlesbrough supporters famously adopted North Korea as their team.
16. A World Cup final was played without a traditional final
At the 1950 World Cup, there was no knockout final.
Instead, the tournament concluded with a four-team round-robin group.
Uruguay beat Brazil 2–1 in the decisive final match, but technically it was just the last fixture in the championship group.
Brazil only needed a draw to become world champions.
17. A player scored five goals in nine minutes
In September 2015, Robert Lewandowski came off the bench for Bayern Munich against Wolfsburg.
Bayern were losing 1–0.
Between the 51st and 60th minutes, Lewandowski scored five goals in approximately nine minutes.
Bayern won 5–1, and Lewandowski set multiple Bundesliga records in the process.
18. A footballer scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final — and still lost
In the 2022 World Cup final, Kylian Mbappé scored three goals for France against Argentina.
He became only the second man to score a hat-trick in a men's World Cup final, after Geoff Hurst in 1966.
Despite his hat-trick, France lost on penalties after a 3–3 draw.
19. India qualified for a World Cup but never played a match
India secured a place at the 1950 World Cup after their qualifying opponents withdrew.
However, India also withdrew before the tournament began.
There's a famous story that India refused to participate because FIFA wouldn't let their players play barefoot.
That explanation is largely a myth. Administrative priorities, preparation and financial concerns were more significant factors.
20. A footballer won the World Cup and European Cup in the same summer — without playing in the World Cup
In 1998, French defender Bernard Diomède was part of France's World Cup-winning squad.
He made three appearances during the tournament but didn't feature in the final.
An even more extraordinary international record belongs to Ronaldo Nazário, who was a member of Brazil's 1994 World Cup-winning squad without playing a single minute, before returning to win the tournament as its leading scorer in 2002.
21. Cristiano Ronaldo won the Champions League five times but never scored in a knockout match at a World Cup
Ronaldo won five Champions League titles and became one of the most prolific goalscorers in football history.
Yet across five World Cups between 2006 and 2022, he never scored a goal in the knockout stages.
All eight of his World Cup goals came in group-stage matches.
22. Lionel Messi once scored five goals in a single Champions League match
In March 2012, Messi scored five goals as Barcelona demolished Bayer Leverkusen 7–1.
He became the first player to score five goals in a single Champions League match in the competition's modern format.
Even more remarkably, Messi was only 24 years old at the time.
23. Wayne Rooney scored a hat-trick on his Manchester United debut
In September 2004, an 18-year-old Rooney made his Manchester United debut against Fenerbahçe in the Champions League.
He scored three goals and provided an assist in a 6–2 victory.
He had arrived from Everton for a transfer fee of approximately £27 million and immediately justified the excitement.
24. Zlatan Ibrahimović scored a 30-yard overhead kick against England
In November 2012, Sweden beat England 4–2, with Ibrahimović scoring all four goals.
His fourth was extraordinary: with goalkeeper Joe Hart outside his penalty area, Ibrahimović launched an overhead kick from roughly 30 yards into the empty net.
It later won the FIFA Puskás Award.
25. David Beckham scored at three consecutive World Cups — exactly once at each
Beckham scored precisely three World Cup goals for England:
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1998: Against Colombia
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2002: Against Argentina
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2006: Against Ecuador
Each goal came at a different tournament, and all three were from set pieces: two free kicks and one penalty.
26. Lionel Messi scored against every other team in La Liga in consecutive matches
During the 2012–13 season, Messi scored in 19 consecutive La Liga appearances.
The extraordinary part? Those goals came against all 19 of Barcelona's league opponents, one after another.
He scored 29 goals during that sequence.
27. Ronaldo deliberately got the world's most ridiculous haircut to distract journalists
At the 2002 World Cup, Brazilian Ronaldo appeared with a bizarre haircut: almost completely bald, except for a small patch at the front.
Years later, he revealed he had deliberately chosen it to distract journalists from discussing his injury.
It worked. The media focused on his hair, and Ronaldo went on to score twice in the final as Brazil beat Germany 2–0.
28. Sadio Mané scored a Premier League hat-trick in less time than it takes to boil an egg
Playing for Southampton against Aston Villa in May 2015, Mané scored three goals in 2 minutes and 56 seconds.
He broke Robbie Fowler's previous Premier League record of 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
Southampton eventually won 6–1.
29. A Champions League-winning goalkeeper became an ice hockey hero
After his football career, former Chelsea and Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Čech started playing competitive ice hockey.
In his 2019 debut for Guildford Phoenix, he saved two penalties in a shootout and was named man of the match.
He went from winning the Champions League with Chelsea to stopping ice hockey penalties in England.
30. A player scored a Premier League hat-trick faster than some teams take to make a substitution
In 1994, 19-year-old Robbie Fowler scored three goals for Liverpool against Arsenal in just 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
That was the fastest Premier League hat-trick for more than 20 years, until Mané broke it in 2015.
Fowler achieved it against an Arsenal defence featuring established internationals, not a lower-league opponent.
31. A goalkeeper scored 131 goals during his career
Brazilian goalkeeper Rogério Ceni scored an astonishing 131 goals for São Paulo.
He was the club's regular goalkeeper but also took penalties and free kicks.
He scored more career goals than many professional strikers, despite spending virtually every minute of his career in goal.
32. A player was sent off before the match even kicked off
In 2017, Patrice Evra was sent off before Marseille's Europa League match against Vitória de Guimarães.
During the warm-up, he kicked a supporter following an altercation near the pitch.
The referee dismissed him before kick-off, making him one of the rare players to receive a red card before a match had even started.
33. A team won the Premier League with a negative goal difference against its biggest rival
In the 2011–12 season, Manchester City and Manchester United both finished with 89 points.
City won the Premier League on overall goal difference.
But the truly incredible part? City had beaten United 6–1 at Old Trafford and 1–0 at home, completing a league double over their neighbours in the very season they won the title on goal difference.
34. A team was knocked out of the World Cup without conceding a single goal
At the 2006 World Cup, Switzerland played four matches and didn't concede once.
They drew 0–0 with Ukraine in the round of 16, before losing on penalties.
Their goalkeeper, Pascal Zuberbühler, finished the entire tournament with four clean sheets and zero goals conceded, yet Switzerland went home.
35. A player scored five goals in one World Cup match and still went home after the group stage
At the 1994 World Cup, Russia's Oleg Salenko scored five goals against Cameroon in a 6–1 victory.
He remains the only player to score five times in a single men's World Cup match.
Despite that extraordinary performance, Russia were eliminated in the group stage. Salenko still finished as the tournament's joint-top scorer.
36. A Premier League match finished 7–4
On 29 September 2007, Portsmouth beat Reading 7–4 at Fratton Park.
The match featured 11 goals, including two own goals, and remains the highest-scoring Premier League match.
Even more bizarrely, Reading lost another extraordinary match just three months later, going down 6–4 to Tottenham.
37. Chelsea knocked Barcelona out of the Champions League with ten men after being 2–0 down
In the 2012 Champions League semi-final, Chelsea travelled to Barcelona with a 1–0 first-leg lead.
Barcelona went 2–0 up in the second leg, and John Terry was sent off.
But Ramires scored, Lionel Messi missed a penalty, and Fernando Torres scored a stoppage-time equaliser.
Chelsea advanced 3–2 on aggregate and went on to win the competition.
38. Sir Alex Ferguson's final Manchester United match finished 5–5
On 19 May 2013, Manchester United played West Bromwich Albion in Ferguson's 1,500th and final match in charge.
United led 5–2 with less than ten minutes remaining.
West Brom scored three late goals to make it 5–5, with Romelu Lukaku completing a hat-trick.
After nearly 27 years in charge, Ferguson's final match was a ten-goal draw.
39. Reading conceded 13 goals in just two Premier League away matches
During the 2007–08 season, Reading lost 7–4 to Portsmouth and 6–4 to Tottenham.
That meant they conceded 13 goals across just two games, despite scoring eight themselves.
They finished the season relegated, level on points with Fulham but behind on goal difference.
40. A Champions League winner needed a double save from point-blank range to survive
In the 2005 Champions League final, Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek made an extraordinary double save from Andriy Shevchenko during extra time.
The second attempt came from close range and appeared almost certain to be a goal.
Liverpool survived, won the penalty shootout and lifted the trophy after being 3–0 down at half-time.
41. A footballer was transferred in exchange for 15kg of sausages
In 2006, Romanian defender Marius Cioară reportedly moved from UT Arad to Regal Horia in exchange for 15 kilograms of pork sausages.
The deal became international news, with reports claiming the player was so embarrassed that he subsequently retired.
It's one of the most bizarre reported transfer fees in football history.
42. A footballer was kidnapped just before the World Cup
In 1966, England's World Cup trophy was stolen from an exhibition in London.
A dog named Pickles famously found it wrapped in newspaper.
But another extraordinary World Cup story happened in 1994, when Colombian defender Andrés Escobar scored an own goal against the United States and was murdered shortly after returning home.
His death remains one of football's darkest tragedies.
43. A professional footballer built a career by pretending to be injured
Brazilian Carlos Kaiser spent years moving between professional clubs despite having little intention of playing competitive football.
He reportedly faked injuries, exaggerated his achievements and cultivated friendships with famous players to secure contracts.
His story became the subject of a documentary called Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football.
Some of his personal claims are disputed, but his extraordinary deception is well documented.
44. A team deliberately scored an own goal — and then defended both goals
During a 1994 Caribbean Cup qualifier, Barbados needed to beat Grenada by two goals.
Leading 2–1, Barbados realised a bizarre tournament rule meant a golden goal in extra time would count as two goals.
So they deliberately scored an own goal to make it 2–2.
Grenada then tried to score in either goal, while Barbados defended both ends of the pitch!
Barbados eventually scored in extra time and qualified.
45. A goalkeeper scored a last-second goal that saved his club from relegation
On 8 May 1999, Carlisle United needed to beat Plymouth Argyle to remain in the Football League.
With the score at 1–1 deep into stoppage time, goalkeeper Jimmy Glass ran forward for a corner.
The ball fell to him, and he scored the winner.
Carlisle survived, Scarborough were relegated, and Glass became a club legend after making just three appearances for Carlisle.
46. A player charged out of a defensive wall and kicked the ball away before a free kick was taken
At the 1974 World Cup, Zaire were losing 3–0 to Brazil.
As Brazil prepared to take a free kick, defender Mwepu Ilunga suddenly sprinted out of the defensive wall and booted the stationary ball upfield.
He was booked.
Although the incident was widely mocked as a misunderstanding of the rules, subsequent accounts revealed a much darker background involving threats and pressure on Zaire's players.
47. A player scored the fastest World Cup goal ever — after just 11 seconds
In the 2002 World Cup third-place play-off, Turkey's Hakan Şükür scored against South Korea after only 11 seconds.
South Korea had actually taken the kick-off.
Turkey immediately regained possession and scored before many spectators had even settled into their seats.
Turkey won 3–2.
48. A referee disallowed a World Cup goal after a royal official intervened
During the 1982 World Cup, France scored against Kuwait.
Kuwait's players protested, claiming they had stopped because they heard a whistle from the crowd.
Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, president of Kuwait's football association, became involved in the dispute.
Extraordinarily, the referee reversed his decision and disallowed the goal.
France eventually won 4–1 anyway.
49. A team went from almost scoring a penalty to conceding the winning goal in 20 seconds
In the 2013 Championship play-off semi-final, Leicester City won a stoppage-time penalty against Watford.
Anthony Knockaert stepped up, but Manuel Almunia saved both the penalty and the rebound.
Watford immediately counterattacked.
Just 20 seconds later, Troy Deeney scored to send Watford to Wembley.
One of the most extraordinary reversals in English football history.
50. A Manchester United legend scored against his former club on the day they were relegated
Denis Law spent 11 years at Manchester United before joining Manchester City.
In April 1974, he scored a backheel against United at Old Trafford.
City won 1–0, and United were relegated from the First Division.
Law famously refused to celebrate.
The surprising detail is that United would have been relegated regardless of his goal, because of results elsewhere.
