Do you want to know more about the most interesting sport in the world? The facts that we are going to present to you in the following article will amaze even die-hard fans.
The exact date the football was created is not known. Still, we do know that the earlier version of this sport is over 3000 years old. England is considered by FIFA, the governing body of football, to be the nation that started the game in 1863 as we know it today.
Aside from this fact, there are other interesting facts about football that even the most well-read people don’t know. Lesser known facts about this sport will surprise the biggest football fans when in doubt. So that you too get to know the most interesting football topics, you should read on in this article.
The football war
The so-called Football War or also known as the 100 Hours War, was a brief confrontation between El Salvador and Honduras in 1996. The name is based on the fact that the war was fought after El Salvador played a football game against Honduras during a World Cup. Lost qualifier in Mexico. The defeat in the game sparked unrest on both sides.
In 2002 Italy was kicked out of the World Cup in stoppage time
During the soccer world championship 2002, in which you have certainly completed sports betting online Austria, the South Korean Ahn Jung-Hwan scored a goal against Italy in stoppage time and threw the Italians out of the world championship. The next day, his contract with his Italian hometown club was terminated because the football club did not want a player under contract who had ruined Italian football.
More than half of the world saw the 2018 World Cup
More than a billion people watched the World Cup final in 2018 on TV or in the stadium. 3,572 billion people saw at least part of the soccer World Cup. Based on these figures, it can be said that football has more than earned the title of the most popular sport in the world.
Interestingly, 1.5 billion of the viewers came from Asia and 18.4% from Russia. Prepare yourself now for the World Cup in 2022 so that you are always right when it comes to NetBet online sports betting.
The oldest playing soccer player comes from Egypt
In 2018, an Egyptian goalkeeper broke the world record as the oldest player at a World Cup. At the FIFA World Cup in Russia, Essam el-Hadary was 45 years old and therefore two years older than the previous record holder. The only player among the five previous record holders who was not a goalkeeper was Roger Miller, who played for Cameroon in the group stage of the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
The football
Did you know that a soccer ball has 32 fields and that each of these fields represents a country in Europe? Or did you know that a football is actually not round at all? The popular balls are actually slightly oval and the spherical shape is an optical illusion created by the pattern on the balls. The material the soccer ball is made of has also changed dramatically. In the past, the balls were made from pig bladders. Today they are mostly made of vulcanized rubber.