42 football fun facts

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Most football fact lists are scraped from each other, which is how the same wrong claim ends up on forty sites — and how “San Marino have only ever won once” is still being republished two years after they won again. Every line below was checked against a reliable source before it shipped, and carries a link to that source so you can check us. Several famous “facts” did not survive and are simply not here.

Scorelines that should not exist

1. 1

   The heaviest defeat in football history was entirely self-inflicted. In 2002, Madagascar’s SO l’Emyrne protested a refereeing decision by kicking the ball into their own net from every restart. They lost 149–0, and every single goal was an own goal. source

2. 2

   Australia beat American Samoa 31–0 in a 2001 World Cup qualifier. Archie Thompson scored 13 of them, which is still the record for goals by one player in an international. source

3. 3

   Barbados once deliberately scored an own goal to reach extra time. A 1994 Caribbean Cup rule made golden goals count double, so with a two-goal margin needed, equalising against themselves was the smart play. It worked. source

4. 4

   In the closing minutes of that same match, Grenada tried to score in either goal — because either would eliminate Barbados — while Barbados defended both ends at once. source

5. 5

   Spain won the 2010 World Cup scoring eight goals in seven games. Every single knockout match finished 1–0. source

6. 6

   Switzerland went out of the 2006 World Cup without conceding a goal in open play all tournament. They lost a shootout to Ukraine without scoring a single penalty. source

7. 7

   New Zealand were the only unbeaten team at the 2010 World Cup. Three draws, and they still went home in the group stage. source

8. 8

   Australia went through 1998 World Cup qualifying without losing a match — and did not qualify. They beat the Solomon Islands 13–0 along the way, with their goalkeeper on the scoresheet. source

9. 9

   San Marino have won two matches in their history. Both were against Liechtenstein, both finished 1–0, and they came twenty years apart — 2004 and September 2024. source

10. 10

    The scorer of that 2024 winner, Nicko Sensoli, had not been born the last time San Marino won a game. source

11. 11

    Dundee United have played Barcelona four times in Europe and won all four, home and away, in 1966 and 1987. No club has a better record against them. source Barcelona quiz

Referees, rules and red cards

12. 12

    A Sunday-league player named Lee Todd was sent off two seconds into a match. The referee blew the opening whistle behind him, Todd swore in surprise, and that was that. source

13. 13

    Gary Lineker played his entire professional career — including two World Cups and 80 England caps — without receiving a single yellow card. source

14. 14

    Ryan Giggs was never sent off in 963 appearances for Manchester United across 24 seasons. His only red card came playing for Wales. source Manchester United quiz

15. 15

    Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt in the 2006 World Cup final was missed by the referee live. It became the first sending-off in football given after an official consulted video footage — eleven years before VAR existed. source Zinedine Zidane quiz

16. 16

    A goal has been awarded in the Premier League after the ball hit a beach ball. Darren Bent’s shot for Sunderland in 2009 struck an inflatable thrown by away fans, wrong-footed Pepe Reina, and stood. source Sunderland quiz

17. 17

    World Cup group matches all kick off simultaneously because of one game. In 1982 West Germany and Austria played out a result that suited both and eliminated Algeria; the rule changed by the next tournament. source

18. 18

    Asmir Begović scored from 91.9 metres for Stoke in 2013 — the longest goal ever recorded. It took thirteen seconds and he had touched the ball once. source

19. 19

    An Irish trophy has been decided on corners. The 1969 President’s Cup finished 0–0, so Shamrock Rovers took it 14–7 on corner kicks. source

Contracts, transfers and paperwork

20. 20

    Sunderland once wrote a space-travel clause into a contract. Stefan Schwarz’s adviser had put a deposit down on a commercial spaceflight, so the club specified that leaving Earth’s atmosphere would void the deal. source Sunderland quiz

21. 21

    Southampton once gave a Premier League debut to a man who had faked his own career. In 1996 "Ali Dia" was recommended by a caller impersonating George Weah, came off the bench against Leeds — and was substituted before the end. source Southampton quiz

22. 22

    Michael Owen played nine times for Stoke City and started none of them. He is the only Ballon d’Or winner to appear for the club, entirely as a substitute. source Stoke City quiz

23. 23

    The world transfer record has been broken by a Scottish club. In 1922 Falkirk paid West Ham £5,000 for Syd Puddefoot, the highest fee anyone had ever paid. source West Ham quiz

24. 24

    Zlatan Ibrahimović played for six clubs that have won the European Cup — Ajax, Juventus, Internazionale, Barcelona, Milan and Manchester United — and never won it himself. source Manchester United quiz

Players who ignored the odds

25. 25

    Bert Trautmann broke his neck in the 1956 FA Cup final and played the last seventeen minutes anyway. Manchester City won 3–1; the fracture was only found three days later. source Manchester City quiz

26. 26

    Trautmann had arrived in England as a German prisoner of war, stayed after release, and went on to be voted Footballer of the Year. source

27. 27

    A goalkeeper has scored 131 competitive goals. Rogério Ceni took São Paulo’s free kicks and penalties for two decades and out-scored most strikers of his era. source

28. 28

    Garrincha, a two-time World Cup winner and arguably the best dribbler who ever lived, had legs of different lengths and a curved spine from childhood polio. source

29. 29

    Robert Schlienz lost an arm in a car crash in 1948, returned to football four months later, and captained Stuttgart to two German championships. source

30. 30

    Harald Bohr won an Olympic silver medal for Denmark in 1908 and later became a distinguished mathematician. His brother Niels won the Nobel Prize in Physics. source

31. 31

    William "Fatty" Foulke kept goal for England while weighing around 140kg. He won the league and two FA Cups with Sheffield United. source

32. 32

    Guillermo Stábile was the top scorer at the first World Cup in 1930 despite never having played for Argentina before the tournament. He never played for them again either. source

Records with a twist in them

33. 33

    Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup more times than they have won their own league. Two European titles, one English championship. source Nottingham Forest quiz

34. 34

    Forest are also the only European champions to be relegated two divisions afterwards. source

35. 35

    Paolo Maldini lifted the European Cup at a ground in England exactly forty years after his father Cesare captained Milan to the same trophy, also in England. source

36. 36

    The last club to win three consecutive FA Cups did it in the 1880s. Blackburn Rovers managed it between 1884 and 1886, and nobody has since. source

37. 37

    José Mourinho went more than nine years without losing a home league match, across Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale and Real Madrid — around 150 games. source Real Madrid quiz

38. 38

    France arrived at the 2002 World Cup with the reigning top scorers of the Premier League, Serie A and Ligue 1 in their squad. They went out in the group stage without scoring a goal. source

39. 39

    The first fifty Premier League goals scored by Bosnian players were all scored by the same man, Edin Džeko. source

40. 40

    Pelé’s own career goal count of 1,283 includes friendlies, youth games and army matches. His total in official competitive football is 757 — still extraordinary, just a different number. source

41. 41

    A version of football was played in China more than two thousand years ago. FIFA recognises cuju as the earliest known form of the game. source

42. 42

    India withdrew from the 1950 World Cup after qualifying. The reasons were mostly cost and travel — the popular story that FIFA banned them for playing barefoot is a myth their own federation has denied. source

Where these come from

Ball IQ is a football quiz built on a hand-written question bank. Most answers carry a short explanation — the season it happened, who else was involved, what made it matter — and those explanations are where these facts come from. They go through a generation pass, an examiner pass and an adversarial fact-check before they ship, and anything contested gets dropped rather than guessed.

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