Facts You Didn’t Know About Football

Everybody loves football and most people go as far as placing bets on their favorite leagues and clubs. This has vastly increased the population of the world that engages in Sports Betting. Football originated from China, considering that their national team currently is ranked only at 86th place in the FIFA World Ranking. But most experts agree that the original sport was invented sometime around 476 BC in China, it was known as Cuju.

Throughout history, there has been a wide range of various ball games in Ancient Greece, the Mayan Empire and England just to mention a few. Football is the biggest sport in the world today, and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup is the most watched sports tournament world over.

The football industry makes more money than any other sport played in the world. According to a report by Forbes, football clubs are the most valuable sports franchises in the world. FC Barcelona, Manchester United and Real Madrid are often at the top.

Here are a few facts that you may not have been familiar with about the sport we all love to watch and participate in;

• Online football is now considered a sport.

• Norway is the only national team in the world that has never lost to Brazil.
• India withdrew from the FIFA World Cup in 1950 because they weren’t allowed to play barefoot.
• Football players run on average 9.65 km every game.
• Cristiano Ronaldo is the only player to ever have scored a goal in every single minute from 1 to 90 minutes.
• The FIFA World Cup has been ongoing every fourth year since 1930 and despite 21 tournaments being played since the first one in Uruguay, only 8 different countries have won the tournament. Brazil has won the FIFA World Cup 5 times, which makes it the most successful national team of all times.
• Sheffield F.C is the oldest professional football club in the world and it was founded in 1857. The club is currently playing in the Northern Premier League Division One South East.
• The decision to hold the first ever World Cup in Uruguay did not go down very well with Europe. This resulted in European countries like Sweden, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Hungary, Italy and Germany boycotting the tournament. Only Yugoslavia, Romania, Belgium and France played that year.
• Till date, there are only seven countries that have won the World Cup. These teams are Spain, Argentina, Italy, Germany, Uruguay, England and Argentina.
• Most expensive football transfer of all time: Neymar (€222m Barcelona – PSG).

• Oldest professional soccer player in the world: Kazuyoshi Miura (52 years).
• Fastest goal ever scored: 2.4 seconds (Nawaf Al-Abed in a Prince Faisal bin Fahad Cup matches between Al Hilal and Al Shoalah).
• Most European league goals scored in one season: 66 goals (Ferenc Deák).
• Longest Penalty Shootout: 46 kicks (KK Palace and Civics in the Namibian Cup).
• Most Goals Scored By A Goalkeeper In A Career: Rogerio Ceni with 128 goals (keeping for São Paulo FC).

Now that you know all these, you can proceed to make better and informed predictions on your favorite sport events. These facts are to boost your ideas on how best to place your bets.

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