Long and hard work
The brilliance of a footballer's professional skills is based on hard work. Computer analysis of video recordings of Euro 2004 matches showed that midfielders such as France's Zidane and Portugal's Figo run more than 11.2 km per game.
During their professional careers, the best footballers can easily play more than 700 matches. This means that a midfielder of this calibre runs 7,840 km - roughly the distance from England to China - and that's not including training!
On 11 November 1987, Welsh striker Mark Hughes played for Wales against Czechoslovakia in the afternoon and then flew to Munich to play for Bayern Munich in the evening.
Dutch football star Dennis Bergkamp is genuinely afraid of flying. When his club, Arsenal, played Fiorentina in the Champions League in 1999, Bergkamp travelled 1,760 km by car, taking two days to do so!
Awards
The first player to be named England's Footballer of the Year who was not born in England, Scotland or Wales was German striker Jürgen Klinsmann, who played for Tottenham Hotspur.
The first recipient of the title of England's best footballer was Sir Stanley Matthews in 1948. He also became England's oldest professional footballer, continuing to play after he turned 50.
The brilliant French midfielder Michel Platini is the only footballer in the world to have been named European Footballer of the Year three times in a row (in 1983, 1984 and 1985).
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Goals
Goals are what football is all about. You can't win a game without scoring goals, and the players who do so regularly are the most valuable and highly paid footballers. Pelé was one of the most prolific scorers of all time. In 1,324 games for professional teams, he scored an astonishing 1,282 goals!
Romario de Souza Faria was the top scorer in three different countries: his native Brazil, the Netherlands and Spain. He topped the scoring charts in the world's top football leagues 13(1) times, a record that still stands today. He currently plays for the Brazilian club Vasco da Gama.
Alan Shearer holds the scoring record in the English Premier League - at the end of the 2004/2005 season, he had scored 250 goals.
In 1964, Bayern Munich signed Gerd Müller against the wishes of coach ‘Chick’ Tchaikovsky, who said he did not want ‘this elephant among his thoroughbred stallions’. Müller broke both club and national team scoring records, scoring 628 goals, and leads the World Cup scoring charts with 14 goals.
A chance encounter at a barber shop in 1961 helped coach Béla Guttmann find the best player for his club, Benfica. There, one of his fellow coaches told him about a young striker named Eusébio. Guttmann signed a contract with Eusébio.
In 291 games for Benfica, Eusébio scored an incredible 317 goals.
Celebrations
Congratulations on a goal used to be expressed with a restrained handshake or a pat on the back. But now they resemble circus acts. Ecuadorian striker Facundo Sava hides a Zorro-style mask in his socks, which he pulls over his face every time he scores a goal.
Argentinian striker Martín Palermo scored a goal in extra time during a match for Villarreal in the Spanish Cup in 2001. He rushed towards the fans to share his excitement with them, but the wall surrounding the pitch collapsed on him. He broke two bones in his leg and was unable to play for six months.
In 1997, before his Premier League debut for Chelsea, Celestine Babayaro took part in a pre-season game and scored a goal, celebrating with a somersault. He suffered a fracture and was out of action for several months.
Fast goals
The fastest goal in football history is believed to have been scored by Australian Damien Mori of Adelaide City during a match against Sydney United in 1995. According to FIFA, the goal was scored 3.67 seconds after the start of the game!
England player Bryan Robson scored a goal 27 seconds into the 1982 World Cup match against France. It was a World Cup record and stood for 20 years. At the 2002 World Cup, in the third-place match, Turkish player Hakan Şükür broke this record by scoring a goal 11 seconds after the start of the game.
Who scored the fastest goal in international matches? Pelé or Ronaldo from Brazil, Klinsmann or Müller from Germany, or Raúl from Spain? No, it was San Marino's David Gualtieri, who scored against England in a World Cup qualifier in 1993, 8.3 seconds after the start of the match.
Goal fest
The scoring record belonged to the Scottish club Bon Accord, which defeated Arbroath 36-0 in 1885.
The biggest victory in European cup competitions in 1984 was achieved by Dutch club Ajax in the UEFA Cup, beating Red Boys Differdange from Luxembourg 14-0.
Trailing 3-0 to Italian side Milan in the 2004/2005 Champions League final, English side Liverpool managed to come back and win. There was another striking result. Imagine you are a Charlton Athletic fan in 1957. Your team is losing 1-5 to Huddersfield Town, and you only have 10 players left. With only half an hour left, you might as well go home. Not so fast! Charlton won 7-6.
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