French far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen marked France’s 1998 World Cup win with criticism about the victors’ ethnic make-up. He said having black, white and Arab players meant the team did not look «sufficiently French».
German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann couldn’t find privacy when he needed to pee during a 2009 Champions League match and had to go in front of 36,000 Stuttgart fans. The stopper jumped the advertising hoardings, bobbed down to wee and then ran back on the pitch to thwart an attack by Romanian visitors Unirea Urzieni.
A village team lays claim to being the first soccer «world champions». Scottish Cup holders Renton from Dumbartonsgire won the unofficial title in a cross-border game in 1888 when they beat English FA Cup winners West Bromwich 4-1 to be acclaimed «champions of the United Kingdom and the world».
Ardent fan of English lower league club Luton Town, Paul Goodwin, jetted from Majorca in 2001 to watch his team win a Worthington Cup tie 2-1 and flew back the following day. The return flight cost him £100, but he had won £500 from a bet on the result.
So-called feng shiu experts called in by Bristol Rovers in 1999 seemed to have all the answers. They placed a cermaic frog in the stadium entrance, potted plants in the dressing room and a tank of toy fish behind a goal in a bid to change the club’s fortunes. The «experts» then unmasked themselves as hoaxers on a TV show called Gatecrashers. Incredibly, the fake feng shui seemed to work as, after the initial hiccup of a defeat, the club went all the way to the play-offs the next season.
