Facts about football that shouldn't be true - but are

paulscholes18 said:
Tottenham have lost 9 more games then they have won but yet still have a positive goal difference.
Click to expand...

Unusual little quirk isn't it? I remember them being right up there as one of the top few goalscoring teams, if not at the very top early in the season. Think them and Brentford were top 2 for a while after around 10 games for goals scored?

Spurs with a lot of 3 or 4 goal wins early on.


The opposite of when Norwich finished 3rd with a -4 GD in the early 90s. Blackburn putting 7 past them, quite a few 2 or 3 goal defeats and a lot of 1 goal victories.
 
Maldini started and won a CL-final 22 years after his Milan-debut(first team)

19 years after his Italy debut.
 
Last edited:
Wout Faes, who scored 2 bizarre own goals against Liverpool, grew up supporting Liverpool
 
The Moldovan league system. Just weird.

They started off like this, each team playing each other twice.
IwkpRSE.png


The bottom 2 then played games against 4 teams from the second division in a new mini-league, 10 games in total. The hopeless Floretsi do even worse in that section against weaker opponents, losing all 10 games with a goal difference of -54. I think the club might have near enough folded and they end up on -3 points with a deduction for fielding players both in the junior team and senior team on the same day.

Meanwhile the rest of top division is reset, the top 6 play each other again in a new league, everyone's points go back to 0. No credit at all for what has happened previously.
MJP2eOz.png


Milsami end up as Champions after finishing 5th in the first part of the season. Sheriff Tiraspol unbeaten in all 24 matches if you were to combine everything (which they don't) and they don't win the title.
 
Last edited:
Chipper said:
The Moldovan league system. Just weird.

They started off like this, each team playing each other twice.
IwkpRSE.png


The bottom 2 then played games against 4 teams from the second division in a new mini-league, 10 games in total. The hopeless Floretsi do even worse in that section against weaker opponents, losing all 10 games with a goal difference of -54. I think the club might have near enough folded and they end up on -3 points with a deduction for fielding players both in the junior team and senior team on the same day.

Meanwhile the rest of top division is reset, the top 6 play each other again in a new league, everyone's points go back to 0. No credit at all for what has happened previously.
MJP2eOz.png


Milsami end up as Champions after finishing 5th in the first part of the season. Sheriff Tiraspol unbeaten in all 24 matches if you were to combine everything (which they don't) and they don't win the title.
Click to expand...
That is absolutely ridiculous.
 
Our 20 league titles is spread across 3 managers only
liverpool's 20 league titles is spread across 10 managers
 
thisisnottaken1 said:
That is absolutely ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Yeah. So many games to just sort out the bottom two (who still have a Chance to survive)

at the very very least, they should do a final game between 1st of round one and 1st place of round two (if they are not the same) for Champion.
 
PickledRed said:
Liverpool will finish in the top 8 for the 62nd year in a row.
Click to expand...

Liverpool, despite currently being England's most successful club, have never won The Treble, nor have they won a domestic double more than once.

They ain't all that...
 
Lose tomorrow and we will literally have lost HALF our league fixtures in one season.
 
Chipper said:
The Moldovan league system. Just weird.

They started off like this, each team playing each other twice.
IwkpRSE.png


The bottom 2 then played games against 4 teams from the second division in a new mini-league, 10 games in total. The hopeless Floretsi do even worse in that section against weaker opponents, losing all 10 games with a goal difference of -54. I think the club might have near enough folded and they end up on -3 points with a deduction for fielding players both in the junior team and senior team on the same day.

Meanwhile the rest of top division is reset, the top 6 play each other again in a new league, everyone's points go back to 0. No credit at all for what has happened previously.
MJP2eOz.png


Milsami end up as Champions after finishing 5th in the first part of the season. Sheriff Tiraspol unbeaten in all 24 matches if you were to combine everything (which they don't) and they don't win the title.
Click to expand...
What is the point of the first phase of 14 games then? Just to identify and bin off the 2 crappest teams?

Utterly bizarre stuff.
 
Lukaku has more career goals per game (0.4658, 314 goals in 674 games) than Didier Drogba (0.4398, 303 goals in 689 games) and Jurgen Klinsmann (0.4581, 284 goals in 620 games).
 
Sandikan said:
What is the point of the first phase of 14 games then? Just to identify and bin off the 2 crappest teams?

Utterly bizarre stuff.
Click to expand...

Yes, seems that way.

Play 14 games to get rid of 2, then 10 games to decide everything.

So many more better ways they could do it. With only 8 teams they could play 4 times each, or 3 then a Scottish-style split. Even Belgium with it's weird split and halving the points near the end makes more sense as the first part of the season still counts for something.
 
The last 3 times Liverpool have played on 25 May they have lifted 2 European Cups and a Premier League trophy.

1977, 2005, 2025.
 
Jonny Evans departure means that next season will be the first at Manchester United since 1973-74 without a player who played for the club under Alex Ferguson.
 
always_hoping said:
Jonny Evans departure means that next season will be the first at Manchester United since 1973-74 without a player who played for the club under Alex Ferguson.
Click to expand...
I remember this stat appearing a couple years ago, only for us to sign Jonny Evans and it limp on a little longer.

I say we go and sign Javier Hernandez as a backup option just to keep it going.
 
Roque Santa Cruz and Oscar Cardozo are still a strike partnership at the combined age of 85 at Libertad.
 
Yesterday a Spanish team lost a European final to a non Spanish team for the 1st time since 2001. That match was Bayern Munich vs Valencia and Liverpool had just beaten Alaves in the UEFA Cup final a few days before. So happened twice within a few days and then a 24 year gap.
 
Not sure if its been mentioned but one stat I cant get my head around is the longest unbeaten away record in the EPL is Uniteds but not in their dominant period, but 2020 TO 2021.

How did Ole manage this but not SAF?
 
If the ball had four corners it would be closer to a square, and therefore no longer round in the traditional sense.

Experts have determined this would making playing footie exceptionally harder.
 
Ole'sgunnarwin said:
Yesterday a Spanish team lost a European final to a non Spanish team for the 1st time since 2001. That match was Bayern Munich vs Valencia and Liverpool had just beaten Alaves in the UEFA Cup final a few days before. So happened twice within a few days and then a 24 year gap.
Click to expand...
Heard that yesterday. It’s an insane stat.
 
Chipper said:
Yes, seems that way.

Play 14 games to get rid of 2, then 10 games to decide everything.

So many more better ways they could do it. With only 8 teams they could play 4 times each, or 3 then a Scottish-style split. Even Belgium with it's weird split and halving the points near the end makes more sense as the first part of the season still counts for something.
Click to expand...
For what it's worth, Belgium is abandoning its messy playoff system for just a regular league next season.

They'll also have 18 teams in the top league again. I think in both cases, part of the reason for the playoffs stuff might be that the league was small, so they're trying to add something other than just playing each other 3 or 4 times in a straightforward league.
 
Steve Finnan started two Champions League finals.

A decent footballer for sure, but has to be one of the worst post soviet players to start TWICE in the biggest final in club/national team football? (CL/WC)
 
Cheimoon said:
For what it's worth, Belgium is abandoning its messy playoff system for just a regular league next season.

They'll also have 18 teams in the top league again. I think in both cases, part of the reason for the playoffs stuff might be that the league was small, so they're trying to add something other than just playing each other 3 or 4 times in a straightforward league.
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure I once started a thread about Belgium's mental system, although it appears the Moldovan system is even more daft in terms of pointless games.
 
Squeaky_Bum_Time said:
Lukaku has more career goals per game (0.4658, 314 goals in 674 games) than Didier Drogba (0.4398, 303 goals in 689 games) and Jurgen Klinsmann (0.4581, 284 goals in 620 games).
Click to expand...
To be fair this isnt that unbeleivable. Lukaku started younger and had already scored 58 professional goals before Drogba even had 1.

Drogba was a late bloomer, and he joined us at the age of 26 I believe.

His first two seasons were fairly underwhelming as well despite us waltzing the league on both occasions he only scored 10 and 12 league goals respectively. It was ironically the next season when we didnt win the league he became a monster- being top scorer in the league that season and the League and FA cup final goals you may remember being the game he started getting a reputation as the player for the biggest games.

From then on he had mixed seasons, winning the golden boot again in 09/10 and continuously showing up in the big games/finals, culminating in his displays vs Barcelona and Bayern Munich in 2012.

He is a club legend obviously- because there were big games knockouts and finals he dragged us through himself, but he wasnt always an absolutely prolific goalscorer otherwise.

He is talked about in terms of the PL eras best strikers because of his big game ability- he is the striker you would choose over say Henry for a one off big game vs Barcelona, Bayern or Arsenal at the time, but in terms of actual striker lethality you would have Henry.
 
Alex99 said:
I'm fairly sure I once started a thread about Belgium's mental system, although it appears the Moldovan system is even more daft in terms of pointless games.
Click to expand...
Speaking of which: so Charleroi qualified for the Conference League this week. Cause the #5 of the top group (Antwerp) has a playoff with the winner of the middle group (Charleroi) to decide who qualifies for that.

I get how it helps all team have something to play for until the end of the season (no long series of meaningless matches at the tail end of the season), but damn it's convoluted - and largely cancels out the point of having a league to begin with.

So yeah, the #10 of the regular season now qualified for the Conference League directly through the league system (i.e., not a cup win). I think that's a bizarre enough fact for this thread!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.