Interesting football facts you won't believe

Football is full of fascinating trivia. We learn something new about our favorite players and teams every day. Some people use these statistics for more journalistic objectives, while others use them to show off their mastery of the beautiful game to other football aficionados. Football nerds are often the first to learn about little-known facts about the game, but there are some things even they don't fully understand.

For example you might have already heard that

Legendary manager, Arsene Wenger has an asteroid named after him? But did you know there are four other players who share the same privilege with "the Professor"?

Scientists are known to be obsessive with their own world of cause and effect. But did you know one of the most historic events in the history of science had football associated with it? And when it comes to the football industry few fans know that most of footballs are manufactured in Asian Countries, most notably

. In the following article we present you with some of the most amazing football facts from around the world.

The most interesting football facts you would not believe to be true

From the five footballers who have actual asteroids named after them to legendary astronaut, Neil Armstrong's obsession with football, here are the most

interesting football facts

you would enjoy to read.

Five asteroids which are named after football players

We begin our list of most interesting football facts by Arsenal Legendary ex-manager, Arsene Wenger. In football, as in Cinema and many other fields, the best and most successful figures are commonly referred to as stars. Indicating the height they were able to reach in their respected careers.

Still few would believe that there are actual asteroids named after football's so called "stars". One of the most famous of these asteroids, 33179 Arsènewenger, was named after the Legendary French manager, Arsene Wenger.

The story goes that Ian Griffin, the scientist who discovered the asteroid in 1998, was a diehard Gunner's fan. So he decided to name his newly found asteroid after his club's most successful coach. It makes perfect sense as Arsene Wenger himself reached stardom status four years before Griffin's discovery, when he guided his undefeated arsenal side to the first and only Golden

trophy.

Nowadays, 33179 Arsènewenger circles in orbit between Mars and Jupiter and the humane Arsene Wenger is travelling the world as FIFA's new Chief of Global Football Development.

While you might have heard about the story of Arsene Wenger and his namesake asteroid, we bet you don’t know much about the other 4 footballers who have asteroids named after them.

The legendary Dutch player and manager, Johan Cruyff was so popular that he has an asteroid, 14282 Cruyff named after him. While the asteroid, 10634 Pepibican is named after Josef Bican, the Austrian-Czech goal-scoring machine who holds the all-time record for most career goals with 805. Ferenc Puskas, the first international superstar in football history has the astroid, 82656 Puskas named after him and the most recent case is

's famous midfielder, Michael Ballack whose namesake astroid is called 79647 Ballack.

Football ball was supposed to go to the moon

While the possibility for playing any kind of sports on the surface of the moon has been a serious research subject for scientists, Neil Armstrong, the first person who sat his foot on the moon, wanted to take a football there, just because of his love for the beautiful game. Finally NASA didn't let him because they thought it would be too un-American.

However, Armstrong didn't give up on and years later he personally revealed that he actually planted a pennant from

on the surface of the moon. A wild fact few football fans could believe to be true.

You probably wonder why an American would support a club from Argentina so much that he would take their pennant to the moon, and there is a very interesting story behind it. Before the takeoff of Apollo XI, Hector Rodriguez, at the time Independiente’s head of Culture and Public Relations proposed to the board to make Armstrong and two of his team honorary life members of Independiente.

His proposal was accepted and the three got their memberships with official photos supplied by the US embassy in Buenos Aires. The jerseys were sent to the US together with complete color uniforms for the children of the astronauts plus the club’s pennants.

In May 1969 Armstrong in a letter thanked the club and said he would like to visit Buenos Aires soon, which finally happened. The astronauts visited the

capital in November that year and Armstrong said in a meeting with Rodriguez that they took the pennant to the moon and planted them in lunar soil.

A famous club's real name has 83 letter!

One of the most

crazy football facts

! Did you know that the longest Club name in Football history is almost four times longer than the longest player name?

While Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink has the record of the longest name in the history of Premier League with 23 letters and the greek footballer, Lazaros Christodoulopoulos, with a 25 letters name is probably the player with the longest name in the history of football, the longest club name in history has an incredible 83 letters.

 Nooit opgeven altijd doorgan, Aangenaam door vermaak en nuttig door ontspanning, Combinatie Breda is the real name of a famous club in the Dutch Eredevise, commonly known as

.

In case you were wondering what such an incredibly long name means in English here is the translation: Never give up. Always keep going, pleasant through entertainment and useful through relaxation, combination Breda.

The club was founded when the two clubs ADVENDO (Aangenaam Door Vermaak En Nuttig Door Ontspanning and NOAD (Nooit Opgeven, Altijd Doorzetten) merged into one club. The problem was that NOAD wanted to name the new club NOAD, which was not acceptable to ADVENDO.

Eventually it was proposed that they name the club NAC (NOAD ADVENDO Combinatie), which was accepted and few years later NAC Breda was allowed to play in the 2nd Southern Division of Dutch Football.

England may be the home of Football, but Footballs belong to Pakistan!

Most of us might think that the best brands in world produce footballs in highly industrialized cities, but the truth is almost two-third of the world's footballs are manufactured in Pakistan. A more amazing fact is that 40 percent of them are made in one city, Sialkot.

Today more than a hundred firms produce footballs in the city of Sialkot. Why? Because it's more beneficial for Companies Like Adidas and Puma to source their supplied in Countries like Pakistan and

.

The question is how a small city with almost 2million population has ended up as the world largest supplier of footballs? The answer goes back to the time Pakistan was a British colony in the late nineteens century.

The story goes that the Britons used to play football with balls shipped to Pakistan through the sea. One day a British sergeant got bored of waiting for new balls to arrive and asked a Sialkoti to repair his punctured ball. He was so pleased with the results that he ordered him to make brand new balls and the rest is history.

During the past few decades balls produced by Sialkot firms were used in three

s. Tango Ball in 1982 World Cup, Brazuca in 2014 World Cup and lastly Telstar 18 which was used in the 2018 World Cup. Today Adidas, Nike, Puma, Umbro and many other brands are sourcing their supply of footballs from this Pakistani city but Sialkot faces tough competition from China and countries in Eastern Asia. What a crazy football fact.

Three weird football facts about England Legendary Striker

English Legendary forward, Gary Lineker has his name written in the history of football for many right and wrong reasons. He was such a gentleman inside the pitch that he never received a booking from referees. Lineker was the top scorer in 1990 World Cup and played

amazing football in

and Tottenham, but he has some

weird football facts

written to his name as well.

He is among the few players to actually shit himself on the football pitch, when he emptied his stomach in England's opener against Ireland in 1990 world cup. 25 years later he had to take of his clothes for another reason as he hosted his widely popular show with only his shorts on because he promised he would do so if Leicester city win the premiere league in 2015-2016 season, which Claudio Ranieri's men did against all odds. A really

fun fact about soccer

indeed. 

Another interesting football fact about Lineker is that he was famously substituted in his last match for

national team while he needed only one goal to break Bobby Charlton's long standing record for most goals for the national team.

At 48 goals, the veteran striker only needed one goal to tie the record with Manchester united legend, Sir Bobby Charlton, but was substituted by Swen Goran Eriksson in the 57th minute of his final game, much to the agony of Lineker and football fans around the world.

Boxing Day schedule too tight? Try to play two games in one day then!

 In today's football footballers are used to play every three or four days, but when the schedule gets tighter, like during premier league Boxing day in which teams when play every two days, everyone start getting worried about their health and managers use it as a scapegoat when their teams fail to get the results.

Yet this wasn't the case back in the 90s as there were less money involved in the game and footballer's engines were running more with the power of their love for the game. Still it was the weirdest case when Mark Hughes,

's Welsh star had to feature in two matches in only one day.

Having established himself in old Trafford as one of the best strikers on the planet, Hughes signed for

. Unfortunately at the day he had to play his first game for Bayern munchen, he also had to feature for Wales National Team in a qualifier match. After discussing the issue with Uli Hoeness, then manager of Bayern Munchen, they decided it wouldn't harm if he tries to play in both matches.

Hughes ended up for Wales in the lunch-time and then he and Hoeness took a flight to Germany and were in time for hughes to play in the second half of the game, which Bayern eventually won. One of the most

interesting soccer facts

it was. Would you agree?

Some short interesting football facts

To round up our list of interesting football facts you won't believe we present you with some short interesting football facts with which you can come on top in every football related arguments:

Stephen Hawking, one of the most influential figures in the history of Physics once studied 45 matches of England national team at different world cups. He concluded that The Three Lions have much more of a chance of winning their games if they wear red shirts and that European referees increase the chances of winning for the national team. Amazing huh?

In 1979, a game between two Scottish teams, Thistle and

was post ponded 29 times between Januarys to February due to bad weather. When it was finally played, Falkirk won the match by a four goal margin, only to get eliminated at the next round. Now that one of the most

amazing football facts

.

The Argentinian superstar,

was once traded between two of his homeland clubs for 35 footballs! Who would guess that he would one day become one of the wealthiest players of the entire planet?

One of the most

fun facts about football

is that the highest score and the highest number of own goals in an official football match is a remarkable 149. It occurred in 2002 when a club from Madagascar, Stade Olympique de L'Emyrne intentionally scored 149 own goals in 90 minutes, because of an earlier dispute with the referee. Subsequently many of the team's players were banned for the rest of the season.

Rio Mavuba is officially born at sea, as registered in his birth certificate. He was born on a boat when his parents were escaping from the Angolan War. What an interesting football fact.

So there it was! Our list of most interesting football facts you would like to know. Do you know any fun facts about football you want to share with us? Let us know in the comments below.

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