The 7 Most Shocking Moments In World Football

Back in June 1986 England were having a good World Cup. Having reached the quarter-finals, their opponents were Argentina. Six minutes into the second-half Diego Maradona made as if to head the ball, but pushed it toward goal with his hand. The referee allowed the goal to stand. Questioned later about using his hand to score Maradona turned to a reporter and said, ‘it was the hand of God.’

Blackburn Rovers vs Spartak Moscow 1995.

Blackburn had a miserable competition from the first match. When they went to Russia for the second leg against Spartak, they had the slimmest chance of progressing further.

That old adage, ‘come out fighting’ was taken literally by Graeme Le Saux and David Batty. Both players collided chasing a loose ball. Batty jumped up shouting obscenities in Le Saux’s face, who promptly swung a punch. Le Saux later maintained he came off worse suffering a broken hand when the punch connected. Blackburn lost the match 3-0 and exited the competition.

Kung-Fu Cantona:

In a midweek match against Crystal Palace in 1995 Eric Cantona was shown a red card in the 48th minute. As he walked off, Cantona was verbally insulted by a Palace fan and suddenly leapt the barrier and kung-fu kicked him.

Although Cantona eventually received 150 hours community service the fan ended up doing jail time after assaulting a prosecution lawyer in court.

World Cup 2006 France vs Italy:

Zinedine Zidane was a player with a massive international following. Having retired from international competition in 2004, he was persuaded to return to captain France’s slim hope of a decent World Cup run. Having made it to the final, and with the match nearly 20 minutes into extra time, an altercation between Italian player Marco Materazzi and Zidane let to insults and Zidane head-butting his opponent. A red card was shown and Zidane took an early bath – and retirement. Italy won the match on penalties.

Manchester City take 2012 Premier League Title:

The 2012 Premier League competition was the closest for many a long year. Taken to the last matches of the season United had beaten Sunderland 1-0, and City were 2-1 down to QPR, who they had to beat, with two minutes of extra time left.

In those two minutes first Edin Dzeko pulled City level, and then Sergio Aguero made it 3-2 City, giving them the Premier League title.

Massive Corruption in Italian Football:

In 2006 the Italian Serie football leagues were rocked to the core in a corruption scandal involving some of its biggest clubs. Allegations of clubs influencing the appointment of referees and games being fixed, led to Juventus being stripped of titles and relegated. Other famous clubs such as Lazio, Reggina, Fiorentina, and AC Milan were fined and docked points.

European Cup Winners 2004 – Greece!

At a time when Wayne Rooney was making his mark on the international football stage, a European no-hoper was about to make its own. With the usual front runners, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain taking all the betting, the odds on Greece taking the title were somewhere below England, and that was low.

Maybe the writing was on the wall when Spain didn’t make the knock-out stages. No matter, Greece took on everyone, knocking out the Czech Republic and France before beating Portugal on their own turf. Maybe there’s hope for England yet.