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Football Urban Legends


KentVillan

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What are your favourite urban legends from the world of football?

Mine is all the quotes from foreign greats (Zidane, Xavi, Ronaldinho, Figo, etc.) about Paul Scholes being the greatest player of his generation. I'd love to know how many of them are actually true and quoted in context, as they never seem to be sourced.

This one is a good parody

 

 

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Not sure if it’s really an urban legend or more like just some bollocks one of my mates was spouting down the pub, because I can’t find any hint of the story online, so probably a tale that existed for one drunken night in my local. But anyway…

I distinctly remember being told that in training once, Ronaldo had the ball in front of Nicky Butt and proceeded to do about 20 step overs without moving the ball, in a sort of mocking way, “look at how good I am, you’ll never get the ball off me”. Butt responded by punching and flooring Ronaldo. This, we were reliably informed, was the real reason Butt was sold to Newcastle.

Several pints in, it seemed credible at the time.

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16 minutes ago, sne said:

I've heard conflicting stories about who invented the bicycle kick

Obviously Doug, he taught Harry Hampton how to do it, dontcha know.

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There is a Swedish one were the story goes that the commentator Arne Hegerfors during the game between England and Cameroon in the World Cup 1990 allegedly said: "It looks very dark on Cameroon's bench" after England scored.

I have believed it for a long time for the man was an idiot but I read an article about it a few years ago and it probably never happened.

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Not sure if it’s the correct place, but Ronaldo playing in the France 98 World Cup final is still a mystery to some.

He wasn’t playing, then he was playing? Did he have a nervous breakdown pre-match? Did Nike force him to play? Whatever happened, it clearly affected the whole team and France were worthy winners on the day.

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43 minutes ago, ferguson1 said:

Not sure if it’s the correct place, but Ronaldo playing in the France 98 World Cup final is still a mystery to some.

He wasn’t playing, then he was playing? Did he have a nervous breakdown pre-match? Did Nike force him to play? Whatever happened, it clearly affected the whole team and France were worthy winners on the day.

He had a seizure, was unconscious for a few minutes, no cause was ever found and he insisted he played is the official account from the man himself 

 

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3 hours ago, KentVillan said:

What are your favourite urban legends from the world of football?

Mine is all the quotes from foreign greats (Zidane, Xavi, Ronaldinho, Figo, etc.) about Paul Scholes being the greatest player of his generation. I'd love to know how many of them are actually true and quoted in context, as they never seem to be sourced.

This one is a good parody

 

 

Paul Scholes was a brilliant player, pretty sure the Zidane quote is true and definitely all the Roy Keane praise. Scholes would have been more appreciated if he was foreign. Miles better than Gerrard and Lampard but didn't care for the media

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Probably not been mentioned but in Ireland has been a rumour that Socrates played for UCD which is a college team when he studied in Ireland. No proof has ever emerged though he did study for a while in the college

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25 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Paul Scholes was a brilliant player, pretty sure the Zidane quote is true and definitely all the Roy Keane praise. Scholes would have been more appreciated if he was foreign. Miles better than Gerrard and Lampard but didn't care for the media

He was basically Pirlo before Pirlo, but was more dynamic as he started out as a striker in his early days in the side. The deeper he played the better he got. Still one of my favourite midfielders of all time. An absolute bore of a pundit though.

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6 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

He was basically Pirlo before Pirlo, but was more dynamic as he started out as a striker in his early days in the side. The deeper he played the better he got. Still one of my favourite midfielders of all time. An absolute bore of a pundit though.

One of the reasons England won **** all Beckham, Lampard and Gerrard they did so many flashy things but to win tournaments you need a midfielder to hold the ball and pick the right pass. Scholes was better than all 3

Gerrard and Lampard for example probably scored combined triple the amount of goals Xavi and Iniesta scored but i know who i can want if i want to win a tournament 

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31 minutes ago, Zatman said:

One of the reasons England won **** all Beckham, Lampard and Gerrard they did so many flashy things but to win tournaments you need a midfielder to hold the ball and pick the right pass. Scholes was better than all 3

Gerrard and Lampard for example probably scored combined triple the amount of goals Xavi and Iniesta scored but i know who i can want if i want to win a tournament 

Scholes surprisingly can hang with their goal tally. He was just superior to both in almost every way. Gerrard had a better engine on him, but could never control the tempo of a match from the center. His best period was playing off Fernando Torres and letting Mascherano and Xabi Alonso hold it down in the middle. As we're finding with Villa, if you can't keep hold of the ball reliably, you're going nowhere fast. I hope our manager, ironically one of those players listed above who was not good at this, can see the benefit in that.

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Personally think Gerrard > Scholes > Lampard in that trio. Gerrard’s game had absolutely everything, incredible engine on him but also the ability to do the ridiculous.

He’s possibly underrated when it comes to best midfielders of all time. 

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2 hours ago, Zatman said:

Paul Scholes was a brilliant player, pretty sure the Zidane quote is true and definitely all the Roy Keane praise. Scholes would have been more appreciated if he was foreign. Miles better than Gerrard and Lampard but didn't care for the media

Scholes was indeed a brilliant player, but the Scholes propaganda machine has taken a lot of those quotes out of context.

Zidane was talking about Scholes because Capello had tried to bring Scholes out of retirement to play in the 2010 World Cup, similar to Zidane's 2006 return. It's been turned into Zidane effectively saying Scholes was the best player he ever played against, but I think he was just saying Scholes was a great player and one of his toughest opponents, with a little bit of hyperbole thrown in.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/zinedine-zidane-admitted-not-playing-3352746

Quote

Assessing ­Capello’s latest move to woo Scholes, Zidane said: “It’s only natural to want to select your best players and there is no doubt for me that Paul Scholes is still in a class of his own.

“He’s almost untouchable in what he does. I never tire of watching him play. You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get.

“One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career.”

“He was an extremely tough opponent to play against. You didn’t get any time on the ball when he was around. He would close you down and make your life ­terribly uncomfortable."

The urban legend retelling is that Zidane said "My biggest regret was not playing with Scholes ... he was the toughest opponent I faced."

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9 hours ago, Zatman said:

Probably not been mentioned but in Ireland has been a rumour that Socrates played for UCD which is a college team when he studied in Ireland. No proof has ever emerged though he did study for a while in the college

He did play for Garforth Town. Aged 50.

For 12 minutes.

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