football's voodoo-hoodoo
09 October, 2008

believe it.footballers are superstitious bits. they believe that some rituals and routines might help them to perform better.

for example, england legend gary lineker never scores during warm up, because he prefers to save it for the match. if he doesn't score during the first half, he changes his shirt. if he does, he keeps wearing it until the game finishes.

man united star c ronaldo gets his haircut at the same barber in cheshire before every game. this is because when he scored for the first time, he had cut his hair the day before.

john terry, the chelsea defender sits the same seat in the team bus, listens to the same usher cd in his car during his way to the training ground and parked at the same spot. he also wears the same shin pads for 10 years before it was stolen. now he wore a lucky ones that used to belong to frank lampard.

brazillian legend mario zagallo insisted of wearing no. 13, despite of the number famously regarded as unlucky, because his wife is devoted to the st. anthony of 13 july.

there are more of this stuff, like paul ince who only wore the shirt as he ran off to the pitch, alan shearer who ate chicken and beans before every game, or argentinian carlos billardo who believed in his lucky tie, and so on.

however, not only players, even the managers had their fair share of superstitions.like jimmy melia,former brighton manager. he insisted on wearing his lucky dancing shoes to every fa cup matches during the season 82-83. brighton went on to the final, losing to man u on replay.or don revie, former leeds manager who wears the same lucky suits for over 10 years.

of course, everyone knows raymond domenech, the france manager who a bit concern about the stars, i mean, the real stars. he doesn't like scorpios because "they ended up killing each other", also he doesn't want too many leos in his squad. so out goes pires, giuly and micoud.what a waste.

fans also happened to believe in coincidences, like man u winning the 99 european cup on sir matt busby 90th birthday. or the brazil 2006 wc team. their coach, carlos alberto has 13 letters in his name, and their first game against croatia was on june 13. so they didn't won the world cup.

however, nothing beats my personal favourite. in 1978, the pope died, wales won the grand slam and liverpool won the european cup. fast forward to 2005. the pope died, wales won the grand slam and liverpool won the champions league. pretty spooky isn't it?

superstitions aside, enjoy football!

Posted bySyafiq Ridhwan at 4:37 AM  

6 comments:

joereza said... October 9, 2008 at 2:04 PM  

haha..nampak gaye kalau liverpool nak menang ucl kena tunggu pope mati ar..lol

Anonymous said... October 9, 2008 at 3:49 PM  

menarik2.
w'pon agak ridiculous,
tp disebabkan mereka2 yg faymes buat,jd mcm wow plak.
:)

Syafiq Ridhwan said... October 9, 2008 at 6:53 PM  

@reza: haha, btol2..
@nunie:tula, cam tak caye yg millionaires cam diorg pun wat mende bodo2 ni.. haha

Amirah Zayanah said... October 10, 2008 at 6:34 AM  

goaaal, yeah! haha~

Anonymous said... October 14, 2008 at 4:21 PM  

haha..interesting facts!!!
mane ko collect all these??

Syafiq Ridhwan said... October 15, 2008 at 5:29 AM  

@syafiqn: mane lagi, tenet arr. search je, banyak lg, yg lg mengarut pon ade

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