It Was a Year of Odd, Bizarre, Weird and Curious Moments

It’s all too weird for words. . . .

Fans have become used to seeing games that are tape-delayed, but this is ridiculous.

Forty-three years after Hungary defeated England, 6-3, at Wembley in one of soccer’s watershed games, Hungarians finally got to see the match on Christmas day.

The BBC, in a goodwill gesture, provided the financially-strapped Hungarian state television network with a videotape of the famous 1953 encounter, which had never before been broadcast in Hungary.

It was but the latest in a series of odd, bizarre, weird, strange and otherwise curious moments that enlivened the soccer year gone by.

Goalkeeper Peter Shilton, for example, was not yet playing in 1953. His English League debut did not come until 1966, but the former England World Cup keeper is still going strong at 47 and this month became the first player in English soccer history to make 1,000 league appearances, earning a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

That, uh, stout achievement, no doubt was well received by at least one English fan, James Quinn of Bristol. During the European Championship in June, Quinn, 20, did what many have only dreamed of doing.

A la Norm from “Cheers,” Quinn moved out of his parents’ home and into the local pub in order to watch every minute of all 31 Euro ’96 matches from his favorite bar stool.

“People used to say I spent so much time here it was like a second home. Now, it’s my first,” he said.

No doubt Quinn would have learned during his time in front of the TV that the 20-player-strong Dutch team in Euro ’96 brought no fewer than 900 pairs of shorts, 580 shirts, 550 pairs of socks, 140 athletic supports, 100 pairs of boot laces and 100 track suits to the championship in England. The three goalkeepers alone brought 140 jerseys and 80 pairs of shorts.

It didn’t help. The Netherlands still looked threadbare. Which is as good a way as any of describing a new team formed in Italy during 1996.

Under the coaching of former AS Roma defender Enzo Romano, Italian male striptease artists announced plans to form a “national” soccer team to raise money for charity.

The players, probably wisely, decided to wear white and blue uniforms instead of their their usual working attire.

“No loin-cloths, we preferred a classical uniform,” said one. “After all, we are professional strip-artists, not gigolos.”

And the team, no doubt, would not have raised the objections voiced in England, where a female referee Janet Freweings was castigated by players’ wives and girlfriends for having the temerity to shower with male players after games because there were no separate facilities available.

There was no such shortage in Holland, where Ajax Amsterdam, one of Europe’s most famous clubs, moved into a new stadium this year, only to run into instant problems. Fans hated the new multimillion dollar, state-of-the-art but absolutely sterile Amsterdam Arena, the team performed poorly there and then came a lawsuit.

Seems there already was an Amsterdam Arena in town, a youth hostel and nightclub that objected quite strongly to Ajax’s appropriation of its name. Ajax is now faced with a court-imposed fine of $2,850 a day until it changes the stadium’s name.

Such money would be no object to the car dealership in the United Arab Emirates that bought all the tickets for the semifinals and final of the Asian Cup in Abu Dhabi and gave them away to fans.

It was at the same tournament that one of the more curious objections was raised.

Kuwait complained that helicopters hovering over the stadium during the match had distracted its players against the host UAE. The Kuwaitis had a 2-0 lead turn into a 3-2 defeat.

It didn’t matter in the long run. Saudi Arabia won the Asian Championship, just as Germany won the European Championship and South Africa won the African Championship. But 1996’s results are not the intent of this column.

More in keeping with the theme is the fact that two Albanian national team players missed their country’s World Cup ’98 qualifying game against Northern Ireland in Belfast because they were stranded in Greece due to farmer’s protests that paralyzed the country’s transportation network.

Staying on the agricultural front, Gillingham, an English second division team, went so far as to ban celery (yes, the vegetable) from being brought into its stadium and frisked fans for it before each game.

Celery, it appears, is an integral ingredient in an especially tasteless song chanted by fans, who first sang it and then pelted luckless goalkeeper Jim Stannard with celery stalks. Said Stannard, who is a tad on the hefty side: “Perhaps if they threw lasagna, I might take more notice.”

Gillingham’s year has not been without incident, obviously. In addition to the celery cap, defender Matt Bryant missed an important game after peppering his leg with buckshot in a hunting accident and another defender, Glen Thomas, needed surgery to save an eye after he stumbled into a tree during a training session and was hit in the face by a branch.

In Spain, another goalkeeper, Andoni Cedrun of struggling Logrones in the Spanish League, gave up eight goals against Barcelona and then sought a herbal cure.

Turning to a traditional Mediterranean method of keeping away evil spirits, Cedrun sprinkled garlic around his goalmouth. It worked. In its next game, Logrones tied league leader Real Madrid, 0-0.

Logrones’ coach was clutching at straws, however, when he banned the use of portable phones during training and while traveling to away games after several pregame talks were interrupted by calls to players.

It would be better if Spanish authorities found a way to ban a more dangerous device.

During an away game to Hercules, Sevilla goalkeeper Monchi Rodriguez was distracted by an unidentified fan armed with a laser. Television pictures showed a red light about the size of a small coin being shone on the goalkeeper’s face at corner kicks and free-kicks.

Since lasers can cause permanent eye damage, such fans need to be arrested and jailed.

Not that that would help in Italy, where prison authorities were asked to grant Moroccan midfielder Abdul Hajim his release on game days so that he could turn out for a local club team.

It seems that while playing for the prison team against a side that included players from first division Udinese, Hajim had scored four goals.

An impressive enough achievement to bend the rules, if not the bars, in soccer-mad Italy.

Just how smitten are Italians by the game, even in a year when their national team was ousted in the first round of the European Championship and their Olympic team was knocked out at the same stage in the Atlanta Games?

Enough so that soccer games drew more television viewers than anything else broadcast during the year. In a country of 57 million, the Italy-Germany Euro ’96 game attracted 22.1 million viewers; the Juventus-Ajax European Champions’ Cup final drew 19 million and the Italy-Czech Republic game in Euro ’96 drew 18 million.

Of the 10 most-watched TV programs of the year in Italy, five were soccer matches.

The same figures were not enjoyed in the Far East, where the government of Indonesia made it illegal to show Portugal’s Euro ’96 games on television or to listen to them on radio in East Timor.

The Americas, of course, are not excluded from the world of the bizarre. In Brazil, World Cup winner and national hero Romario recently was chased off a beach east of Rio de Janeiro after becoming embroiled in an argument in a foot-volleyball game. In Argentina, Boca Juniors spent $20 million on new players, including Diego Maradona, and came up empty; and in Columbia, goalkeeper Rene “El Loco” Higuita’s house was bombed after he had announced his retirement.

It’s been that kind of year.

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FIFA Final 1996 World Rankings

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Rank Team Pts. 1995 1. Brazil 68.38 1 2. Germany 64.46 2 3. France 61.37 8 4. Colombia 61.34 15 5. Czech Republic 61.11 14 6. Denmark 60.67 9 7. Russia 60.51 5 8. Spain 60.21 4 9. Netherlands 59.59 6 10. Italy 58.68 3 11. Mexico 56.92 12 12. England 56.42 21 13. Portugal 56.13 16 14. Norway 55.71 10 15. Bulgaria 55.64 17 16. Romania 55.57 11 17. Sweden 55.50 13 18. USA 54.78 19 19. South Africa 54.32 40 20. Zambia 53.76 25 21. Japan 53.35 31 22. Argentina 52.72 7 23. Tunisia 51.94 22 24. Croatia 51.29 41 25. Ghana 50.93 29 26. Chile 50.46 36 27. Morocco 50.31 38 28. Egypt 49.76 23 29. Scotland 48.71 26 30. Slovakia 48.57 35 31. Turkey 47.94 30 32. Jamaica 47.83 56 33. Ecuador 46.81 55 34. Austria 46.33 39 35. Greece 46.15 34 36. Ireland 46.08 28 37. Saudi Arabia 46.00 54 38. Paraguay 45.69 64 39. Bolivia 45.05 53 40. Canada 44.89 65 41. Trinidad & Tobago 44.72 57 42. Belgium 44.49 24 43. Uruguay 44.08 32 44. South Korea 44.05 46 45. Honduras 43.87 49 46. Gabon 43.80 67 47. Switzerland 43.54 18 48. Lithuania 43.30 43

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Rank Team Pts. 1995 49. Algeria 43.03 48 50. Australia 42.99 51 51. Ivory Coast 42.61 20 52. Israel 41.72 42 53. Poland 41.05 33 54. Peru 40.20 69 55. Yugoslavia 39.85 81 56. Cameroon 39.79 37 57. Thailand 38.74 77 58. Senegal 37.99 47 59. Ukraine 37.18 71 60. UAE 37.04 75 60. Iceland 37.04 50 62. Kuwait 36.98 84 63. Nigeria 36.96 27 64. Northern Ireland 36.87 45 65. El Salvador 35.84 82 66. Zaire 35.81 68 67. Mali 35.78 52 68. Cuba 35.73 96 69. Qatar 35.45 83 70. Angola 35.44 80 71. Zimbabwe 35.43 59 72. Costa Rica 35.18 78 73. Guinea 34.90 63 74. Sudan 34.45 86 75. Hungary 34.29 62 76. China 34.19 66 77. Slovenia 34.09 71 78. Cyprus 33.52 73 79. Finland 33.51 44 80. Wales 33.42 61 81. Uganda 33.24 74 82. Latvia 33.11 60 83. Iran 33.00 108 84. Sierra Leone 32.78 58 85. Mozambique 32.55 76 86. Macedonia 32.38 94 87. Togo 31.70 92 88. Malawi 30.03 89 89. Tanzania 29.63 70 90. Belarus 29.42 88 91. Oman 29.28 98 92. Singapore 28.20 104 93. St. Vin./Grnds 28.19 95 94. Liberia 27.96 87 95. Georgia 27.75 79 96. Malaysia 27.46 106 Rank Team Pts. 1995 97. Lebanon 27.40 134 98. Iraq 27.31 110 99. Vietnam 26.60 122 100. Congo 26.45 119 101. Panama 26.37 126 102. Estonia 26.25 129 103. Namibia 25.87 116 104. Myanmar 25.75 115 105. Guatemala 25.53 145 106. Armenia 23.90 113 107. Burkina Faso 23.46 101 108. Ethiopia 23.42 105 109. Uzbekistan 23.36 97 110. Barbados 23.29 103 111. Venezuela 23.14 127 112. Kenya 22.53 107 113. Mauritania 22.17 85 114. Haiti 22.16 153 115. Syria 21.98 136 116. Albania 21.49 91 117. Moldova 21.28 109 118. Bahrain 21.12 99 119. Indonesia 21.08 130 120. India 20.69 121 121. St. Kitts & Nevis 20.35 150 122. Malta 20.14 90 123. Luxembourg 19.46 100 124. Hong Kong 18.94 111 125. Azerbaijan 18.88 141 126. Sri Lanka 18.44 135 127. Grenada 18.12 141 128. Gambia 18.02 112 129. Niger 16.91 93 130. Dom. Republic 16.66 159 131. Surinam 16.63 124 132. New Zealand 16.42 102 133. Guinea Bissau 15.58 118 134. St. Lucia 15.54 114 135. Faroe Islands 14.79 120 136. Bangladesh 14.32 138 137. Burundi 13.65 146 138. Dominica 11.92 158 139. Yemen 11.79 123 140. Madagascar 11.32 132 141. Turkmenistan 11.15 133 142. Dutch Antilles 10.92 125 143. Benin 10.82 161 144. North Korea 10.45 117 Rank Team Pts. 1995 145. Antigua 10.12 137 146. Jordan 9.72 143 147. Laos 9.52 152 148. Cayman 9.28 131 149. Puerto Rico 9.17 128 150. Mauritius 8.68 154 151. Nepal 8.58 147 152. Bosnia-Herzgvina 8.36 new 153. Guyana 7.75 162 154. Liechtenstein 7.16 157 155. Cape Verde Islands 7.15 144 156. Kazakhstan 7.05 163 157. Fiji 6.81 139 158. Tahiti 6.62 156 159. Rwanda 6.34 168 160. Swaziland 6.23 148 161. Botswana 5.96 155 162. Lesotho 5.94 149 163. Tajikistan 5.75 164 164. Tonga 5.70 new 165. San Marino 5.65 151 166. Philippines 4.99 166 167. Bermuda 4.77 140 168. Kyrgyzstan 4.62 172 169. Papua New Guinea 3.98 new 170. Brunei 3.80 167 171. Solomon Islands 3.77 170 172. Macao 3.66 180 173. Pakistan 3.62 160 174. Taiwan 3.42 178 175. Seychelles 3.19 176 176. Maldives 2.99 169 177. Western Samoa 2.70 new 178. Somalia 1.93 165 179. Nicaragua 1.92 174 180. Vanuatu 1.87 179 181. Aruba 1.44 171 182. Belize 1.14 173 183. Central Africa 0.98 new 184. Libya 0.35 175 185. Djibouti 0.27 177 186. Cambodia 0.23 180 187. Andorra 0.07 new 188. Chad 0.00 180 188. Cook Islands 0.00 new 188. Guam 0.00 new

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Note: National teams inactive since 1990 and those that have not yet played are not ranked.