Facts are an indispensable part of the game of football. All the intrigue of the beautiful game is not merely captured by its motions; facts are the tools with which the game connects to its entities off the pitch. Facts in football veer from the palpably basic ones to bizarrely outlandish ones. Here are 30 of the bizarre football facts that sound like lies, but are actually facts.
1. Brazil’s first official match was against Exeter City. The Brazilian national team was born when an all-star team made up of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo’s finest took on the mighty Exeter City in Rio’s Laranjeiras Stadium on July 21 1914, the day when the Brazilian national side was born.