9 Exciting football facts you may not be aware of

Football is considered to be one of the most watched sports around the world. The domestic leagues in England, Spain, Germany and Italy are some of the most famous among the fans across the world. The fan base of top European clubs in these leagues around the globe is considered to be in billions.

The game has evolved tremendously over the horizon and a lot of great players have featured, ending their career with the stature of a club legend. With a rich history of centuries, a lot of records are meant to be created and broken.

There are various lesser known and interesting facts about one of the most loved sports in the world.

Here are some facts and records that are worth knowing.

It's been said China invented football, named as cuju

1) Origin: Football was originated in China around 476 B.C. Around 476 BC to 221 BC, the ancient Chinese played a sport called cuju, pronounced "tsoo-joo". The meaning of Cuju is "Kick the ball with the foot". The "soccer ball" used by them had feathers stuffed inside a leather ball.

2) Naming: Pele was the first person who called football “the beautiful game”, a popular nickname. In 1977, he wrote his autobiography and named it "My Life and the Beautiful Game". Although there is a dispute over who said it first as it's said that a football commentator also used the same words in 1958.

3) Hard time to win: Barcelona is considered to be one of the best football clubs in the world. It is hard to imagine such a big club struggling to win the league title for a long duration. Barca won only one La Liga title in a gap of 24 years, between 1960 and 1985. One of the greatest clubs, Barcelona won the title in the 1973-74 season and finished on 2nd position in 10 occasions, during this duration.

The Three Spanish clubs that have never been relegated

4) Non-relegation sides: Athletic Bilbao, Real Madrid, and Barcelona have never got relegated from Spain’s highest division. La Liga was established in 1929 and Barcelona won the inaugural tournament. So since 1929, only these three teams have played all their league games at the highest level.

Getafe CF is another club who has never been relegated but the club has only been active in the top flight since the 2004-05 season. Prior to that, the club took part in the country’s lower divisions for decades, as per the Guardian.

5) Two in one: Mark Hughes once played for Wales as well as Bayern Munich on the same day, 11th November 1987. On this particular day, Hughes was involved in a match for Wales in the afternoon and then flown back by a private jet to Munich in the evening. He emerged victorious with Bayern against Borussia Moenchengladbach in the Bundesliga.

6) Defender outscoring midfielder: Andres Iniesta and John Terry are considered to be club legends in the history of Barcelona and Chelsea. However, as per stats, the former Chelsea defender has an edge over the Barca maestro. Terry scored 41 League goals in 492 appearances, compared to 35 league goals by Iniesta in 442 games for Barcelona.

7) What a comeback: Whenever we think about the greatest comebacks in the football history, matches like Liverpool's victory in Istanbul at the 2005 Champions League final, come to mind. Nonetheless, Charlton Athletic staged one of the best comebacks when they defeated Huddersfield town by 7-6. They were trailing by 1-5 against them just before 30 minutes of the final whistle.

8) Most red cards in a game: In a modern game, Red cards are not shown very often and players are sent off only for rash and dangerous tackles. In a rare event on June 1, 1993, Referee William Weiler showed 20 red cards during a football game between Sportivo Ameliano and General Caballero in Paraguay.

9) The fastest goal: The game has witnessed lots of goals in the opening minutes of the match but, Ricardo Oliveira scored one of the quickest goals (in only 2.8 seconds) against Soriano on December 26, 1998. The Argentinian has his named etched in the Guinness book of records for this feat.