In response to Sam Waller’s question about international squads with the most players born abroad, we found a modern front-runner in Morocco, whose last squad had 20 of 28 players who were born outside the country – or 71.43%. As Ben Raza and others have pointed out, there was a memorable contender at Italia ‘90:
“If we’re going to talk about home nations naming a squad where the majority of players were not born within that country, it’s hard to look beyond the Republic of Ireland in 1990, who named 16 foreign-born players in their 22-man squad,” says Ben.
“The English-born players were: Chris Morris (Newquay), Mick McCarthy (Barnsley), Paul McGrath (Ealing), John Aldridge (Liverpool), Tony Cascarino (St Paul’s Cray in Kent), David O’Leary (Stoke Newington), Andy Townsend (Maidstone), Chris Hughton (Forest Gate), John Sheridan (Stretford), David Kelly and Gerry Peyton (both Birmingham), and both John Byrne and Alan McLoughlin were from Manchester. There was also one Glaswegian (Ray Houghton), fellow Scot Bernie Slaven (Paisley), and a Welshman (Kevin Sheedy from Builth Wells). That’s 16 out of 22 players, or 72.73%.”
“The 1994 squad was similarly stacked with other ‘foreigners’ – 15 by my reckoning, including Terry Phelan, Alan Kernaghan, Phil Babb, Eddie McGoldrick, Jason McAteer and Alan Kelly were all born in England, whilst Tommy Coyne was a Scot. That’s 15 by my reckoning. However as Terry Phelan said in an interview around this time, not only did he feel Irish but ‘I’ve even got green eyes.’ So there you are.”
- Can anyone top that? Email or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU
Sturming Graz comeback
“In Group 1 of qualifying for the U-19 European Championship, the Netherlands beat Norway 6-1 in the opener,” wrote Stephan Wijnen last week. “Despite this, Norway still managed to win the four-team, three-match group (with a goal difference of -1) and the Netherlands finished bottom. Has any other country or club team ever won a group stage after such a bad start?”
“In the 2000–01 Champions League, Sturm Graz started their Group D campaign with a 5-0 defeat against Rangers, but still went on to win the group,” says Dirk Maas. The Austrian outfit had five games to turn things around, but also lost their second away game 5-0 to Monaco. Graz won all three of their home games to go through above Galatasaray, with both sides on a negative goal difference, while Monaco and Rangers went out with positive goal differences.
Legends return
We’ve had plenty more shouts for players who have turned out in ‘legends’ teams despite barely, or never, playing for the clubs in question.
“Up in Scotland, ‘Chic’ Charnley has been known to turn out for Celtic Masters/ Legends despite Celtic not being one the 15 clubs he represented during a 20 year career,” says Colin Armstrong.
Staying in Scotland, the enigmatic Greg (no surname) nominates Sebastian Rozental (Rangers, 21 appearances), while Robin Renganathan takes us back to that Liverpool-Bayern game. “Zvjezdan Misimovic played only three first-team games for Bayern Munich and represented them as a ‘legend’ in the 5-5 against Liverpool.”
Finally, as Sean De Loughry points out, sometimes players in legends matches have never played professionally at all. “A Manchester United Legends team that played in Ireland in recent years included two substitutes who had bid for their place on the bench, with a guaranteed 15-minute run out.”
Knowledge archive
“Given the rather precarious world economic climate, have any clubs been forced to take up a sideline business to stay afloat?” wonders Fergal McMahon back in 2009.
Life is all well and good in the world of football global branding, especially for the world’s leading clubs. But spare a thought for those a little further down the ladder, such as Croatian third division outfit NK Nedeljanec. In 2004, when officials publicly revealed Nedeljanec’s financial strife, a plan was hatched by dedicated fans to save their team’s skins: the sale of potatoes, six tonnes of which were collected and then sold to raise club funds.
“No one here has much money, but we have lots of potatoes to sell,” fans’ chief Ivan Fosnar told the Jutarnji List newspaper. “It is the least we can do seeing as we are so near to promotion to the second division. We’ll do everything we can to help our club. It is not a problem to donate these potatoes if that will be enough to save the club.” Grateful Nedeljanec officials had no, ahem, chip on their shoulder and accepted the donation, which they admitted would help the club survive until the end of the season.
Correction corner
In last week’s trip to the archive, we dug out the tale of Zaire’s Mwepu Ilunga, whose famous free kick clearance was cited as an example of a footballer not knowing the rules. Mike Rayment and others have pointed out that Ilunga claims to have kicked the ball away deliberately in a protest over bonuses.
“I did that deliberately,” Ilunga said in 2010. “I was aware of football regulations. I did not have a reason to continue getting injured while those who will benefit financially were sitting on the terraces watching. I know the rules very well but the referee was quite lenient and only gave me a yellow card.”
Can you help?
It’s a bumper mailbag this week, so get in touch with your answers:
“In Cardiff v Wolves last Friday, Cardiff were awarded and missed 2 penalties in second half injury time. Surely this madness has never happened before? – Ben Jones
“Manchester United have defeated all 19 Premier League teams this season,” says Graham Dolan. “Would they be the first team to beat every other side in their league and not win the title?”
“If footballers could only play for their county of birth, which counties would be strongest at present (and historically)?” asks KP Jordan.
“In AEK Larnaca’s 3-2 to defeat to AEL Limassol in the Cypriot league last week they started with nine Spaniards. Is this a record for a team fielding foreign players one from country?” asks Will Unwin.
“When Marcos Alonso made his international debut against Argentina, he became the third generation of his family to represent Spain,” reports Jacob Bidmead. “Has any other family represented a national side over more consecutive generations?”
“In February, Ronnie McFall was announced as the new manager of Glentoran, 34 years after he was first appointed to the club. Has there ever been a longer gap between two spells for a manager at the same club?” wonders Adam Simpson.
“Has there ever been a professional match where the teams did not change ends at half-time? If so, what was the reason?” asks Lewis Jones.
“In the National League North, Elliot Newby scored a late penalty for Telford after his twin brother Alex opened the scoring for Chorley, who held on for a 2-1 win,” says Liam McGuigan. “Are there any other occurrences of twins scoring in the same game, for opposite teams?”
- Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU