What do you think are the most dramatic and touching stories of football, by the human perspective? I was personally moved by Ronaldo's comeback during WC2002. I was very disappointed with football in general after France' 98, but Ronaldo's effort to contradict those who said his carrer was ended, and restore Brazil's lost dignity are part of what made me a football fan again that year. A true tale of fall and redemption. Some people are more related to Pelé's story, the poor kid that after Brazil's failure in 1950 promissed his father that he would win a World Cup for him, and reached an almost god-like status in the game. Any other soccer stories filled with drama and humanity that you wanna remember?
Unknown to many people, is a little known history about one of the WC's greatest goals ever. As Argentines celebrated their 1st ever WC victory courtesy of a controversial 3-1 win the Netherlands in 1978, on the other side of the Atlantic a little 8 year old Dutch boy sat watching on his TV crying his eyes out and weeping at the defeat. From that day forth he swore he'd work hard to become a professional footballer and some day grow old to have a chance to meet Argentina on a football field at some point in his career. That 8 year old boys name was Dennis Bergkamp.
Beckham getting sent off against Argentina in 1998, being vilified all around England, and then scoring the winning goal as captain against them in 2002 was quite a story at the time.
How about the brazilian player who was selling water melon and a year later was playing in the WC Finals for Brazil in 1998. I think his name was ZeMaria.
Roy Essandoh. A striker without a club, he responded to an advert on teletext from Second Division Wycombe Wanderers advertising for a centre forward who wasn't cup-tied. He was the only applicant and subsequently joined on a trial basis and one week into his trial scored the winner against Premier League Leicester City to send Wycombe into the semi-finals.
Carlos Llamosa gave up soccer in Colombia to move to the USA. He ended working as a janitor at WTC. That was before MLS where no major professional soccer existed in the US. He pretty much gave up soccer. He played in some amateur soccer and semi-pro soccer. But one thing led to another.... he was discovered by MLS scout and ended up playing for the US National team at WC 2002. If he made a few different choices in his life, he would probably still remain as a janitor at WTC. We know what happened at WTC. Who knows where he is now?
This is a fresh story: Brazilian striker Cristiano de Lima Jr. collpased and died after scoring his 2nd goal for his club yesterday during the final match of the India Federation Cup. At the end his team Dempo Sports Club won the game by 2-0. He also ended as the club's top scorer of the tournamet. http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=ap-playerdeath&prov=ap&type=lgns
Relating to my username, Antonio Cassano only got playing time at Euro 2004 because Totti was suspended. He ended up becoming Italy's hero of the tournament. In the last game against Bulgaria, a must win for Italy, they had to hope a 2-2 between Denmark and Sweden did not happen. At the 88th minute, with the Italy game at 1-1, Sweden tied Denamrk to make the score 2-2 and eliminate Italy. Only those on the bench knew, no one on the field knew. In the 93rd minute, Cassano collected a ball at the top of the box and blasted a ball into the upper corner. He thought he scored the goal that took Italy through. He ran celebrating and then ran to the bench, where he learned about the 2-2 in the other game. He walked to midfield for the kickoff, kneeled on the floor, and cried for the remaining 2 minutes of the game, refusing to play.
Alright since no one liked my first post in this thread, i think i got a better one... Chievo Verona is a pretty good team in Italy now. There are two teams from Verona in Italy: Chievo, and Hellas Verona. Hellas was always the better team, they won the championship in 1985. They were always in serie A. On the other hand, Chievo were a bad team. In 1987, they reached Serie D (Italy 5th Divison) and before that were a semi-pro team. They got promoted to Serie C1 and Serie C2 (3rd and 4th Division) in the Mid-90s. They finally reached the second division, Serie B. They even got there nickname, The Flying Donkeys, from a Hellas Verona insult. Fans of Hellas said Donkeys would fly before Chievo reached Serie A. In 2000-2001, Luigi Del Neri led them to Serie B promotion got promoted to Serie A for the first time. Chievo was suprise of the season. Corradi, Corini, Manfredini, and Marazzina led the team to 1st place at the winter break. But they fell apart in the second half of the season and wound up 5th. Not bad for a team who was favored to be relegated. Hellas Verona was relegated that year and are still in Serie B while Chievo is still in Serie A.