Over twenty Argentinian farmers and massive fans of football legend Lionel Messi, grew a giant portrait of the popular player in their corn fields, as a tribute.

Lionel Messi has millions of fans all around the world, but nowhere is he more beloved than in his home country of Argentina, where most people see him as nothing less than a god of football. Messi recently led the Argentinian national team to win the 2022 World Cup, which made him even more popular than before, but his true fans were sure this was going to be his year even before the tournament started. For example, shortly before last year’s World Cup kicked off, more than 20 Argentinian farmers used a farming engineer’s planting algorithm to create giant portraits of Messi in their corn fields.

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An Argentinian football fan was recently arrested after allegedly hijacking a bus full of people to make sure he gets home in time to watch his country’s game against Croatia at the World Cup.

Argentina is one of the few countries on this planet where football is as close to a religion as you can possibly imagine. People live and breathe the beautiful game and stars like  Diego Armando Maradona are worshipped, so when Argentina played Croatia in the semifinals of the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar the whole country was buzzing. Missing the game was an unimaginable travesty, so when one man found himself on a bus at rush hour, just minutes before the start of the historic football match, he basically felt forced to take desperate measures.

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The Isles of Scilly Football League is the world’s smallest official football league, consisting of only two teams that play each other seventeen times a season.

As the home of football, England has always been crazy about the team sport, and the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago of more than 140 islands off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, is no exception. Like many other regions of England, the isles have their own football league, but what sets them apart is the size of the league – it consists of just two teams, the Garrison Gunners and the Woolpack Wanderers, that play each other every weekend during a season, as well as in two yearly cups and the traditional ‘Old Men versus the Youngsters’ game played on Boxing Day.

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Carlos Henrique Raposo, aka Carlos Kaiser, is a Brazilian former football player known primarily for having a decade-long career without actually playing a single game.

As children, most people grow up dreaming of one day becoming sports champions, despite an obvious lack of athletic abilities. Most of us realize this to be nothing more than an impossible dream and move on, but a few still manage to find ways of making their goal a reality, by any means necessary. This is the story of Carlos Henrique Raposo, a Brazilian athlete who “wanted to be a footballer, but did not want to play football”. Believe it or not, he managed to be just, playing for top-ranked Brazilian and international clubs for over a decade. ‘Playing’ may not be the right word, though, as he never actually played an official game in his entire 12-year-long career.

Carlos Kaiser – nicknamed earned due to his alleged resemblance to German football legend Franz Beckenbauer – always knew that he had the physique of a professional football player, but not the necessary talent and skills to make the roster of top football clubs, so he relied on a variety of tricks to build himself up as this great player that every team was after.

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A Scottish football club may regret its decision to replace human cameramen for an AI-operated camera system, after it hilariously kept mistaking a linesman’s bald head for the ball, thus denying viewers of the action on the pitch.

Last month Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club, commonly known as Caley Thistle or Caley Jags, which competes in the Scottish Championship, the second echelon of the Scottish Professional Football League, proudly announced that it had installed the AI-powered Pixellot camera system at its Caledonian Stadium. The system was designed to replace human cameramen with artificial intelligence-controlled cameras designed to follow the ball on the football field. Only the plan to automate live broadcasts of its home games went awry last week, when Pixellot managed to annoy viewers by constantly mistaking a linesman’s bald head for the ball during a game with Ayr United.

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Man vs Fat is a weight-loss phenomenon sweeping the United Kingdom and helping soccer fans lose weight and improve their fitness by getting involved in their favorite sport.

Soccer, or football, as we Europeans call it, is the most popular sport in the world, but nowhere is it more loved than in its birthplace – England. To say people there are crazy about soccer would be an understatement; with over 140 individual leagues, containing more than 480 divisions, and around 7,000 professional clubs, it’s safe to say that soccer truly is at home in England. People love to play it, love to watch others playing it, either in stadiums or from the comfort of their own homes, love to talk about it in pubs, it’s just a big part of daily life. So I guess it makes sense that soccer be so effective in helping to curb the country’s very serious obesity problem.

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A friendly New Year’s Eve soccer match between teams representing two rival cartels in a Mexican prison turned into a bloodbath after a controversial tackle escalated into a gun fight.

For over a decade, Cieneguillas, a medium-security prison in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, has been home to hundreds of dangerous criminals representing no less than six of Mexico’s main drug cartels. In an attempt to relieve the pressure of the rivalries between these criminal organizations, the prison leadership authorized a soccer game between teams representing Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, on New Year’s Eve, but what was meant to be a friendly celebration abruptly turned into a deadly shootout, and not the penalty kind…

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Mansur Çalar, a 33-year-old soccer player from Turkey, has been accused of using a concealed sharp object to repeatedly slash players of the opposing team during a third-division game last weekend.

Allegations against the footballer started pouring in on Monday after several players from Turkish club Sakaryaspor, the club Çalar’s team, Amedspor, had played against a day before, started posting photos of sustained slash wounds online. Some had scratch-like marks on their arms, others on their backs and necks, but they all accused Mansur Çalar, asking that he be reprimanded. Both the accused and his club dismissed the allegations, but then a video collage showing Çalar’s behavior in several tense moments during the Sunday match went viral online and authorities opened an official investigation.

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Gourav Mukhi went from being celebrated as the youngest goal scorer in the history of the Indian Super League to being suspended for six months, after authorities found that he wasn’t actually 16-years-old, but 28.

Mukhi’s troubles started back in October, when the Jamshedpur FC striker scored a “historic goal” against Bengaluru FC. Not only was it a crucial equaliser for his team, but it made him the youngest scorer in the history of India’s soccer league. He was only 16 at the time, or at least that’s what his documents showed, but all the attention made people look at him more closely, and some started expressing doubts about his age online. It didn’t take long for evidence of his deceit to come out, as only three years prior, he had been suspended from the National U16 Football Championship, for being much older than he claimed. So if he was older than 16 three years ago, how could he be 16 now?

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A die-hard fan of Turkish soccer club Denizlispor recently made international headlines after renting a crane so he could watch his team play in a league game, after being banned from the stadium for one year.

37-year-old Ali Demirkaya, a.k.a. ‘Amigo Ali’ is well-known as one of Denizlispor most fanatic suporters, and this weekend he proved his love for the club once again, literally going above and beyond just to see the team play Gaziantepspor. Following his involvement in an incident that occurred during one of Denizlispor’s games in 2015, Demirkaya was banned from entering his team’s stadium for one year, in 2017. However, he always contested the decision and vowed to not let it stop him from being close to the action and cheering his boys on. This past weekend, he fulfilled his promise.

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In a nation full of soccer fanatics, 57-year-old lawyer Nelson Paviotti stands out like a sore thumb. For the past 20 years, he’s worn only yellow, green, blue and white clothing – the colors of the Brazilian soccer team. And there’s a specific reason for his loud choice in clothes. He had promised to wear their colors if the team won the Soccer World Cup in 1994. They kept their end of the bargain and so did Nelson.

Nelson goes to work each day sporting a banana-yellow jacket, a dark green shirt, yellow pants, and a bright blue hat. But he hasn’t just stopped at clothes. Nelson has gone all out – his office is decorated with yellow walls, blue and white filing cabinets, and a blue desk (and his screensaver is the team’s logo). The clocks, chairs, phones and stereo are green, yellow, blue or white and so are the folders that contain his clients’ documents. The office décor consists of a green-yellow guitar, a soccer-ball shaped woman’s purse, cups and mugs bearing the national coat of arms, and little key chains, flags and posters with the team’s players.

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The annual Burton-on-the-Water football match is an old tradition that still manages to draw the interest of thousands of football fans.

No one really knows how the unusual football tradition began, but one thing is for sure – the Burton-on-the-Water match has been played for over 100 years, in the ankle-high waters of River Windrush, in Burton, Gloucester.

Two teams of six compete in the unique football match: the Burton Rovers First Eleven and the Burton Rovers Second Eleven. The two teams have to follow the rules of a normal football game,while they try to control the ball through the shallow waters of the river. Spectators are advised to wear waterproof clothes if they wish to watch the game from the side of the “pitch”, as the teams tend to make a splash.

The 2010 edition of the Burton-on-the-Water football in the river match was held on Monday, August 30, and was watched by over 1,000 spectators.

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Remember the comedy “Shaolin Soccer” starring Stephen Chow? It was an over-the-top film that featured a mix of soccer and Shaolin kung-fu. Well, believe it or not, Shaolin soccer exists in real life!

The younger students of the Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng City, China have found an original way of practicing their kung-fu and enjoying themselves at the same time. Whenever they’re not busy meditating, studying or working around the temple, the boys, aged 15 to 18, engage in a spectacular game of Shaolin soccer.

Just like in the above mentioned film, Shaolin soccer features both soccer and kung-fu moves, combined in a very entertaining way. The young monks leap through the air, kick the football like it’s an opponent, and even sit on their heads,while holding the ball. As you can imagine, every one of their Shaolin soccer games draws quite the local crowd.

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China’ may not have been present at the World Cup 2010, in South Africa, but its team of football playing roosters would probably win any competition.

Zhang Lijun has always been a big fan of football, but he decided to take his passion for the sport to a whole new level three years, when he started training his roosters to handle a ball. Now, chickens aren’t exactly famous for their intelligence and ability to learn new things, but Zhang’s roosters have developed mad football skills.

The unusual football team is made up of only two players, and they recently had to go head to head in a mock World Cup match, on the city streets, in Liaoling Province China. Zhang Lijun played the role of the referee, while the two roosters used their feet and wings to handle the ball. Passers-by gathered to watch the bizarre spectacle and were surprised by the bird’s dribbling skills.

Maybe Zhang’s roosters should play in the national football team, or may be he could be the new coach. Either way, China would have a higher chance of qualifying next time.

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With the eyes of the entire world on the Football World Cup, in South Africa, local authorities from Changsha, China had to come up with something better, yet related to current events.

And what’s better than football? Mud football, played by barely dressed gorgeous models, of course. So they set up a small football pitch, filled it with mud, brought in  models from various Chinese cities, and got the Beauty Mud Cup 2010 under way. In the photos below, teams from Hunan and Hubei go head to head, in one of the first matches of the competition. I don’t know the score, and neither do most of the male spectators who resumed to roars and cheers every time any of the girls kicked the ball through the mud.

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