Soccer is a crazy world and the mix of young players, lots of money, and a high level of competition result in stories that you can’t make up. Some of these personal stories are well-documented in biographical soccer books, while others are recorded in movies and interviews. Over time we found more and more characters that bring fun into the environment. They feel free to express themselves and the wages they get at a young age allow them to be exactly who they are. We can call them eccentric, unconventional, or just insane soccer stories. Let’s get into them – be ready for a fun ride!

Balotelli – the master of discipline

Well, probably everything in the history of Balotelli is somewhat controversial. One of the most insane soccer stories is when he caused the fire department to intervene. He invited everybody in Manchester City club to come to his house for a party. He planned to do fireworks, but instead, he caused a fire and evacuation. Not the best time he had at Man City.

This story is about his early years in Inter Milan at age 19. From Jose Mourinho interview:

“We went to Kazan in the Champions League. In that match, all my strikers were injured. No Milito, no Eto’o, I was really in trouble and Mario was the only one. Mario gets a yellow card in minute 42. So when I go to the dressing room at half-time, I spend 14 minutes of the 15 speaking only for Mario.

‘Mario I cannot change you. I cannot make a change. I don’t have a striker on the bench. Don’t touch anybody. Play only with the ball. When we lose the ball, no reaction. If somebody provokes you, no reaction. If the referee makes a mistake, no reaction. Mario, please.’

“Minute 46, red card!”

Redknapp – his recruitment of the new Bulgarian striker

Harry Redknapp is a masterful storyteller and soccer manager of multiple teams in England, and this is from his time at West Ham. During pre-season, West Ham is playing a friendly game against Oxford United. Some fans came to see the game and kept talking trash so that everybody can hear how badly the team is playing. A fan full of West Ham tattoos and earrings, Steve Davies, was very loud. So Redknapp turned to him

“… at half-time, I made three substitutions, so had no more subs. And suddenly I got an injury after 10 minutes so I only have 10 men, so I turned to the fella who had been giving me grief and said, ‘Can you play as good as you talk?’ He said, ‘I can play better than that Chapman.’ Anyway, he came on, he played up front and scored a goal, and to be honest, he was better than Chapman!”

In another interview, Redknapp revealed another part of the story where he invented a player to mock journalists.

“When the stadium announcer saw Steve take to the field, he sent an assistant down to get the name of this new signing so he could announce it to the crowd. I asked the guy, ‘You’ve been watching the World Cup? The great Bulgarian Tittyshev?'”

Ibrahimovic – the humbleness jersey

Here’s one of the insane soccer stories by the legendary Zlatan. Towards the end of Ibrahimovic’s career, he decided to go to LA Galaxy. In his statement, he said: “I decided to sign with Galaxy because I think it’s the right place for me”. A regular person would do that and get back to training. Instead, Zlatan has taken out a full-page advert in the LA Times announcing his arrival at LA Galaxy

“Dear Los Angeles,

You’re welcome.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic”

That’s the end, right? No. LeBron James, already playing for the Lakers sends a jersey to Zlatan Ibrahimovic to welcome him to LA. Zlatan, signs it and mails it back to LeBron. 

Maicon – motivation by Mourinho

Neymar is famous for collecting yellow cards on purpose to miss a game and be able to celebrate his sister’s birthday. However, he is not the first one to try to do something like that. In fact, here is a story by Mourinho about another Brazilian, Maicon, in 2008:

“I remember a match in Siena, with Maicon. They reminded me that he used to take the fifth yellow card before the Christmas break, to go to Brazil. I told him that he couldn’t go if he got booked. He asked me what would happen if he scored. I joked that he had to score two. He scored twice, took his shirt off, and got booked, and in the end, he had an extra week of vacation.”

Cristiano Ronaldo – the super competitor

The fact that Ronaldo is super competitive is no secret. In fact, people knew that about him when they were scouting his talent and mindset from his time in Portugal. Patris Evra has one of the most insane soccer stories to illustrate this from their time at Manchester United.

“They were playing table tennis and Rio beat him and we were all screaming and Ronaldo was so upset. So upset that his response was to order a table tennis table, improve his game, and become the best. The story of his life. He trained for two weeks at home and he came back and he beat Rio in front of everyone. That’s Cristiano Ronaldo. That’s why I am not surprised today that he wants to win another Golden Ball, why he wants to win the World Cup because he’s an angry man.”

Leo Messi – what can’t he do

We are not going to solve if Messi or Ronaldo is the best player ever, but here is a story from Rio Ferdinand’s autobiography:

“So when the ball went back to his goalkeeper, he (Messi) ran back and demanded the ball. The goalkeeper rolled him the ball, and Messi then proceeded to run through the entire team and score in anger. Thierry said that was what he used to do in the playground at school. I did stuff like that too against little kids. But he (Messi) did it against some of the best in the world: Yaya Toure, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets. And it wasn’t just that one time. He did it a couple of times. Thierry said: ‘Can Ronaldo do that?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve never seen him do that.’ Thierry played with Zidane and Ronaldinho but they never did anything like that. He said: ‘That’s when I knew Messi was different to anyone we’ve ever seen.'”

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Which one was your favorite story? Did we miss a story you wanted to hear?