Which match has featured the most Ballon d'Or winners on one pitch?
A Ballon d’Or festival of football
“I have a memory from an old childhood annual that Manchester United are the only team to have fielded three Ballon d’Or winners on the same pitch, back when Charlton, Law and Best were playing,” notes Dan Wardle. “Is this right? And which match featured the most Ballon d’Or winners on the pitch at the same time?”
Dara O’Reilly kicks off with an excellent answer. “While Dan Wardle’s annual was probably correct at the time of going to press, I’m sure I won’t be the only person to point out that, when Michael Owen joined Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Original Ronaldo at Real Madrid in 2004, that meant the club were able to, on numerous occasions over that season, field four players who had won football’s most prestigious individual prize. This means, I think, that the home leg of the Champions League last-16 tie against Juventus (played on 22 February 2005) where all four of Los Merengues’ prize winners played against a Juventus side fielding previous winner Pavel Nedved, has the most Ballon d’Or winners playing of any club game in history, with five. Future winner Fabio Cannavaro also played for Juventus in that game, so a bit of creative accounting could argue that six actually featured.”
Madrid trumped United’s trio but also the Milan side of 1992-93 with Fabio Capello having the luxury of fielding three of the four previous winners in Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Jean-Pierre Papin. The Rossoneri also repeated the feat in 2008-09 with Andriy Shevchenko, Ronaldinho and Kaká. Also worth noting that Milan enjoyed a monopoly in 1988 and 1989 as Gullit, Van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Franco Baresi occupied the top three places in voting.
A slightly diluted tangent, but if we’re talking strictly about the number of individual Ballon d’Ors, this would be between Barcelona (Lionel Messi – five trophies) and Real Madrid (Cristiano Ronaldo – five, Kaká – one) between 2009 and 2013 – a total of 11 ‘winners’ on one pitch.
Murray’s Football League flurry “Glenn Murray has scored against 80 of the 92 league teams,” notes Andy Rumble. “Can this be bettered?”
To the Knowledge’s knowledge, no, although Andy’s fact does have to be slightly amended. Murray did indeed score against 80 Football League sides (hat-tip to Opta) during his time with Carlisle, Stockport County, Rochdale, Brighton, Crystal Palace, Reading and Bournemouth, although 11 of those 80 teams are no longer in the Football League: Barnet, Boston United, Chester City, Chesterfield, Dagenham and Redbridge, Darlington, Hartlepool, Leyton Orient, Stockport County, Torquay United and Wrexham.
Of the current roster of 92, Murray has scored against 67 of them and is yet to score a league goal against 25 teams: Liverpool, Tottenham, Everton, Leicester, Sheffield United, West Brom, Hull City, Portsmouth, Coventry, Doncaster, Fleetwood, Burton, Gillingham, Scunthorpe, Oxford, AFC Wimbledon, Bradford, Lincoln, Colchester, Newport County, Stevenage, Forest Green, Crawley, Cambridge and Morecambe.
Frank Lampard holds the record for the player to have scored against the most Premier League sides, with a whopping 39. Jermain Defoe is the leading current player, with goals against 36 Premier League sides, and could reach 38 if he notches for Bournemouth against Huddersfield and Cardiff this season.
Can anyone beat Murray’s record? Email knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.
What is the fastest debut goal ever scored? (2)
After Jamie Mackie topped the billing in last week’s lead question with a 11-second debut goal for Plymouth, David Carr has gone one better after nominating Brendan O’Callaghan, who scored from a corner on his Stoke debut against Hull in 1977-78, the ball hitting the net 4.4 seconds after play had restarted following his substitution.
“I thought you might have mentioned Alberto Paloschi, then 17-yearsold, who scored on his Serie A debut in 2008 for Milan with his first touch, 17 seconds after coming onto the pitch.” Thanks to John Day for that one.
A number of you also pointed out that Freddy Eastwood scored just 7.7 seconds into his debut for Southend United in 2004. “He got a hat-trick that day,” writes Martin Rogers. “Instant legend.” Eastwood also scored on his debut for Wolves, following a £1.5m switch from Southend, and first cap for Wales in a 1-0 win over Bulgaria in 2007, although both of these goals came on the 45-minute mark.
Consecutive shirt scorers
“Last month, King’s Lynn Town (of the Southern League Premier Division Central) beat Leiston 5-1,” writes Andy King. “Their scorers wore shirt numbers 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, respectively. Have there been any other straight flushes of goalscorers?”“On 11 February 1992, Burnley beat Northampton Town 5-0 at Turf Moor, on the way to the 4th Division title,” answers Chris Rawson. “The five goal-scorers were numbered 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, being respectively Steve Harper, John Deary, John Francis, Mike Conroy amp; Roger Eli.”
Royal football clubs (2)
Mike Coxon adds Northwich Victoria to clubs with a royal connection: the former non-league powerhouse were founded in 1874 and named in honour of the then monarch Queen Victoria, whilst Nick Tolerton pipes up with Scottish juniors Blantyre Victoria, who produced Jock Stein and Billy McNeill.“Gerry [Gerald] Queen played in attack for Crystal Palace in the late 1960s and early 1970s,” emails Tony Thulborn. “After one incident-packed appearance there were tales (probably apocryphal) of newspaper hoardings announcing “Queen in Brawl at Palace”. Knowledge archive
“Can someone please tell me why the Atlético Madrid club crest contains what looks like a bear trying to get jiggy with a cherry tree?” wondered Steve Guy way back in 2007.
Well Steve, you have obviously never been to Puerta del Sol square in Madrid, because you would have seen the 20-tonne statue known as El Oso y el Madroño, a life-size model of a bear doing nothing more than sniffing a Madroño tree.
The story goes that the word Madroño sounds like Madrid, so the tree was adopted as a symbol of the city. Bears used to be common around Madrid, so the two items were thrown together and they now appear on the city’s taxis, buildings and man-hole covers. Atlético added the bear and tree to their badge at some point between 1903 and 1919, and the seven stars on the club crest represent the autonomous region of Madrid (or Big Bear constellation).
Can you help?
“So far this season Nottingham Forest’s Lewis Grabban has managed to miss and score a penalty in the same game on two separate occasions already,” writes Dean Smith. “Is this a record already for this particular feat?”
“My team Dundee FC appointed a new manager recently,” emails Dougie McCrae. “Our first three results were 0-4, 0-3 and now 0-5. Please tell me we’re not the worst ever for a top flight team?”
“It appears that Fulham’s kit designer is having as bad a season as their defensive coach,” muses Richard Hilton. “Fulham have worn five different kit combinations in their first five away matches of the season (red/red; black/ black; blue/blue; white/black; white/ white). Is this a record?”
• Email your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.