Golaço Stories

Aldosivi and Alvarado, despite being two clubs who dwell far from the spotlight, are the protagonists of one of the most fierce derbies in the world. The Argentinian clubs from the city of Mar del Plata play a "clasico" known as Clasico Marplatense, but in recent years it became known as the Clasico Prohibido (Forbidden Derby). The events behind this story, like every good story, mix a lot of fact with fiction so I'll try to keep those two separate. What is definitely a fact is that both clubs hate each other. Around 1988 the matches between Aldosivi and Alvarado started to...

The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, or just Fairs Cup for short, was Europe's first attempt at a secondary continental competition. Founded in 1955, same year as the UEFA Champions League, the Fairs Cup wasn't actually organized by any official soccer entity. Instead, it was organized by the Fairs Cup Committee which was led by certain FIFA executives. At the time, it was common for cities in Europe to host trade fairs and for friendly soccer match to held to promote the event, hence the name of the tournament. In the beginning it wasn't taken too seriously, often cities would send a "national team" of...

Alianza Lima undoubtedly has one of the most unique jersey traditions on the planet. Every month of October the Peruvian club substitutes its tradition blue and white vertically stripped jersey for the a purple one in homage to the Lord of Miracles, the club's patron. The gesture is simple, but the story behind how the tradition began makes it even more interesting. There are conflicting stories, but the most widely accepted version states that in October of 1971 the equipment manager Jose Carrion, who was a devout catholic, ordered purple jerseys to honor the Lord of Miracles without letting anyone know. When...

India historically underperforms in World Cup Qualifiers. Not only has the country of 1.4 billion people never played in a World Cup but it usually never comes close, many times falling behind real minnows.  Despite never participating in a World Cup, India did actually qualify to the 1950 edition in Brazil. India was drawn in a qualifying group with Myanmar, Indonesia and Philippines. All 3 of India's opponents withdrew from the matches and India was left alone as the qualified team from the Asian region. In a decision that would be unimaginable today, India at the end declined its participation...

Some of soccer's most inspiring stories stem from clubs standing for something greater than the sport. Usually this involves standing up for a cause, or representing a specific region or ethnicity. This can be manifested in many ways, today we're going to talk about the clubs who self-impose restrictions on their own rosters in order to maintain an identity. The most famous by far is Athletic Club from Bilbao. The club from the Basque region of Spain maintains an extremely strong bond with the proud area, so much so that it has never fielded a non-Basque player in its 125+...