Golaço Stories

To end this series we're going to quickly go through some honorable mentions that don't have a deeper story but are worth knowing. Netherlands, Portugal and Greece all adopted the Italian created system of a gold star for every 10 championships. Israel, Turkey and Russia have the same system but for every 5 championships. It is also important to note that as of 2013 Russia has recognized and unified the titles from the USSR era. Fenerbahce, on the other hand, is fighting with the Turkish federation for recognition of titles they won before 1959 when the Turkish Super League as...

Stars are not always placed above the crest, some clubs decided to go in a less traditional route and placed the stars within their crests. Some are symbolic, some are commemorative, but some become a problem. Aston Villa is a good opportunity to touch upon England, a country where clubs don't have the culture of placing commemorative stars over their crest. Nottingham Forest does have 2 stars for their UCL titles, and Aston Villa placed a discrete star within in crest to also represent its continental title. Chapecoense from Brazil also has a discrete star within its crest, place right...

France has the exact same rule as Italy, 1 star for every 10 national titles. However, the application of this rule isn't as black and white as the rule itself. Saint-Etienne was the first French club to reach 10 national titles in 1981, an achievement that is celebrated with a big star on their crest with French flag colors. Olympique Marseille is the only other French club with a star on it's crest but it is not for 10 national titles (they have 9), but for their 1993 UCL championship. To this day OM is the only team from France...

The scenario is as follows: It is the 1994 CONCACAF Caribbean Cup qualification round, Barbados and Grenada face each other on the last match of their group. Grenada is first in the group and Barbados needs to win by a goal difference of 2 to qualify.  The match was progressing in a routinely fashion, Barbados scored the two goal it needed but at the 83rd minute Grenada got one back and that's where things got weird. The rules of this qualifying tournament stated that tied games went to overtime, and goals in overtime were worth double. This created a circumstance...

Similarly to Brazil, Liga MX also doesn't have set rules for championship stars on clubs crests, however, it's not as random as the Brasileirão.  Clubs like Cruz Azul, Santos Laguna, Leon, Xolos, Necaxa, and others, have a star for every league title they've won. Pachuca has it's stars separated in two section. The blue stars above the crest are the national Mexican titles it won, while the gold stars underneath are international titles. Interestingly, 4 of those are CONCACAF titles but 1 is the CONMEBOL Copa Sudamericana, a South American tournament were Mexican clubs were periodically invited. To this day...