The pursuit of victory can often lead players to take drastic measures, whether it be extra work in the gym, or perhaps restricting what they eat. However, a select few down the years have revealed some rather odd pre-game rituals that, once established as a potential winning voodoo, can not be stopped. With it being Friday 13th – a notoriously unlucky day for superstitious types – we take a look at some of the most ridiculous superstitions in football below.
- To celebrate Friday 13th here at SportsLens HQ, we explore football’s bizarre superstitions
- Including kissing Fabien Barthez’s bald head and the Chelsea team all using the same urinal
Most Ridiculous Superstitions in Football
Pele’s Lucky Shirt
During a perceived period of struggle during his career (hard to fathom), Pele believed his difficulty finding the net was directly tied to a shirt he had handed to a fan after a game.
Brazil’s greatest footballing export, a man who scored over 1000 goals for club and country, believed his knack for finding the goal stemmed from a lucky shirt.
The story goes that he employed a detective to go and retrieve the shirt from the Santos fan, and after it was located, Pele donned it the following game. His dry spell was cut short and he tapped into to his usual goalscoring exploits, thanks to what he thought was the return of his lucky shirt.
However, it was later revealed that the detective had simply handed him a different shirt from a previous game.
It’s a comforting thought that a goal-laden period of Pele’s career can be attributed to a placebo.
Johan Cruyff’s Belly Slaps
Johan Cruyff was one of the coolest men to grace the game, elegantly flitting across the pitch while simultaneously operating with suave sophistication off it.
The three-time Ballon D’or winner certainly doesn’t strike us a man who would need pre-game superstitions, but it could be argued Cruyff’s ritual is one of the more bizarre ones on this list.
While sharing a dressing room at Ajax in the mid-to-late ’60s, Cruyff would religiously land a slap on the belly of goalkeeping teammate Gert Bals. The superstitions don’t stop there however; just before the game started and both teams were lined up for the whistle, he would proceed to spit his chewing gum so it landed in the opposition half.
One of the founding fathers of ‘total football’ is later said to have been highly critical of players who indulged in superstitions, presumably when he peeled back the reality of football management.
Kolo Toure’s Embarrassing Moment
Kolo Toure’s personal superstition dictates that he must be the last player out of the tunnel.
This never appeared to cause a problem, and as history would show, this ritual certainly didn’t do any harm when collecting eight trophies for club and country.
However, whilst representing Arsenal in his last season for the Gunners, Toure’s insistence on entering the field last led to what he described as his most “embarrassing moment” across a near-two decade-long career.
The second-half of Arsenal’s last-16 tie against Roma had already kicked off by the time Toure re-emerged from the tunnel. The Ivorian had been waiting for teammate William Gallas to finish receiving treatment, but the pair were both left red-faced when they scuttled out from the tunnel to see their side playing with nine men.
It also resulted in a booking for Toure, who bounded onto the pitch without permission from the referee.
Chelsea’s Lucky Urinal
This next one can be directly linked back to the king of superstitions, John Terry. The Chelsea legend has never been shy when revealing some of his more unusual rituals, such as refusing to touch the ball in the dressing room, listening to the same Usher CD on the way to games, and sitting in the same seat on the bus to away matches.
However, this one is perhaps the best of all and one that the entire Chelsea dressing room is said to have adopted.
Speaking to the Sun in 2016, Terry said that although there were three urinals in the dressing room, him and Frank Lampard would exclusively use just one of them.
He said: “We won that game and, for me, that was it, the next week there was a queue of me, Frank and Ash. The next week there were four of us and the week after there were five.
“And even now, up until today, you have Cesar Azpilicueta and Cesc Fabregas, we are all there in one big queue.
“A few months ago the club secretary said to me: ‘We have had a few calls from the FA complaining because we have been going out late’ and I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was because we were all waiting to go for a wee.”
Fabien Barthez’s Bald Head
Did planting a peck on Fabien Barthez’s bald head win France their first ever World Cup?
The 1998 French team may well attest. Former Manchester United defender Laurent Blanc first started this bizarre superstition, when he kissed Barthez’s bright and shiny bald head prior to kick off.
It would later rub off on the rest of the Les Bleus squad, who would one by one routinely land a cheeky peck on the goalkeeper’s head.
Believe what you want, but it’s nice to think a first ever World Cup, followed by a Euro triumph two years later, was all down to France’s clean-shaven lucky mascot.
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