7-1 is all you need to say to remind Brazilian football fans of their 7-1 humiliation against
Germany on home soil in the semi-finals of the 2014 World Cup. As Brazilian football
legend, Pele would say, football is “The Beautiful Game” but for the Brazilians it
was far from it. The Brazilian national team were missing two of their key players on the
day, defender and captain, Thiago Silva, who was suspended due to an accumulation of yellow
cards and forward, Neymar, who was injured… and still rolling around to this day. By half-time,
Brazil were down 5-0 and the thousands of cheery home supporters were reduced to tears.
Germany then added another two goals in the second-half before Brazil managed to get some
pride back by scoring a consolation goal in the 90th minute. The match finished at 7-1
to Germany and the Brazilian manager at the time, Luiz Felipe Scolari, described the defeat
as the “worst day of [his] life”.
The “Battle of Santiago”, as it was later dubbed, was one of the most vicious and outright
disgraceful displays of football, possibly in the history of the game. The match was
between the host, Chile and Italy in the 1962 World Cup and very early on in the match,
a brawl broke out. But, that was just the beginning as throughout the game, numerous
punches were thrown, some of which you’d see in a boxing match. Just look at this left
hook by Sánchez, he knocked the guy out cold. Not only that but we saw flying Kung Fu kicks
too! The referee had a difficult time controlling the players and the police had to intervene
multiple times to break-up fights. In the end, two Italian players were sent off the
field and Chile won 2-0. The referee who officiated the game, went on to invent two of the most
important things in football: the yellow and red card.
Ah, the infamous “Hand of God”, an England fan’s worst nightmare. Six minutes into
the second-half of the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals between England and Argentina, Maradona put
Argentina in the lead with a controversial goal that is still talked about to this day.
Dubbed the “Hand of God”, Maradona leaped in the air and punched the ball using his
left hand over the England goalkeeper and into the net. Minutes later, Maradona went
on to score the “Goal of the Century” when he dribbled past a few England players
including the goalkeeper and then slotted the ball into the back of the net. Football
wasn’t coming home that day for England and in a post-match press conference, Maradona
famously said the goal was scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with
the hand of God.”
One of the most well-remembered shocking moments in World Cup history came in the 2006 World
Cup final between Italy and France. In the second-half of extra time, French midfielder,
Zinedine Zidane and Italian defender, Marco Materazzi exchanged a few words with one another
before Zidane violently headbutted him in the chest. It was later revealed that Zidane
lashed out due to a rude remark that Materazzi made about his sister. Unsurprisingly, Zidane
was shown a straight red card and was subsequently sent off the pitch in his last professional
football match. Italy went on to win the World Cup for the fourth time after a penalty-shootout
that ended 5-3. You could say that Zidane went out with a bang… literally.
Despite his incredible talent on the pitch, Luis Suárez is known to be a controversial
figure in the history of football. He has bitten several people and at the 2010 World
Cup, he saved Uruguay with a deliberate handball save, but that wasn’t the last of his antics.
With the final whistle nearing between Uruguay and Italy at the 2014 World Cup, Suárez decided
that it was time to feast and Chiellini was on his menu. Suárez ran over to Chiellini
and sunk his fangs into his shoulder before falling to the ground, holding his teeth.
Replays clearly showed the Uruguayan striker biting Chiellini and the bite mark could even
be seen on Chiellini’s shoulder. However, Suárez wasn’t sent off as the referee didn’t
see it. Thankfully, VAR exists now. Following the incident, Suárez was fined 100,000 Swiss
Francs and was suspended from all football-related activity for four months while also being
banned from nine international matches. I wonder if Suárez will bite again and if so,
who’s next on his menu?