Bizarre incidents in football (mainly in FIFA World Cup™)

1. Claudio Caniggia of Argentina was sent-off from the substitution bench in the match against Sweden in the FIFA World Cup™ 2002.

2. In the World Cup™ 2002 qualifiers in Oceanian group, American Samoa had major difficulties in finding enough players against Australia. So, they fielded an amateur side that included several high-school students who were barely old enough to play in a senior national team. Australia thrashed them 31-0.

3. The most diplomatic piece of referring has been seen in the final match of 1930 FIFA World Cup™ in Uruguay. At the outset of the final between Uruguay and Argentina, a dispute erupted about the ball. Belgian referee John Langenus decided that each half would be played with a ball from one of the teams. Argentina won the draw and kicked off the first half with an Argentinian ball. The second half was then played with a Uruguayan ball.

4. During the France-Kuwait match at the FIFA World Cup™ in 1982, a spectator in the stands blew a whistle and the Kuwaiti players stopped, thinking it had been the referee. Giresse of France took the opportunity and scored. When referee Stupar gave the goal, the Kuwaiti prince came down from the stands and threatened to take the Kuwaiti team off the field, upon which Stupar gave in and disallowed the goal. The next day, the referee was suspended and the Kuwaiti FA fined USD 11,000, which they paid out of the petty cash.

5. The match that became an own-goal contest (Not in FIFA World Cup™): There is record of a Barbados-Grenada situation in the Caribbean Cup qualifiers in 1994. Barbados needed to win by a margin of two goals to progress to the next round. There was a rule in place at the time which stated that, should the match have to be resolved on sudden death extra time, the goal will count double meaning the winner would be awarded a 2 goal victory. With just five minutes to go, Barbados were leading 2-1 and on their way out of the tournament. Since they were unlikely to penetrate Grenada’s tight defence, they scored an own goal and levelled the scores. Grenada quickly realised what was going on and attempted to score an own goal themselves, whereupon Barbados started defending the Grenadian goal, and for the last five minutes of the game, the spectators were treated to the rare sight of of Grenada trying to score in either goal. Barbados also defended both ends of the pitch, and held off Grenada for the final five minutes, sending the game into extra time. In extra time, Barbados notched the game-winner, and, according to the rules, was awarded a 4-2 victory, which put them through to the next round.

Sources:
www.fifa.com
www.wikipedia.org