Golaço Stories

Imagine a club having a crest so divisive that it created controversy with fans, players and staff for over 80 years. This is what America de Cali has to constantly deal with, the Colombian clubs crest has always split opinions and will most likely continue to do so for generations to come. This story begins in the 1930's, when America was founded and began sporting their first crest on their jerseys. The crest was pretty standard, it featured the South American continent with the name of club written around it, all in red and white. In the early 1940's America made...

The collapse of the Soviet Union occurred in December 26th 1991, in the world of soccer however the date is January 23rd 2016. After the union between the Soviet states dissolved there was an attempt to continue the legacy with soccer. In 1993 the CIS Cup was inaugurated, the Commonwealth of Independent States Cup. The participants were the champions of all former Soviet republics plus Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The regional tournament, recognized by FIFA, drew significant interest by both the fans and the clubs, at least in the beginning. As the years went by the Russian and Ukrainian clubs,...

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...