Interesting facts about football

1. Football originated in China around 476 B.C. 

2. Football is the most played and most watched sport on earth.

3. Football is the most popular sport in the world. Over one billion fans watch World Cup Football on television.

4. The largest Football tournament saw no less than 5,098 teams. They competed in 1999 for the second Bangkok League Seven-a-Side Competition. Over 35,000 players participated.

5. The maximum number of goals scored by one player in a single Football match was 16. It was scored by Stephan Stanis (France) playing for Racing Club de Lens in December 1942.

6. Based on video evidence, one of the fastest ever scored was in 2.8 seconds by Ricardo Olivera (Uruguay) in December 1998.

7. Football goalies didn't have to wear different coloured shirts from their teammates until 1913.

8. Football players run an average of 9.65 kms during every game.

9. The very first game of basketball was played with a soccer ball.

10. The World's First Football Club was the English Sheffield Football Club. It was founded in 1857 by Colonel Nathaniel Cresswick and Major William Priest, two British Army officers.

11. European Teams have reached every World Cup final, except for the finals of 1930 and 1950.  

12. The highest scoring game was clocked 149-0. Stade Olympique de L’emyrne, a team from Madagascar scored their own goals. They did it as a form of protest for the unfair decision by referee in the previous game.

13. Ronaldinho came into limelight when scored 23 goals in a 23-0 game when he was only

14. Celestine Babayaro, Nigerian born Chelsea player injured his legs while celebrating his debut goal in a pre-season match, while Luigi Riva broke a spectator’s arm with his powerful shot.

15. The first black football player was Arthur Wharton in the 1800s.

16. Pele was the first to call football “the beautiful game”.

17. Only Americans and Canadians call football “soccer”.

18. England came up with the word “soccer”. It’s a shortened version of “Association Football” that was changed to “Assoc Football”. This was changed to “Soccer”. In 19th century England, it was popular to add the “-er” sound to shortened words.

19. In 1964, a referee’s call during a football match in Peru caused a riot that killed over 300 people.

20. In 1998, lightening killed an entire football team. The catastrophe occurred in Congo during a match between the villages of Bena Tshadi and nearby Basangana. 

21. ASEC Abidjan of Cote d’Ivoire was unbeaten for 108 games between 1989 and 1994.

22. The Portuguese boast of scoring the world's greatest goals to game ratio of 1.77. The team has found the net an incredible 331 times in just 187 games for Sporting Lisbon between 1937 and 1949 (compared to Messi's 0.82 for Barcelona).

23. Worldwide, there are 27 professional football clubs that take a Beatles song as their nickname - Villarreal in Spain being the most famous (the Yellow Submarines).

24. Neil Armstrong originally wanted to take a football to the moon - but NASA deemed it to be un-American.

25. The ball used in professional football has remained exactly the same size and shape for 120 years - 28inches in circumference.

Best Education Systems In The World

Education is one of the most important things in the world. Without it our youth would have no guidance in a very difficult world. However, education systems are not universal and unfortunately some are better than the others. Here are some of the best educational systems in the world.

South Korea

2015 has seen the rise of South Korea as the number one educational system in the world. It managed to bump its way from the second best to the best system, all in the span of three years. Korea does this for two reasons. First, they believe in working hard. Kids spend seven days of the week in school and are educated thoroughly in everything they study. Secondly, South Korea spends a lot of money on its educational system. The yearly budget for the system is slightly more than 11 billion dollars. The other Asian countries are major competition for South Korea.

A noticeable statistic about the South Korean educational system is the country is near 100% literate. 99.2% of males in South Korea are literate while 96.6% of females are literate.

Japan

Japan has slid into the number two position. A combination of a hard work ethic and technology play a major role in making the Japanese educational system what it is. No other country deploys technology in education to the extent that Japan does. Kids have access to resources that most other students do not, giving them the ability to get answers to some of the most difficult questions.

Another focus of the Japanese educational system is extracurricular activities. Sports, chess, and other such clubs have been proven to increase the educational value of a school system. In Japan almost all students participate in at least one club, it is expected of them.

Singapore

Singapore makes number three on the list of educational systems in 2015. Singapore has one of the best primary education systems in the world. The primary education system is credited for allow Singapore to jump ahead two places on the list of best educational systems. What is most impressive about Singapore’s educational system is that they built it from scratch.

Another amazing thing that Singapore does is they shift the focus away from the traditional school tasks of rote memorization and repetition and instead focus on deeper education. Conceptual learning and problem-based education play a major part in their educational system. They want students to solve problems on their own with a teacher there to help, should they get lost in the process.

Hong Kong

Next up is Hong Kong; they take a large amount of their education system from the United Kingdom. The educational system is seen over by the Social Welfare Department of the government. Each level of schooling in Hong Kong works together to create an overall educational experience.

The literacy rate in Hong Kong is 94.6, still a pretty high number.

Finland

Finland is an interesting member of this list. For a long time it led educational systems around the world on this list. In 2015 though it got bumped to number five on the list, being replaced by Asian countries. Its drop may be due in part to the increased attention put on school systems by the countries that ousted it.

Unlike many countries, Finland has short school days and fills the rest of the day with school-sponsored educational activities. They believe that there is a good portion of learning to be done outside the classroom. The schools in Finland build the community and help to create identity among the citizens.

The teachers in Finland also go through some of the best education in the world.

While literacy rates may be one method to show the success of an educational system they do not predict the overall value of the system. For example, the United States, which has a 99.99% literacy rate, comes in number 14. More goes into determining what entails a good educational system. For example, one critical area the United States educational system lacks in is real life education.

Having a good education is key in life. Not only does it set you up for success in terms of a career but it also determines how you are perceived socially. A good education allows you to fit in with the higher educated crowds. With how key education is to our success as a world shouldn’t there be a large focus globally on our education?

Coutries by world's fastest internet speeds

With a few clicks on a key board and a swipe of the mouse, we have access to an unprecedented amount of information the likes of which man has never seen before.

But if you have a slow internet connection speed then waiting for that page to load, that video to buffer, or that file to download can feel like an eternity.

Akamai Technologies, a cloud services provider, made a list of the fastest internet connection speeds in the world that shows where the luckiest netizens reside.

Each of these countries is ranked by the average speed of their broadband internet connection in mega bits per second (Mbps), and they are all faster than the United States, which ranks 17th in the world in internet connection speed on the list.

#1 South Korea

Average Mbps: 22.2. Internet speeds have increased 1.6% over the last year.

#2 Hong Kong

Average Mbps: 16.8. Internet speeds have increased 37% over the last year.

#3 Japan

Average Mbps: 15.2. Internet speeds have increased 16% over the last year.

#4 Sweden

Average Mbps: 14.6. Internet speeds have increased 34% over the last year.

#5 Switzerland

Average Mbps: 14.5. Internet speeds have increased 21% over the last year.

#6 The Netherlands

Average Mbps: 14.2. Internet speeds have increased 15% over the last year.

#7 Latvia

Average Mbps: 13. Internet speeds have increased 25% over the last year.

#8 Ireland

Average Mbps: 12.3. Internet speeds have increased 8.4% over the last year.

#9 Czech Republic

Average Mbps: 12.3. Internet speeds have increased 8.4% over the last year.

#10 Finland

Average Mbps: 12.1. Internet speeds have increased 33% over the last year.