18 VERY EMOTIONAL SOCCER STORIES - ARTE - 2024

Throughout this article we will remember 18 emotional football stories with which I want to humanize this special world. Among them are those of Maradona, Abidal, Iniesta, Totti, Antonio Puerta, among others.

A friend once told me that his favorite time of the week was when he put on his socks just before jumping to play on a soccer field. You may also be interested in these stories of motivation and improvement.

In this sport that works more like a business every day, we can still find thousands and thousands of stories with truly emotional moments and full of values ​​that have been etched in the retina of the spectators.

1- The miracle of Abidal

Image via: FIFA.COM

"The player Eric Abidal has had a tumor detected in the liver that will be treated surgically next Friday at Barna Clínic Grup Hospital Clínic in Barcelona." With this statement issued by FC Barcelona on March 15, 2011, the captivity of the French side began.

The operation was a success and Abidal was able to return to training with his teammates two months later, entering the squad for a Champions League semi-final match against Real Madrid. The Camp Nou gave him an exciting ovation when he replaced Puyol in the 90th minute and returned to his stadium.

On May 28, 2011, Abidal played the 90 minutes of the Champions League final against Manchester United and lifted the trophy, giving him this privilege Puyol and Xavi, captains of the Catalan team.

2- The emotion of the 'nona'

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AS Roma player Alessandro Florenzi had no doubts about how to celebrate his goal against Cagliari that afternoon in September 2014.

To everyone's surprise, Florenzi jumped the security fence that separates the stands from the ground and began to climb steps and dodge fans to address his eighty-year-old grandmother with a big hug, who was picking up his grandson's gesture through tears of emotion.

3- The ball does not stain

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“Soccer is the most beautiful and healthiest sport in the world. Of that there is no doubt to anyone. Because if one is wrong… that does not have to pay for football. I was wrong and paid. But, the ball… the ball does not stain… »

La Bombonera witnessed how Diego Armando Maradona, one of the best players in history, said goodbye to the courts.

With these words, the Argentine star wanted to remove the thorn that he had nailed by his doping case in the 94th World Cup. Although it was a tribute match, Maradona knew how to give him that extra show that he always developed throughout his career.

4- The consolation of goalkeeper to goalkeeper

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The professional activity of a goalkeeper is very special. A fundamental part of a club, but with a different treatment since his role on the field is very different from the rest of his teammates.

In 2001, Valencia CF repeated the opportunity to play in a Champions League final. The previous year they had faced Real Madrid, but clearly fell 3-0 against the merengue team. On this occasion, they faced Bayern Munich with goalkeeper Oliver Kahn as the great star of the Bavarian team.

After a disputed duel, the match ended in a draw and Kahn and Cañizares, Valencia's goalkeeper, would put the effectiveness of their rivals to the test. Despite the good performance of both, Kahn and his Bayern Munich emerged victorious to the frustration of the Valencian goalkeeper, who began to cry on the ground.

Kahn, forgetting that he was king of Europe, immediately went to comfort his fellow professional, in a gesture that further makes him a true champion. And it is that only a goalkeeper understands another goalkeeper.

5- The battle of the aflitos

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“I was not nervous. I was in the battle of the Aflitos ”. With this forceful statement, Anderson explained his feelings when he took one of the penalties that awarded Manchester United the Champions League title in 2008.

The Brazilian midfielder was referring to an extraordinary game that he had to play in his time at Gremio, a historic team but with serious economic problems that threatened its institutional stability.

Gremio was at stake, in front of the Portuguesa at the Estadio de los Aflitos, to be able to ascend in category. The hostility became latent from the first minute: police pressure, the Guild's supporters prevented from entering the stadium, a very aggressive crowd and above all a referee against it.

2 penalties and 4 reds against were not enough obstacles for a Guild that needed a goal and that achieved it by drawing pride from where there was none. Its author was Anderson, who at the age of 18 became a legend for the tricolor set.

6- The best tribute

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At the end of December 2006, a bus full of Recreativo de Huelva fans was traveling to Madrid to attend their team's match against Real Madrid. However, these followers never arrived at the Santiago Bernabéu because the bus suffered an accident, leaving four fatalities and 35 injured.

From the capital, they mourned for the victims and even the white team announced that it would donate the proceeds from the box office to the family of Huelva fans.

What nobody expected is that the humble Andalusian team would go out onto the field with the passion of a Champions League final or a World Cup final. The result ended with a heroic 0-3, which served as the best possible tribute to the faithful who could never cheer the club of their love for the fatal outcome.

7- Totti's connection with his fans

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Francesco Totti is a football legend in Rome. Linked since 1989 to AS Roma, his entire career has been developed in the Giallorossi group. Your balance sheet? About 800 games and 300 goals.

Despite the fact that his record with the Roman team has not been very wide considering his quality, his loyalty has been such that throughout his footballing stage he has rejected millionaire and superior sports proposals.

For 'Il Capitano' his greatest endorsement to work has been his hobby, with which he maintains an eternal love story as he was able to demonstrate in a match between Roma and Lazio, his greatest rival, at the Olympic Stadium.

Totti, after scoring a goal, went to a band, borrowed a mobile and took a selfie with the thousands of typhoids who celebrated the goal of his admired gladiator.

8- Friendship above all

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Andrés Iniesta achieved football glory by scoring the winning goal in the final of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Spain faced the Netherlands and the manchego managed to beat the net of the tulip team in injury time.

That experience, despite having some epic tints due to the fact that it was only available to very few throughout history, was not reason enough for Iniesta to lose his temper with emotion and remember that under his shirt he carried a message in A tribute to his friend and footballer Daniel Jarque, who died a few months earlier.

“What people see is what my parents have taught me. Feeling happy as a person is superior to any success ”.

9- The scourge of Daniel Alves racism

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Daniel Alves will go on to be remembered as one of the best full-backs and, quite possibly, as the player with the most titles in history. Also, no one will overlook your extravagances and controversies when dealing with any matter.

Alves, along with many other footballers, had to suffer racist insults and boos in many Spanish and foreign stadiums. Although FIFA considers a very serious issue and one that it places a lot of emphasis on solving, it never hit the table as hard as the one the Bahia player landed in a Villarreal-Barcelona match in 2014.

With the intention of getting a corner, the Brazilian midfielder could see a banana being thrown from the stands in order to humiliate him. Neither short nor lazy, he picked up the banana from the ground and ate it in front of the entire Castellón stadium.

Its repercussion reached all the media and hundreds of athletes contributed to viralize the example by posting images of themselves eating bananas on their social networks.

10- Morosini's resilience

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Piermario Morosini was an Italian footballer who lived a very short life full of tragedies. Midfielder for Udinese and Atalanta, he died at the age of 26 due to a heart attack.

In addition, from the age of 15 he had to see how his mother, father and brother who committed suicide died.

The problem was that Morosini had another sister with disability problems, who was left an orphan and without a dependent family member.

Fortunately for her, her friend and ex-teammate Di Natale assumed custody and launched a collaborative process for professional clubs in Italy to help pay for the treatment of the disabled girl's illness.

11- The man who came from hell to save the magpies

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It was during 2013 when Jonás Gutiérrez, a Newcastle player, was diagnosed with testicular cancer that kept him away from the pitch for a year.

Although he had to undergo chemotherapy and suffered some muscle injuries, Gutiérrez once again dons the Newcastle jersey in a clash against Manchester United. Greeted with a standing ovation, the epic finale may have ended here, but fate had glory in store for the Argentine player.

In the last league game, Newcastle played their stay in the first league against Aston Villa. The game, despite going 1-0 in favor of the "magpies", was getting ugly at the insistence of the London team. Until the “Galgo” Gutiérrez appeared and certified the permanence with a goal in the last minutes of the game.

12- The embrace of the soul

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On June 25, 1978, Argentina was crowned for the first time in its history as a World Cup soccer champion. Many were the emotional moments of that final, but none like the one that was experienced at the end of the meeting.

Tarantini, one of the protagonists of the albiceleste team, fell to his knees on the stadium field and his teammate Fillol ran to merge into a hug. But that emotional gesture did not end here.

At that time, Victor Dell Aquila, an Argentine fan who lost his arms during his childhood, jumped the stadium fence and ran like crazy up to the two Argentine players, whom he joined to create the famous “embrace of the soul”.

13- Celtic's source of inspiration

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Glasgow Celtic is one of those clubs from which a thousand stories could be drawn. They are one of the most successful teams in all of Europe and can boast of having counted among their ranks such as Kenny Dalglish, Jimmy Johnstone or Jimmy McGory.

We will focus on one of his most recent milestones, when in 2014 he claimed his 45th league trophy in a record-breaking campaign. The Glaswegian team, after defeating Dundee, celebrated the triumph with their fans.

The emotional moment came when some players like Lennon or Samaras went to the stands to give their medal and make Jay, a young fan with Down syndrome, a part of their party.

As the players have on occasion declared, Jay is a source of inspiration to fight for the club's colors.

14- The Seville that united Puerta

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It has always been said that Seville is very bipolar, football being a clear example of this. Real Betis and Sevilla FC divide a very football-loving city and that therefore coexists with a rivalry that has sometimes led to radicalism.

When Antonio Puerta, Sevilla's hero months before when he won UEFA, passed away at the end of August 2007, the tension between clubs was at a rather critical point. José Mª Del Nido and Manuel Ruíz de Lopera, presidents of both entities, had been facing each other for months and on certain occasions there were situations of real embarrassment to others.

However, in the days after the player's death, signs of solidarity became evident among Sevillian fans and among institutions. The hug in the burning chapel between Del Nido and Lopera was a gesture that will never be forgotten in the city of Seville.

15- Solidarity for Gustavo

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At the end of 2011, the Portuguese international Carlos Martins made public the rare disease that his son Gustavo suffered from. A condition that required a bone marrow transplant and that led to a wave of solidarity in many parts of the world.

At that time, Martins played for Granada CF, a team that wanted to show support for its footballer by setting up tables so that people could donate just before a match against Real Mallorca.

Club and fans had thousands of gestures during that match with the Portuguese player, but the best had to come precisely from his boots. After a start in ¾ of the field, Martins nailed a right hand into the squad that put the entire Los Cármenes stadium on its feet.

16- 'Anims Miki'

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Carles Puyol, emblem of FC Barcelona and the Spanish team, would deserve a single post to list all the gestures of humanity that he has had both on and off the pitch.

We will highlight the immense support that he gave to Miki Roqué, Real Betis footballer, who died in 2012 due to cancer.

From the discretion and without making any noise, Puyol paid for much of the footballer's treatment, in addition to remembering him just after winning the 2011 Champions League, displaying a shirt that said 'Anims Miki'.

17-… and I think to myself, what a wonderful world

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One of the most dramatic stories in the history of world football was when the Munich air disaster occurred in 58, in which 23 people died and as many were injured.

The Manchester United squad was traveling on that flight, making a stopover in Germany after playing a European Cup match in Yugoslavia. 8 footballers of that team died and another 9 were seriously injured, so that the group of "red devils" had to undergo a structural and sports remodeling that was completely healed when in 68 they won the European Cup against Benfica.

During those ten years, many were the tributes and gestures made by those affected by the tragic accident, but none like the one that was experienced that night in which the Manchester team rose for the first time the most important trophy in Europe.

In the hotel where soccer players and managers were celebrating their victory, suddenly the lights went out and silence took center stage. A curtain was lit at the back of the room, which is slowly running until it makes appear, one by one, all the survivors of the disaster. At that moment, United manager Matt Busby began to sing the famous song “What a wonderful world”.

18- The victory of modesty

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There are several cases in which a "Cinderella" gives the surprise and achieves great feats in a competition. The most recent example has been when Leicester City took the title of Premier League champion, just when a year earlier they were fighting to maintain the category.

However, taking into account the importance of the tournament, the feat achieved by the Greek team in the 2004 European Championship in Portugal is remarkable.

Framed in a group formed by the host, Russia and the powerful Spain, the Greek team had all the ballots to go home at the first exchange.

To everyone's surprise, the result was very different, since playing ultra-defensive football, the number 35 in the world at that time was beating rivals until reaching the final with Portugal.

True to form, Greece took advantage of a corner for Charisteas, the Hellenic hero, to head between the three suits and give the most important victory in the history of Greek football.

There are many stories that I stop telling, but surely you could tell me some that you think worthy of appearing in this article. Let me know in the comments below.