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In last week's Wigan v Liverpool game we heard the frankly astonishing news that Stewart Downing had scored.
With a header! What next, Emmanuel Adebayor with a lung bursting run in the 90th minute?
What's the most unexpected thing you've ever heard or seen on a football pitch? Omid?
Well, err, for me the most extraordinary thing was I remember Terry Venables became manager of Australia and there was a World Cup play off, actually with my country, Iran.
and it was a two leg play off I think at the Azardi stadium in Tehran. It was 1-1 and in the first half I think Kewell got a goal, I think Viduka got a goal, I think it was two-nil.
and with about 15 minutes to go there was a famous guy in Australia, he was a nutcase who parachutes into events.
he parachuted into Vegas in a boxing match
he parachuted into the stadium, during the game. With 15 minutes to go he comes in, and the crowd's cheering, and he lands in the Australian goal and gets caught up in the nets
so it takes about 5 minutes to cut him out
so everyone's laughing, Venables is laughing, the Australian players are having a drink
and if you look over everyone starts laughing at the Iranian team because they've got into a huddle
and they start doing Muslim prayers. They're going down like this - the whole team and they're really galvanized
and they come up and of course they've got to get 2 goals to go through on the away goals
and they score 2 goals and they go through. I think they're trying to kill the parachutist because he was the one who didn't just distract the game but
gave that kind of Muslim spiritual power to the Iranian team
who prayed solidly for 5 minutes, scored the two goals and went through to the 1998 World Cup finals.
Did they think he was some kind of message from heaven
They thought he was sent by Mohammed, they actually thought that. It wasn't a comedy they go this is a sign.
That is quite an unexpected thing to see
And then in the papers they said the whole of Australia was laughing at us
and they came through and scored two goals
and of course they went through to the World Cup and they played America and they beat America and they thought there was some kind of spiritual power
I remember the game against America, I was in Golders Green high street that evening, getting a bagel
and after, sorry, this is one of the most Jewish stories you will ever hear
and erm, err, after the game loads of Iranians came down in limousines
waving Iranian flags - let's go and wind up the Jews
that was their Filipino servants waving the flags actually