11) ‘Fergie’s Fledglings’ retired from professional football
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Sir Alex Ferguson along with his assistant coaches, Brian Kidd, and Eric Harrison embarked on a significant football development campaign that changed the course of Manchester United forever.
In the 1990s, Ferguson trained and developed a number of young, promising footballers like David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil Neville, Gary Neville and Nicky Butt amongst others, who went on to become some of the most iconic players in the history of the club.
After having won innumerable silverwares for a number of clubs including (and mostly) Manchester United, the ‘Fergie’s Fledglings’ retired from professional football in the period between 2011 and 2014.
12) The end of Sepp Blatter’s reign at FIFA
The 80-year-old Swiss football administrator, Sepp Blatter was the eighth and the third-longest serving president in the history of FIFA. He served the organisation in the capacity of a president from 8 June 1988 to 26 February 2016.
Although in a certain way, he was able to increase the influence of football in the Asian and the African countries, Blatter was later charged with corruption, money laundering and financial mismanagement.
Later, upon investigation in October 2015, Sepp Blatter along with other FIFA officials were suspended and later banned from the organisation for a period of six years.
13) Chelsea sacked 10 managers
Since 2000-01, the London-based club has sacked a total of ten football managers. The Russian business magnate, Roman Abramovich acquired Chelsea back in 2003 and quite (un)surprisingly, the Blues has sacked all of their ten managers with Abramovich at the helm.
Infact, quite interestingly, the first scapegoat who had fallen a victim of the wrath of Abramovich was the current Leicester City manager, Claudio Ranieri.
14) Iceland and Wales qualified for their first ever Euro
Iceland and Wales have qualified for their maiden UEFA European Championship that is set to happen in France, later this year. Iceland was pitted in one of the toughest groups of the qualifying competition and has stunned the likes of Turkey and the Netherlands to finish second in Group A just after the Czech Republic.
Wales, on the other hand, had no problem either as they went on to win 6 of their 10 qualifying matches to finish second as well in a relatively easy Group B.
15) Zinedine Zidane became a football manager
The former French international and football legend, Zinedine Zidane was appointed as the manager of Real Madrid on 4 January 2016, after the club dismissed the service of Rafa Benitez.
In his first league match as the manager of Los Blancos, the club defeated Deportivo La Coruna by a massive margin of 5-0.
