Europe

When Robert Lewandowski was 17, he lost his 49-year-old father, Krzysztof, to a heart attack. Shortly after, Lewandowski was told by his youth team, Legia Warsaw, that he would never reach his previous levels of fitness and form following an injury. 

They subsequently released him, the culmination of a terrible year for the young Polish forward. Lewandowski had put football before everything, dedicating himself to the game and he now had nothing to show for it. Forced to grow up quickly in a difficult time, Lewandowski refused to accept Warsaw’s conclusion. 

Most owners are controversial in their own right. Nobody likes to see their club taken over by people who probably just see it as another item for their financial portfolio.

But next time you start to complain, pause for a second, and be glad your club doesn't have these terrible owners. 

The 5 Worst Football Club Owners In The World

5. Maurizio Zamparini - Palermo

David Beckham is a legend of the game, who has played for some of the best clubs in the world and has won almost everything there is to win. Yet his actions off the pitch have almost eclipsed his football career. Here are five reasons why he should be ordained as Saint Beckham. 

5. He donated all his PSG wages to charity.

In what has to be one of the weirdest stories we've come across in awhile, a well-meaning friend tried to find his soccer player buddy a cool place to play some football. That's not exactly weird in and of itself. It's more how he did it. He posted the question on a forum for poker players. 

It started out exactly as you would expect. There was ridicule and nobody really seemed to take him seriously. I mean, really man? How did you think this was going to work? 

The second black player to represent England at any level and the first British player to transfer to Real Madrid, Laurie Cunningham was a footballing pioneer and a legend of his own time. His premature death at 33 years of age cut short the career of a player who “was as good as Cristiano Ronaldo” according to Spanish manager, and former Real teammate, Vincente del Bosque. 

Hey Arsenal fans. Remember Andrey Arshavin? The boyish Russian whose career imploded and collapsed faster than Howard Dean's presidential campaign? Well, things haven't gone so well for the one time Russian player of the year. 

If you watched the Milan derby this past weekend, you may have seen this olive tree ceremony before the game.

The Milan derby was the latest game to see the ceremony take place. Photo: @waatp | Twitter

It's finally here! The end of the January transfer window is almost upon us. The Bale-to-United articles will finally disappear (for at least a week anyway), the squads will be set and business will resume as normal.

As a rule, the January window is always more rumour than substance, but there have been some interesting transfers this window that may have some bearing on the destiny for a few Premier League clubs (or in Aston Villa's case, a lack thereof). Here are ten January transfers that could make an impact.

The 2-15-2016 Chicharito "Look How Dumb Louis van Gaal is" victory tour is rolling right along, with the Mexico National Team/Bayer Leverkusen striker named the Bundesliga Player of the Month for January.

This is the Little Pea's third player of the month win in a row.