Weekend Quiz Answers: Who Were Those World Cup Goal Scorers?

By: Laurie | March 29th, 2009

Yes, this was a tough quiz, given that I didn’t give you any time parameters. The goals were scored over a forty-year period, from 1966 to 2006. And yet you still managed to guess 13 of the 14. Well done!

What’s fun about these quizzes is that when multiple countries are represented, I can always count on a France fan to recognize the French players, an England fan to recognize the English, a Brazilian fan to recognize the Brazilians, etc. etc. etc. This means that the correct guesses are spread out over multiple people, which always makes it interesting.

Mat was our top guesser this week, with 9/14. (Which is extremely good, considering the breadth of knowledge it took to do well on this quiz.) Well-played, Mat!

Player 1

Henrik Larsson, Sweden

First photo is the original, second is just because I liked it. (Those are some serious dreads.) I think it was taken circa 1994?

I wasn’t sure anybody would see Larsson — those eyes don’t scream “Sweden” to me — but Greg got it right. Nicely done!

Player 2

Roberto Carlos, Brazil

Congrats to Mat, first to see our first Brazilian.

Player 3

Jurgen Klinsmann, Germany

Searching out old photos for these quizzes is a bit like doing those Magic Eye puzzles. You squint and unfocus and turn your head side to side, trying to decide if it really is who the Google Image Search says it is. That was the case for the second photo. (Which is him, btw. I’m sure of it now, but wasn’t on Friday when I wrote the quiz.)

So instead I used the first photo, which was so obviously Klinsmann that I could only give you a shot of his hair without making it too obvious. Hair which Mark was first to identify.

Player 4

Robbie Keane, Ireland

I didn’t see Keane in these eyes, but Harvey did. Nice job.

Player 5

Christian Vieri, Italy

Since this is the perennially undressed Bobo Vieri, I almost feel I should include an unclothed photo, just so you’d know it’s reallly me writing this. But…no.

Congrats to Mat, first to see Vieri.

Player 6

Dennis Bergkamp, Netherlands

The main reason I included Bergkamp was because this photo was adorable. It’s not great quality, though, so I wasn’t sure anybody would recognize him. I shouldn’t have worried. Congrats again to Mat, first to see Dennis.

Player 7

Lilian Thuram, France

As we all know, I love doing these quizzes because I can recognize my favorite players. I don’t get much opportunity to give Thuram the love he deserves now that he’s retired, so I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to make everybody remember 1998 World Cup semis, Croatia game, two goals. The only international goals he ever scored.

Congrats to Polska, first to see Thuram.

Player 8

Sir Bobby Charlton, England

I swear, I will never make fun of Cristiano Ronaldo’s hair gel again. At least till next time.

Congrats to “b,” first to see Sir Bobby.

Player 9

Rivaldo, Brazil

Congrats again to Mat, first to see Rivaldo.

Player 10

Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Mexico

Blanco was the only player not identified. Not surprising, since there weren’t any really good photos available. Even so, I kind of expected somebody to discover him while looking for my token MLS player for the week.

Player 11

Clint Dempsey, USA

Is the top photo the worst you’ve ever seen or what? I swear, I’m not trying to humiliate the guy — as you can see from the whole photo, it didn’t look that bad before I cut it!

Congrats yet again to Mat, first to see Dempsey.

Player 12

Bixente Lizarazu, France

Because, again, if I can’t use these quizzes to post photos of my favorite players… Well, what good are they? Congrats to lefutur, first to see Liza.

And I’m not sure I should post this, except that what else am I going to do with all of the interesting stuff I find doing these images searches?

(For the record, Lizarazu is emphatically and unquestionably straight, but I don’t think he minds all that much being a gay icon. Anybody know the story behind this photo?)