Those who follow football, with special reference to the woes of Manchester United (how could they get beaten 5-3 by the minor side of Leicester after having been 3-1 up?) may have missed a game on Sunday, because it was not part of the English Premier League but the lesser known Capital 1 Cup, and I am not sure it was even broadcast live on DSTV. It was a game of Liverpool against another northern city of Middlesborough, and thirty 30 kicks were needed to decide the game, Liverpool eventually the victor by 14 to 13.
It was rightly hailed as an epic shoot-out, but it was not the longest of all time in a professional match. That honour belongs to Namibia. I actually don't remember it - maybe I was out of the country at the time, but it was January 2005 and the match was KK Palace v FC Civics Windhoek - KK Palace won 17-16, a shoot-out involving 48 kicks, after a 2-2 draw after full and extra time.
This is a tally officially acknowledged as a world record. KK Palace ultimately held their nerve to win the cup. According to the Times of London, Titus
Kunamuene, the head of competitions at the Namibian FA, spoke for many
inside the ground when he told CNN: “At the end of the game, everybody was
more relieved than anything else.”
See: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/article4216623.ece
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