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The 7 Most Cringeworthy Football Challenges Ever Posted Online

​Social media can be great, with players often using their platforms to spread positive or funny messages around the world. But then you get the challenges.

Stars seemingly can't resist getting involved in viral trends, regardless of whether they are actually interesting or not.

Here are seven of the most cringeworthy football challenges online.

The Matrix Challenge

We all know just how much Zlatan Ibrahimovic loves attention. When he's not waffling on about being a demi-god or whatever, he is using his social media fame to generate even more publicity, and that's where 'The Matrix Challenge' comes in.

The challenge is to kick the ball onto your chest and then lie back and pretend you're in The Matrix, which just looks a bit weird. He challenged the likes of ​Paul Pogba and Mino Raiola to replicate the video, and he also sent out an invitation to UFC giant Khabib Nurmagomedov.


Khabib's response to Ibrahimovic's ​Instagram post? 'B******t'. Yeah, sounds about right.

The Bottle Cap Challenge

'The Bottle Cap Challenge' began in the martial arts world but quickly found its way to football when people realised they were good at kicking stuff.

Of course, Ibrahimovic had to join in in the trend, which is all about kicking a cap off a bottle, but there were efforts from the likes of Pogba, ​Loris Karius and Rodri. 

Admittedly, this one was fairly impressive to see, until ​Sergio Ramos got involved. The Spaniard ​attempted the challenge using his tongue instead of his foot, which only ended up looking weird, rather than impressive.

The Dele Alli Challenge

Remember when ​Dele Alli did that weird thing with his hands, and then everyone tried to copy him? What a dark time for the internet that was.

We would try and explain what Alli's celebration was, but we still don't really know how he did it. Nevertheless, all it was was footballers just bending their fingers in weird directions. 

Thrilling, right? But wait, there's more.

The Dele Alli Challenge 2

Instead of bending one finger, Alli upped the ante by deciding to bend two to make it look like he was using some knock-off binoculars. 

There was even tutorials online about how to do it, like people actually cared enough. It wasn't even a celebration, it was just the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder doing something weird.

Of course, it took the world by storm, because the internet clearly had nothing better to do that day.​

The JLingz Challenge

Jumping on the bandwagon of people doing weird things with their hands was ​Manchester United's ​Jesse Lingard.

The ingeniously named 'JLingz Challenge' was just Lingard doing some weird hand motion...thing. Was it a challenge? No. But did people care about it? Still no.

Can we please put an end to these non-challenging challenges?​

The Fella Challenge

Right, full disclosure, ​'The Fella Challenge' was actually pretty funny, but it was about as far from a challenge as you could possibly imagine.

A tribute to former Manchester United midfielder Marouane Fellaini, this consisted of footballers posting pictures of themselves pulling a funny face as they hit the ball. Was the challenge being able to upload a picture on Twitter?

Plus, did the world just forget that ​Phil Jones exists? He is the master of weird faces, after all.

The Neymar Challenge

'The ​Neymar Challenge' involved people flopping to the ground like they had been shot, as a tribute to the theatrical antics of Brazil winger Neymar. It was largely untouched by the football world, until Neymar himself joined in.

​Filming himself in front of a crowd of children, the group all dropped to the floor and started screaming in fake pain. Hilarious.

'Ooh, look at me. I'm funny and down with the kids'. Cringe.


Source : 90min