Loved by fans since joining Kobe Victory Ship in 2018, Iniesta helped the team win the 2019 Emperor's Cup and enter the AFC Champions League, the team wanted to create a commemorative bronze statue for the Spanish legend. However, according to Japanese media, the plan of the former Kobe Victory Ship to erect a commemorative bronze statue for Iniesta was temporarily shelved due to lack of coordination. Setting up a statue is almost the highest level of recognition for a player by a team, even beyond the retirement of the jersey number. So who has ever had such treatment? Today we'll list a few famous player statues.
Old Trafford gods
On 29 May 2008, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Manchester United's first Champions League victory, the bronze statues of "Manchester United's Three Saints" George Best, Dennis Law and Bobby Charlton were officially unveiled. In addition, Manchester United erected statues for the team's two legendary managers, Busby and Ferguson, in 1996 and 2012 respectively.
Henry, Adams, Chapman, Bergkamp, Freer
There are a total of 5 statues at arsenal's Emirates Stadium, the most famous of which is the prototype of Henry's statue in The Arsenal in The North London derby in Highbury in November 2002, after Henry slipped on his knees. The statue of Bergkamp is based on the classic stop-ball turn of the 2003 match against Newcastle.
Cruyff
Dutch football star Cruyff died of cancer in March 2016. In Cruyff's honor, FC Barcelona erected a 3.5-meter-high statue of him outside the camp at home to 1.5 tons. In addition to this, Ajax also has a statue of Cruyff outside the home stadium.
C Ronaldo statue original author redo a snow before shame?
In 2017, C Ronaldo's statue in his hometown of Madeira, Portugal, sparked an international "out of the loop" discussion due to its distorted and eerie expression. Designer Santos decided to redo the statue for Ronaldo a year later, and he learned the lesson of the last time and decided to make the statue's smile a little more restrained. After the new statue came out, netizens gave it praise.
Memories of the Five Mile River in 2001
On October 7, 2001, the Chinese team defeated Oman 1:0 at wulihe stadium and qualified for the world cup for the first time. In May 2002, Wulihe Stadium built a number of statues, one of which is the most famous V-shaped sculpture of the players. After the demolition of wulihe stadium, the sculpture on the site of the old Shenyang municipal library was rediscovered in 2012. In 2021, due to the unsatisfactory performance of the national football world preliminary round, the statue of Li Tie outside was splashed with paint "hair" by extreme fans.