Most misspelled football player names in history? (excluding Eastern Europe)

Lay said:
The Maguire one surprises me. Mcguire I’ve seen a lot
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It's a variant spelling. My theory is that the first version you see of something can get hard wired into your brain and can be difficult to shift so if you've a mate or went to school with someone who spelled it a different way, for example, it'll just come out that way if you're not really paying attention. It's like when I took a wrong turn the first time I drove to mates place about two hours drive away in an area I hadn't driven in before. Every subsequent time I drove over I'd have an urge to take the wrong turn again.

Either that, a lot of people just don't care or it's become a piss-take.
 
Chipper said:
I was prone to getting it wrong at one point but was noticing it so many times in that Vieira kicks invader thread last night.

Second 'I' doesn't look like it would need to be in there to say his name correctly, plus there's a range of Panasonic TVs called Viera.
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To say it correctly in English maybe.
 
Bit of an odd one, but I have always struggled with Cannavaro. I've often questioned whether it is a double 'n', a double 'r', or even if there is an 'o' in the middle instead of the 'a'.
 
Don't know whether it was an age thing, but my dad always used to call Ron Atkinson: Ron Atkins, Jaap Stam: Jack Stam and Teddy Sheringham: Terry Sheringham
 
Chipper said:
Not a player but a team/place. Villarreal is tricky, at least for me.

It's that second 'r'. You've got Villa as in Aston Villa or a large, fancy house. Real as in Real Madrid, Betis, Sociedad etc. Doesn't look like it would need an extra one. Used to always get that wrong.
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It's not just that, I think "villar" and "villa" also pretty much mean the same in Spanish, like one is "little village" and the other "little town" or something like that? At least I seem to remember something like that from my two semester of Spanish.
 
I saw the usage of "ö" being mentioned... Lindelöf with the correct pronounciation isn't exactly close to how commentators tend to say it. I've always wondered why the danish/norwegian version of the letters "ä" and "ö" ( Æ and Ø) seems to be used on the back of jersyes, while the swedish/finnish/german isn't.

EDIT: come to think of it... Solskjaer didn't get the correct spelling either. So it might just be the Ö/Ø?

I wonder if germans with the double S (ß) gets it printed on their jerseys if they play in a country where german isn't spoken? Stefan Kießling f.e.
 
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If we include coaches it got to be McClaren as McLaren. Does my fecking head in :lol:
 
harms said:
Isn't that simply the difference between English & Dutch spelling? Like van Nistelrooy/van Nistelrooij; Cruyff/Cruijff etc. I'm not sure if that counts as "misspelling".
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Certainly not misspelling.
But I understand Dutch uses 100% the same letter as English, just different pronunciation, cmiiw.

People still write Jurgen or Juergen, not Yuergen (German), or Mayorca for Mallorca (Spanish).

My guess, some Dutches use English name/spelling legally/officially as an alternative just like some Chinese adopt English names (Michael Chang, Jacky Chan, etc).
Any comment from Dutch member?
 
I noticed many people write "Kross" instead of "Kroos"

Bit off topic but there are also many football clubs which get misspelled regularly. Athletico Madrid or Atletic Bilbao or Bayern Leverkusen (:nono:)
 
Zehner said:
I noticed many people write "Kross" instead of "Kroos"

Bit off topic but there are also many football clubs which get misspelled regularly. Athletico Madrid or Atletic Bilbao or Bayern Leverkusen (:nono:)
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I know, and we can't even put it down to typos because the letters N and L aren't that close on the keyboard :D
 
Greek names

Names with double gg or ff, or tt

Schwensteiger Schweinsteiger Schwensteigier

Oliver Kahn Khan Kanh

Grimm Le Sauce

A. Wenger Wegner
 
Karel Podolsky said:
Certainly not misspelling.
But I understand Dutch uses 100% the same letter as English, just different pronunciation, cmiiw.

People still write Jurgen or Juergen, not Yuergen (German), or Mayorca for Mallorca (Spanish).

My guess, some Dutches use English name/spelling legally/officially as an alternative just like some Chinese adopt English names (Michael Chang, Jacky Chan, etc).
Any comment from Dutch member?
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The variants Y and IJ co existed for quite some time until it was decided that ij should be used for the dipthong and y to represent different sounds.

In the case of Ruud and Cruijff the ij version is official. The Y variation is an anglicized form used internationally.

To make it even more complicated ij can also be spelled as "ei".

Ei, ij and y sound the same and have to be clarified when giving your name in Dutch.

Names using y (where it's pronounced ij) do exist but are rare. They're proper Dutch names where the archaic alternative spelling was maintained and are not anglicized versions.
 
Probably far from the most misspelled name, but "Ronalod" always cracks me up. I have no idea what's so funny about it, it just is.
 
I've seen far too many 'Ramsay's' since Aaron Ramsey has been in Scotland.
 
There is no “I” in “Vieira”. He is the consummate team player. His name should therefore be spelt ”Vera”.
 
Cazorla. My Arsenal supporting mate still mentions him as Carzola.
 
Januzaj. For some inexplicable reason, people love to spell his name "Janujaz".
 
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