Discussion Main / Curse

Wanting to point more Association Football curses such as:

- The tendency of teams to lose when Mick Jagger appears to support them, as happened in 2010 World Cup where all three teams he was supporting lost, and also recently in 2023, where The Rolling Stones were invited to the Clasico derby between Barcelona and Real Madrid with the Barcelona losing the game in the last minute. - Bela Guttman, fired from portuguese team Benfica in 1962 cursed that the team would never win an European championship, since then Benfica has lost seven championship games. - Atlas, from the Liga MX, won its first championship in a close game that prevented their hometown rivals, Chivas del Guadalajara, to get the championship, then the Chivas become to be the most successful Mexican soccer team in the next decade, while Atlas were relegated twice to the Second Division, they have a very close shot to remove the curse in the 1999 Summer Championship where they got defeated in the penalty shoot-out against Toluca. It was until the Apertura 2021 Finals where they got again in the penalty shoot-out against Leon where they were finally broke the jinx and won their second championship, to be followed with another trophy when winning the Clausura 2022 Finals.

I've deleted this section, since as it's written, there's no indication of any sort of curse, just a losing streak. If there's a curse involved, or claimed to be involved, they can be re-added with that information included.

Cycling

• Despite huge national traditions in cycling, no French rider has won Tour De France since Bernard Hinault won in 1985. No French rider was in the top 3 between 1997^note Richard Virenque and 2014.

  • Second curse broken in 2014 by Jean-Christophe Peraud (2nd) and Thibaut Pinot (3rd)

  • It's an achievement in the Pro Cycling Manager (officially licensed game of the race, made by a French studio) series to win Le Tour with a French rider in career mode.
• No French rider has won a Grand Tour (Le Tour, Giro d'Italia^note most recent French winner is Laurent Fignon in 1989 and Vuelta a España) since 1995, the year Laurent Jalabert won every available jersey at La Vuelta.
• No French rider has won Paris-Roubaix (biggest one day race in France, one of the five monuments) since Frédéric Guesdon won it in 1997. In fact, no French rider won any monument^note Milano-San Remo, Ronde Van Vlaandern, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastonge-Liege and Il Lombardia between Jalabert's Il Lombardia win in 1997 and 2016.
  • French monument curse broken as of 2016, where Arnaud Démare; won Milano-San Remo.

Note: I have my eye on moving the Cleveland Browns out of the American Football section and putting a new entry for all of Cleveland in the Multiple Sports entry, but I'm going to wait first to see how the Cavs fare.