Own Goal

A great philosopher once said: “Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days, everybody know what — what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, everybody gets that way.” These words ring no truer then for Ajax youth team goalkeeper Daan Reiziger.

In a quarterfinal match in the UEFA Youth League against FC Midtjylland, Reiziger and his team were in prime position to win. In the 74th minute Reiziger’s team led 2-0 and all he had to do was not make a massive mistake to let Midtjylland back in the game.

If you find yourself bored and without plans during the evening and night, may I suggest turning on the late-night MLS match taking place? The goals seem to rain down in Orlando once the sun goes down and that was made ever apparent during the San Jose Earthquakes’ crazy comeback victory against the Vancouver Whitecaps on Wednesday night.

The match had a little something for everyone: classy finishes, a nightmare own goal, an even more horrific mistake leading to a goal and then a dramatic late comeback with a goal in the last minute of play.

With the 2020 MLS season less than 20 days away, it’s time to prepare for an outpouring of insightful, well-written preview pieces that are met with a churlish “who cares” from social media user Pete_69.

Nearly every FIFA video game player can recall one moment they wanted to rip their hair out and throw the controller out the window. The reasonings may differ, but the majority of the time it’s because of the most blasphemous and ridiculous spell of play that leads to conceding.

The majority of these instances are defended with “that would never happen in a real game” or “a real life player would never make that mistake.”

Scoring a goal is a beautiful thing, as is clearing one off the goal-line from a defensive perspective. But scoring a goal 13 seconds into a match without even touching it? Well it doesn’t get much better than that. It sounds like some serious witchcraft was at play in the early moments of this game. The league should look into that.