Barcelona just make it all look so easy. When Lionel Messi elected to pass when taking a penalty shot last February, Luis Suarez easily capped off the audacious ploy as Barcelona destroyed Celta Vigo. It looked so simple, and everyone around the world wondered why that’s not done more often.
There’s a famous SpongeBob SquarePants episode called “Idiot Box” where both SpongeBob and his best friend, Patrick Star, inhabit an empty cardboard box, allowing them to climb mountains, launch space shuttles and venture to “Robot-Pirate Island”, all with the power of their own imagination.
Another season is about to end, and while some people may want to remember all the great things that have happened this year, some people clearly want to bask in the s***. The shameful, shambolic, embarrassing, down right bone-headed s***. I am talking about the worst goals of the season, of course.
Minnesota United FC captain and defender Justin Davis has created one of the most enviable traditions in the world of soccer. Beginning in September of last year, Davis began the custom after scoring the go-ahead goal against Indy Eleven at Minnesota’s National Sports Center.
Sprinting towards the supporters in the Budweiser Beer Garden at the North End of the stadium, Davis began motioning towards revellers in the section and asking for a sip.
Justin Davis begins the chugging tradition (skip to 4:56 for the libation):
Having failed to score a single Premier League goal all season, Karim Benzema was apparently left on the bench for Crystal Palace's crucial London derby clash against Arsenal. We were unaware that he had ever signed for the south London club, but hey...shows what we know.
In case you missed it, here was the original #cpfc tweet. With Benzema on the bench pic.twitter.com/LXsEAOk0Qk
It takes a certain type of person to pull off a panenka penalty. You either need to be an artist like Andrea Pirlo, possess a samba-style flair like Neymar, or have pure uninhibited confidence and technical prowess like Ross Barkley. Hibernian's Jason Cummings has precisely none of the above, but that didn't stop him from giving it a go against Dundee United in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
Today we bring you to the Oceania Champions League in order to see some of the most marvelous incompetence you will ever see. The following own goal isn’t just bad, it’s world-class bad. As in you could line up 99% of the players on the planet in this same situation, and they wouldn’t be able to score an own goal.
Goal keepers really aren’t supposed to pull off moves. In fact, they are so not supposed to pull off moves, that when they do they take everyone by surprise and usually work.
Case in point: Simon Mignolet during Liverpool vs Borussia Dortmund. Notice how Liverpool’s Mignolet is being closed down hard by Dortmund’s Pierre Emerick Aubameyang.
I did not see this coming at all when I went to review the aftermath of Real Madrid’s shocking loss to Wolfsburg in the Champions League quarter-finals, but apparently Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos knocked a tooth out of Wolfsburg full-back Vieirinha’s mouth.