Own Goal Marksmen

We always hear all about the great goals players score for their teams, but what about classic own goals players score against their own team?

Goals that at times are of bigger importance and meaning than a regular goal. They deflate a team and a player. They crush the confidence of a player and a team. They are a terrible thing that’s unique to soccer and perhaps hockey.

More often than not, own goals come from from accidental deflections off of free kicks or corners. Usually resulting when players try to clear or block the bal and itl instead goes laser like into their own net. Sometimes these own goals are near perfect strikes that rip the back of the net, and of course surprise their own keeper, their own team, their coach, and their fans.

These are goals that players, usually defenders who don’t score many goals as it is, could never duplicate again if they tried a hundred times. As Frank says in

Seinfeld: It was a million to one shot, Doc.

Then there are the miss hit back passes to keepers and headers that were supposed to go out of bounds and not in their own net. There are a broad range of own goal types, and it seems, no player is immune to the embarrassment from time to time. But for the most part, as you would think, defenders and keepers suffer the fate of the own goal the most.

These are goals that the goal scorer would like to erase from their memory. Unfortunately, for these goal scorers, we’ve gathered together some of the most important own goals of the past few years. Goals that have put their teams out of major competitions and goals that have destoryed careers and even lives.

• Jamie Carragher – He always seems to be scoring, against his own team that is. Just this past weekend he scored a goal for Tottenham Hotspurs
• John Arne Riise – Champions League goal essentially put Liverpool out of the tournament and he was traded to Roma the next year – not sure if there was a direct correlation but there must have been some
• Jonathon Woodgate – First game back from injury and he scores for Real Madrid, not for them but against them I mean
• Philip Neville – His goal helped his old club, Manchester United win the league. If there was ever a case for corruption this might be it.
• Paul Robinson – The England keeper’s miss-kick after a Gary Neville back pass helped England miss out on Euro 2008
• Rio Ferdinand – His seemingly soft back pass went too far. Even the best of them score an own goal every now and then
• Richard Dunne – He’s the captain of the cash rich Manchester City side, but scores more own goals than anyone else in the league
• Andres Escobar– Sadly, he was killed shortly after this goal in the World Cup for the United States.

Top Ten Classic Own Goals

Here are some other classic own goals from years past.

Top Ten Own Goals

Here are some own goals from all over the world.

Check out this MLS own goal of the year.

What I love is when a player scores an own goal and then sets his sights on making up for this directly and scoring a real goal for his team. Which actually happens quite often. It’s all about forgetting the mistake and moving on – even a grave mistake like an own goal.