Why have there been so many own goals at the Euros? The bizarre Euro 2020 trend, explained by football experts
The first came in 1976, when Czechoslovakia’s Anton Ondrus put through his own net in a semi-final against the Netherlands in Belgrade.
We then waited another 20 years before Lyuboslav Penev did likewise for Bulgaria against France. Northern Irelan’s Gareth McAuley was the last man to add his name to the list in 2016. What started as a trickle, though, has turned into a Europe-wide flood.
With 11 so far in Euro 2020, what on earth is going on? i caught up with some leading figures from across football in a bid to find out.
There is a lot of stress in this tournament. Too many defenders are focusing only on the ball, not on what is behind them, or what is going on around them. There have been too many stupid own goals. But this is about stress, it’s about pressure, it’s about reacting to a situation.
I don’t know, maybe defenders aren’t talking to each other enough, maybe this is about communication too. We see a lot of composed defenders bringing the ball out of defence.
