EURO 2024 passed the group stage with one of the "highlights" being the proliferation of own goals - 7 goals. Who is on this "suffering" list?
It's hard to believe, but heavyweights like France and Spain both won by own goals.
At the last European football festival (EURO 2020), there were quite a few own goals - 11, but the tournament taking place in Germany shows signs of... surpassing them when just passing the group stage of EURO 2024, it has witnessed 7 times of that happening.
The owners of these unwanted goals were Rudiger who "opened" the match in Germany's 5-1 victory over Scotland. Next was Maximiilian Wober of Austria who helped France get 3 points on the opening day.
Robin Hranac (Czech Republic) opened the turning point - equalizing for Portugal after his team scored first, thereby helping the opponent win 2-1.
In the second match, Klaus Gjasula (Albania) suffered because he created an advantage for Croatia to lead 2-1 before he himself made up for his mistake and brought a 2-2 draw in the 5th minute of extra time.
And in the big match between Spain and Italy, Group B EURO 2024, Riccardo Calariofi became the "sinner" who gave the Spanish opponent an early ticket to the round of 16.
Samet Akaydin (Türkiye) became the next name to be 'enrolled' in the... unforgettable list, contributing to Portugal's easy 3-0 victory, booking an early ticket to the round of 16 of EURO 2024.
If the first 6 own goals were divided evenly over the 2 matches, then in the final match of EURO 2024, only Donyell Malen of the Netherlands… harmed the home team – opening the score early for Austria, which was no different from adding momentum to Ralf Rangnick's army to have a resounding 3-2 victory later.
TH (synthesis)