Imagine you’re 34-year-old defender Riza Efendioglu at Turkish second-tier club Gaziantep Belediyespor. The team has lost five straight while you were injured, and now you’re back on the field. Imagine you’re 13th in the table (out of 18) and in a relegation battle. Now imagine you’re beating promotion candidates Goztepe 2-1 until stoppage time when the referee awards the opponents a penalty.
You’re angry. You’re frustrated. Then your goalkeeper makes the save, and you want to jump into his arms. You do just that.
Except he’s holding the ball he just saved. And by jumping into his arms, you knock the ball into your own net.
This is a thing that happened. Back on Sunday, this match finished 2-2 thanks to one of the most ridiculous “own-goals” you’ll ever see.
Turkish defender scores most ridiculous own-goal in world football https://t.co/IhYt9ypLFH pic.twitter.com/UjpvrNaIwU
— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) January 26, 2017
Soak that in for a moment. Watch it again, because you know you want to.
I put “own-goals” in quotes because it appears the goal was still awarded to the penalty taker, Muhammet Reis, his second goal of the game. That will keep Efendioglu out of the record books, but we have the video to help this moment live forever as it should.
