You don’t expect to see things like this in international soccer.
Slovakia defender Martin Skrtel scored an own goal because goalkeeper Jan Mucha … Well, we’re not sure what Mucha was doing.
What we do know is that Skrtel’s goal decided a crucial FIFA World Cup qualifier between Slovakia and Greece. The 1-0 victory kept the Greeks’ hopes directly qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup alive, and ended Slovakia’s in a tragic way.
In the 44th minute, Skrtel made a routine back-pass to Mucha, but the Slovkia ‘keeper let the ball roll underneath his foot and go straight into the goal. The pass came as no surprise. Skrtel didn’t hit it with much speed. There’s simply no way to explain how Mucha missed it. Skrtel got the credit, but Mucha can go ahead and shoulder the blame.
It’s rare to see such a calamity in any soccer game at any level, let alone at the highest.
See Skrtel’s own goal in the video below.
<iframe width=”640″ height=”480″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/_y6lJMkpuio” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
Have a question for Marcus Kwesi O’Mard? Send it to him via Twitter at @NESNsoccer or @mkomard, his Facebook page or NESN Soccer’s Facebook page or send it here. He will pick a few questions to answer every week for his mailbag.
