Fails

This past week, we've been treated to two of the most wildly mishit shots you’ll see all season. Just to be clear, we're not trotting out some amateur videos from a far-flug corner of the footballing world, these hilarious attempts at completing the most basic action in soccer are brought to you by 44-million-pound-man Angel Di Maria and Robert Huth, the center half for Premier League leaders Leicester City. These are shanks of the highest standard. 

It's a fail off!

Most of the time when you see a team bearing down on goal like Legia Warsaw is about to do in this next video, you expect to be thrilled. The speed of play involved pushes players to their absolute limits. Success is a matter of passing with pinpoint accuracy, maintaining composure, and knowing when to finish.  Anything less results in a wasted opportunity. 

Face planting is literally one of the most simultaneously hilarious and embarrassing things for a human to do. It’s universal. Our faces allow us to interact and empathize like nothing else in the known universe, and when thenyend up flat against the ground with our feet 3 feet above and behind, you have no choice but to laugh or cringe. Case in point, this soccer player face plant.

Santos was playing in the first led of the final of the Copa do Brasil when Nilson found himself with a golden opportunity to score on an open net against Palmeiras. 

A missed opportunity is usually something that haunts you. You don’t want to think about it anymore, and really there is no point; you can’t reverse time and correct mistakes. This video, however, is something different. There’s a kind of wonder to be found in the greatest near misses compiled in it. They say that somethings are better left to the imagination, and I think that applies here in a unexpected way: we don’t know how great these goals would have been had the ball actually gone in, and that allows us to imagine them being something better than perhaps they really would be.

There’s a saying that goes, “to err is human; to forgive, divine." The 21st century brought an addition to that saying: to really screw up takes a computer. And, now, it seems soccer has added a fourth line to the party: to colossally f*** up takes a goalkeeper. We know this new addition to be true because of this footage of a goalkeeper nutmegging himself. Wrap your mind around that last sentence, and then watch this video of a goalkeeper nutmegging himself. 

Once in a long while you witness a ridiculous goal that captures the imagination with its stunning technique or simply vicious power. Rapid Wien's Philipp Schobesberger has provided us with a mesmerizing goal that defies all of those precedents. 

Greetings from the Dutch division, where a player ostensibly dies and play goes on as if he wasn’t there. That might sound like a bit of an over reaction but once you see Cas Peters of De Graafschap get cracked in the head by his own teammate’s shot, and see how his teammates end up playing harder once he’s down, you’ll understand. 

Innovation is a game changer. The ability to put forward an exceptional idea, a more effective process or a brilliant new device has always been synonymous with success in the soccer world. This can go the other way though, with the worst soccer innovations making clubs and players look extremely silly.

Whether that success is then measured on the pitch, in the television ratings or with regards to the club’s bottom line, the game’s movers and shakers are always looking for bigger and better solutions. 

Oh, goodness. Something bad happened here. This guy might be the worst teammate ever.

There's a phrase used in nearly every sport by nearly every coach at some point. That phrase is "head on a swivel." When someone tells you to keep your head on a swivel, that means you need to be more aware of your surroundings.

Li Jianbin did not have his head on a swivel here, as he went up to attempt a bicycle kick. 

These two guys make up the worst medics ever. They shouldn't even qualify as medics. They clearly don’t get it. They don’t even want to get it by the looks of it. They are medical help at a Greek second division game between Ergotelis and AE Larissa, and they — I mean come on, just look at them, they can’t even carry a stretcher.