In this football language post for learners of English we look at the football expression ‘own goal‘. You can also read the transcript for this post below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
Football Language: Own goal
This week’s football phrase is ‘own goal‘. Now an own goal (sometimes known as an o.g.) is a goal scored by a member of your own team into your own goal (or net) so the goal counts for your opponents! Sometimes there is nothing a player can do to stop this as a ball hits him or her and goes in – usually because of a deflection – but other times a player makes a mistake and scores for the other team. This season one player – Lewis Dunk from Brighton – has managed to score four own goals against his own club which is rather unfortunate indeed. I have had a look at the World Cup statistics on Wikipedia and noticed that there have been 41 own goals in the history of that tournament though none were scored in the last World Cup in Brazil 2014. As for the Premier League, do you know who holds the record for scoring the most own goals? That would be Irish defender Richard Dunne who holds the record of most own goals in top-flight football in England with 10.
Example: Pablo Escobar scored an infamous own goal in the 1994 World Cup against the hosts USA.
Example: An own goal by goalkeeper Kirstie Levell deep in stoppage time gave Everton victory over Leicester City in the Women’s Super League. (BBC.co.uk, September 2022)
A Related Vocabulary
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