World Cup 2018: Trending from Russia

Let the comedy of errors come to an end!

Finally, the number of own goals and howlers happening in this World Cup is astonishing. The maximum number of own goals till date happened in 1998 World Cup with a number of 6 out of a total 171 goals. So far, we have already seen 5 own goals and that too when round 3 of the group stages is still ongoing! Now let’s add to that the howlers that have happened so far, starting from one of the best goalkeepers of today – David de Gea of Spain vs Portugal. Probably the costliest howler so far has been conceded by Willy Caballero of Argentina against Croatia as that became the turning point of the match which Argentina would love to forget soon.

Are these cases just simply coincidences that are likely to taper out as we go towards the knockouts? Or are these cases of players having tremendous low confidence and unable to cope up with the pressure of the situations? Or is it that these are cases of players and teams becoming too over-confident resulting in costly and high impact mistakes? Again, questions unanswered till now – but apart from a comic factor and entertainment value, these categories of goals are not wanted in any tournament, especially in a FIFA World Cup!