The own goals that changed a World Cup
From the first own goal in a final, in 2018, to that same tournament's record for own goals: goals against your own team have written World Cup history too.
They are the goals no one wants to score, yet they sometimes decide a match: own goals. World Cup history holds quite a few, some anecdotal and others charged with drama.
The 2018 World Cup in Russia marked a turning point in this statistic. It was the tournament with the most own goals in history, a dozen of them, partly due to the introduction of VAR and the growing pressure on defences. That edition even produced the first own goal in a final: Croatia's Mario Mandžukić turned the ball into his own net against France, before making amends by scoring later at the other end.
History also remembers happy oddities. In 1978, the Netherlands' Ernie Brandts lived a surreal match against Italy: first he scored into his own goal and, shortly after, netted the equaliser at the opposite end. Few players can say they scored for both teams in the same World Cup game.
But not every tale has a kind ending. The most remembered and tragic own goal remains that of Colombia's Andrés Escobar in 1994, a goal into his own net against the United States that preceded his murder after the tournament and cast a permanent shadow over that World Cup.
Between bad luck, oddity and tragedy, own goals are a reminder that in football the line between hero and villain is sometimes a matter of centimetres.
Source: Wikipedia (2018 FIFA World Cup; Own goal; Andrés Escobar; Ernie Brandts).