"Euro 2024" has been an enjoyable tournament so far, with many goals scored in both the group stage and the Round of 16. The race for the Golden Boot is still wide open, with no player currently having scored more than three goals. Many teams have distributed their goals among a large group of players; for instance, Spain had five different scorers in the first round, while six players scored for Germany during the same period.
However, the most striking statistics may be of a completely different kind: own goals. Over 16 editions of the European Championship before the current one this summer in Germany, only a total of 20 own goals have been recorded, with 11 of them in the last edition three years ago. This record is under threat, as nine own goals have been scored so far in the current edition, with seven matches remaining in the tournament.
Surprisingly, only 29 own goals have been scored in 17 editions of the European Championships to date, with Portugal topping the list having scored three own goals in previous tournaments, ahead of Germany and Croatia, each with two. Notably, no own goals were scored in the tournament during two decades between 1976 and 1996, and only six own goals were recorded in all matches between the 1996 and 2012 editions of the European Championships.
The manner in which own goals are scored ranges from misfortune to blatant errors, like the Turkish player Samet Akaydin's goal, who passed the ball backward without looking at the goalkeeper Altay Bayindir, leading to an embarrassing moment.
The French national team is the biggest beneficiary of own goals, with five instances in the history of Euro tournaments, and they benefited from it twice in this edition to reach the quarter-finals, although they have only scored three goals in the current tournament, consisting of two own goals and one from a penalty.
At a time when the English team needed goals by any means due to their inability to bring out the best from their stars, especially in the group stage, they are among the teams that have not benefited from this phenomenon. Glen Johnson is the only English player to have scored an own goal in a European Championship, doing so in 2012 against Sweden, while the only own goal in favor of the "Three Lions" came from Danish player Simon Kjaer in the semi-finals of Euro 2020.
It appears to be more about misfortune than any other factors, and it is worth noting that three of the best defenders in Europe currently have scored own goals for their teams: Germany's Antonio Rudiger, Italy's Riccardo Calafiori, and Belgium's Jan Vertonghen.
