Great Sporting Mistakes: From Football (Zidane’s head-butt to Materazzi) to Golf (Ian Woosnam at the 2001 British Open)
Mistakes in sports are a part of the game; a misplaced pass allows an opponent to score, a blunder costs you the entire match or a missed penalty shot makes your team lose. These are all examples of things that have happened in sports over the years and even though they occur with such frequency, they are still very compelling. It is sometimes a mistake that allows one team to win. Many games that are played go down to the wire with both teams being evenly matched and the only time one team gets the advantage is in a mistake that is made.
There are a few reasons why we love to watch great sporting mistakes. Maybe we like to see very well paid, sometimes arrogant sports stars fail, sometimes it is to see people who we think are infallible fail miserably and it could even be that when they make mistakes, we think that sports stars are also human. Some watch the mistake with tears in their eyes, some with unbelieving joy and some find them hilarious, but whichever way they are looked at, they usually cost one team the match. Professional sports teams are of such high quality these days that sometimes a mistake is the only thing that will give one team the advantage. In football matches, when two strong teams play each other, one wrong pass from a defender can sometimes open up the whole defence and give the opposing player a scoring opportunity. These types of chances are usually taken and it is a poor player who would miss a golden opportunity like that.
The question here is what constitutes a great sporting mistake; what differentiates it from a small blunder? Well firstly, the stage that the mistake occurs on has to be huge; something like a World Cup. Secondly, the mistake has to have large repercussions and long reaching effects; thirdly, it has to be an act of real stupidity. Finally, there has to be a huge backlash from the mistake. If a sporting mistake can fulfil these four criteria, then it qualifies as a truly ‘great’ sporting mistake. A lot of fans out there would probably be able to remember quite a few of these types of truly huge mistakes that have cost one team the match or even a whole tournament.
If we were to look at the world of football, so many of these types of examples spring up that we have a hard time choosing from them. If we go back to the 2006 FIFA World Cup final between France and Italy, a screaming howler of a sports mistake pops up. With the score tied at 1-1 and the match destined for extra time and maybe penalties, Zinedine Zidane, France’s star player, head-butted Marco Materazzi in the chest. This qualifies as a great sporting mistake because the stage was huge: it was the final of the World Cup. It was also the Frenchman’s last international match ever. The match was also in its dying seconds and France probably would have won in extra time or on penalties if Zidane would have kept his cool for a few precious seconds. France lost the match on penalties and Zidane never played another match again.
There are other massive mistakes from the world of sports, and if we look at golf we see one of the worst ones yet. During the 2001 British Open, Ian Woosnam was in such a strong lead that he was almost guaranteed to win until his caddie discovered Woosnam was carrying too many clubs with him. He was given a two shot penalty and ended up losing the game. This was one of the worst mistakes of the golfer’s career and he probably remembers it to this day.
Mistakes are inevitable; sometimes they can ruin a match and sometimes they can ruin a whole career. But it is the truly great athletes that bounce back from their mistakes that are the ones that are remembered forever and live on as heroes.
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