Poor Fernando Torres. Despite one of his best performances in a Chelsea shirt, the £50m flop managed to stuff up a gilt-edged opportunity against Man Utd. Worst miss ever, though? God no.
Ronny Rosenthal v the crossbar
The first player to whom Torres was compared yesterday, former Israeli international Rosenthal’s torrid time in the Premier League is best summed up by this shocking sitter against Aston Villa.
After rounding the keeper and facing an open goal, the player approached the goal head-on (unlike Torres, who shot from an angle) and walloped the ball against the underside of the crossbar. Poor form from Ronny, who was the most expensive player to ever join an English club from a non-English club at the time.
Diego Forlan v an open goal
Before he scored for fun at Atletico Madrid and joined Inter Milan this summer, Diego Forlan used to be completely rubbish, a fact best evidenced by this cock-up against Juventus. Granted, it happened on a US pre-season tour but where there’s a camera, there’s a classic YouTube clip in the making.
Rocky Baptiste vs an inches-away net
6,6″ striker Rocky Baptiste became a huge viral hit with the ‘Miss of the century” for Harrow in a non-league clash against Waltham Abbey in 2009. 4.4m viewers later, it’s still worth a watch.
Even now, we watch the clip back and simply don’t understand how the ball didn’t end up in the back of the net. To spare the player’s blushes, the video ends with a demonstration of ‘what Rocky normally does’ to accompany a goal, leading us to speculate that the blunder was probably uploaded by a forgiving member of Baptiste’s immediate family.
Ilija Sivonjic vs his own foot
This is incredibly impressive. How many players can deny themselves a goalscoring opportunity literally inches away from the goalline with their own foot?
Qatar v the fact that they literally can’t buy goals
The only thing worst than being at fault of an absolute sitter is when it’s 0-0 and you’re playing in the 91st minute, as this poor Qatari found out to his detriment. Somebody please explain to us how these jokers gained automatic qualification to the 2022 World Cup? Oh right, all that money.
And a bonus sixth… Diana Ross v the worst-ever World Cup opening ceremony
All Diana Ross had to do for the World Cup 1994 opening ceremony was to don a garish red suit, sing a song and fire a penalty from about five yards out and allow for a ‘spectacular’ effect where the goals fall apart, owed to the impact of her shot.
Except she missed. The ‘keeper even had the right side covered – could they not have even agreed to dive in the opposite direction beforehand? We reckon Diana must’ve been a real diva after scuffing that peno. Skip to 2.12 and get ready to bury your palm into your face afterwards.
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