Group Stage Own Goals: A Growing Trend in EURO 2024?

Austria’s Group D match against the Netherlands saw the top scorer of EURO 2024 continue his streak by scoring once again. As things stand, Ralf Rangnick’s team is leading the group and on track to advance to the last 16.

Tuesday’s opponents, France, are currently in second place in the group. In a strange turn of events, Donyell Malen scored an own goal just six minutes into the game, bringing the total number of own goals in the tournament to seven. This was Malen’s country’s first own goal at a European Championship and also marked the fastest own goal in the tournament’s history.

Statistics show that two thirds of all own goals in UEFA European Championship history have been scored in the last two editions. Out of a total of 27 own goals, 18 have occurred in the last two tournaments, with 11 in EURO 2020 and seven so far in EURO 2024. This trend highlights how prevalent own goals have become in recent European Championships compared to previous ones.

The phenomenon of own goals seems to be particularly strong during group stages of Eurovision tournament.

In conclusion, it seems that there is something about playing soccer that leads players to score their own goals more often than not. The trend towards increased occurrence of own goals may be due to various factors such as pressure or fatigue during long matches or simply because players are getting better at recognizing opportunities for scoring themselves.

As we move closer to knockout stages, it will be interesting to see if this trend continues or if we will witness a reversal back towards fewer self-goals being scored by players.