Sports

Is this disrespectful goal soccer’s equivalent of the bat flip?


Silas Wamangituka has no idea what the big deal is.

Silas Wamangituka has no idea what the big deal is.
Screenshot: Twitter

The celebration debate rarely comes to soccer, mostly because it’s so damn hard to score that you can hardly begrudge anyone for how they choose to commemorate such a feat. Rarely do you get to stretch out the ceremony. Depending on how you view it, serendipity shined on Stuttgart’s Silas Wamangituka today in their 2-1 win over Werder Bremen:

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Davie Selke clearly took exception to the routine, though you can make the same arguments for this that you do any bat flip or endzone dance. You don’t have to suffer such an indignity if defender Omer Toprak and keeper Jiri Pavlenka don’t go into vapor lock and allow Wamangituka to Humpty Dance his way clean through to the goal. Someone also could have at least made the effort to chase him down, even if futile. But then, all the bullshit that surrounds pointless displays of effort feeds the worst aspects of the sports psyche.

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Wamangituka did get a yellow for this, which may be the first yellow card for scoring a goal in the history of the sport.

Still, this is just about the highest example of taking the piss you’ll ever see in soccer. This is moonwalking into the endzone or rolling out a prop for a breakaway dunk. Personally, I’m disappointed Wamangituka didn’t go for the simple placing of the ball over the line instead of the delayed smash from six inches. If you’re going to go full primetime, go full primetime. After all, Germany is known for its efficiency.

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