Greatest Own Goals of All-Time No.8
Crystal Palace had a tough 2004/05 season and were relegated on the final day of the season. They very nearly stayed up, leading 2-1 at neighbours Charlton Athletic until Jonathan Fortune headed in an equaliser and West Bromwich Albion stayed up instead.
The 2004/05 season was Palace’s first back in the top flight for six years. Striker Andy Johnson had fired them to promotion the previous campaign with 27 league goals. He would end this Premier League season with 21 goals but they weren’t enough to save Palace from the drop.
On 11th September 2004, Palace travelled down to the South Coast to play Portsmouth. Pompey were already leading 2-1 thanks to goals from Ricardo Fuller and Patrik Berger either side of Danny Granville’s goal for Palace two minutes before half time.
Crystal Palace fans must really have thought their luck was against them after Andy Johnson had a goal disallowed and missed a late penalty. These thoughts were confirmed five minutes from time when Australian defender Tony Popovic scored a spectacular own goal to hand Portsmouth all three points.
Portsmouth had the ball in and around the Palace penalty area but the visiting defence just couldn’t clear their lines. Nigel Quashie got possession of the ball for Portsmouth inside the penalty and flicked it out wide to Steve Stone who stood unmarked wide on the right.
Stone whipped in a low cross across goal and Tony Popovic ran in to clear the ball from danger. He ran too far and with the ball now slightly behind him, he instinctively stuck his right leg out to try and block the cross.
The ball hit Popvic’s ankle and skewed up high over Palace goalkeeper Julian Speroni, caressed the far post and hit the back of the net.
In the highlights reel, the camera zoomed in on the Palace defender and showed him grimacing whilst also looking a bit baffled as to what happened. It then cut to Speroni who had just picked the ball out of the net. He was tight-lipped and gave Popovic a side-stare of disappointment and annoyance.
The game ended 3-1 and the defeat kept Palace rooted to the bottom of the table.
Sadly for the Aussie defender, the own goal just looked too good. The flick past his own goalkeeper into the far corner of the net was shown on highlight reels and added on to Own Goals and Gaffes compilation DVDs that hit the shops around Christmas.
With YouTube becoming more and more popular, any hope that Tony Popovic had of the own goal being forgotten were completely dashed. In fact, the video at the bottom of this article has had well over 2.2 million views at the time of writing this article. It’s safe to say that this own goal will continue to be shown for years to come!
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