5 Biggest Blunders in World Football This Weekend of October 17-19
Another weekend has come and gone in the world of football, with domestic action once more on the scene after the recent international break. And, you'll be relieved to know, with it comes the usual glut of own goals, horrendous misses and basic failings on the pitch.
We've done our usual and rounded up all the biggest and best—or worst—of the weekend's howlers for you in one place for your endless laughter and entertainment. Unless you support one of the teams involved, of course. Or unless you happen to be one of the players featured.
Sorry about that.
Cedric Carrasso
1 of 5
We begin in Ligue 1 where Bordeaux were held to a 1-1 draw at home by Caen, thanks largely to a meltdown of epic proportions by goalkeeper Cedric Carrasso.
Over-anticipating to the extreme that a pull-back would be in the offing as Caen attacked down the left, all Carrasso managed to do was give Herve Bazile an extremely easy task to tuck the ball inside the near post with less than a quarter of an hour remaining, thus denying Bordeaux the chance to go back above Paris Saint-Germain into second.
Watch the incident here.
Mario Balotelli
2 of 5
If you didn't see the Queens Park Rangers-Liverpool game on Sunday in the Premier League, it could be summed up thus: This entire "biggest blunders" article could be comprised with images and incidents from that match.
We won't do that, but we will take one slide for each team. Liverpool's starting striker, Mario Balotelli, makes the cut for his horrendous open-goal miss from five yards: no composure, no anticipation and still no league goal.
Watch it here.
Richard Dunne and Steven Caulker
3 of 5
Queens Park Rangers, meanwhile, did their best to kill off any forlorn hopes of avoiding a relegation struggle all season that their fans might have had by doing everything in their power to lose against Liverpool.
We could have gone for similar misses to Balotelli's, such as that by Leroy Fer, but instead we're going for the double-own goal tactic which ensured QPR lost 3-2 in the match.
Here is Richard Dunne's record-breaking own goal, and here is Steven Caulker's injury-time winner at the wrong end.
Papiss Cisse
4 of 5
At least Mario Balotelli can take solace perhaps in the fact that this wasn't the worst miss of the weekend.
Newcastle United striker Papiss Cisse just about claims that rather dubious honour for his awful finishing skills coming to light once more after he'd done all the hard work: noticing a back pass would be on, anticipating it to intercept possession and rounding the goalkeeper.
Open goal...miss. Watch it here.
Marcelo Bielsa
5 of 5
We can't let this weekend go by without a hilarious tip of the hat to Ligue 1-topping manager Marcelo Bielsa, famed for his aggressive, offensive methods of play and for looking less than impressed at everything in the entire world.
In the weekend fixture against Toulouse, which Marseille won 2-0, Bielsa took a moment to sit down and take in the game from a different perspective—but sat on a coffee cup, with predictably funny reactions to follow.
Watch the moment of lighthearted coffee caper here.
