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‘I don’t know why I got the trophy’: football’s unusual player-of-the-match awards

“The Inter keeper Yann Sommer was named player of the match against Barcelona despite conceding three goals. He made some great saves so it wasn’t undeserved, but I wondered if there were other unusual PotM awards,” says John Barrow.

This season’s Champions League tie between Real Madrid and Atlético will be remembered for Julián Alvarez’s two-touch penalty being ruled out. Before that Alvarez had inspired Atlético to a 1-0 victory on the night that took the tie to a penalty shootout; he was Uefa’s player of the match. Nick Berry could have written a song about it.

In the modern era players are usually made to pose with their award regardless of the context. Hence the memetastic pictures of Kai Havertz and Alexandra Popp after Germany were eliminated at the group stage of the 2022 and 2023 World Cups, respectively. Both attempted to ascertain whether looks can kill a camera, never mind human beings.

Kevin De Bruyne was almost as unimpressed when he was anointed after Belgium’s scruffy 1-0 win over Canada at Qatar 2022. Online votes were used to decide the player of the match at the tournament, which led to a few eyebrow-raising winners. “I don’t think I played a great game,” said De Bruyne. “I don’t know why I got the trophy, maybe it’s because of the name.”

Christian Eriksen was named player of the match as a symbolic gesture after suffering a cardiac arrest during the match against Finland at Euro 2020. Denmark lost that game 1-0, and Eriksen joined a surprisingly long list of players who have been named player of the match at a major tournament despite their team losing.

The Danes were involved in another such example 19 years earlier when they ended France’s miserable, goalless World Cup defence with a 2-0 victory in Incheon. France had rushed back a half-fit Zinedine Zidane in the hope of a miracle; you can probably guess who took the award. Zidane didn’t play particular badly, but according to Sofascore’s World Cup performance archive – which we think comes from the Opta database – he was the joint-11th best player on the field that day.

A week earlier Rivaldo was the man of the match, as it was called then, after making one and scoring one in Brazil’s 2-1 victory over Turkey. So far, so fair. But that game is remembered solely for his risible playacting in injury time to get Hakan Unsal sent off. Presumably the MotM decision had already been taken and it didn’t occur to anyone that it could be changed, or at least be renamed the Foul Play Award.

We should stress that most of these awards are unusual rather than undeserved. In the Women’s FA Cup final of 2020, Everton keeper Sandy MacIver performed heroically to take the match against Manchester City to extra-time. City’s class eventually told in a 3-1 win but MacIver was player of the match.

Here’s that longer list of individual award-winning players on the losing side at major tournaments. Goalkeepers are in italics, and you’ll probably spot a pattern:

Euro 96 final Czech Republic 1-2 Germany (PotM: Karel Poborsky)

Euro 2000 Netherlands 1-0 Czech Republic (Pavel Nedved); Italy 2-1 Sweden (Henrik Larsson); France 2-1 Italy (Francesco Totti*)

* At least according to this Uefa page. The official technical report of the tournament gives it to Thierry Henry. Anyone got any correction fluid?

World Cup 2002 Denmark 2-0 France (Zinedine Zidane); Germany 1-0 USA (Claudio Reyna)

World Cup 2006 England 0-0 Portugal (1-3 pens, Owen Hargreaves)

World Cup 2014 Italy 0-1 Uruguay (Gianluigi Buffon); Belgium 2-1 USA (Tim Howard); Netherlands 2-1 Mexico (Guillermo Ochoa); Netherlands 0-0 Costa Rica (4-3 pens, Keylor Navas)

World Cup 2018 Croatia 1-1 Denmark (3-2 pens, Kasper Schmeichel)

World Cup 2019 England 1-0 Argentina (Vanina Correa); Netherlands 2-1 Canada (Christine Sinclair); USA 3-0 Chile (Christiane Endler)

Euro 2020 Denmark 0-1 Finland (Christian Eriksen)

The Keylor Navas award in 2014 is especially interesting because the match is remembered for another goalkeeper – Tim Krul, who was brought on specifically before the penalty shootout and became the hero.

Finally, Ollie Watkins only played nine minutes (plus added time) against the Netherlands in last year’s European Championship semi-final but his dramatic late winner made him an irresistible choice for player of the match.

Shot-shy matchwinners

“Sporting Kansas City became the first team in MLS history to win a match without a shot on goal,” writes George Jones. “They defeated the defending champion Los Angeles Galaxy 1-0 thanks to a first-half own goal. Has this happened in other leagues, then. Many examples?”

It’s worth reiterating that Sporting Kansas City didn’t have a single shot at goal, never mind on target, which is extraordinary. One-nil wins in which the victors had no efforts on target are more common; thanks to all of you who sent in the below examples.

Premier League 2003-04 Manchester City 0-1 Middlesbrough (Sun Jihai og)
Premier League 2005-06 West Brom 0-1 Sunderland (Steve Watson og)
Serie A 2021-22 Napoli 0-1 Spezia (Juan Jesus og)
Brasileiro Serie A 2023 Cruzeiro 1-0 São Paulo (Rafinha og)
Euro 2024 playoff Wales 0-0 Poland (4-5 pens)
WSL 2024-25 Tottenham 1-0 Leicester (Janina Leitzig og)

Hat-trick heroes who didn’t get a medal

“Has a player ever scored a hat-trick for a title-winning club but not received a winners’ medal due to lack of appearances?” asks Masai Graham.

We can think of at least one example. Ronnie Rosenthal arrived at Anfield in March 1990 with Liverpool locked in an arm-wrestle for the title with Aston Villa. Rosenthal scored a jaw-dropping hat-trick on his full debut, a 4-0 win at Charlton, and added four more goals at Anfield as Liverpool accelerated to the title.

The lateness of his arrival – until 2002-03 the transfer deadline was in March – meant he was unable to play the 10 games required for an official medal in those days. He had to settle for a key role in Liverpool’s last title of the 20th century: eight games, seven goals. And we’re pretty sure somebody will have given him a medal.

Knowledge archive

“I remember watching MotD about 30 or more years ago, when there was a technical hitch and the pictures from the match ended abruptly,” recalled Bill Wilson in 2007. “The camera instantly defaulted to a relaxed Jimmy Hill in the studio with his feet on a desk, smoking a pipe, reading a broadsheet. He obviously wasn’t expecting it! Can you or anybody remember the game/date/etc. And does any video exist of the event?”

“At last ... someone else who remembers the Jimmy Hill pipe incident,” enthuses Gareth Morgan. “It was hilarious, although didn’t happen quite as Bill describes: the show in question was not MotD but Nationwide. At the end of Friday evening’s edition, Jimmy Hill used to host a 10-minute slot called Sportswide, where he previewed the weekend’s sport. One time, the clip from some highlights ended abruptly and Jimmy suddenly returned to the screen still sat at his desk but smoking his pipe and chatting to someone off-camera; he turned to look at the camera, realised he was back live, gave a stupid grin, muttered something like ‘oh we’re back’ and put his pipe under the desk and carried on with the show. I’m not sure of the exact date, but it would have been in 1976 or 1977.”

We couldn’t find the video in question, but here’s Jimmy and his pipe in the MotD studio.

Interactive

Can you help

“Leyton Orient’s Charlie Kelman was four yards offside when he scored against Stockport in the playoffs,” begins Jessica Hibbert. “What’s the furthest a player has been indisputably offside before going on to score?”

“Venezuelan footballer Darwin Machís has been relegated four seasons in a row, all from La Liga: with Granada in 2022; Real Vallodolid in 2023, Cádiz in 2024 (he was on loan), and again with Real Valladolid this year,” notes Derek Robertson. “Surely nobody can top this?”

“In terms of aggregate league position, will Tottenham v Manchester United be the worst European final ever?” asks Phil Taylor (and dozens of others).

“Brian Graham has just scored his 100th goal for Partick Thistle at the age of 37 having not joined the club until the age of 32. Has anyone ever reached a century after joining so late in their career?” writes Calum Stewart.

“Barcelona joined Roma (2018) in losing a Champions League semi-final despite scoring six goals,” notes Dan Almond. “Has a team ever scored more across two legs of a major semi-final and still been beaten?”