Must-see sports moments of the week: Goalkeeper blunders aplenty

There were plenty of eye-catching sporting moments from the past week, including two big blunders from goalkeepers in Denmark and Bolivia. Yahoo Singapore picks out a selection.

Goalkeeper messes up the only job he has

It is tough being a goalkeeper. They hardly get praised for doing their job but when they commit a mistake, the spotlight is on them instantly.

That’s what Lyngby FC custodian Jesper Hansen found out on Saturday (22 April). In his team’s Danish Superliga match against SønderjyskE, the 32-year-old had a largely uneventful game with his team dominating… until the very last minute of the game.

A seemingly harmless header was fumbled by Hansen, before the ball hit the crossbar. Hansen then tipped the ball to prevent it from going in, only for it to drop nicely for SønderjyskE’s Jeppe Simonsen to head in from point-blank range.

Thankfully for Hansen, Lyngby were already up by two goals and there was not enough time for their opponents to stage a comeback. Otherwise he might not have a job next season.

One goalkeeper’s loss is another goalkeeper’s gain

Staying on goalkeepers, one of them scored one of the most improbable goal ever witnessed in the game on Sunday (23 April), thanks to another’s folly.

In a Bolivia top flight game between Club Bolivar and San Jose, Argentine Matias Dituro left his rival Carlos Franco red-faced and embarrassed.

With Bolivar 2-1 up in the game, San Jose’s Franco made the decision to go up to the other end for a set-piece in an attempt to help his team grab an equaliser.

But as it transpired, Dituro managed to gather the ball and launched a kick from his own penalty box into the other end of the pitch, with the ball bouncing into an open goal.

Franco was left stranded only at the halfway line, while San Jose defenders couldn’t even get near the ball. That helped Bolivar to secure a 3-1 win.

We’ll never understand why some goalkeepers believe they can help their team score a last minute goal and leave their own post wide open.

Sneakers scuffle during NBA playoffs

In a NBA playoff game between the Chicago Bulls and Boston Celtics on Sunday, Robin Lopez and Jae Crowder were involved in one of the oddest sequences in a basketball game ever.

Bulls centre Lopez lost his shoe while contesting for a rebound. As he bent down to try and pick his shoe up, Celtics forward Jae Crowder got to it first and threw the shoe out of bounds. Infuriated, Lopez responded by grabbing Crowder out of court.

He wasn’t done yet. Instead of putting his shoe on immediately, Lopez tried to untie Crowder’s shoelace (unsuccessfully) while the latter was arguing with the referee. Crowder was also hit with a technical foul for delaying the game.

Home run with a twist

In a Major League Baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles, Seth Smith managed to conjure up a ‘little league home run’, which as you guessed, doesn’t really happen too often.

For a little league home run to happen, there must be two or more errors on the play, and that’s what exactly happened.

After batting away the ball, Smith embarked on a run. The Tampa Bay got the ball quickly, but fumbled the ball not just once, but twice. In the video, Smith was shown running about to and fro, but after the second fumble by the Rays, Smith went for the fourth run – and got there a split second faster.

The play was made all the better as Ryan Flaherty, a baserunner, also made it through thanks to fumbles.

Apparently, it was also the first little league home run hit by the Orioles since August 11, 1966. What an effort.