We've all seen the own goal. It's the kind of effort that would make Simon Mignolet blanch. Minnesota United goalkeeper Sammy Njock will forever be remembered as the goalkeeper who inexplicably threw the ball into his own net, which was behind him, and 10 yards to the left... Here's the clip in case you've been residing beneath solid minerals.
The ball has barely left his hand before he starts off running after it like some kind of horrified cartoon. Truly astonishing stuff.
Well Minnesota United and Njock have released a video which thankfully clears everything up so that we all don't think he's a massive idiot.
Fair play to Njock for being a good sport about the whole thing. It would have been very easy to pull a Massimo Taibi-esque 'Exit stage left' to reside beneath the aforementioned solid mineral for the remainder of his existence. Taibi doesn't even have a picture on his Wikipedia page, a damning indictment of a playing career if ever there was one.
Anyway, if this is a candid video and Njock is making his hands stickier with jam then somebody should probably look into it because it's probably giving him an edge on the competition in terms of catching. Not releasing though. Definitely not releasing. Think 'The Replacements' for an idea of how this works.
The video ends with #BlameItOnTheJelly which they probably hope will trend and deflect attention from the embarrassment by paradoxically drawing attention to their embarrassment. Probably a good thing, #BlameItOnTheBoogie was getting edgy by association anyway.
