Soccer is a sport that brings families, friends, neighbors, cities, countries, and even people from all over the world together, and so it brings happiness, sadness, tears, joy, and other indescribable emotions, especially when a soccer player scores a goal. However, some people might be curious to know why soccer players celebrate so much after scoring a goal.
Here are 10 reasons why soccer players celebrate so much after scoring a goal:
- Soccer players scoring amazing goals or “golazos”
- Soccer players don’t score goals often
- Soccer players scoring last-minute game-changer goals
- Soccer players who have recently recovered from severe injuries
- Soccer players who have recently lost loved ones
- Soccer players scoring goals to impressively comeback a negative result
- Soccer players scoring for their national team
- Soccer players celebrating with their team’s fans
- Soccer players celebrating in front of the rival team’s fans
- Soccer is an emotional game
In this article, I will explain each of the reasons why soccer players celebrate goals so much from the perspective of someone who used to play soccer at a high level but also from the fan perspective who has constantly watched soccer games since I can remember.
Table of Contents
- 10 Reasons why soccer players celebrate goals so much
- Soccer players scoring amazing goals or “golazos”
- Soccer players don’t score goals often
- Soccer players scoring last-minute game-changer goals
- Soccer players who have recently recovered from severe injuries
- Soccer players who have recently lost loved ones
- Soccer players scoring goals to impressively comeback a negative result
- Soccer players scoring a goal for their national team
- Soccer players celebrating with their team’s fans
- Soccer players celebrating after scoring against their biggest rival team
- Soccer is an emotional game
10 Reasons why soccer players celebrate goals so much
Soccer players scoring amazing goals or “golazos”
Goals in soccer come from different styles, shapes, and angles. This means the way a soccer player scores a goal can be measured by the quality of the goal. While there’s no common guide that determines the quality of a goal in soccer, coaches, players, and fans typically create their own perceptions of how “good” a goal a player scores.
You can see “easy” goals scored after a player simply pushes the ball passed the goal line to the goal with no goalkeeper guarding the goal.
There are “blooper” goals or goals that occur after an awful mistake from one or multiple players from the rival team, such as goalkeepers not completely catching the ball with direction to the soccer goal that doesn’t represent too much danger.
However, there are “golazos” which is a Spanish slang term to describe amazing, spectacular, and even unbelievable goals scored by soccer players during a match. These goals are high-quality and rare goals showcasing a skill of a soccer player. Golazos can come from kicking a free-kick, scoring an acrobatic goal, a team combination of passes, etc.
As previously mentioned, golazos or high-quality goals don’t occur often, but when soccer players score them, they celebrate exaggeratedly as it can be a once-in-a-lifetime moment that often remains in the memory of not only the player but also fans and even rival teams.
Soccer players don’t score goals often
The probability for a soccer player to score a goal varies greatly depending on the position of a soccer player on the field. For instance, a forward, attacking midfielder, or attacking winger will likely have more opportunities to score a goal when compared to defensive midfielders, defenders, and goalkeepers.
Also, there are only 11 soccer players who can actively participate in a game while “substitutes”, or players who wait on the bench or the sidelines, are waiting for their opportunity to come in the game as an exchange for an existing player. This means a substitute player has a lower probability to score a goal in comparison to one of the initial 11 players.
With that being said, soccer players who don’t often score goals tend to celebrate so much, regardless of the quality of the goal, as it is a rare moment for the soccer player. This is common regardless if a soccer player has several years of experience playing soccer at a high level.
Soccer players scoring last-minute game-changer goals
Soccer is a sport that lasts 90 minutes plus any stoppage time the referee decides to add. You might think there is plenty of time for teams to score several goals, meaning 10 or 20 goals per team just like in other sports such as basketball.
However, soccer is not one of those sports where you can easily score several goals like basketball players can score 8 or 10 points in one game. Due to the nature of not seeing several goals in a game, it is not uncommon to see tied or equalized soccer games such as 0 to 0, 1 to 1, or in odd cases 2 – 2, or 3 – 3.
It is also uncommon whenever a soccer player “breaks” the equalizer after scoring a goal during the stoppage time or last minute of the game resulting in a 1 to 0, 2 to 1, or 3 to 2 score. This often results in an over-excessive celebration among players, coaches, and fans.
Soccer players who have recently recovered from severe injuries
Soccer is a contact sport, meaning players use their bodies to block not only the soccer ball but also their opponents. Unfortunately, this leads to soccer players suffering from severe injuries whenever an opponent player, for instance, slide tackles them in sensitive areas of the body that don’t have much protection such as heels, knees, calves, the face, etc.
Severe injuries can leave players out of games for several weeks, months, and even years in the worst cases, even without including the proper time to condition the body to play a 90-minute game.
When this happens, soccer players go through a hard time not only physically but also mentally as they have to deal with the feeling of knowing that they cannot play, be a substitute player, nor even actively participate during soccer training, which is not easy to deal with.
Hence, whenever soccer players, who have recently recovered from severe injuries, score a goal, they celebrate with a lot of joy, happiness, and even with some tears as that goal represents the hard moments they went through during the recovery process to be able to be back playing with their teams.
Soccer players who have recently lost loved ones
At any point anyone, including soccer players, could lose a loved one, or even famous people at any point. While you might think celebrating a goal to pay tribute to someone else’s passing away seems odd, soccer is a sport that lets players express their feelings in different ways especially when a player scores a goal.
This was the case of the Argentinian soccer player, Angel Di Maria who celebrated after scoring a goal for his national team against Chile in a game that finished with a final score of 2 to 1 in favor to the argentinians.
During that game, Di Maria scored after 50 minutes to give Argentina the lead. After scoring, he ran to the Argentina’s bench side while a his teammates were waiting for him to hand him a shirt paying tribute to his grandmother saying “Grandmother, I will miss you so much”.
Soccer players scoring goals to impressively comeback a negative result
If you are not sure what a comeback in soccer is, it means whenever a team is losing with a substantial goal difference, but ends up winning the game. While you can see comebacks in one game in soccer between two teams, it is also typical to see comebacks when two teams have qualifiers or playoffs conducted in a home-and-away format.
Comebacks are special in soccer because it is one of those unique moments when it is viewed almost impossible to revert a negative result, whether that is because of the goal difference is significant or because a team is poorly playing a game leading to negative results. Hence, when a team is capable of coming back from negative results, soccer players passionately celebrate goals that represented the victory.
One of the most memorable comebacks in soccer history occurred in Istanbul 2005 for the final UEFA Champions League game between Liverpool and Milan, often referred as the miracle of Istanbul. During that game, Milan was winning 3 to 0 by the end of the first half time.
However, nobody expected Liverpool to finish the end of the second half 3 to 3, taking the game to playing extra time and then to penalty shoot outs where Liverpool won 3 to 2. Talk about the spectacular goal celebration where feelings like euphoria, happiness, and joy simply overtook Liverpool players for having achieved what it was seen as the impossible or a miracle.
Soccer players scoring a goal for their national team
For many soccer players, playing for their national team is the most important event during their soccer careers. This means to be selected among many other high level athletes to represent your family, your friends, and more importantly your country.
Hence, celebrating after scoring a goal for a national is a synonym of unity and happiness in a whole country, especially when goals represent taking the lead on a game, or the feeling of beating other national teams.
This has been the case of the Colombian national team during different participations of the FIFA World Cup such as Russia 2018 or Brazil 2014. Colombia qualified to participate for both competitions with an impressive role during the tournaments not only by their ability to win games, but also to celebrate after scoring goals.
The Colombian national team most iconic celebrations were centered around team dances. Yes, you heard that right. Colombian players would run to come together to get ready for another choreographed dance session in front of their fans, showcasing other talents off the field, but also representing the Colombian dancing culture.
Soccer players celebrating with their team’s fans
Soccer players deeply appreciate fans support, especially those stay always to encourage the team and support them, in the good and bad moments. Therefore, celebrating with fans after scoring a goal is a synonym of saying “thank you for supporting us”, “it is time to celebrate as a together (soccer team and fans)”.
Celebrating with fans a way to connect establish a closer connection between fans and players. Carlos Tévez, known for passionately celebrating goals knows how to connect with his supporters. Look at how he immediately ran towards West Ham’s fans to celebrate with them after scoring a free-kick goal against Tottenham.
Soccer players celebrating after scoring against their biggest rival team
Similar to other sports, there are soccer games popular for being played by two teams biggest rivals. This is the case Real Madrid against Barcelona, Inter against Milan, Liverpool against Manchester United, or River Plate against Boca Juniors. Checkout this link to find some of the greatest rivarlies in soccer.
Typically, these rivalry games are higher-than-usual competitive and tough to play. Teams definitely don’t want to lose the games against their biggest rivals. Hence, soccer players put more effort and passion during these games, which you can immediately notice the celebration once a soccer player scores a goal againts the biggest rival team.
Let’s look at the Carlos Tévez celebration, remember by celebrated in River Plate’s Monumental stadium when he scored against their biggest rival team. Tévez did the “gallina”, which stands for chicken in Spanish, celebration in front of Boca Junior’s rival fans.
That is a clear example of how passionate and even disrespectful celebrations can be when soccer players score goals against their biggest soccer team rival in the world.
Soccer is an emotional game
Finally and most importantly, soccer is not just a game. It is a lifestyle full of passion. It is the beautiful game, and soccer players know that. They know that whenever they score a goal they can change the day of someone, they know they can bring happiness to a lot of people around the world, they know they can unite people of one country.
Soccer is an emotional game.
While scoring a goal doesn’t necessarily mean winning a soccer match, it is a reward for soccer players who have gone through good and bad moments to play soccer. It is the sport that makes them happy and people happy to see them play. That’s way scoring a goal is a synonym of spreading happiness to many who love the game.
