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Football

28th Jun 2018

Michy Batshuayi shows he’s seen the funny side to blasting the ball into his own face

Better than the goal itself

Simon Lloyd

God love you, Michy Batshuayi

Without you, England’s final group game against Belgium would’ve been significantly more dull than it actually was.

Both teams entered the match on the same number of points and with identical goal tallies, meaning the winners would top the group and face Group H runners-up Japan in the last 16 stage instead of Colombia. Facing the South Americans would, however, mean avoiding being in the same side of the draw as the likes of Brazil and Argentina. With all this in mind, England fans weren’t really sure what they wanted from the game.

In the end, a single Adnan Januzaj goal won it for Belgium, sending England to their first defeat in a year and a game with Colombia next Tuesday night.

The goal wasn’t too bad, but plenty of those watching appeared to enjoy what happened immediately after it more.

Januzaj cut in from the right and fired past Jordan Pickford into the top corner of the England goal. As he ran off to start his celebrations, Michy Batshuayi picked up the ball and attempted to volley it back in the empty net. This didn’t quite go to plan… Instead, he smashed the ball into the post, sending it crashing back into his own face.

Understandably, many were amused and chose to tweet the Chelsea striker about the incident.

A prolific tweeter, Batshuayi took to Twitter within minutes of full-time to poke fun at himself.

‘I knew I would be f*cked the minute I come to my memtions,’ he tweeted.

He then followed it with another tweet, claiming he’d done it as a response to the ‘overrated’ Fortnite celebrations many players have chosen to mark their World Cup goals with.