What Is A Hat Trick In Soccer? Things You Should Know
6 min read
Any striker’s main goal is to score goals, but a hat-trick gives one a special sense of accomplishment. One player scoring three goals in one soccer game is known as a hat-trick. It is not necessary for these three goals to be scored in a row or in a similar manner. For more information on a soccer hat trick, read this article.
History Of The Word ‘hat Trick’
In 1858, English cricketer H. In three straight deliveries at Sheffield’s Hyde Park ground, H. Stephenson took three wickets. An English sport that dates to the 16th century is cricket.
When Heathfield Harman Stephenson successfully dismissed three batters in a row with three consecutive deliveries, the phrase “hat-trick” was first used not long after that. For his accomplishments, Stephenson was given a hat. The money for it comes from a collection made in memory of the cricket match.
The phrase “hat-trick” originated from this incident of taking three wickets in three deliveries.’ The Chelmsford Chronicle published the first instance of the English word “hat trick” in print in 1865.
Heathfield Harman Stephenson is unlikely to think that he is coming up with a new phrase. In the following 160 years, it will be associated with sports, particularly soccer.
What Is A Hat-trick?
Soccer, like many other sports, employs a variety of idioms and expressions to describe what is occurring or has already occurred. When it comes to the number of goals scored, two of the most common words you will hear are a player having scored a “brace” or a “hat-trick”.
The term “hat-trick” in soccer is used when a single player scores three goals in one game. These three goals don’t have to be scored in a row or with the same technique. The phrase “hat-trick” originated in the sport of cricket.
As you just read, there are three factors that make up a hat-trick:
- It has to be 3 goals
- All scored by the same player
- And all goals scored in a single game
The group of objectives is referred to as a hat-trick as long as they meet these requirements. It doesn’t matter how the goals were scored or anything else about them.
For example, the goals don’t need to be scored one after the other. A set of goals is still considered a hat-trick whether a player scored each goal consecutively or whether there were 1, 2, or even 3 goals scored by other players in the game.
Whether a group of goals is referred to as a hat-trick or not is unrelated to how quickly they were scored. The three goals can be scored all at once during the first 15 minutes of the game or over the course of the entire contest.
Additionally, it is irrelevant how a player scores goals. The three goals can all be scored with the head or with a different body part from the one that was used for the previous goal.
The fact that a player scores three goals in a single game is important. For it to be considered a hat-trick, only this is required.
What Makes It A “hat-trick”?
The phrase “hat-trick” is now frequently used in a wide range of sports, but it is thought to have originated in cricket.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was first used in 1858 after H.H., an English cricketer In a match between Hallam and an all-England team, Stephenson took three wickets in three straight deliveries.
Following that, a collection was held, and donations were put into a hat before being given to Stephenson.
Additionally, the act of magicians producing surprising items out of a hat carries with it certain connotations.
What Is A Perfect Hat Trick?
The only time it does matter how the 3 goals are scored is if a player is attempting to score what is known as a “Perfect Hat-trick”.
A perfect hat-trick in soccer refers to a player scoring three specific goals in a single match, each with a different type of goal. The goals must be scored with the player’s right foot, left foot, and head.
A perfect hat-trick is thought to be a step above a typical hat-trick because the player has displayed a wide range of abilities by scoring each goal in a unique manner.
How Rare Is A Hat Trick In Soccer?
A hat trick occurring during a soccer game has a 3.34% chance of happening. 2.6 goals are scored on the average per game during the 2018 World Cup in Russia, per Statista. Soccer players will therefore need to score more goals on their own than is typical in most games.
What Do You Get If You Score A Hat Trick?
In soccer, scoring hat tricks is a well-known custom. A soccer player who completes a hat trick is entitled to keep the official game ball as a memento.
Although there is no official rule in soccer regarding hat trick scorers keeping the match ball, it has developed into a rather significant custom or unwritten rule. Moreover, when the game is over, soccer officials permit the winners to keep one of the balls.
Hat trick winners have occasionally had their teammates sign their soccer ball.
Who Has Scored The Most And The Fastest Hat-tricks
Do you know which player has scored the most hat tricks and who has done so the quickest? There aren’t many things in soccer as exciting as watching a player score a hat trick.
Most Hat-tricks In Soccer
The players who have scored the most hat-tricks are those who are particularly skilled goal scorers, as one might anticipate.
Alan Shearer, a former striker for Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers, holds the Premier League record for most hat-tricks with 11, while Robbie Fowler, a former Liverpool player, and Sergio Aguero of Manchester City both have nine goals to their names. Harry Kane has eight goals already, which puts him on the same level as Michael Owen and Thierry Henry.
With 34 hat tricks during his time with Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo leads La Liga, but Lionel Messi holds the record for most hat tricks in Champions League history with eight, one more than his Portuguese rival.
In Serie A, one must go back to the 1940s and 1950s for the all-time records pertaining to hat-tricks, in what is perhaps an indicator of how difficult it has become to score in Italy since the advent of Catenaccio in the country. Gunnar Nordahl, a former star for AC Milan and Roma, amassed 17 hat tricks while competing in the division, still holding the record.
Gerd Muller, Sandor Kocsis, Just Fontaine, and Gabriel Batistuta each scored two hat-tricks on football’s biggest stage to tie for the record for most World Cup hat-tricks.
Fastest Hat-tricks In Soccer
Even though scoring three goals in a game is challenging, some players have done so in surprisingly short amounts of time.
When he scored three goals for Southampton in just 2 minutes and 35 seconds against Aston Villa on May 16, 2015, Sadio Mane set a Premier League record for the fastest hat trick. The previous mark of four minutes and 33 seconds was set by Fowler for Liverpool against Arsenal in 1994, but Mane surpassed it.
Ronaldo has the most hat tricks in La Liga, but he hasn’t been able to condense them into a short amount of time. With three goals in three minutes for Real Sociedad against Logrones during the 1994–95 season, Luis Perez holds the record for the top division of Spain.
Former Torino star Valentino Mazzola and former Inter forward Antonio Angelillo both managed three goals in under two minutes, setting the record for the fastest hat-tricks ever scored in Serie A. Mazzola accomplished it against Vicenza in 1947, while Angelillo did so against SPAL more than ten years later, in 1958.
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