Alessandro Pontis Scores Much-Lauded Own Goal

By: Martha | January 24th, 2008

Don’t fuck with Ale. I’ve never heard of Alessandro Pontis before, and anyone not related to him who claims they have is thinking of somebody else, because he’s a 17-year-old Italian kid who, though once a Cagliari trainee, now plays for Siliqua, his local amateur team, in an amateur Italian league. But he became famous this weekend, at least for a little while, and all he had to do was put the ball past his own keeper.

In the first half of Siliqua’s weekend match against Sguotti Carbonia, their opponents played the ball out to allow an injured player to get treatment. When play resumed, Siliqua took the throw, and everyone expected that the ball would be sportingly played back to Sguotti Carbonia, since that’s how these things are done. But Siliqua were already losing 0-2 and when the throw landed at Pontis’ feet, rather than give it back to the bad guys, he turned and went to goal, scoring and dragging his team back into the game. Not surprisingly, Sguotti went crazy, but there was nothing the referee could do, and the goal stood. Then, to make matters worse, Pontis went and scored again, and the game was tied when the halftime whistle blew.

Given time to think at halftime, Pontis was apparently overwhelmed by guilt (and by the not-very-subtle anger of Sguotti players) and after getting the approval of his coach and captain, when the teams came out for the second half, he took the passback down and scored on his own keeper. After the stunned silence passed, everyone was happy again and, after the match ended with the convenient scored of 3-3, Pontis became a minor celebrity. The kid must be wishing that he was his spectacular skills that were bringing him such attention, since being a good guy isn’t likely to get him a professional career, but at least no one is writing about him being a cheating bastard, which is how things stood at the end of the first half.