Excessive celebration is a sporting pastime that dates back to the Ancient Olympic Games when Tiberius famously flipped the bird at Cynisca of Sparta as he passed her in his four-horse chariot, mouthing the words “so long, Sucker” for good measure while pumping his fists, which led to him losing control of his cart and Cynisca passing him at the end.*
* Details may or may not be true; Citation and video needed.
That tradition of excessive celebrating with disastrous results continued recently, but this time it happened on the soccer field during a match between clubs K-Stars and Ferroviario at the 2015 Future Champions Gauteng International Tournament. Watch as Ferroviario scores on a difficult free kick, then begins jumping and dancing and carrying on. But then, uh oh, the referee is starting play again and oh man Ferroviario isn’t ready everyone get back OH NO! K-Stars just scored.
Ferroviario may want to think about changing their team name to Karma.
This video brought to mind a few other excessive celebrations, or instances where celebrating too early came back to bite a team in the ass.
Remember this one from a few years ago? After stopping a penalty kick, this soccer goalie began pounding his chest, celebrating his good job at doing sports, only for the ball to backspin into the net for a goal.
And then there was this European basketball team celebrating a late-game three-pointer near mid-court, only to have the other team connect on an undefended desperation full-court heave as time expired. The 30-second mark of this video continues to be one of my favorites on the internet.
So what’s the lesson here? That’s simple: athletes need to continue celebrating excessively and prematurely because these videos are great.
What, you thought I was going to say something different?
