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Day 10 at Euro 2024, and our football phrase of the day is ‘sucker punch’; one of many phrases in football taken from boxing. This phrase comes from the Scotland v Hungary Group A game. Learn what this phrase means by reading the post below. You can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
Sucker Punch
Both Scotland and Hungary really needed a win to guarantee they would go through to the knockout stages. A draw for Scotland would have probably meant they wouldn’t qualify, but it would have given them a chance. But they lost the game to a sucker punch.
This phrase is connected to counter-attacking football, and it originally comes from boxing and means to hit or punch someone when their guard is down: when they are not ready. In football a sucker punch means a goal that is scored when the other team wasn’t prepared: they gave an easy goal away.
Scotland had a corner in the ninth minute of time added on and pushed all their players except one up for the corner. That meant they had one defender marking one attacker on the halfway line: a one-on-one, which is always dangerous.
The corner fell to a Hungarian player and the Hungarians played the ball quickly up the pitch. The Scottish defenders were not in their positions, and the ball was moved to the one attacker Hungary had. Csoboth calmly stroked the ball home for a 10th minute extra time winner. This sent Scotland crashing out. Like a boxer knocked out by a sucker punch.
Here is what Scotland captain said about the goal: ‘Scotland captain Andy Robertson said they were caught by a “sucker punch” at the end of the game in Stuttgart.’
And Eurosport described the goal like this: ‘Scotland were undone as Kevin Csoboth delivered a sucker punch on the counter-attack in the 100th minute.’
Euro 2024 Football Phrase of the Day