Premier League flop, 33, left looking sheepish after scoring ‘own goal of the year’ to cost his team a point
ASTON VILLA flop Leandro Bacuna scored a comical and DECISIVE own goal which saw his team lose 1-0 late on at Fortuna Sittard.
Bacuna, 33, was captaining Dutch side Groningen who now sit 15th – just outside the Eredivisie relegation zone.
His moment of madness means Groningen have suffered five consecutive defeats after winning promotion last season.
With the score tied 0-0 in the 86th minute, Fortuna Sittard took an in-swinging corner and managed to get a low shot off.
But goalkeeper Etienne Vaessen kept the ball out by pushing it out to left-back Wouter Prins, who was standing at the front post.
With the ball moving fast, Prins could only tap it away centrally towards an incoming Bacuna, who was two yards away from the goal line.
The former Aston Villa star tried to clear it over the bar – but somehow lashed it into his own net even though he was only a yard out.
A devastated Bacuna stood with his head in his hands and held onto the the roof of the net looking shell-shocked.
The unbelievable howler also left his team-mates wrecked, with Prins picking the ball up and booting it in the air in frustration.
After the match, Bacuna said: “I was emotional, went inside and didn’t thank our fans. I’m not happy about that and I apologise. I also have to be there for the team.”
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Fans couldn’t believe what they witnessed as they stormed social media stating this might have been the worst own goal this year.
One fan wrote: “Bacuna with an own goal of the year contender.”
Another commented: “Why has he just blasted in????”
While one more said: “That’s really unbelievable. Poor fella. Hard luck in recent times.”
Dutch footie analyst Wim Masker added: “This is really an incomprehensible own goal.”
Fans were quick to call out Bacuna after he was dropped to the bench for oversleeping before their 1-0 defeat to FC Utrecht last week.
To make matters worse, he will miss Groningen’s next match against NEC Nijmegen, after picking up his fifth yellow of the season, for kicking the ball away earlier in the game.
He is the older brother of former Birmingham, Rangers and Huddersfield midfielder Juninho Bacuna, who now plays for Saudi Pro League side Al-Wehda.
Bacuna made more than 130 appearances for Villa and was a regular when they were relegated in 2016, when the club had four different managers.
He often shifted between playing at right-back and central midfield.
During his time in the Prem, Bacuna fell out with the Villa Park supporters during their relegation campaign in 2015-16.
He was once singled out with insults about his baby daughter in fan attack on rock-bottom squad, according to The Mirror.
Bacuna was issued with a three-match suspension for his headbutt on assistant referee Mark Russell in 2017.
How Unai Emery has transformed Aston Villa
By Graeme Bryce
ASTON VILLA suspected they were on to a winner when they enticed four-times Europa League king Unai Emery away from Villarreal in October 2022.
They will certainly never bag a bigger bargain than the £5.2million compensation fee they paid the La Liga side for their Spanish tactical genius.
Emery started the way he meant to continue at Villa, ironically beating Sunday’s opponents Manchester United 3-1 on his debut – to record Villa’s first home Premier League victory over United since August 1995!
And he has continued smashing records and setting new standards ever since, culminating in Wednesday’s incredible win over six-times European champions Bayern Munich.
Emery credits his Basque upbringing for his workaholic nature and he is first into Villa’s Bodymoor Heath training base before 8am every morning – and he is usually the last there, switching the lights off when he leaves around 9pm most nights.
A Villa insider once summed it up by saying: “It’s not unusual for managers to spend long hours at the training ground, chatting to staff, having cups of coffee. Unai is different, he doesn’t do down-time, it’s full on work-mode from the minute he arrives to the minute he leaves.”
On away trips Emery opens his laptop as soon as he boards the team coach and starts analysing his own team’s performance as well as the opposition.
“He will watch all of our games seven or eight times and does the same for our opponents,” says Villa’s Director of Football Operations, Damian Vidagany – one of 23 Spaniards Emery has taken with him to Villa, including the world-famous transfer guru Monchi.
Emery trusts Monchi to supply the talent he needs from £50million record signing Amadou Onana to £8million bargain-buy Morgan Rogers and then he improves them beyond recognition.
Lesser managers would have written hotheaded hitman Jhon Duran off as a troublemaker – cut their losses and flogged him this summer after a series of high-profile PR gaffes.
But Emery was cold and clinical and asked himself one question – does the kid have any worth to me? Once he decided he did, he put an arm round the youngster and talked him through how he would transform him into one of the world’s great strikers.
Now the smile is back on Duran’s face, never more so than after his stunning winner against Bayern, which underlined Emery’s extraordinary man-management skills.
Training is meticulous and repetitive until players get the drill with the aid of constant video reminders, both collectively and individually, while his army of coaches work tirelessly on improving individual players’ skill-sets and game intelligence with tailor-made sessions.
Against Bayern Emery not only set Villa up brilliantly defensively to frustrate the Bavarian giants, who failed to score for the first time this season.
He also hammered home over and over again verbally and visually with video clips, Manuel Neuer’s tendency to stray miles off his goal line in his sweeper-keeper role.
Jhon Duran’s first-time finish to send the ball soaring over a stranded Neuer was pure genius – but the seed to try such an outrageous attempt was planted in his head by another genius.
Take a bow, Unai Emery!