Robert Green Fail (2010)

About

For the FIFA World Cup 2010 match between England and the USA, England quickly scored a goal on the US but 5 minutes before half-time, a miracle happened. US player Dempsey shot the ball rather soft towards the keeper, an easy stop for a goalie. But this wasn’t any goalie. This was Robert Green. He put his hands down and stopped that ball…before he slipped up and the ball rolled right behind him towards the net. The entire world saw the fear in his eyes as he jumped back to try to grab the ball. He was almost there, but it got through giving the US their much needed goal. Within moments, the world followed suit with all kinds of associations and clever activity.

The original FAIL:

Viral Spread

During the games, internet traffic across the world spiked to the highest level its ever been.

Within seconds of Green’s Fail, on Twitter, when it wasnt down, and Facebook, people began to fill their streams with jokes, photoshops and clever mashed up commenary, especially related to the disastrous oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, by British Petroleum, a perfect metaphor for the occasion.

From Twitter:




From Facebook:



From 4chan:

The /sp/ board on 4chan was filled with England vs. US threads and when England quickly scored a goal on the US, /sp/ was filled with the English trolling the Americans. After the goal against Green slipped in, the sports board on 4chan exploded with jokes and images. The /sp/ board was renamed /sp/ – English Goalkeeping. Americans were suddenly doing the trolling and the English were furious.

From YouTube::

Robert Green’s Fail was even seen on YouTube by OMG Cat:

Robert Green’s Fail Recreated in Legos:



(other results for ‘robert green fail’ on YouTube)

To make matters worse, this was not the first time this kind of thing had happened. An epic fail from 2008:

Also noteworthy, Robert Green made more errors than any Premier League player last season.

And as you can see from the many images below, Robert Green just ALMOST saves things but alas, Robert Green fails to win.

Final Fail

A week later, Coach Fabio Capello dropped Green from the subsequent match against Algeria.

The dense psychology surrounding Robert Green’s future is probably too complex to be considered here. As with most sports related failures, the fail ultimately belongs to just one person. The rest of teh world moves on.

While this story may dwindle into the dead-pool with regards to its relationship to other listed memes in the meme database, there is bound to be a book. ESPECIALLY in the field of sports psychology. See FAIL.