What is a hat-trick in football?
What does hat-trick mean and where does the term come from?
The origin lies in nineteenth-century cricket: a bowler who dismissed three players with three consecutive deliveries was rewarded by his club with a hat. The phrase settled into sporting language from there and became football's name for three goals in a single match.
In football culture a hat-trick counts among the peak moments of individual performance. The tradition of taking the match ball home goes with it: the scorer of three goals claiming the ball is an unwritten rule in many leagues.
Which goals count toward a hat-trick?
Any three goals in the same match are enough; they do not need to come consecutively or in the same half. Goals from penalties and set pieces count. In cup ties, goals scored during extra time are included; the shoot-out after the final whistle is not, since those attempts are not match goals.
There is a special form as well: a player scoring with the head, the right foot and the left foot records a perfect hat-trick. Three goals scored without another player's goal in between are often described as a flawless run to the hat-trick.
How is the hat-trick tracked in statistics?
A hat-trick is a rare event, which is why it serves as one of the symbolic thresholds of finishing quality. A player producing more than one hat-trick in a season is in an exceptional scoring spell, and the career hat-trick count is one of the statistics by which great forwards are compared.
From a team analysis angle, a hat-trick marks the matches one player decided almost alone. The spread of the three goals carries information too: three close-range finishes point to outstanding service, while goals from distance point to an individual explosion.
This term in Shutli
In live matches you can follow who has scored and how many from the event feed; when a striker closes in on a hat-trick, the xG and momentum panels of the match show whether the pressure keeps building toward the same goal.