Goal!

Football (or soccer to those of you across the pond) is a funny old game. You may feel that we Brits take the game much too seriously, and there may be an element of truth in that. I still recall a quotation from Bill Shankly (the legendary former manager of Liverpool FC) on the topic. "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that".  That line that has become the ultimate summary of the sport's emotional grip on fans.

The ultimate aim of Football is to score more goals that your opposition. However, scoring multiple goals by one player brings with it a whole series of terms.And you know how much I like to delve into such words!

If a player scores two goals in a game:

The term used is the word brace, a noun which comes from Middle English and Anglo-French. It originates from hunting terminology, where it was used to describe a pair of hunted animals (such as birds or hares) caught in a single trip.  

If a prayer scores three goals in a game:

The word for this is hat-trick which actually is a term coming from British cricket. In that sport, when a player retired three batsmen with three consecutive balls, the club usually gave him a new hat to honour his accomplishment. Traditionally, a football player who scores a hat-trick is allowed to keep the match ball as a memento.

A little bit of Googling brings forward some other goal terms used (although of course these are increasingly rare):

4 goals by one player is a haul,

5 goals by one player is a glut,

6 goals by one player is a double hat-trick,

7 goals by one player is a haul-trick.