Collegiate Times

In the United States’ opening World Cup match against the Brits, the U.S. trailed 1-0 until American midfielder Clint Dempsey lasered a ground ball directly at Green from well outside of his usual striking range.

If you didn’t see it, which would be shocking considering you’ve read this far, the ball hit Green’s hands and inexplicably Mexican jumping-beaned behind him and into the goal, knotting the score at 1-1.

The game would result in a tie — a positive result for the Americans, but an oh-so negative one for the favored English.

Suffice to say, Green’s “trending topic” status on England search engines isn’t positive press.

The worst part for Green, as opposed to Buckner and Norwood, is that he’s living in a time when Youtube and Internet message boards give point, laugh and ruin anonymity to everyone in the world and of course, his mess-up was on the world stage.

If just the reaction in America is any sign of how Robert Green will be remembered, he may want to sell his flat in Liverpool.

“But, is it fair?” Truthfully, it probably isn’t.

Human error, as the public was so eager to accept in the case of umpire Jim Joyce, is a fact of life.

However, when it means the difference between your team winning and losing and the burden lies on one person — in the cases of Buckner, Norwood and Green — who else is there to blame?

Bill Buckner was paid to make outs, just as Norwood was paid to make field goals, just as Green is paid to stop shots.

Errors happen every day in baseball, there are over five missed field goals a week in the NFL and own goals happen all the time in soccer.

At the end of the day, however, when an athlete’s performance determines a winner and a loser and the stakes are high, an athlete’s performance determines the happiness or sadness for the fans and the organization.

When you’re paid to deliver in the clutch and you don’t, fans are rarely forgiving.

A costly mistake at an inopportune time could very well result in eternal sadness for an athlete. That’s just the nature of the game.

This column is dedicated to the chief executive of oil and energy company BP Group, Tony Hayward.

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A version of this article appeared in the Jun 17 issue of the Collegiate Times.