Could this bizarre strike be the strangest goal ever scored?

Association football has been going now for 155 years and you’d have thought, during that long a spell, that we would have seen it all by now. Yet, somehow, the game continues to amaze and astound, whether it’s the first 4-3 win in normal time in a World Cup (how had that not happened before?), or a newly bizarre way to score own goal - it just keeps providing new things to gawp at.

And now there’s another.

We’ve seen strange goals before - ricochets off the face, in off the arse, accidentally scored from a tackle - but this might just be the strangest of them all.

It came during a match between England and Mexico in the women’s Under-20 World Cup in France - a match in which England trailed at half-time 1-0, but ended up coming back to register a comfortable 6-1 win - and was scored by Manchester City teenager Lauren Hemp, who cut inside and was upended by Mexico keeper Emily Alvarado. However, as she flew through the air, she landed on top of the ball, with her back squeezing it between her body and the ground, firing it into the empty net.

A clip of it duly went viral:

Naturally, like any good goalscorer, she jokily claimed it was intentional.

And her club agreed.

The strike formed part of a hat-trick for Hemp, with the other goals coming from Alessia Russo, Chloe Kelly and Georgia Stanway, taking England to the top of Group B and into the quarter-finals, where they play Holland on Friday.

Hemp will undoubtedly be aiming to score a ‘perfect quadruple’: left foot, right foot, header and back.

(Image: Getty)