WTF is hat trick?

WTF is a hat trick?

A hat trick is when one player scores three goals in a single match. Three goals. One player. One game.

Okay, but why is it called that?

Not because anyone wore a hat. Not exactly.

The term comes from cricket. In the 1800s, a bowler who took three consecutive wickets was rewarded with a hat. The crowd passed one around, collected coins, and the achievement got a name. Soccer borrowed the term the way America borrows the metric system: partially, enthusiastically, and without fully understanding the original context.

Now it means three goals. The hat is gone. The name stayed.

How does it actually work?

Three goals. Same player. Same match. That is it.

The goals do not have to be consecutive. Your striker can score in the 12th minute, watch his teammates fail for an hour, and complete the hat trick in the 78th. Still counts. The goals do not have to be pretty. A deflection off his shin, a penalty kick he barely aimed, and a header from six inches out. Still counts. Three is three.

Here is the wrinkle most people miss: there are different kinds of hat tricks, and soccer people will absolutely tell you about them.

A perfect hat trick is one goal with the right foot, one with the left foot, and one header. Scored in that specific spread. It is rarer. It is considered more impressive. It will be mentioned in the broadcast approximately forty times.

The regular hat trick still earns you the match ball. Players keep it. They sign it. They take it home. It is a real tradition and not a euphemism for anything.

What is the American comparison?

Think of it like a pitcher throwing a no-hitter. It happens. It is a big deal when it does. Everyone in the stadium knows something special just occurred, and the broadcast will not stop talking about it for the next three days.

The difference is frequency. Hat tricks are rarer than you might expect but not impossible. Elite strikers in top leagues might get three or four in a full season. Lesser strikers might go years without one. Messi has scored over sixty career hat tricks. That number is absurd. Accept it and move on.

In the NFL, the closest analog is three touchdown passes in a game. Common enough to be notable. Rare enough to be worth mentioning. Nobody invented a name for it. Soccer did.

What happens when it happens?

Fans throw hats onto the pitch.

This tradition is inconsistent, chaotic, and entirely crowd-dependent. In some stadiums it happens immediately and dramatically. In others, three people in row fourteen throw caps they clearly did not need. The player usually acknowledges the crowd, maybe picks one up, and tries not to look confused about why strangers are throwing clothing at him.

The announcer says "hat trick" in a voice that suggests they have been waiting the entire match to say it.

The player's social media team starts drafting a post.

What about a player who scores four or five?

Four goals is sometimes called a haul. Five is sometimes called a glut. These are real terms that real broadcasters use, and you are not obligated to care about them immediately.

The short answer: scoring four or five in one game is so rare that the naming conventions are informal. If a player scores four, the broadcast will probably say "and he's gone one better than a hat trick" and leave it at that. The sport has not fully committed to the vocabulary above three. Neither should you, yet.

Still confused?

You are not confused. You understood it five sentences in and kept reading because you wanted to know about the cricket thing.

Three goals. One player. One game. The ball goes home with the player. The hats stay on the pitch. Everything above that is flavor.

If the broadcast mentions a "perfect hat trick," it means one right-footed goal, one left-footed, one header. If they say it reverently, that is why.

For a deeper look at how goals actually get counted and credited, the article on WTF is an own goal covers the weird edge cases where the scorer wishes they hadn't.

Read it.

— The Scoreboard