Serhou Guirassy scored twice and found his own net against Villarreal, becoming the first player in Sofascore’s Champions League database, which stretches back to 1992/93, to record at least two goals and an own goal in the same match.

There are matches in which a striker dominates because he scores the winning goal, and then there are matches in which one player somehow finds himself at the centre of almost everything that happens. Serhou Guirassy certainly belonged to the second category against Villarreal. The Borussia Dortmund striker scored twice at the right end and once at the wrong one, becoming the first player in Sofascore’s Champions League database to score two goals and an own goal in the same match.

Our Champions League goal data stretches back to the 1992/93 season, and across more than three decades of Europe’s biggest club competition, nobody else has produced that particular combination. It is the type of statistic that sounds almost too specific to be meaningful until you consider how many thousands of players and matches have passed through the competition during that period. Guirassy needed one night against Villarreal to find a category entirely of his own.

A Champions League first, but not a football first

The unusual record will naturally attract most of the attention, but Guirassy’s overall performance showed why he remains so important to Dortmund. The striker attempted six shots, three of which were on target, and accumulated 2.09 expected goals. He also created two chances for his teammates and won four of his five aerial duels, providing a constant physical presence against the Villarreal defence.

And Villarreal must be getting tired of seeing him. Almost exactly one year after scoring twice against the same opponent in last season’s Champions League league phase, Guirassy did it again. He scored two of Dortmund’s goals in their convincing 4:0 victory at Signal Iduna Park last season, meaning he has now produced another two goal performance against the Spanish side. Some opponents simply seem to suit certain strikers, and Villarreal are quickly becoming one of those teams for Guirassy.

What Serhou Guirassy achieved against Villarreal is unprecedented in the Champions League, at least as far back as Sofascore’s goal data stretches to the beginning of the 1992/93 season. No player in that period had previously scored at least twice and also recorded an own goal in the same Champions League match.

Across Europe’s Big Five leagues and the three major UEFA club competitions, however, there have been several similarly chaotic individual performances. The most recent before Guirassy came from Hugo Duro, who scored twice and added an own goal as Valencia beat Real Betis 4-2 in November 2024. Jamie Vardy did the same for Leicester against Burnley in 2021, while Martin Hinteregger remarkably scored twice for Eintracht Frankfurt and once into his own net in a 5-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in May 2020.

There are even two players on the list who went one step further at the right end. Tammy Abraham scored a hat-trick for Chelsea against Wolverhampton in 2019 but also put the ball into his own net, while Roberto Soldado scored three for Valencia and an own goal in a remarkable 4-3 victory over Racing Santander in 2011.

That context makes Guirassy’s performance even more interesting. The combination itself is rare, but not unprecedented in Europe’s major domestic leagues. Doing it in the Champions League, however, is something Sofascore’s database had never recorded before.

#	Player	Position	Club	Competition	Match	Date	Score	Goals / Own goals
1	Serhou Guirassy	F	Borussia Dortmund	Champions League	Dortmund – Villarreal	7 Sep 2026	3:2	2 / 1
2	Hugo Duro	F	Valencia	LaLiga	Valencia – Real Betis	23 Nov 2024	4:2	2 / 1
3	Jamie Vardy	F	Leicester City	Premier League	Leicester – Burnley	25 Sep 2021	2:2	2 / 1
4	Martin Hinteregger	D	Eintracht Frankfurt	Bundesliga	Bayern – Frankfurt	23 May 2020	5:2	2 / 1
5	Roger Martí	F	Levante UD	LaLiga	Levante – Valencia	7 Dec 2019	2:4	2 / 1
6	Tammy Abraham	F	Chelsea	Premier League	Wolverhampton – Chelsea	14 Sep 2019	2:5	3 / 1
7	Martín Mantovani	D	Huesca	LaLiga	Huesca – Leganés	18 May 2019	2:1	2 / 1
8	Mikel Oyarzabal	F	Real Sociedad	LaLiga	Sevilla – Real Sociedad	10 Mar 2019	5:2	2 / 1
9	Vicente Iborra	M	Sevilla	LaLiga	Osasuna – Sevilla	22 Jan 2017	3:4	2 / 1
10	Roberto Soldado	F	Valencia	LaLiga	Valencia – Racing Santander	27 Aug 2011	4:3	3 / 1

Can Guirassy return to his 30 goal level?

The record is unusual, but Dortmund will be considerably more interested in what the two goals might tell us about the season ahead. Guirassy has already demonstrated that when healthy and confident, he can produce goals at a rate matched by very few strikers in European football.

In 2023/24, he finished the season with an extraordinary 30 goals in 30 appearances across all competitions. One year later, he proved that campaign was no anomaly, scoring another 38 times in 50 matches. Those two seasons established Guirassy as one of Europe’s most reliable goalscorers and eventually made him the focal point of Dortmund’s attack.

That is the version of Guirassy Dortmund will hope to see throughout 2026/27.

His game against Villarreal contained many of the characteristics that made those seasons so productive. Six shots and 2.09 xG show a striker consistently arriving in high quality scoring positions rather than relying on low probability attempts. Winning four of five aerial duels provided another dimension, while his two key passes showed that his contribution was not restricted exclusively to finishing attacks.

For a centre forward, volume matters. The more frequently Guirassy receives the ball inside dangerous areas and the more shots Dortmund can generate for him, the greater the likelihood that his finishing quality eventually does the rest.