“Gary Lineker (and others) have been lauded as being lethal in the six-yard box and we often hear of scoring a tap-in,” writes Kevin Scorah. “It got me wondering whether there has ever been a hat-trick of tap-ins, and if so, what is the shortest cumulative distance over which three goals have been scored?”
Let’s start with the man in the question. The two most famous hat-tricks of Gary Lineker’s career, against Poland in 1986 and Real Madrid in 1987, both had two tap-ins out of three and came from a combined distance of about 20 yards. We’re not great at measuring with our eyes – insert your own liquor joke here – but the Poland one was probably scored from a slightly shorter distance. Judge for yourself.
